Chapter Text
Heimdall pushes the front gate of the Great Lodge open and walks the hall with measured steps.
Its afternoon inhabitants are as ready to dissimulate their interest at his entrance as they are incapable of concealing their gossiping minds. The news of his fight with Baldur have travelled, as always, quite fast.
[ lean AWAY let him pass don’t interact do NOT sneer at him avoid his retaliation do not attract his attention don’t try to eavesdrop with him find out what the punishment will be try to find out if he even gets one if not for the fight then for his arrogance ]
He doesn’t indulge their idle curiosity and the studied casualness of their glances, nor grants them the display of concern they seek on his face. Head kept high and eyes forward, he descends the stone staircase leading to the family quarters and leaves their mental chatter behind.
The lower floor is almost empty at this hour, but that doesn’t translate into peaceful silence – it never does for Heimdall, especially not at the Great Lodge.
The city noise penetrates the thick walls and ceiling of the hallway like light through water. Modi’s napping mind in the next room is an unpleasant journey through flickering desires for ale and boys. Behind the large oaken door of the All-Father’s study, a heavy papery mass is dropped on a table and flipped open with brisk purpose.
And beyond that – from the inner depths of Gladsheim barred behind private doors only the All Father has access to – the faintest, most perturbing whisper reaches his ear. A chorus of a hundred dissonant voices hissing in unison at him, in a hundred undiscernible languages.
Despite the All-Father’s reassurances about its lack of malevolence, Heimdall hates it when the Lodge is quiet enough for it to drench the air like a foul stench.
Shaking his head as if it could distance it from his ears, he approaches the study door and, for an instant, his fist hovers a breath from it.
There’s no reason for concern. He’s simply done his duty.
On a sharp exhale he knocks twice, then waits.
“Come in,” is the murmured reply coming from the other side, deliberately audible to no one but the sharpest of ears.
The All-Father doesn’t turn when Heimdall enters. With his back to the door, he stands at one of the smaller desks, engrossed in his perusal of the open books piled haphazardly on it.
As usual, the All-Father’s consciousness remains inscrutable: the enigmatic barrier obscuring him from Heimdall’s abilities offers no hint to his intentions. It crackles and pops unpleasantly, like the air around one’s hand after rubbing a piece of wool, and Heimdall’s long learnt, at his own expense, that prodding its static is not a sensible option.
Out of habit, he glances at the door at the far end of the room, where the low whispers slither out from, but his concern serves no purpose to the All-Father. He forces his attention away from it.
“All-Father.” He bows, even though no eyes are on him. “You called for me?”
“Yes, yes. Will you please come here and help?”
Albeit harboring some confusion, he wastes no time approaching the All-Father and taking in the object of his focus.
The worktable is strewn not only with tomes but an odd assortment of bowls and materials. Clumps of frosted earth glinting with ice flakes fill one mortar, and squishy crimson seeds another. Murky water and a dark oily liquid lie still in transparent bottles beside scissors and rakes, and a sack of brittle curly roots threatens to topple off the wooden edge.
“Here, hold this for a moment.”
Heimdall’s readily proffered hands open to receive a single flower, well tucked into its round, tiny pot of dirt. It is a flimsy little thing, aggressive-looking despite the size, its thorn-lined stem slightly bent under the weight of a crown of forked blue petals.
He’s never been a fan of the greener brand of nature, but when he was a kid, Heimdall used to like flowers. They were colorful pretty ornaments that reminded him of the Bifrost lights and inspired in him a sense of artistic order, of poised control. Now, flowers make him think of Vanaheim’s unchecked plants and viscous earth, of Frigg and her smell-riddled laboratory of Vanir magic.
But this one doesn’t present the typical nastiness of Vanaheim’s monstrosities. Beyond the fierceness of its thorns, it looks mostly defenseless.
Hands freed by his help, the All-Father picks up the mortar and starts grinding seeds into a lumpy goo. “So, tell me what happened with Baldur.”
“He decided to start a fight in the middle of Gladsheim, disrupting people’s duties and losing track of his own,” Heimdall reports without hesitation, making no effort to mask his disdain.
“Were you hit?” the All-Father asks.
“Not at all.”
“I see your training’s going well then. Baldur’s not a bad fighter. Good.”
Heimdall’s chest swells with pride and eagerly chases the next rush. “Frigg intervened, but in truth, she was hoping I could get hurt, if only to show you that your most loyal men aren’t invincible.”
“Did she now.”
“She’s trying to find ways to sabotage you, All-Father. She’s been considering to lead your study on Vanir magic towards false information. She’s growing more insidious every day.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. But it’s good to know. It’ll certainly save me a waste of time, won’t it.” The All-Father picks up the frosted earth and mixes it with the crimson goop. “So, what did you say to get him so worked up?”
“Only the truth, All-Father. That he is a byproduct of a peace offering with our old enemies,” he carefully paraphrases. “And that he should be careful about doubting your wisdom.”
“Doubting? How?”
Heimdall falters.
The pestle crushes frosty leaves, seeds and anything else opposing resistance, under the All-Father’s steady push. The sound it makes is not unlike that of Baldur’s nose breaking under his fist.
“He spoke disrespectfully. Of your plans. Of Gjallarhorn.”
“Don’t make me pull each word out of you, Heimdall. Speak.”
“He said that, because of what the prophecy says, it’d be wiser to destroy Gjallarhorn. That giving it to me will just spell the end of Asgard. That I was born to fail.”
“Hmm. What else.”
“That it makes sense you’re granting me…” a death sentence, Baldur said, but Heimdall refuses to instill life into that thought by speaking it in his own voice. “Granting me the Gift of the Einherjars. Because at least I’ll still have some use after my failures.”
“And do you believe him?”
“Of course not,” Heimdall spits out in his haste, bordering on disrespectful. Soldiers shall not lose control, especially when speaking to their superiors. Biting down his displeasure, he adds, “I don’t believe you would honor me with Gjallarhorn, or any other gift, because you expect failure from me.”
The All-Father hums as he pours a drop of oil from the bottle into the mortar and resumes working the pestle in slow, methodical circles.
Heimdall waits, expecting further commentary or a praise for his faith. When nothing comes, he blinks, befuddled by the silence, and then abruptly caught by shame.
The conversation is over, all information has been shared. He should be coming out of it with strengthened loyalty and no questions – not wishing for the walls barring the All-Father’s mind to crumble so that Heimdall can pry and grasp at the pathetic certainties he thinks he needs. Is he supposed to excuse himself and take his leave? Should he—
“Isn’t that right, All-Father?” he blurts out, unable to stop. “Aren’t I supposed to succeed?”
For the first time since he entered the study, All-Father’s clear eyes fall on him, if only for a few moments before returning their attention to the task at hand. Heimdall has to hold himself not to fidget.
“Prophecies aren’t written in stone, Heimdall. As Gods, we have every right to carve our own path and not abide to a soothsayer’s beliefs. People like Baldur, or Frigg, they are used to think small. But as the leader of our people, I cannot afford to do the same. I don’t destroy the Gjallarhorn because it’s a powerful tool that might have its use one day, and because destroying it leaves us with no knowledge on how the future will change as a result of it. Information we know is always better than information we don’t know.
I will give it to you because I am certain you will follow my request to sound it only if absolutely necessary. Who else am I supposed to trust, the one tailed by Frigg at every corner? Or the one spending his days with his head at the bottom of a beer crate?”
“I—”
”And do not forget that I cannot impose the Gift of the Einherjars on you. You will receive it only if you are willing, and wholly loyal to me. Because that is what the Gift means. I don’t want to turn an Odinson into a last resort battle charge. What I want, is for everyone to look at you and see my hand behind your every action, my eyes behind your scrutiny. No one should ever have a reason to doubt your faith, Heimdall. They shall see you and know Asgard’s reckoning is upon them. It’s because of this that I hope you’ll choose to accept the Gift.”
For all the rare encouragement the All-Father is granting, his voice retains its typical pragmatism in every sentence – as if he’s willing his own prophecy into existence by merely speaking it.
And so, burning with devotion, Heimdall says, “I will, I promise. I will not disappoint.”
The mortar is placed back on the table, its contents now a homogeneous mush. The All-Father’s hand closes around the dry roots and scissors next, to cut them into pieces.
“I’m glad to hear that. When you’re ready, Gjallarhorn will be yours, and you will do whatever it takes to prevent it from ever being blown. You will be the Watchman of the Aesir, and as such you will protect me, and thus, all of Asgard.”
He straightens up, eyes bright. “Yes, All-Father.”
No praise should have been necessary to find his conviction, but he is none the less pleased by it. Of course the All-Father trusts him, and no one else, with guarding the Realm. He will carry Gjallarhorn and the Gift proudly, and he will not fail.
Looking down at the flower nestled in his palms, his spirit inflamed by their conversation, Heimdall feels encouraged to start another one, to stretch his time in the company of the All-Father beyond its initial scope – something that very few members of his family could ever manage.
“All-Father, can I ask what this is?”
“You care about flowers now?”
“No, I…” It feels like a misstep, that tempts him to drop the flower to the floor as if it suddenly bit him. A stupid reaction, he realizes soon enough. “I am interested in what you’re working on, if it can be shared.”
“I suppose it can,” the All-Father says absently, rearranging objects to create some space on the table. “That thing you’re holding is commonly known as a ‘heron crest’. Its extract has quite the beneficial properties. It can speed up healing to remarkable extents, heighten senses to an abnormal degree and, as a plus, it also seems to have a decent success rate in eradicating certain blood diseases typically affecting light elves born in the Strönd. It is as precious as it is rare. It used to grow only on the riverbanks of a specific area in Midgard. Unfortunately, your brother blew up the whole region around it, so now, this seems to be the only specimen left in all the Realms.”
“I see.” Something so small, hiding quite the punch within its beauty. He can appreciate those qualities in a flower. “So you intend to regrow it in Asgard?”
“Oh, not at all,” the All-Father says, gesturing at him to hand over the pot. “I’m going to destroy it, actually.”
For only a split instant, Heimdall’s hands resist the request.
“What?” he asks, perturbed.
Taking it off of him, the All-Father places the flower in the narrow free space on the tabletop.
“Did you know there’s intrinsic power in being the last of your kind? Magic can be weird like that. ‘Sometimes you have to understand the nature of a thing, rather than the form’… Even the dwarves can get something right, once every thousand years. And this one’s nature, now, is being the last holder of something forever lost.”
He grabs the base of the stem with one hand and digs the other into the dirt. Just like that, the flower is unearthed, flimsy roots dangling powerlessly in the air, unable to hold onto the safety of the pot.
“It’s a pity, really. Such a pretty thing, holding so much potential. But sometimes, Heimdall, the best thing a flower can do for us, is die.”
Unaware of its fate, the crown of petals follows the playful twirl of its stem between Loki’s fingers as he holds it up for him to see.
“Do you like it?” he asks, smile wide. “They’ve been growing all over the courtyard.”
On their perky stem, baby blue petals pile up on each other around a milky white center. Their scent, enhanced by the wetness of the recent rains, is sweet and fruity.
At a second glance, it looks nothing like a heron crest except for its color. It carries the presence of something delicate fighting to be noticed, rather than to survive.
“It’s decent,” he concedes.
Loki gestures at his ear. “Can I?”
[ need a yes one more PRANK trick him again hide ]
With a heavy sigh meant to highlight his thinning patience, Heimdall throws him an unimpressed look.
The sun has only begun to descend from its highest peak in the sky and he’s already been the unwilling subject of a dozen attempted pranks. Minor tricks overall – gusts of wind, a handful of illusory sparks in his face and some good old tripping – but they’ve been coming at him in a constant stream since morning.
What has prompted Loki’s commitment to being incredibly annoying today appears to be nothing other than a good mood, which has left Heimdall with the demanding task of ruining it. He doesn’t get why, after all these years, Loki still persists in his personal quest to prank a god gifted with mind-reading, nor why he lets his hopes fly high with every attempt, when they are only ever followed by failures.
Then again, his perseverance can’t have been completely fruitless if today, against his better judgement, Heimdall has begun to concede a couple of victories here and there.
To avoid having Loki sulk around Veirthurgard like a sad mop, he tells himself.
And maybe, though the admission wouldn’t come out of him even at knifepoint, because Loki’s dumb antics easily blow away the hazy impression of Odin’s study imprinted on his retinas.
Seeking an easy distraction from unpleasant memories, Heimdall tilts his head to the side, offering his ear.
[ it’s a PRANK one last THE prank build up to it cast the illusion as ]
Heimdall frowns at Loki’s blooming smile. Everything in its crooked curve screams danger.
Something is wrong. A subtler intention he wasn’t quite paying attention to has his hand fly to Loki’s wrist as the flower is placed at the bend of his ear.
“What are you doing?” he demands.
“Giving you a flower,” Loki replies, radiating innocence.
[ hold back the grin hold back don’t give it away already hold ]
It’s the surge of playful satisfaction that makes Heimdall take one step back and another dreadful one towards the pristine ornamental shield affixed to the bedroom wall.
On its shiny surface, his own face frowns back at him. Accompanying his ceremonial attire and one-shoulder cape, blonde hair collect in loose braids to the sides of his head, joining at the back to fall down in curling waves—and a scattered crown of baby blue flowers dots every tuft.
Horrified, he plucks the one tucked behind his ear. While its physical form comes away to rest between his index and thumb, the image of it, along with its assembly of illusory spawns, remains in place. Carding a hand through the illusion only jostles it along with his braids, intangible yet remarkably realistic.
“You…” He tries to wrap his head around it, but his focus on Loki’s mind, now pointed like a knife, tells him all he needs to know. Loki has been working to lower his guard all along, little by little. Take him by exhaustion. And Heimdall actually fell for it. “You were planning this.”
“Me? Never! I don’t know what you’re on about.”
“Don’t play dumb, you little—” He turns away from his daunting reflection, pinning Loki with a warning glare. “We have a meeting with the King of Veithurgard in a matter of minutes.”
“Oh, yeah.” Loki’s steps are light as they gingerly guide him to the open door, a plan for a fast escape outlining quickly in his head. “We should get going, then.”
“Take this off of me, and we will,” Heimdall demands.
“Right, about that. I don’t think I will…”
“I said, take it off.”
“But it’s your favorite color! And it really suits you. I thought you were indulging me today?”
“I won’t say it a third time, Loki.”
“Come on, don’t be such a killjoy—”
Heimdall’s lunge at him is fast, but not fast enough. His fingers whip out from behind his cape and brush against feather tips as Loki shapeshifts out of his reach into a falcon and dashes out of the door left conveniently ajar. Shoving it wide open, Heimdall follows swift, about to break into a chase when the presence strolling by just outside registers in his mind and halts him abruptly.
As Loki flies down the winding hallway of the fortress, the human servant in his path gazes up at him with wide eyes, a set of clean sheets squeezed to her chest.
“My Lord,” she says breathlessly, as if still bracing for impact. By the time Heimdall rips his attention away from his quarry, she’s regained her composure and is about to say something stupid. “My Lord, you look—”
“Not a word,” he cuts her off curtly, and walks back into his chambers slamming the door shut.
ᛝ
Since all his attempts at removing the illusion in the privacy of his chambers have failed, Heimdall walks into the war room of King Herrauðr’s fortress looking like an idiot and garnering exactly the unpleasant reactions he expected.
The King and most of Veithurgard’s court haven’t arrived yet, but the present dwarven nobles almost gag in shock at the sight, unsure of how to acknowledge the new styling choice, if at all. They make no comment aloud for now, at least.
Sif, on the other hand, standing tall and straight as a spear in her night blue dress and cascading thick braid, eyes him up and down in deliberate silence for five whole seconds before saying, “I didn’t peg you as the type to commit so thoroughly to the spring celebrations, Heimdall.”
“Since the Mother of the Harvest, leader of the Aesir, is leaving everyone wanting during this Sigrblót, somebody has to.”
“I was about to mention how this new look can almost pass you off as pleasant. But I stand corrected.”
“What can I say, I’m grateful for having almost achieved something you could never,” Heimdall says, accompanying his words with a mocking bow.
Right as Sif’s forehead dimples in a gratifying frown, the doors to the room open again. A stout line of dwarves, either draped in rich mantles and jewels or beaten leather belts and clanking tools, descends the entrance steps accompanied by a group of stocky guards of mixed race.
In the middle of convoy, King Herrauðr walks at Freya’s side, her dark hair adorned with celebrative ribbons the color of plants and flowers. Hildisvíni, her ever-present right hand, follows close in her wake, while Loki and his dwarven friend Ljómi linger behind, deep in their own conversation about metalwork – a new recent interest Loki has developed and that Heimdall disapproves of, having already put a couple of his fingers at risk in the last month.
The newly arrived leisurely find their own place in the wide room.
It is not by chance that most dwarves avoid Heimdall’s side. The usually hostile cacophony born from their minds reaches him with a mix of mistrust, tired resignation and a speck of amused curiosity. The most accepting members of the group, to Heimdall’s surprise, seem to find the flowers a fun addition in full respect of traditions, which makes him wonder if it was all along a part of Loki’s plan to present him in a better light.
From his place beside Freya, Loki catches his eyes, a barely-contained smile on his lips.
As Heimdall glares in reply to his idiotic smugness, King Herrauðr raises a hand to invite attention.
He doesn’t take a seat on the modest throne chair perched at the top of an elevated stone platform, but stands at the old war table instead, beckoning the main guests to it.
“To everyone present, I want to thank you for coming to the meeting,” he begins, in a deep, clear voice. Turning to Sif, he nods his head respectfully. “My Lady. Always a sight for sore eyes.”
“King Herrauðr, your gallantry is a welcome gift. One that runs so rare these days,” Sif replies, gifting Heimdall with a more than eloquent look that doesn’t escape the King’s attention.
“And, Lord Heimdall. A pleasure to see you and Loki have joined us for the last day of Sigrblót.”
It is a half-lie, of course, but Heimdall’s grown used to play his own part in these occasions.
“Likewise,” he replies coolly.
“I understand you arrived late yesterday but still had a chance to sample the night festivities. I hope they were to your liking.”
“They have been indeed.”
To no one’s knowledge but theirs, two different conversations are happening at the same time.
On the outside, the King nods appreciatively, as if Heimdall’s passed some sort of basic children’s test on how to promote peace. On the inside, he proves to be more self-aware than his compatriots. He’s not mollified by the silliness of a flower crown, nor by Heimdall’s placid answers. Most of all, he knows there’s no use in pretending Heimdall cannot read his displeasure at his presence in the kingdom, and so he delivers his wordless message openly, fearlessly: his respect ends at the other present gods, and he will welcome any violent reaction to his taunting that will prove Heimdall is not to be trusted.
Nodding at his hair, the King says, “Ready for the last big night, I see.”
It is with a mirthless smile that Heimdall offers his answer, to both conversations. “I am looking forward to it.”
In the beat of silence that follows, some of the nobles fidget, sensing something off in the exchange. The King is quick to dismiss any worry by slipping into practicality.
“Then let us waste no more time, as our list of discussion points is not brief, and I don’t want to take you away from the festivities for too long. Lady Sif, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to start from the recent trade agreements between Veithurgard and Ida’s Rebirth. We have encountered a few issues with…”
The talks of business and politics that occupy the next hour are as boring as Heimdall predicted.
No one expects an active contribution from him, so he offers none. Only once Loki asks for his input on a matter of security, and he lays it out quickly and succinctly. If there’s one thing he’s learnt from Sif in her years of intense reputation management, is that forcing his voice into a pragmatic tone does wonders in obscuring what Loki has often defined his ‘innate mocking tilt’.
Keeping to himself doesn’t bother him, in any case. Even during Odin’s reign, Heimdall’s usefulness in these meetings was rarely quantified by interventions and rather by his silent surveillance of everyone’s intentions.
Which is exactly what he does here as well, though most of the present people are dull and their ego too inflated by the chance to host gods in their stronghold, to be scheming attacks or tricking the gods into bad business decisions. A good thing overall, Heimdall surmises. They live in a time of peace, after all, and his current role in it as Loki’s partner and watchman is merely to keep it going.
As the leaders of the Vanir-Aesir joint settlements in Vanaheim and members of the New Order’s Council, Freya and Sif are the ones most involved in the conversation. To have them both at the same table, available for consultation, is a chance the Midgardian dwarves clearly have every intention to make the most of.
Loki, on the other hand, has come to play an odd role in the affairs of the Realms. While the New World has been mostly kind to him – who wouldn’t be, to the Heir of Jötunheim, Liberator of the Realms and his father the new God of War and Peace – he’s garnered a conflicting reputation. Out of all the remaining gods, who’ve found their place after helping with the rebuilding, Loki is the one who commonly walks across the Realms and mingles with the mortals. The Wanderer, they also call him nowadays, and his many actions among them over the years have turned crossing paths with him into a blessed occasion for some, and a bad omen for others.
The Veithurgard nobles offer a perfect picture of that ambivalence. If some are eager to exchange words with him and learn of his travels and ingenious opinions on ventures and magic, others have doubts about the safety of his presence here – his association with Heimdall a particular good reason for mistrust.
Many of them have yet to realize Loki’s not just a young traveler but an increasingly astute player in the political landscape of the new world, though that’s not a tendency Loki dislikes: it helps keep the attention off of his moves and grants him a degree of freedom across the domains someone like Freya could never enjoy.
At the end of the day, they all have one thing in common: they know Loki’s the one who takes an interest in the most trivial issues and curiosities over the Realms, and the one to whom they can ask for favors and bet on a fortunate outcome to his involvement.
Heimdall cannot wait to step in their way.
“Again, thank you for your hospitality,” Loki says as the meeting heads to its close. “Your invitation means a lot to us, and we guarantee to be on our best behavior. In light of the recent raids at your borders, Heimdall will also be there to ensure everyone’s safety.”
The faction of dwarves at the King’s left – Svarthalheim emissaries, Heimdall has gathered – murmur to themselves like steaming pots.
Finally, one of them has the courage to spit out, “Ensure it by way of going on a sudden killing spree in the middle of the party?”
Heimdall’s gotten ahead of the game and counted to five already when he says, “Perhaps this is a good moment to remind you that I have long been absolved of last year’s events by Nidavellir’s governor, so if you have a complaint to make, I would recommend you set a meeting with him. I’m sure he’d love the criticism.”
“What he means to say,” Loki quickly interjects, “is that, as you know, Svartalfheim has recognized the necessity and context of those actions, aimed solely at the dangerous faction plotting against the Aesir survivors, and given us the occasion to make amends for the way it was managed. It was a regrettable matter and I can assure you neither of us wants a repeat of it.”
[ tell Heimdall to say something NICE offer his services make it a night without diplomatic incidents say ]
Exercising patience, Heimdall sighs, then addresses the King directly, “I promise you, I don’t intend to intervene in any way other than informing you directly of any ill intentions, so that you may choose your own solution, as the rightful king in these lands.”
“Well, the word of gods has its weight. I will count on your efforts as our watchman, then,” the King comments diplomatically, ignoring the displeased emissaries beside him, less out of genuine deference and more out of convenience. A request for a favor, after all, is also outlining in his head.
Heimdall gives him a knowing look.
Without acknowledging it, the King continues, defusing the tension with a change of topic, “Speaking of gods. Is it true that Kratos intends to depart from our lands?”
“Indeed, they’re leaving for the West tomorrow,” Freya confirms.
“To the land of the Faes,” Hildisvíni says dreamily.
“What does it forebode, when the God of Peace decides to leave our lands… I’m sure his absence will be felt, and we will eagerly await his return. I’d be happy to hear of his tales once he returns.”
“My Father doesn’t tell stories very well,” Loki chuckles. “You will have more luck with Mimir. I will let them know to pass by after their trip.”
“It will be a most welcome visit. Now, I believe that settles our meeting,” Herrauðr declares. “There’s only one last thing I wanted to discuss with you. A mystery of sorts, so to say… We are, in fact, abysmally in the dark about the nature of the issue.”
“By all means. What is the matter?” Freya asks, but the King is looking right at Loki, the ultimate meddler, who’s looking back with twinkling eyes.
“A… situation came up, in the neighboring village of Grœnnfell. The mountain peak north of here, where the village was built, has been riddled with a nefarious presence. Cultists or cutthroat scavengers, we assume, but it is only a hypothesis based on what little we know and our past experience with similar cases. It is unclear to us what they seek or which forces are at play, as the team I have sent to investigate the mountain pass has never returned from it. What we do know without a doubt is that suspicious people have been passing by the village and making their temporary home into the mountain in the past weeks, and since then, the village has been experiencing earth tremors and flashes of light in the night sky. Frequent enough to be a concern now.”
His mind is filled with an unwillingness to send any more guards of his own to an unknown demise. His quest to seek help seems, in that regard, earnest enough.
“Two days ago, one of the tremors caused an avalanche. It didn’t pass through the village, but it did send the people into a panic. We suspect something’s going on up there and that the earthquakes may be connected to it. We’ve already sent guards to help evacuate the townsfolk to a safe spot in the valley, at least temporarily, but the issue remains. I wonder if you could—”
Heimdall is already sighing under his breath when Loki says, “We’d be happy to go check it out as soon as the festivities are done, and report back to you whatever we find.”
The King breathes the smallest sigh of genuine relief that perhaps only Heimdall hears. “That’s great news to me. I’ll be in your debt.”
The meeting draws to a close in a crescendo of curtsies and cajolery. The nobles take their time to steal one or more minutes of everyone’s time with last-second queries or requests.
None approach Heimdall for either, except for one optimistic pair of human and dwarf who feel the need to commend his participation in the festivities and let him know they feel safer with him there. He deems himself satisfied when he discourages another two from approaching Loki with a simple look that makes them question the worth of their demands.
The wide berth he is given grants him enough time to skip over Sif’s conversation with the King and focus on the one Loki’s having with Ljómi on the other side of the room.
“Sindri and I are working on something big, and we’re missing this one vital ingredient. I don’t want to impose, but—”
“No no, it’s fine,” Loki eggs him on nervously. “Whatever he needs.”
“It’s a dragon’s claw,” Ljómi says, which rings more than one alarm bell in Heimdall’s mind.
“Oh… Dragons aren’t so easy to catch these days.”
“Don’t worry about that, Sindri’s already located one. If you were available, and you got it for us, I could—”
“I’ll get you the parts,” Loki hastens to say. “So you can keep your project going. It’s not a problem for me.”
The sniveling bastard breaks into a grateful smile. “Wonderful! Then, you know where to find me once you get it.”
“Of course.”
As they all slowly flow out of the meeting room, entertaining light conversations about the upcoming nightly celebrations, Loki looks around for him, and finds him trailing quietly behind everyone. After bidding Ljómi farewell, he waits on the staircase until Heimdall reaches him and no one is left but them.
“You know he’s taking advantage of you.”
Loki huffs, pointedly avoiding eye contact as he turns away to climb the rest of the stairs. “It’s not that serious. It’s a simple favor.”
Heimdall is quick to catch his arm and tug him back to face each other. “I wouldn’t call fighting a dragon simple. Nor rewarding, given how you’re gonna get nothing in return.”
“Not everything needs to be a trade, Heimdall. Sometimes favors are just favors,” Loki protests, but Heimdall’s look saps the fight out of him. With a sigh, he plops his back against the wall, making it easy for Heimdall to encroach his space and trap him there. His voice is low and private when he says, “You know I can’t say no.”
Heimdall knows, the scar left by the break in Sindri’s friendship still fresh and far from being in his power to mend. But it doesn’t make Loki’s behavior toward Sindri’s guileful smithing partner any less frustrating.
Sensing that nothing really is left to say on the topic, Loki makes to pull away, only to be held firmly in place.
“Oh, you think we’re done?” Heimdall shoots down every thought of escape by placing a firm hand at Loki’s side. “I’m not letting you go until you take off this damn illusion.”
Bursting into a surprised, hearty laugh that flips his expression back to something more suitable for the festivities, Loki warms up to the position in an instant, sliding both arms around Heimdall’s neck. “But you saw what a good impression you made. Don’t you want to keep them for the evening party?”
“I’d rather not look like a sappy moron.”
“Everyone will be wearing some, me included.”
“My point exactly.” Heimdall presses himself against Loki until they’re flush from chest to knees, balancing between one stair step and the other. “Now, let’s not get distracted.”
Predictably, Loki’s mind warps instantly into an endless stream of lecherous intentions. Unwilling to yield too easily, he fights for the upper hand. “What will you give me if I do?”
Heimdall’s fingers fiddle gingerly with one slim, long braid dancing on Loki’s clavicle, before grabbing a thicker fistful of hair and give it a soft, cautionary tug. “It’s more a matter of what I will spare you from if you do.”
“Big words from a pretty guy with flowers in his hair,” Loki snickers. “Come on, let me enjoy it a bit longer. It’s the first time I managed to pull off a prank so seamlessly.”
“And I can assure you it will be the last,” Heimdall promises. “No more indulgence, nor accusations that I never let you do anything. You’ve proven that you don’t deserve my trust.”
“Aw, you’re not even a little impressed? It took me a whole day of preparations away from you just to pull a single trick. My head is hurting from the effort, and you think I don’t deserve a reward?”
“The correct word is ‘astonished’, by your choice to waste an entire day on something so stupid.”
Pulling back an arm to brush the back of his hand against Heimdall’s cheek, Loki breaks into a wolfish grin. “It’s not a waste if I get to see your prissy face—”
Heimdall doesn’t let him finish: he leans in and captures Loki’s lips with his own.
After many years, he has yet to find a more efficient way to shut Loki up.
Their tongues slide against each other as Heimdall claims that bratty mouth for himself, while his fingers tangle in the locks of half-braided auburn hair. At his tug, Loki’s head cranes back obediently, giving easy access to the pale, freckled expanse of his neck.
He wastes no time latching onto it with his teeth and ripping a low moan out of Loki’s throat. Against his thigh, lodged firmly between Loki’s legs, he can feel his hardness growing by the second. So his hand slips down, under the layers of skirts and belts, to seize the shape of Loki’s dick through his pants and give it a solid squeeze.
Loki’s groan spirals into a whine when Heimdall pairs it with another pull at his hair.
“So,” he whispers against his lips. “Take it off, and we can fuck in the war room.”
Loki’s half-lidded eyes widen. His pupils do the same.
“We are guests here. Maybe we should behave—”
“You, behave? When you’re a kinky little shit who just loves taking risks? Who is already thinking about how sturdy that old war table is? How easily it would bear both our weights?” To make a better case for his offer, he grants him another generous squeeze and a wet lick over the blooming hickey at his neck. “So, what do you say?”
“Okay,” Loki caves in with a soft exhale. “Okay okay.”
A hand rises at his side and works rapidly around invisible lines. A faint glow comes and goes, barely noticeable, and Heimdall’s sure the spell has been dropped.
He’s left with just enough time for one more bite to Loki’s neck and a fast, messy kiss, before having to shove Loki up the steps and away from him.
Loki, on the other, barely has any to frown in confusion when, from the hallway, echoes a loud, “Lord Loki!”
To say he looks spooked by the call is an understatement. From the hallway at the top of the staircase, the dwarven librarian of the stronghold approaches with a sprint in her step and a mind full of exciting points of discussion.
“Just who I was looking for…” she stalls, finally taking in Heimdall’s presence as well. “Ah, am I interrupting? I wanted to show you a book we’ve recently put our hands on, that I believe might be of interest to you. But I can come back anytime.”
“Uhh, can we—”
“Of course he’s available,” Heimdall cuts in, taking another step away. “Books, books, books. The eternal priority of our dear Loki.”
The librarian’s uncertain smile at them clashes with Loki’s offended glare at him.
“In that case…” the dwarf says, to which Loki responds with a strained, red-lipped smile.
“Of course, I’d love to get a look at them.”
With the onset of a blush, Loki adjusts his skirts over his crotch and gets to the librarian’s side.
“So I’ll be seeing you later,” Heimdall calls.
“You certainly will.” Loki’s smile at him is one of gutted dreams and unspoken promises. To the dwarf, he concedes a gentler one. “What kind of books are we talking about, exactly?”
Heimdall watches them walk together through the vast, empty walls of the keep, talking in hushed voices about ancient lore.
He chuckles, enjoying the victory of a well-executed prank, before realizing the oddity of it.
When did Loki’s wacky habits and trickery start to rub off on him?
Huffing at himself, Heimdall makes his leisurely way to the courtyard to monitor the evening’s preparations.
ᛝ
Enjoying this rare moment of solitude, Heimdall slowly cracks his neck and, with closed eyes, lets himself feel the tension bleed out of it. Then, with methodic wipes of the wet cloth over his warm skin, he resumes his cleanup.
“How long will you stay in Hreinnvik, my Lord?” the woman asks. Her naked figure stretches languidly among the pelts, then sits up and snakes to his side on the edge of the bed.
“I’m just passing by,” Heimdall says disinterestedly. “I leave tomorrow.”
“But Yule hasn’t even ended yet.” Her shoulder bumps with his in silent invitation. “You should consider postponing your departure. The town’s never been this lively, and I fear it will never be again without you.”
Heimdall’s presence in the human settlement hasn’t done much to elevate the lackluster nature of its muddy inhabitants and fenced sheep. He understands her eagerness for more: she’s richer than most thanks to her affiliation with the region’s jarl, but she’s young and bored, and in desperate need of a break in her daily routine.
In some small measure, she reminds him of Loki. Which doesn’t make her stubbornness any easier to endure.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“So, we’re done already?”
Fingers brushing against his cheek to lure him in, she leans forward with a coquettish smile and tries to steal the kiss she hasn’t yet managed to get tonight.
Heimdall refrains from snapping at her insistence.
The past hour in her company hasn’t been bad. Since her whispered recognition paired with a respectful bow – ‘One arm, golden hair and glowing eyes? It is impossible to mistake you for anyone else, my Lord’ – she’s proven herself to be pleasant company. Eager to put all the hard work in riding his fingers and then him as he lazed on her bed, in exchange for a satisfying release and an exciting story to tell her friends.
So, reining in his irritation, he seizes her lower face in the palm of his hand, where she doesn’t fail to leave a mischievous kiss, and gently but firmly pushes her away with a tight smirk. “I thought we were.”
As he stands up and begins to put his pants on, she lets herself drop back on the bed with a deep sigh. “Only if you want to.”
Dryly, he replies, “Alas, duty calls.”
“A very intriguing call indeed…”
Heimdall snorts. “What about it?”
She’s taken aback by the question, as if she genuinely expected him to feed into the mystery of his presence in town.
“Well, my Lord, it makes one wonder… what is the Scion of the Aesir doing in Midgard, when rumor says all living Aesirs are in Vanaheim?”
‘Babysitting’ would be the answer closest to the truth, so Heimdall leaves without giving her one, letting her hold the belief he’s on some dangerous and beautiful secret duty for the good of his displaced people.
The sheen of snow covering the muddy roads of Hreinnvik crunches under his boots as he walks back in the direction of the celebrative bonfires. Though the sound of drums and atrocious singing hasn’t dimmed with the moonrise, it feels duller, more manageable than an hour ago. His headache is gone and his ears now don’t strain as hard with picking up every miniscule information in a world of eternal noise.
Sex has always had that calming effect on him, relieving his senses of an overload of inputs. Enough, this time, to even nurture an interest in fetching a pint of mead from the heart of the festivities.
After all, the night has been devoid of threats beyond that of forced socialization. His patrolling hasn’t been fruitful in earlier hours either, aside from the excuse it gave him to scout the farthest streets from the rowdy crowd.
Around him, behind sturdy wooden walls, the ones who aren’t joining the party hide to pursue their own activities, be it sleep or sex or time together with family.
Amidst it all, his ears reacquaint with one familiar voice.
“Can I…?”
It’s taken him some time to become trained in the art of spotting Loki in a crowd. A necessity, initially, to keep a close eye on the chaotic little giant. Now, it’s almost becoming second nature, an instinctual reaction to not having him in his visual range, whether Heimdall wants to find him or not.
The reason why he didn’t catch it even sooner is probably because Loki’s speaking in a hushed, intimate tone, as if the one listening stands a breath away from him.
“S-sure, I’d like that,” a second male voice stutters. Heimdall struggles to place its owner through the soft groans and the heavy friction of hands against fabric, but when it clicks, he snorts.
Of course the runt would sneak out with his shiny new human friend, met only a couple of days ago, to hump each other’s legs like dogs in heat. Horniness seems to be at the forefront of Loki’s every waking second lately, so this doesn’t come as a surprise.
The small shed hiding the couple is only a few paces away. While Heimdall’s contemplating whether to leave them be or barge in just for the sake of policing Loki’s fun and taunting him about the dangers of running off with strangers, a stray thought halts his footsteps in the snow.
[ don’t think of Heimdall ]
This shouldn’t be surprising either. Loki’s little crush on him – or some future, undefined version of him, in any case – isn’t exactly a well-kept secret and, no matter how hard Heimdall shuts his cautious hopes down time and time again, they always seem to survive through the heartbreak like an incurable disease.
Apparently, not even someone else’s hand on his clothed dick can manage to pull him out of his fantasies.
[ move his hand to my hair tell him to grab it like Heimdall would grind harder do NOT moan Heimdall’s name for fuck’s sake ]
“Like this?” the guy asks, stumbling into the right movement to get a louder moan out of Loki.
“Yeah. Please, again.”
[ don’t bite him don’t act like you would with PUSH him back get him to react STOP thinking of him just enjoy this STOP IT enjoy this oh just stop HIM ]
The messy wet kisses and clumsy touches come to a halt.
“Wait,” Loki says.
“Did I do something wrong?” the other worries, his head filled with both smart and foolish things to say at this point.
“No! Not at all. I just,” A tongue passing over wet lips, then a groan. “I just remembered my father asked me to do something tonight. I got carried away and I forgot… Ugh he’s gonna kill me if I don’t do it.”
A bold liar and a bad one, Heimdall thinks, listening to the frantic sound of Loki’s heartbeat.
“Oh. I see.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s fine, you gotta do your thing.”
Heimdall almost rolls his eyes at the gullible reply.
“Yeah…”
“Maybe we can pick it up later tonight?” The hopeful, enthusiastic tone makes Loki’s mind twist around in indecision, which he tries to cover up with a chuckle.
“Sure. You go ahead without me. I’ll rejoin the party as soon as I’m done.”
“Okay, I’ll see you later.”
There’s an embarrassing exchange of stolen goodbye kisses and giggles, before a light set of feet heads for the exit.
Heimdall makes no effort to hide, but the wimpy dirt-blonde figure walking out with a jovial quirk in his step is clearly too blinded by his daydreams of future sexual escapades to notice him, so Heimdall doesn’t disturb his quick retreat towards the bonfires. He’s far more interested in the teen sitting in solitude in the darkened shed.
From beyond its walls comes a heavy, dejected groan, the soft thud of a body plopping back on wood, and what sounds like hands slapping over a face.
“Stupid,” Loki mutters to himself. “You’re so stupid. It’s Yule, there’s a party outside and you can’t be this pathetic. You’re going to walk out of here and think of… literally anything else. Shapeshift, go to the woods and jog it off, like you always do. Yeah.”
To this day, Heimdall thinks it’s nothing short of a miracle what allowed Loki to keep his traitorous shenanigans to himself when he first visited Asgard. His penchant for breaking into monologues as soon as he’s alone is a habit that can’t have started afterwards, so it must have taken all his will and focus to rein them in.
Twenty pitiful seconds pass like that, between guilt and feeling sorry for himself, before Loki picks himself up, hops down his perch and slinks out of the shed.
This time, Heimdall makes sure to be noticeable, so when Loki gives a quick glance around, he freezes to a stop, and his mind explodes.
[ DID HE HEAR ask if he heard DO NOT ASK ask if he heard MY THOUGHTS do not JUST RUN hide underground TELL HIM TO BACK OFF walk away normally SAY HELLO say nice to see you here don’t say ]
Before he can decide, Heimdall comes to his aid with a smug smile. “Having fun?”
All of Loki’s intentions instantly narrow down to a tired, ashamed groan.
“What are you doing here,” he asks sourly, walking away from him in hopes of hiding his burning face.
“More or less what you were doing,” Heimdall’s happy to inform him. “Except successfully, on my part.”
Loki’s mood visibly worsens.
“What’s with you and blonde kids, by the way,” Heimdall taunts. “Are you planning to shag them all? Thrúd’s Midgardian fanboy was understandable, but the next four made me wonder.”
“It’s none of your business,” Loki complains, glancing at him over his shoulder. “Are you following me?”
“Naturally,” he says. “Your Father seems to have given you a very important task. I must ensure you safely carry it to completion. As you know, I’ve been saddled with the choice of either being your caretaker, or returning to my prison-shaped abode.”
The eyeroll Loki gives him is so over the top it must have physically hurt. “Father tasked me to get a drink for myself.”
“That doesn’t sound right at all. Now, I wonder if I should tell him about your carnal adventures. In the spirit of protecting your chastity as your caretaker, of course… Though very little of it is left, it seems.”
“Father doesn’t care about that kind of thing.”
“I would need to make sure.”
“If you were having fun with someone, can’t you go back to them and leave me alone?”
“I know it’s a concept you’re unfamiliar with, brat, but duty always comes first.”
“Right, or maybe you’re lying to hide the fact no one actually wants you.”
Though it’s not such a recent change, Heimdall hasn’t quite grown used to this bratty, careless side of Loki yet. Since they’ve known each other, the kid’s never shone for his judicious temperament, but he used to hold his tongue around him. He knew, as a scrawny little boy out on his own, that restraint could be the only thing separating him from a tooth-breaking punch in his face. That awareness didn’t make him a paragon of wisdom, but it did keep him on the more cautious side of their conversations.
Now, Loki must have lost whatever fear was holding him back and has only become cockier with time, cultivating a repertoire of lame insults he hasn’t yet learnt how to wield.
Heimdall, on the other hand, has long perfected the violent art of verbal stabbing, and says, “Oh, I can think of someone who does.”
Stopping in his tracks, Loki turns to him, eyebrows curled into a frown, before understanding dawns and rekindles the blush spreading all the way to his ears. He looks in physical pain, mouth tight with mortification as he stomps away faster.
“If you must stay around, can you at least warn me if Erik is in line of sight.”
“Why? Didn’t you agree you would resume humping each other as soon as you’re done with your life-or-death mission?”
“I’m not in the mood anymore,” Loki grumbles, to which Heimdall grins cheerfully.
What a blessing, to see him suffer.
He lets Loki lead the way, as his intention to fetch some ale is not one he’s opposed to. Skirting the heart of the celebrations, they stroll around until they find a crowded tavern rich with the smell of mead.
Between their first and third order, Heimdall isn’t sure when his purpose changes from tormenting Loki about the night’s events to simply being there, in Loki’s company, enjoying a tasteless drink and entertaining the plethora of topics Loki comes up with to keep his mind from wandering where it shouldn’t.
It’s not the first time it happens, but every time, Heimdall can’t help but feel unsettled by how easy it is to spend time together nowadays. It seems wrong and unnatural, and a part of him thinks he should fight harder not to grow complacent around Loki. Yet sometimes Heimdall simply doesn’t find in himself the will to pick up another battle.
“The gulon are really, really feisty. I try not to generalize, but I haven’t met one who wasn’t.”
“Riveting,” Heimdall comments, observing the animated dancers in the streets through the tavern’s open window. Ale levels are slowly rising and it shows in the increasing lack of inhibitions of the crowd.
Loki himself is at his fourth pint, which seems to be enough to convince him Heimdall’s deeply invested in gulon domestication.
“I’ve read they’re harder to tame than they look. Have you considered finding another beast, after…”
Heimdall scoffs. “If I had to train another ride, I would leave furry creatures who can’t clean themselves to someone else. You make enough fur with your nonstop shapeshifting, I’ve gotten sick of it.”
“You’re kinda fussy, aren’t you…”
“I simply don’t hold the same passion you seem to have for suffocating in hairs,” Heimdall retorts. “I’d rather have something scalier.”
Loki’s gaze, vaguely dazed a moment before, glints with interest and pride at having caught such a truth out of him.
“So like… a dragon? Like Baldur.”
Heimdall never gets to his answer – which is no, not like Baldur of course, why does he always bring that up? – as the teen Loki’s been avoiding edges closer, wading through the outside crowd with a keen eye and threatening to pass right in front of the window where they’re standing, with Loki none the wiser.
The temptation to put Loki in the unfortunate position of having to explain himself is an exquisite thrill in its own right. What a show would he make, choking on his next sip of mead upon being called out, stuttering out a bad lie, and then feeling guilty all over again.
Instead, after placing his tankard on the windowsill, he catches Loki’s arm and tugs him aside mid-rambling, shielding him from sight by pushing him against the wall and away from the open area.
“Ow, what the heck?” Loki protests, a tipsy irritation marring his brow, and Heimdall almost pushes him back in his spot out of sheer spite.
“You said you didn’t wanna meet this Erik again,” he explains slowly as if to a toddler. “But please, do tell me if I should throw you in his arms instead, since he’s right there.”
Loki’s mouth hangs open in an idiotic display of stupor, then curves into a perfect ‘o’ shape.
[ close get closer with any excuse DON’T keep your hands to yourself stop being like this ALL the time ]
Heimdall glances at him with a cocked eyebrow, but Loki doesn’t notice, too busy staring at his own hand as it has instinctively come to rest on his shoulder. With no little internal struggle, he hesitantly brings it to his back, to press safely against the wall.
As Erik passes by and leaves, Heimdall lingers in Loki’s space a little longer, just to enjoy how his eyes awkwardly dart around to anyone but him, even if Heimdall’s body currently makes up ninety percent of his field of vision.
“So? He’s gone?”
Heimdall hums, a smirk light on his lips. “Half a minute ago. Feel free to step away when you’ve brought your thirst under control.”
Loki does look at him then, full of reproach. Once it’s clear Heimdall won’t be the one to move, he quietly slithers free from the position.
“Thanks,” he mumbles, clearly undecided on whether Heimdall deserves it.
“For shielding you from teenage drama? I hope it’s not gonna become a common occurrence,” Heimdall says, but Loki’s already making his way to the tavern keeper to ask for another refill of his tankard, despite looking like he’s two pints away from throwing up in the streets.
Kratos would surely disapprove of this blatant attempt at drowning unchecked lust and childish grievances into mead. However, Kratos is currently on the other side of town, listening to the old goat’s ruminations about the group of Travelers they’re chasing, and Heimdall’s teaching methods lean more towards firsthand learning.
So when Loki comes back with another brimming tankard, he smiles and tells him, “Well, come on. All in one go.”
It doesn’t take long for Loki’s upright walk to careen into a diagonal wobble. By the third time his slurred babble almost sparks a bar fight among the nightly tavern dwellers, Heimdall puts an end to it by grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and pulling him outside, where the chill of early winter might help him clear his head.
“Time to go home, drunk little giant, or you’ll wake up with bruises tomorrow.”
Stumbling to the closest wall for support, Loki waves one hand dismissively, muttering something so foreign even Heimdall’s supernatural hearing can’t pick it up.
“Excuse me?”
“Home is too far,” Loki repeats with difficulty.
“I don’t mean your actual home, idiot. I mean the inn where they’re letting your sorry ass stay tonight.”
“Right. It’s still too far!”
Chest rising with deep breaths that seem to do nothing to suppress nausea or inject a sense of balance into his limbs, Loki leans his head back against the wall.
Heimdall predicts and braces for the puppy eyes right before Loki pulls them into play.
“Can you help?”
“No,” Heimdall says. “What I will do is follow you and laugh when you fall face-first into snow.”
Loki’s face is plagued by self-inflicted torment when he whines out, “Why are you such a dick.”
“What can I say,” Heimdall sighs, observing Loki’s fascinating attempt to throw himself forward and trudge to his destination. “It’s one of the few joys I’m left with. House’s in the opposite direction, by the way.”
Loki groans, spins, and falls face-first into the snow. Heimdall laughs at him, as promised.
Unfortunately, the kid’s inability to walk becomes boring very fast. After the twentieth stumble and disoriented pause, Heimdall opts for half-shoving, half-dragging Loki’s dead weight all the way to the inn.
Not even in the secluded lodgings of the sturdy building they are granted peace and quiet: the lively notes of a dozen tagelharpas reach them all the way there, though they’re at least more pleasant than the raucous yells of the inebriated townsfolk.
Kratos and the head still haven’t returned, so on Heimdall falls the unworthy task of lugging Loki to his room. As they pass its threshold and reach the bed, Loki’s awareness seems to make a momentary comeback through the thick fog of drowsiness.
Eyes squinted at the meager light glowing from lit candles, Loki finds his balance by draping his arms around Heimdall’s neck.
“This isn’t the party,” he slurs.
“Yes. We’ve already established you’re not going back to the party.”
“Oh,” Loki says, like it’s brand new information. His arms tighten at Heimdall’s neck. “It’s okay. I like it here too.”
Heimdall’s eyes meet Loki’s glassy ones looking up at him, lit up by the candle flames and the longing.
“I like you,” Loki says, fingers sneaking up to lightly trace the line of hair at his nape. Heimdall doesn’t hate it, nor does he know how to feel about that discovery.
Craning his neck away just enough to discourage Loki’s hand from lingering there, he warns, “You’re mistaking me for someone else, little runt.”
“No I’m not,” Loki adamantly denies with a shake of his head against his clavicle. “Even if you’re a dick sometimes, I really like you. The present you. I get it now.”
There’s no lie in his words. Only, perhaps, misguided belief. But Loki’s feelings have stopped being the source of Heimdall’s problems a while ago. In some measure, they barely matter now, compared to the much bigger criticality he’s been facing.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” Loki continues. “About what we could be.”
Heimdall sees it coming crystal clear: Loki leaning in.
He could avoid it. Push him away, and Loki would stumble onto the bed and drift to an uneasy sleep while nursing his emotional wounds well into the next morning.
He wonders why he doesn’t, as Loki leans in and presses his open lips against his. The tip of his tongue licks his bottom lip tentatively, then he detaches, exhaling a puff of mead-smelling breath against his mouth, smacking his lips softly as if to savor the lingering taste on them before going in for more.
Another hesitant brush of mouths – barely a kiss – pushed together with seemingly no intent but to feel them joined.
When he pulls away, Loki nuzzles the crook of his shoulder and breathes in deeply.
With his arm holding him up by the waist, Heimdall stands there, motionless through it all. Questioning what to do next.
The answer seems to come naturally once Loki falls limp against him, breaths gaining a sleepy rhythm. Slowly, he finally disentangles himself from Loki’s hold and drops him onto the bed.
The graceless fall only elicits a low, long whine from Loki, who otherwise remains fast asleep in his drunkenness under Heimdall’s critical gaze.
Why didn’t he stop it?
There’s certainly a promise of fun in the thought of rubbing it in Loki’s face tomorrow and watching him try to come up with new creative ways to hide his shame and heartache from the world. But Heimdall’s been acting weird tonight, and only so much can be explained away with a passion for Loki’s misery.
‘Why would you spend time with him?’ he can almost hear Odin say. ‘Why did you accompany him home instead of leaving him passed out on the road until morning? What was the point of that? Why are you still here now? Is the guard dog to a snotty brat what you really want to be? Is this what happens to the Herald of Ragnarök after Ragnarök?’
Heimdall sits down on the bed.
‘I could be planning to kill him,’ he might reply. ‘Waiting for the perfect timing’.
‘No you aren’t,’ Odin’s voice says with finality in his head, and that truth is, ultimately, the real root of Heimdall’s predicament.
Loki is, in many ways, still the same stupid, arrogant kid who waltzed into the enemy’s nest without a second thought, inviting discord and betrayal in his path.
But in others, he has been changing, right under Heimdall’s watchful eyes.
In his body, the differences are more than evident. Lately, Loki looks like someone held him by his head and feet and stretched him taut, then simply forgot to give a little pull at the sides as well. His height will soon rival Heimdall’s if he maintains the same growth rate of the last months – a real possibility, if Loki’s constant complaints about aching bones are of any indication.
His lankiness, albeit initially ridiculous, is slowly taking the shape of long legs and lean muscles and it’s starting to make him look more like an adult than a child.
His tattoos are spreading, his eyes are rimmed with kohl, and his hair is ever-evolving, now boldly shaven to one side and braided messily on the other. It all screams of attempt after attempt at finding himself, with a freedom Heimdall doesn’t remember ever having in his youth.
His magical abilities are following suit, growing well beyond Heimdall’s scope at a pace that should concern everyone, yet it simply feels natural, even due, when coming from him.
But above all this, Loki’s been changing in subtler ways. Slowly, by trial and error, he’s discovering his own place in the new world order, and all the seeds of potential Heimdall used to hate seeing in him are now germinating, with results that often force Heimdall to walk a fine line between wanting to tear him down to pieces, and keeping his eyes trained on him, in wait for more.
And what’s worse is, Heimdall’s followed in his wake, changing just as much. Whether it’s for better or worse, he has yet to figure out.
There was a time when he used to wish daily for Loki’s death at his hands. There was another time, not so long ago, when he almost believed he could bring himself to use Loki’s pathetic little crush to hurt him deeper than any blade ever could. It would have been so easy, when Loki was so foolish to want things from him he didn’t even understand.
Now, Heimdall’s grown tired of resisting the change around him. The world is different, and a part of him has begun to accept it. But with that acceptance has come the lack of a clear path forward. Heimdall no longer has a purpose, a direction to move toward. What he does have, for the first time in a while, is a choice.
After almost two years of being dragged in other people’s quests to patch up the dangerous cracks Ragnarök has imprinted on the Realms, he might finally have a chance to leave Loki.
Sif had to work the sentence past her gritted teeth, but she did offer him to join her in protecting the new Aesir settlement in Vanaheim. Who better suited to guard Ida’s Rebirth than the original Watchman? He would answer to her, yes, but she would leave him his freedom – whatever she means by that – as she has no plan to reign with an iron fist. She’s a diplomat at heart, desperate to restore her family’s honor through collaboration and atonement. She would ask him to guard their new home against the threats of a vengeful world, and he would be welcome among people who have all come to learn the weight of repentance. He would fit right in, she said.
The familiarity of the role has tempted him to accept the deal. The return to known faces and common customs would grant him a level of stability his life has been severely lacking. But Heimdall’s begun to suspect it would be like going through the stilted version of a play he’s already seen. How real can the promise of a rebirthed Asgard be, when it was born in a land he hates, at the side of old enemies he was taught not to trust? How believable it is for a Watchman who failed his previous job, to return to his post?
At Loki’s side, there’s little of that. Few known faces surround him, kept at bay by Loki’s begging to give Heimdall a chance. Everything else is a daily incognita for the most part. Loki doesn’t plan out his adventures, he just travels and grabs whatever thread catches his interest on the way.
But if familiarity is what he wanted to escape, he could just leave Midgard forever. Go somewhere far away, and start anew. So why remain?
Heimdall never fancied the unforeseen. The fact that he’s started looking forward to it around Loki might be the most concerning change of all.
His hand moves to Loki’s side, where his mother’s knife lies concealed in a thin pocket, and carefully slips it out with two fingers. He drags it up to Loki’s chest, where he switches his grip to a firm hold on its hilt.
Loki wriggles lightly on the sheets, as the tip of the knife twirls over his heart, carving the slightest dent into the leather strap of his armor.
Heimdall could put an end to it right now.
One stab and he would witness shock and betrayal fill Loki’s wide, dying eyes. His death would at least free Heimdall from his doubts. He’s never dealt well with them after all.
But Heimdall knows better than this. He’s already gone through this play a couple times and, to his utter irritation, he knows Loki wouldn’t even give him that satisfaction if he were to die at his hand. If anything, he might be able to leave him with even more doubts.
[ find Atreus FIND make sure he’s alright ask him where he’s been ]
With a sigh, Heimdall pulls back the blade and sticks it in the bedside table as heavy footsteps approach.
When Kratos opens the door, he halts at the sight of him.
Heimdall allows his concern a couple of seconds to fester nicely, before nodding to Loki’s boneless body sprawled on the bed. “Your son hasn’t been on his best behavior.”
As if on cue, Loki groans and mumbles in his restless sleep.
“What is going on here,” Kratos demands rigidly.
“What’s your guess?” Heimdall asks, just to feed the brewing animosity.
Kratos growls, low and threatening, “You do not want me to guess.”
“So wine doesn’t make you any more fun than usual. A pity.”
“Stop playing around and speak, Heimdall.”
Heimdall is ready to go in the opposite direction of his request when Loki finally rouses at the sound of their voices.
“Father?”
“Atreus. Are you alright?”
While the tension in Kratos’ shoulders immediately lightens, Loki takes one drowsy glance at the two of them, facing off in the middle of his bedroom, and promptly spirals into mild panic. “Father! This isn’t what it looks like!”
“What do you think it looks like?” Heimdall asks, deeply amused as Loki blushes harder.
“Atreus,” Kratos repeats. “I asked you if you are well.”
“Yes! Yes I am, incredibly,” Loki’s drunken tongue bends wrong around every word, but he manages to get the point across. “I was just… uh…”
“As you can tell, he took a very active part in depleting the town of its mead reserve,” Heimdall explains. “And after he tried to start three bar fights and proved he couldn’t be left alone, I made the kind choice of accompanying him home.”
Kratos emits a noncommittal grunt, almost willing to let go of his suspicions in front of such a crimeless scenario, when his attention falls on the knife edged in the side table.
“Ah. That’s there because I was just fantasizing about killing your son,” Heimdall helpfully supplies.
One more step into the room and Kratos’s frame looms over Loki’s side like an ominous watchtower. His intention to instill the memory of fear in Heimdall is crystal clear, but mostly unsuccessful – Kratos cares too deeply about his relationship with his son to attack Heimdall without proof of immediate danger.
So Heimdall stands firm in front of him, while Loki scrambles to his knees on the bed and pushes against Kratos’ abdomen with a noisy wail. “No he wasn’t! He’s joking!”
“When he knows he should not,” Kratos states, his ember eyes sticking to Heimdall’s face as he says, “Lay a hand on him, and you will have none afterwards.”
“But what if he wants me to?” Heimdall asks, delighted by the deep, angry frown summoned between Kratos’ eyebrows. “Even an oaf like you must have noticed what’s going on in Loki’s dumb little head, right? Honestly, I can protect him from external threats, but from himself? That’s a whole different game.”
“You will keep—” Kratos’s voice is cut off by a sorrowful lament.
“Don’t fight,” Loki whines, eyes watery and heavy-lidded. “You always fight. Why can’t you guys get along?”
“Atreus…” Despite his stoicism, Kratos seems genuinely perturbed by Loki’s theatrics.
“I wish you guys… didn’t hate each other. Is that so hard?”
And with that, Loki dramatically falls back on the blankets with an arm over his face.
“Well,” Heimdall says with dry finality. “That’s my cue to leave. He’s your son, you deal with him.”
He exchanges one final look with Kratos, nodding rigidly in acknowledgment of the god’s presence.
“Kratos.”
“Heimdall,” Kratos lets out in his typical grunt-speech.
“Hah, would ya look at that!” Mimir barks a boisterous laugh, golden eyes on the single cluster of baby blue flowers Heimdall has agreed to wear in the end, with the promise of no tricks attached. Wiggling his braided beard, Mimir shows off his own woven set of colorful decorations. “We match! You should have done the same, brother. Both of you really need the glow-up to mingle as nonthreatening participants to festive events.”
“It will not be necessary,” Kratos says with finality.
“You say that, but… Ahh, no matter.”
To Mimir’s case, their group of two plus a speaking dead head held up by ropes, seems to have created a small vacuum around them in the partying courtyard.
Reputation is of no relevance at crowded events where so many humans, dwarves and elves participate. Kratos may be known and enjoy a better namesake than Heimdall as one of the members of the New Order’s Council, but he is still a hulk of a man, towering with the aura of a general over people who’ve only heard of him in tales. Midgardians may not be terrified of him, but they are, if anything, deferent and ever-aware of their mortality in the face of his godhood.
“Odd that you’d think your presence is helpful in that sense,” Heimdall feels the need to point out to the talking, bodiless head.
“Oh, you absolute—I’ll have you know they used to call me the ‘life of every party’! You know what they called you instead?”
“The only responsible person in the room?”
“Aye, I’ll let you believe that, for your own good… Where’s the lad? I’ll have to tell him to flower you up some more. I take it was his idea, wasn’t it.”
Kratos doesn’t care to intrude in the conversation, opting for a judgmental scrutiny of Heimdall’s person instead.
[ behave for Atreus give him the benefit of the doubt ignore his attitude have ]
As always, standing in front of him fills Heimdall’s whole body with a primal need to antagonize him. And since the only foolproof way to get under Kratos’ skin is to remind him of his son’s long-standing relationship, he says, “It was indeed. You know how he is, he just loves Sigrblót. The breeding season has always been his favorite time of the year.”
[ NO GOOD restrain from punching him be patient wait for Atreus to come to you do not ]
“Sooo, in other news,” Mimir quickly cuts in, deliberately louder than necessary, to break their stalemate of spiteful intents. “Atreus told us you were the one to suggest those smart ship modifications. We oughta thank you for that. Provided you aren’t trying to sabotage us, of course.”
“If I wanted to drown you, I’d just blow a hole in your ship from the shore,” Heimdall says.
“Isn’t it weird, that I totally believe you on that… Well anyway, we’ll be out of your hair tomorrow. Between the crew, your sailing lessons, and the good winds Freya forecasted, we should get by.”
The proper thing to say, Heimdall knows, would be something along the lines of ‘Safe travel’ or ‘I hope we meet again soon’. But he wishes for neither of these, so he just nods in acknowledgment.
“Treat our boy well while we’re away!” Mimir demands, giving voice to Kratos’ unspoken thoughts.
“I’ll treat him exactly the way he deserves to be treated.”
“Which I’m sure means the best!” Mimir urgently adds.
“We’ll see,” Heimdall replies, offering Kratos his best emulation of Sif’s diplomatic smile.
“Father!”
Loki emerges from the sea of people, smile bright and cheerful and hair glinting with a smattering of silvery beads and flowers. Here more than in any other place, the difference between them becomes apparent. Unlike Heimdall, Loki blooms in crowds, especially when they manage to reunite most of his friends and family in the same place. He may love travelling and solitude, but he’s a wolf at heart, thriving the most where his pack is.
Kratos’ expression softens as his son approaches them.
“I was looking for you. You guys getting along?”
“We endure,” Kratos says.
“Same as usual,” Heimdall comments.
“Lots of barking and no biting,” Mimir supplies. “For now.”
“I’ll take it,” Loki shrugs in acceptance, well knowing what he’s getting is the best case scenario. To Kratos, he says, “Come with me? Ljómi and Lúnda wanted to wish you goodbye before you leave. Just give me a moment.”
As Kratos and Mimir start heading into the pointed direction, Loki stays back to lean in and brush a hand on the small of Heimdall’s back. “Hey, try and make some peace with the King? For me?”
“These people are impossible to satisfy,” Heimdall reminds him. “Give them a hand, and they’ll demand an arm.”
“Well… I did give you an arm, technically, so do I have some say on it?”
“By all means, let me just grab my sword so I can cut it off right away.”
“Oh, come on. Just a tiny little bit,” Loki insists, and Heimdall rolls his eyes. “Reputation improves by small steps, and I—”
“Lord Loki!”
They both turn to see a short human on the older side, heavy rings on all fingers and a memorable cleft chin barely concealed by grizzled beard. Lord Skarde, Heimdall’s memory suggests him after a couple of seconds. One of the Midgardian invitees to the King’s earlier council, without a doubt one of the haughtiest, and by far Loki’s least favorite person in the entire stronghold.
The only ounce of respect Heimdall’s felt toward him was born from his rare understanding of Loki’s political relevance. Unfortunately, the man makes use of it in exactly the worst possible way.
“Lord Skarde, what… a pleasure to see you again,” Loki says, diplomatically keeping his real thoughts under lock.
“Lord Loki, I was hoping to speak with you earlier but, alas, I missed you. You’ll understand if, in the blessed presence of the goddesses, I couldn’t waste the chance to hear their wisdom and discuss my affairs with them. But now, I’d be happy to continue where we left off this morning.”
“Yes, I’d love to hear more, but I’m kind of in the middle of—”
“Oh, I will only take you a moment of your time,” Skarde straight up lies. “I just wanted to quickly return to the topic we discussed. Have you considered it? I must stress again, your appearance in support of my claim to the role of Jarl would not only honor me, but also truly benefit the town with a freedom, at last, from this nonsensical feud, this insufferable state of things.”
Trusting Loki’s ability to discern when enough is enough, Heimdall has refrained from intervening in the non-stop pestering he’s received since stepping foot in Veithurgard. But he’s starting to think this isn’t a lesson Loki’s going to learn, and each one of his heavy sighs brings Heimdall closer to the edge of action.
“Yeah, the thing is, I’m just not really in the business of playing into the—”
“You wouldn’t be playing, my Lord! The Olafsons are warmongers who grew up among cattle, very much the opposite of scholars, threatening to let the seeds of savagery fester! What future does my home have under their rule? Think of the children!”
“Okay, I will… think about the children, and let you—”
“Of course my Lord, does this mean I can expect a yes? Can I count on it?” Skarde presses, reaching out to Loki’s arm with a gesture of complicity, teeth itching to sink into his exasperation.
[ just turn into a wolf and run sneak away remember what Sif said just say yes do not offend him slink out of ]
Heimdall’s hand clasps Skarde’s wrist just shy of him touching Loki.
“What this means is,” he intrudes before Loki speaks again, “that he’s busy, and you should be on your way already.”
“I see.” Sensing his disadvantage in the face of Heimdall’s complete dismissal of any platitude he may come up with, Skarde grins apologetically, pulling his hand free from Heimdall’s grip to cradle it at his chest like a wounded paw. “Well, you should ponder on my words, then. Perhaps we meet another time, later tonight?”
“Yeah, sure,” Loki says awkwardly, at the same time Heimdall says, “Better not.”
“Ah, I… certainly.” Lord Skarde dares say no more under Heimdall’s pointed stare and quietly slips away, bringing with him his schemes to seek Loki again once he’s alone.
“Wow, that was terrible,” Loki breathes in relief. “Sif told me to stay on his good side for now, but… oof.”
“Let Sif be the one to lick whatever boot she wants,” Heimdall says irritably.
“Thanks,” Loki says, planting a solid peck on his cheek. “I’ll see you later. Remember the King.”
“Is this really how you repay me?”
“Good luck!”
As Loki expertly disappears into the horde, it’s Heimdall’s turn to sigh.
Under the starry night sky, he walks along the path marked by the great bonfires, from the stronghold’s open courtyard, through the travelled stone bridge that spreads out from it, to the rocky valley of houses and stables below. On his stroll, he ceaselessly observes, with eyes, ears and mind, picking apart every loose string of information caught in his net.
Around him, dwarves and humans mingle, brought together by the peaceful celebrations of Sigrblót and the enticing smell of roasting meat. It’s not so rare a sight in Midgard nowadays, but Heimdall still remembers the desolation and death marring these lands even before Fimbulwinter. To see them now so alive and united under a common banner was never Heimdall’s dream, and yet, he finds himself here, a witness to the results of all the work Loki and the others have poured into rebuilding.
How times have changed, for Heimdall to look at Midgard’s rowdy trails and cresting mountains and feel a spark of homely familiarity. If he squinted, he might even be able to see the beauty Loki praises so often—but he’s got a job to do, and he won’t let Loki’s sentimentality corrupt and distract him.
About half an hour of patrolling later, Heimdall has gathered enough intel to make his way to the royal dais.
The two soldiers guarding the steps to the throne are formally ushered away by the King when Heimdall calls for a private audience. Albeit skeptical, Herrauðr is not so stupid to believe there’s any openly foul intent in the request, so he makes a deliberate show of both his confidence and his trust in Heimdall, by sending all his advisors and guards off the platform. All the more tragic if Heimdall were to infringe upon it.
Accepting the offered spot at his side, Heimdall stands straight as he faces the crowd.
“So,” Herrauðr says after a generous gulp of mead from his tankard. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Did you know your advisor is dissatisfied with your recognition of his work?” Heimdall begins. “He’s loyal, though, and capable. It would be a wise choice to propose him a good option of marriage for his daughter, who seems to be an eager warrior. Pleasing him, and her, would give you double the advantage.”
Ignoring the stunned expression of the King, Heimdall nods towards a dark elf, towering with his gilded horns over all the dwarven heads.
“Treygga of the Burrows wishes to discuss the possibility of a business enterprise with you.” Beside him, Herrauðr takes a sharp breath, but he gives him no time to interject. “Yes, you already know that. But your concern in regard to his intentions are unfounded. Treygga himself is worried about his father’s notoriety and how it has affected his own reputation. He was also worried his father’s illegal activities may have compromised the family mines under the Forbidden Sands, on which his business strictly depends. However, Loki and I have checked them out, for unrelated reasons, and we’ve secured them from any danger that was left behind by others. They’re clear now, and so is the enterprise, as far as we know. Next.”
This time, Heimdall points out a tall, fair-skinned woman with cropped raven hair shouldering through the crowd to reach the axe throwing competition.
“Helga Yuleborinn. She’s the head of the raiders who’ve been troubling your eastern border, or at least she believes herself to be. Pretty gutsy of her to come here for some recon. Getting rid of them is as good a solution as any, however we would advise a more diplomatic approach on this one. Her clan’s interest in the area is also linked to their inability to access a site they believe to be sacred ground for their felled ancestors. Some negotiations and, possibly, a small concession of land might grant you a few more axes against actual monsters and would avoid direct conflict. A chance you should be glad to seize not because you wouldn’t be able to achieve victory against these skirmisher, but because many eyes are on you nowadays. You must have realized that in your new position as a Niðavellir-born king reclaiming a piece of the old Midgardian kingdom, affirming yourself as a ruthless enforcer of dwarven borders one too many times wouldn’t incur the favor of your neighboring human cities. We live, after all, in a time of peace, as everyone loves to remark.”
A long moment of silence passes as the King, torn between admiration and perturbation, struggles to settle on a response. Finally, he picks the neutral one.
“Impressive. All this in a single evening?”
“More or less,” Heimdall comments.
“Why did you come to me with this?”
“Because that’s what I do. I keep watch and offer information to those who can use it wisely. Because ‘we help people’,” Heimdall parrots, and if his tone sounds far more mocking than genuine, Loki isn’t in the immediate vicinity to complain about it.
“Like you and the God of Mischief helped at the Crossway Bloody Retribution in Niðavellir?”
There it is, Heimdall thinks, turning to find the King’s severe eyes set on him. The bitterness manifested in silent pauses during the meeting, now given shape through spoken words.
“I’m only quoting the reports when I say the scene of the massacre looked like a butcher’s workshop. Though from what I’ve gathered, it was less the God of Mischief and more you, taking matters into your own hands. But in the end both your reputations took the hit, right? The Svartalfheim leaders were all up in arms about it. ‘Once Odin’s lapdog, always Odin’s lapdog’, they said. ‘Spreading fear again like he was taught by his previous master’. ‘A hound is only as good as the hand guiding its leash, so can we really trust the Champion of Ragnarök?’. Well, you still only had one hand at the time, and came back soon after with a new one. I see why everyone thought Lord Loki had rewarded you for your deeds.”
It is always curious to Heimdall, the precision with which important pieces of context are deliberately forgotten in the evaluation of his actions. The King, like most of his kin, doesn’t care about the details, the violence and threats against the gods and their people, committed by those he killed.
He cares only about an older offense Heimdall cannot deny. Everything else that came after is just another proof of guilt piling up on top of it.
“Is there somewhere you’re trying to go with this, or are we just enjoying a moment of fond recollection?” Heimdall asks dispassionately.
It has the desired effect: the King leaves behind every pretense to get to the point. “This is where I’m going. You waltzing among dwarves as if half of them hasn’t heard nightmarish tales about you. Trying to win me over as if I can simply put everyone’s concerns aside. Me asking why you’re helping me, because you have a very long history of abusing my people, both in body and mind, and I haven’t personally known you long enough to tell if I can actually trust you despite that. If the people whose company you’re in only keep you around because they know leaving you to your own devices would lead to a catastrophe.”
Heimdall keeps silent as the King’s flame of righteous retribution inexorably drives him past the point of caution and diplomacy.
‘This is what happens when gods grow good. This is the new order after Ragnarök,’ he can hear the eternal ghost of Odin’s voice whisper in his mind. ‘It’s people like Loki who’ve made them forget the least a mortal can do for us, is show respect’.
Indeed, the world has changed from the times he grew up in, when defiance towards a god could cost a dwarf their life. When gods didn’t exist to be judged by mortals, but to reign over them.
After being subjected over and over to the antagonistic attitude of dwarves, elves and gods alike, Heimdall’s developed a necessary resilience for it that holds him back from any knee-jerk reaction. If anything, he dares say he’s somewhat begun to appreciate people who don’t mince words in the presence of gods, however annoying they may come off in doing so. There’s a bravery in the act Heimdall can respect, when it doesn’t overflow into sheer stupidity. Better to have someone say what they mean rather than try to keep it all under a false veil of subtlety.
But while Loki may readily grovel and bend in all directions for people he feels indebted to, Heimdall believes in upholding his own self-respect when no one’s willing to give theirs.
So he tells Herrauðr, “That’s only half of it, though, isn’t it? The other half is that you have a personal grudge against me, and you’re ready to set your duties aside if it meant you could retaliate in a satisfactory manner. Was it your mother, who lived through my time as Overseer? I’m sure she painted a gruesome picture to you, didn’t she. Speaking of history, did you ever tell her how you ‘helped’ the town of Ormness get rid of the Soul Eaters?”
The King’s eyes widen in shock. “How do you…”
“I know many things about you, King Herrauðr. I know you are proud of your boldness even though it has put you in a difficult spot many times. I know you were a lawless raider in Midgard for a time, before Ragnarök. I know you partook in the destruction of Ormness, a choice that shamed you so deeply you couldn’t bring yourself to return to Svartalfheim. I bet the fall of Realm travel came in handy at the time, even if that meant you had to face the desolation of Midgard and Fimbuwinter on your own. And I have a feeling not many of your supporters are aware of this, am I right?”
Herrauðr’s thoughts scatter aimlessly, as if trying to find a hiding spot. He intends to slap Heimdall; he intends to flee; he considers denying the truth; he wishes to defend his pride, draw his sword and ban Heimdall from his lands.
Heimdall waits, because they’re all fleeting intentions, and by the time Herrauðr finds his balance again, they boil down to a bout of guilty thoughts and a sense of defeat.
“So is this your plan? Blackmail?”
“No,” Heimdall sighs, disappointed by his dull deduction. “No matter what, I’m not gonna be the one to tell them. Because despite your clear attempt to push me toward a political accident in honor of your allegiance to Svartalfheim, I also know you genuinely regret your past, and wish to build a better world for your people, where no one will ever have to face the same choices you did. I’m not even sure blackmail works on people like you, desperate to redeem themselves. That is why your ‘God of Mischief’ has chosen to put any trust in you, and personally sent me here to gift you with this information.”
“Lord Loki also knows about my past?”
“Of course. And for the record, ‘winning you over’ is his hope, not mine,” Heimdall clarifies. “He has the bad habit of projecting onto everyone his own ability to forgive, but you and I know forgiveness is a skill more unique than rare. I didn’t come here expecting to be freed from my guilt. I came because to be completely honest, I don’t hate what you’ve accomplished in Veithurgard, and I trust his judgement of your person and skills.”
The King’s surprise never fully settles in the conversation. It ebbs and flows with every sentence, along with something Heimdall doesn’t quite know how to read. Less an intention than a… mood. But that is Loki’s expertise.
“You speak as if the mere act of having regrets can undo the weight of the mistakes. But no god or mortal has that privilege.”
It is not a one-way accusation: the King is referring to the both of them, laying his own faults on the table. Despite his earlier recalcitrance, he now seems to seek a common ground, a direction. Which is why Heimdall concedes with no mockery, “That’s true. But, as Loki would say, it reveals a willingness to make up for them that is key in creating a better future. And I think we both have more important things to protect in this life than our need to wallow in self-pity and beg for mercy from people who are short on it.”
His ears sharpen to catch the familiar heartbeat among hundreds, the unmistakable voice never truly hidden by the drums. When he hears a chuckle, his eyes follow its direction and meet Loki’s face, crinkled with amusement as he talks with Skjöldr and Angrboda in a spot not far from the King’s dais. As if beckoned by a silent call, he glances around, doing a double-take when he notices Heimdall’s glowing gaze.
His inquisitive eyes dart to the King beside him, wondering about their discussion, analyzing their posture. Having found something good there, his grin stretches wider, before his attention is once again stolen by Skjöldr’s hard pat on his shoulder.
“So, to answer your initial question,” Heimdall continues. “You don’t have to trust me, and I won’t blame you if you can’t, nor will I care. But I would strongly advise you put your faith in Loki. He may cause a mess now and then, but he cleans up after himself and, more importantly, you can be sure he’ll always have your best interests at heart. He deserves your trust, and while I don’t think this will help you choose, I can honestly say I have yet to regret giving him mine.”
Silence descends on their conversation, a welcome lull that gives Herrauðr time to consider the proposition carefully. When he’s ready, Heimdall turns to him.
“I’ve heard you called by many names, Lord Heimdall,” he says. “I’m sure I won’t surprise you when I say ‘watchdog’ and a few colorful Aesir-related insults are a recurring one among my folk. But recently, I’ve been often hearing a kinder name on people’s tongue: ‘Heimdall the Loyal’. Only now I see why.”
Heimdall stops himself from following the King’s gaze into the crowd, already knowing what he’ll return to.
“Your devotion is fearsome, my Lord, but enviable nonetheless: a king could only wish to enjoy such fealty. Against that, I can do nothing other than hope the aim of the one you follow remains true.” With a complicit look, Herrauðr raises his tankard of mead in toast to their newfound understanding. “Here’s to the causes and the people we choose to serve. May that choice be a testament to our growth.”
After a copious swig of his drink, he nods his head courteously. “I’ll be grateful, Lord Heimdall, for any other suggestion you may decide to share with me this evening.”
Bowing his own head in acknowledgement, Heimdall picks up his recounting where he left off.
ᛝ
“…My thanks to the New Order’s Council, led by our beloved goddess Freya, who’s blessed us with her choice of location for this year’s Sigrblót. And my thanks to our guests from Svartalfheim, Vanaheim and our neighboring territories as well, for joining us in these days of celebrations. It’s been our greatest honor to be your host. And now that we’re close to the end, I wish to remind us all what we’re celebrating: a year of bountiful harvest and profitable trade. A year of unity between dwarves and humans who’ve learnt to coexist in peace in a land that only a dozen years ago trembled lifelessly in the aftershocks of Fimbulwinter. A long decade in which the gods have helped us carve our own path of independence rather than impose their rule on us. It is thanks to them, but also our own perseverance, that we’ve managed to accomplish great deeds. In the same fashion of nature, we bloom under…”
The King’s heartfelt speech, held from the dais in the courtyard, continues on, garnering bouts of respectful silence and elated cheers from his subjects and guests. While dissatisfaction, the ineradicable inhabitant of any community, flickers in whispers and huffs at the corners of the crowd, spirits run high across Veithurgard’s village, ready to end Sigrblót with a bang.
As the speech draws to a close, Heimdall leans against one of the thick ornamental poles at the edge of the main plaza, nursing his pint of mead in the unexpected company of Eir.
Out of all the Shield Maidens, she’s the one Heimdall tolerates the most, so when she greets him and wishes him a happy Sigrblót, her mask glinting under the crackling light of a dozen bonfires, he actually makes an effort to be cordial.
“I just saw Loki,” she tells him. “It’s been quite a long time, but every time I see him he seems a little bigger, even though I know that can’t be right.”
“You’re being fooled. He’s still as scrawny as a nokken under all those belts,” Heimdall rebuts.
“Hmm, you’re right, not big,” Eir concedes. “Tall.”
Heimdall’s grip on the handle of his tankard has already tightened in anticipated irritation, when the smug voice of his least favorite Shield Maiden pipes up from behind him.
“Taller than Heimdall, maybe. Have you heard of the rumors, Eir? That Heimdall wears high-heeled boots so he can cover for a horrifying inch of difference? Or the one about Loki shapeshifting himself ten inches shorter to accommodate his ego?”
As Thrúd encroaches on their exchange, Heimdall makes sure to convey through his eyes what he thinks of her intrusion.
“Oh, is that so?” Eir comments, keeping her amusement in check.
“It isn’t,” Heimdall says. “She just loves to be a nuisance. Isn’t that right, dearest niece?”
“Whatever you say, uncle,” she replies, in a perfect copy of her best friend’s irreverence. Oftentimes, Heimdall misses the years she used to not speak to him. When spending time around Loki hadn’t yet made her dismally appreciative of the little wolf’s dedication in giving Heimdall headaches.
“I’ll let the two of you catch up,” Eir says too kindly. “Thrúd, you have much to tell him.”
“Ehh, not really…” Thrúd mumbles, unwilling to oppose her with any stronger language than that.
It is, at least, entertaining to witness her discomfort at Eir’s encouragement. For one whose ego isn’t known to waver, Thrúd is atypically reluctant to let go of her admiration and deference towards the Shield Maidens, even now that she’s one herself. Sif could only wish to inspire this level of obedience in her daughter.
Eir smiles at them, a misplaced motherly intent clear in her expression. “I’m sure Heimdall will be happy to congratulate you on your deeds.”
“If you say so…”
As soon as she’s gone, Heimdall says, “I thought you were still flying around in the clouds.”
Thrúd rolls her eyes. “Flying around? I was chasing massive storms away, thank you very much, and now I’m back to Shield Maiden business, like Eir said.”
“Congratulations on your deeds,” Heimdall teases her with a small bow.
“Ugh, it’s good to see you too, Heimdall. Anyway, how’s it going? You look…” Thrúd eyes him up and down, her mind fixing on something in his posture she can’t quite name. Perhaps misguided by Eir’s invitation to be earnest, she settles for a rare half-compliment, “Decent.”
“Yes, I do that. On the other hand, you look like you went through a hurricane and didn’t bother to brush your hair afterwards.”
To his bewilderment, that seems to convince her of what she spotted in him. “Wow, you must be in a good mood if that’s the best you come up with.”
Heimdall takes another sip of his mead. Maybe he is in a good mood. One he’s fully capable of losing very fast if he stays too long around his family.
“Loki already saw you?”
“Yeah, I caught him earlier. I think he’s gonna get drunk by the end of the night. He didn’t seem to be checking himself.”
“He isn’t,” Heimdall confirms.
“He told me about Kratos leaving for a while. Is that why you’re so peachy?”
“I’ll have you know that I am, in fact, not looking forward to having a moping idiot in the house.”
Thrúd laughs. “In his defense, it is weird to see Kratos leave and Loki stay. How come he won’t go?”
“He believes this is a journey Kratos and Mimir should take on their own.” A belief Heimdall tried his best not to reaffirm at every chance, especially since, for the first time, the initiative to stay back had come from Loki himself. “Moreover, it hasn’t been long since his last one.”
“Ah, you mean his jail time chained to your dinner table isn’t up yet,” Thrúd jokes.
“Not to the table,” Heimdall says flatly, and waits for her mind to catch up.
“Ew!” she says at last. “Gross! I don’t wanna know that.”
“Don’t make stupid jokes then,” he teaches her.
“Does Loki know you—”
[ make Loki drunker tell him of her GOOD name offer him something stronger push her to take the chance one night may suffice ]
Thrúd’s voice fades in the background.
At events like this, where endless crowds are massive and raucous, thoughts barrage him from all directions, like multiple schools of fish converging on him. The trick to survive the impact, Heimdall has learnt, is to shape his mind not into a wall, but a net. Only then, the trivial intentions that feel as familiar and instinctual as taking a breath – the unspoken words, the untaken dances – will easily slip through its links; while the ones worthy of attention – those swimming in with the same determination of a flung punch seeking its mark – will get inevitably caught, and it will be their own thrashing to alert Heimdall of their existence.
And right now, something has been caught.
“Are you even listening to me?” Thrúd presses, piqued by the lack of reply.
“No,” Heimdall says. “I’m busy.”
His mind follows the trail of ill intentions until it zeroes in on a human man with grey eyes and greyer hair, and vests adorned with Vanir embroidery. Beside him, a rosy-cheeked young woman in a low-necked blue dress stands in wait, fidgeting yet not fully aware of her own father’s resolve.
“What’s got your face so pinched all of a sudden?”
“Someone wants to trick Loki into sex and fatherhood with his daughter.”
She snorts gracelessly. “Good luck to them. Doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of trick Loki would ever fall for.”
“That’s because of your inability to spot threats.”
“You’re so paranoid. Loki’s not an idiot nor a cheater, he’ll be fine.” After a generous gulp of her apple juice, she adds, “And if he does cheat… well, good for him. I’ve always told him to aim higher.”
Heimdall scoffs as he scans the crowd in search of Loki. “Of all the concerning things he could do that are well within his capabilities, cheating would almost be welcome.”
“Really now. What’s worse than cheating?”
Casually disappearing for days on end with the only explanation of ‘I’m sorry I got sidetracked by a few quests’, or bringing home new monstrosities randomly found on the road and demanding to adopt them, are both pretty high on Heimdall’s personal list of grievances, but he has no time to get into that argument now.
With his destination set, he abandons his tankard on the closest flat surface and heads off.
“Hey, where are you going?” Thrúd calls at his back.
“To eliminate the problem.”
“Ugh, fine. Don’t kill anyone!”
He does not promise.
[ make him interested in your VANIR heritage tell him your daughter is a responsible fine young woman ]
“It will be fine. Have him drink a flask or two and I’m positive he’ll be very interested. Men, whether human or godly, are more open to possibilities when they’re tipsy,” the man is telling his daughter.
“Dad…”
“Hush, you’ll do well.”
While keeping an ear on the conversation happening fifty yards away, Heimdall finds Loki leaning on one of the many tables clogging the courtyard, blissfully unaware as he drinks ale, eats blueberry pie and talks with some scholars from the Elven Sanctum Heimdall doesn’t quite remember the name of.
By the time Heimdall’s closed the distance and flanked Loki’s side, he’s positively bristling.
“Someone’s planning to get you drunk enough to bed his supposedly Vanir-blooded daughter and gift him with a nice little god nephew,” he whispers in Loki’s ear, uncaring of the friendly chat he’s interrupted. “Deal with it, or I will.”
Loki doesn’t look at him as he invites his interlocutors to wait with a raised finger and an apologetic smile.
“Who?”
“Haldifari, the human emissary from Hitistad. He seems confident you need progeny and a wife, and he’s willing to go to great lengths to grant them to you.”
“I remember him. It’s the town Freya blessed after we destroyed that nasty Lava Ancient, right? What does the daughter think?”
Heimdall rolls his eyes. “She’s deeply unimpressed with you.”
Only then Loki turns his face to the side, to send him what Heimdall hates knowing is a challenging look.
After a quick excuse to his friends and one more bite of his pie, Loki straightens up, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and says, “Well then, I must go meet her. Stay around?”
Heimdall scoffs, already moving to the makeshift platforms for the guards’ patrol, to monitor within safe distance. He doesn’t need pointers on how this works.
When Loki approaches him head-on, the human’s thoughts scatter from the surprise only for a second before scrambling into position, to make the most of such a serendipitous meeting.
“Lord Loki! What a coincidence, we were just talking about you!”
“Haldifari, right? It’s been a while, hasn’t it,” Loki greets him. “I’ve heard the town erected a beautiful shrine to Freya since our last visit.”
“It has, my Lord. You should come see it for yourself as soon as you have time to spare.”
“I just might. And this must be your daughter?”
The woman, who was making herself small beside them, wishing to not be perceived, gets paralyzed by Loki’s welcoming gaze, like a deer spooked by an arrow shot at point blank.
“Yes, she is Ulla, my youngest,” the man steps in, making up for her awkward silence. “The other two are with family and couldn’t make the trip as easily, unfortunately. But Ulla here, she was so hoping to meet you. She loves hearing of your tales, you see.”
“That’s good to know, ’cause I have many to share.”
“Darling, be a dear and get him some mead,” Haldifari tells his daughter, prompting her to leave them alone and regain some composure in the meantime. When she dutifully takes her leave with a clumsy bow, he adds, “A little shy, but she’s such a sweet, beautiful girl.”
“I can see that.”
“I suspect she’s got a bit of a crush on you, from all the stories she’s been told of your courage. She was really hoping to have a moment with you, if you’re willing to indulge her. A dance, perhaps?”
Loki laughs along amiably, like he’s in on the man’s plan and is looking forward to please him. “Of course. I just hope my partner won’t get too jealous.”
Haldifari’s expression stutters between shock and confusion. “Partner?”
“Yes! You know, Heimdall Odinson, of the Aesir. Guardian of Ida’s Rebirth and Midgard, Glowy-Eyed Scourge of Tricksters and Traitors, God of ‘I know what you’re about to do and I don’t like it’, Protector of Me Specifically, and so on.”
The man’s thoughts screech to a halt as Loki casually points to Heimdall, who’s made himself noticeable on the soldiers’ platform and readily locks eyes with him.
Like an awaited dish finally served on a silver platter, he savors the long second of panicked remedies to the possibility of having been read, judged, and found conspiring. The deliberate curl at the corner of his lips does nothing to make the despicable snake feel safer.
“I… I heard he was…” Haldifari stammers, genuinely struggling to remember what he did hear about them, “an occasional companion.”
“More than occasional, I’m afraid.”
“I didn’t know…”
“Hey, it happens,” Loki shrugs, the lightheartedness of it an amusing contrast to the abject despondency Haldifari makes no effort to hide.
“What about marriage, though?” he gripes, inspired by what he believes is an ingenious rebuttal – one that unwittingly pushes him closer to the risk of meeting Heimdall in person. “If it isn’t too rude of me to say, I understand this kind of… proclivity was not uncommon among the Asgardians, but I’m sure it didn’t relieve them from the highest duty of marriage and parenthood. Not to mention, it’s sad to think so few gods are left after the Great Death of Asgard, and that even less may be born because of this…”
“Oh, not to worry. If I ever feel the need to bring more gods into this world, I will take it upon myself to deliver them.” Loki’s crooked smile seems affable at an inattentive glance, but there’s a hidden sharpness to it. “As you may have heard, I’m a shapeshifter.”
In Heimdall’s long life, few things have managed to completely derail his focus from the task at hand.
Despite its primary intent to shut down Haldifari’s hopes, hearing Loki earnestly express his willingness to bear children one day, is apparently one of them.
The rare instances of children talk the two of them have entertained throughout the years have only ever been associated with either trivial sex talk in the bedroom, or Heimdall’s attempts to cause Kratos emotional harm.
That same thought, now unadorned with its typical layers of lust or meanness, leaves Heimdall feeling… unbalanced.
“I don’t…” Haldifari trails off, confused by the way Loki cocks an eyebrow and nods his head expectantly, as if encouraging a child to complete their first mathematical addition.
“Oh,” he says at last. Then, louder, “Oh!”
As if on cue, the daughter comes back with two tankards, to find his father, red as an apple, gaping at Loki in shock.
“Tell you what, I’ll defy my partner’s bottomless jealousy and have a dance with your beautiful daughter, if you’ll allow me,” Loki says cheerfully, then to her, “Would you like to join me for the next song?”
Eyes wide with alert, Ulla is keenly aware of having missed something important when his father only gives an unsteady nod and meekly takes both tankards from her at Loki’s prompting.
Nonetheless, she bows her head stiffly and follows him into the crowd.
As they step away, Loki glances back at Heimdall.
[ ask him if all is settled now ]
Heimdall gives a curt nod, allowing Loki to return to his frivolous plans for the daughter.
Though there’s no more reason for concern at this point, he keeps the two in his line of sight as he gets back to his quiet patrolling from the platform.
“I understand your father’s trying to marry you off, and not through the best methods,” Loki’s voice reaches him through the increasingly loud percussions of the musicians’ next song.
“I… he’s—”
“Don’t worry, I don’t mean it as a threat. You and your father are clearly different people, and I’ve already dealt with him anyway. You can be sure we won’t sleep together, nor marry. I just wanted to ask you what you thought of that idea.”
“Of course, I would’ve been honored to—”
“Sure!” Loki interrupts her. “But no, really. I could tell your heart wasn’t into it.”
“…I do not wish to marry yet. I do not like the prospect of marrying for duty.”
Ulla isn’t the first person to allow Loki’s compelling friendliness to thaw her sense of caution and privacy, and she surely won’t be the last, so Heimdall isn’t too surprised by how readily she opens up. People close to eruption usually fall the fastest for Loki’s offer to listen.
“I thought so. What is it that you do love then?”
“Animals. I am good with them, and I often find them to be better company than people.”
“Wait, really? I love them too! I can kind of speak to them, you know?”
“I have heard the tales, my Lord—”
“Just Loki’s fine.”
“Yes, my Loki—I mean… Loki. I have heard, but it sounds so unbelievable.”
“Well, that one tale is true.”
If Loki was at arms’ length, Heimdall wouldn’t hesitate to slap the fake modesty out of him. Given the distance, he makes do with descending the platform to ground level and circling the ring of dancing bodies, in wait of the end of the dance.
“Have you considered leaving your father?”
“To go where?”
“I don’t know, anywhere else. He clearly wants something different than you want.”
“He wants me to bring in a good husband, and perhaps fairly so. My sisters have done that already.”
“That’s not fair at all if you don’t want to.”
“I have a duty to my family.”
“You may have a duty to help if they need you, not a duty to live the life they chose for you,” Loki comments with ardor. “Your father is well-off, he doesn’t need you to keep it going.”
Against her better judgment, Ulla’s wishes swell in her heart, perturbed and alight with a desperate need to chase the freedom Loki’s so graciously selling her.
“Life is dangerous for a human girl out there,” she says, more sensible than Loki ever could be.
“You’re right, it is. And just like marriage, you shouldn’t feel forced to do something you aren’t ready for. But sometimes, people don’t realize when they are ready to take a leap. So here’s my proposition. If you are interested, of course.”
By then, the woman hangs on Loki’s every word like she’s finding a new religion.
“I have a trustworthy friend who may need someone who’s good with animals. He lives in the town. How about I introduce you to him later tonight, and we see where it goes from there?”
Heimdall momentarily leaves them be, in favor of grabbing the low shoulder inadvertently bumping into his side.
Befuddled by the hand halting his drunken staggering, Loki’s dwarven blacksmith friend investigates by slowly glancing up at him with eyes glazed over by alcohol.
“Heimdall!” he slurs as soon as he gains enough clarity to recognize him. “So good to see you! Of course!”
Heimdall’s almost impressed by his ability to lie with that much mead sloshing in his brain.
“Ljómi. Just who I was thinking of.”
“Really?” Ljómi asks, looking genuinely astonished by the information.
“Yes. I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry to hear business is going badly.”
“What,” Ljómi knits his brows in a solid effort to understand what he’s being told. “No, no, it’s going very well actually, thank you! Sindri and I are gaining lots of clients.”
“Is that so?” Heimdall says with a smile. “Then how is it that you keep asking Loki to do charity missions for you and retrieve priceless materials from very dangerous places in exchange for your gratitude, rather than pay in gold any band of well-versed mercenaries for their services?”
Caught off guard, Ljómi doesn’t seem to find a good comeback through the blurriness in his thoughts. “Ah, but… dragons are not really for mortal mercenaries… and Loki is happy to help whenever I ask… He’s the one who never asks for anything in return!”
“Because he hopes your stupid ass will leave a good word about him to Sindri.” Heimdall’s hold tightens menacingly on his shoulder. “But you haven’t been doing that, have you? I doubt Sindri even knows where half of his best working materials are coming from nowadays.”
“Look, I’ve tried,” Ljómi protests, face losing the shine of his trademark fake politeness and turning red with frustration as he swats Heimdall’s hand away. “But he’s impossible. Don’t you think I’d be the first one to rejoice if they made up? I’m the one who’s always stuck between a rock and a hard place in their endless feud!”
“Then if he’s impossible, stop lying about it,” Heimdall bites back. “I expect you to have something for Loki next time he helps. And by something I mean anything that isn’t platitudes.”
“Or what?” Ljómi says with angry fervor. “I could scream for help and have all spears in this town pointed at you in the fraction of a second. Another dwarf attacked without cause by Heimdall the Vicious Aesir Dog! You really want to embarrass Loki like that?!”
“Spare me the threat,” Heimdall snorts disdainfully. “Do you think Loki will believe your word over mine? Go ahead, that might finally convince him to stop helping you. Or, how about you just be a better friend and pay him with something that will help him survive your idiotic requests. Last time he went on an errand for you, he almost lost a leg.”
“Almost, but didn’t,” Ljómi objects.
“Almost but didn’t, this time.”
“He never does! The kid’s indestructible!”
“Do you want to keep being dismally stupid or have I made myself clear?”
Throwing his hands up, Ljómi lets out an irritated grumble. “Argh, you… you’re a bad man.”
Heimdall barks a laugh. “Oh, you have no idea.”
“Wish I knew how you sleep at night.”
“Very close to Loki in fact, where it’d be so easy to spill your dirty little secrets.”
“You really wanna know what would help Loki piece things up with Sindri and many other dwarves who have broken ties with him in this decade?” Ljómi hisses, glaring daggers at him. “If he stopped bedding Aesir scum.”
“I suggest you don’t test my patience any further,” Heimdall warns. “Unless you’re ready for the consequences. A dozen spears won’t stop me then.”
With a dismissive wave of his hand, Ljómi mutters a few final expletives and wobbles off grumpily.
It is with a mild sense of vindication that Heimdall returns his attention to the dancers.
The music has quieted down, granting a moment’s rest before the next song. Those who have given all they had to the activity courteously bow and take their leave, others run off hand in hand to seek different forms of entertainment. Among them, Loki takes Ulla’s hand to his lips and places a delicate kiss on the back of it before stepping away to look for him.
While positioning himself in Loki’s line of sight, Heimdall can’t help but snort at the blush blooming high on Ulla’s cheeks.
As soon as Loki sees him, he extends the same grabby hand to him, more like a child demanding a toy than the charming suitor Ulla saw in her rosier view of reality.
“Oh but I am ravaged by jealousy. I cannot accept,” Heimdall mocks him.
“Come on,” Loki insists, dismissing his refusal with a laugh. “One dance. We talk in the meanwhile.”
“You know I don’t like dancing.”
“But you’re great at it, and you love to show off?”
Fair enough, Heimdall thinks as the music picks up again and he lets himself be pulled forward – happy to leave unsaid there’s something about Loki’s bubbliness today that’s hard to resist, even for him.
An unsurprising fact about Loki is that he’s not a bad dancer either. Even more than Heimdall, he’s light on his feet, graceful when he wants to be, and no stranger to repetitive training. If Heimdall’s any better at replicating the steps of popular dances, it’s only because at some point Loki realized music was better enjoyed by swaying along to his own rhythm, free from pre-established choreographies.
In his friends’ company, this has often meant looking like a madman in public.
In Heimdall’s, though, he’s content to place a hand in his, another on his shoulder, and let himself be guided through whatever step Heimdall desires.
Perhaps, this is Heimdall’s favorite part about it. Having someone follow him so capably, and holding faith this is how Loki feels about him outside of dancing.
“So,” Loki starts as Heimdall moves them around. “What did Ulla think of me?”
“And you dare say I’m the one who shows off. You know this is why people think you’re up for grabs, right?”
“Just answer the question, please.”
“Still unimpressed,” Heimdall says flatly, eliciting a laugh from his partner.
“I know you’re lying, because that’s not what I felt.”
“Then why are you asking,” Heimdall retorts. “Do you really think it was wise to lead her away from home? The world is dangerous. If she gets hurt because you pushed her to chase a senseless dream, it’s going to be on you.”
“Sometimes you have to take a risk, no?” Loki’s brows furrow in consideration. “So you think she will accept the offer?”
“She is inclined to.”
“It’s not a bad prospect to get some experience working for someone I trust.”
“And that work just so happens to take her away from the same father who wanted to get you drunk and her pregnant?”
Loki fails to dissimulate the slyness in his expression with a nonchalant shrug. “I mean. I just so happen to not like it when parents treat children like tools.”
“Revealing publicly that you can get pregnant was certainly a choice,” Heimdall comments. “You know that’s not something most simpletons would take well. Aren’t you worried about the rumors he could spread around?”
“Who cares…” Eyeing him discreetly, Loki continues, “Aren’t you pleased with the way I handled it? I tried to put your ruthless teachings to good use.”
Heimdall’s ribcage inflates uncomfortably, with an overwhelming emotion often catching him off guard around Loki. By now he knows there’s no other sensible solution to get rid of the tension it exercises on his lungs but to breathe it out in bits and pieces.
Breaking into a smirk, he concedes, “I am adequately pleased.”
The notes of the lyres swell around them like a high tide. The familiarity of the tune they play beckons the dancers to hop once, then swirl to their partner’s side, to be caught by a hand on the small of their back. Loki follows suit and, with Heimdall’s arm securely at his waist, he adds a little flair by arching his back.
Heimdall watches his long braided hair fall away from his neck and shoulders, revealing the pale freckled skin under his jaw.
“Did you know wolves nibble each other’s faces to show their affection?” Loki tells him as a weak justification for the crescent-shaped mark he’s left on his neck, and Heimdall knows better than to lean down and bite gently into it, making a spectacle of his desires – but the temptation is there.
[ throw it out to see how he reacts SAY IT just don’t say it too seriously like it’s a random idea ]
Loki’s unforeseen line of thought as his head hangs back towards the starry sky almost makes Heimdall drop him from the surprise.
It is only by sheer diligence that, instead, he manages to pull Loki up again without incidents and feign ignorance.
“This is the third time in one year someone has proposed the prospect of marriage to me.” Loki’s words are studiously casual, though his arms unknowingly mirror Heimdall’s invisible tension as they hold onto each other.
“It is,” Heimdall says neutrally.
“Hasn’t it been the same for you? For some reason, your past reputation for… Heimdallying around in Midgard hasn’t faded with time.”
Heimdall sends him a flat look. “Are you proud of that one?”
“Hey, it can’t all be winners… Anyway, it’s getting a little annoying. You know what would solve the issue pretty well?” Loki twirls in step with the rhythm, arm stretching out for Heimdall to take and pull him against his chest. “Marriage.”
“Ours, you mean,” Heimdall clarifies.
“Obviously.”
“That would be… unconventional.”
“Ah, something I’ve always cared about. Conventions,” Loki quips as they come face to face with each other again. “The thing is, that way, people would stop misunderstanding me when I say I have a partner.”
“Fucking in the middle of this dance might get the same result of informing people.”
Loki bursts out laughing, his mind entertaining the thought for a second longer before letting it go, to replace it with something much more impulsive.
“Children too,” he says, with the end tail of his laugh still tinting his voice with lightheartedness—before sealing his mouth tightly shut.
[ say ANYTHING unserious DIVERT you idiot find a cliff say you were JOKING ]
The sudden halt in their conversation is palpable, but rather than feeling uncomfortable, Heimdall finds himself deeply amused by Loki’s embarrassment towards the same idea he was confidently demolishing a stranger with not even ten minutes ago.
“I doubt the world would survive an army of tiny Lokis spreading havoc,” he teases, and it surprises him how simple it is to joke about it.
It seems to disperse Loki’s pointless worries just as easily. “I don’t think one made of tiny Heimdalls patrolling the streets would be any more welcome,” he retorts, pretending not to find the image terribly comical. Then, groaning, “Either way, children are too much work. Would we even be good dads?”
Heimdall highly doubts his own adequacy for the role. “The fucking seems to be the most practical idea, after all.”
“Agreed.”
The music wanes and one dance ends, yet Loki makes no move to leave nor Heimdall pulls away.
Then, it happens: the familiar leap in Loki’s mind trapping his body under another’s will and driving it into a rehearsed choreography. One moment he was waiting for the music to resume, the next he tries to let go of Heimdall to turn toward a soundless call. Bend down. Pick something, or someone, up.
Heimdall quietly holds him through it, keeping him upright and close. Loki’s muscles work against him for only a fleeting second before relaxing once more. He blinks as his consciousness realigns with the present, eyes slowly taking in the people around them.
“Something nice?” Heimdall asks amusedly.
Loki’s head whips back to him, seemingly taken aback by his proximity. After a pause, his mouth curves into a soft grin.
“Yeah,” he says. “I think so.”
His slim hand shifts into Heimdall’s to interlace his tattooed fingers with his scarred ones. When the harpas pick up again, they sway with the rhythm. Both their minds linger on fun little fantasies, untouched by the weight of commitment.
In the end, it’s Loki’s growling stomach that proclaims an early conclusion to their dance.
Together they venture the hectic roads once more, in search of the closest food supplier. Once they have a serving of meat and bread in their hands, they take a spot on the stone parapet of the bridge. The many people who pass by take little notice of dawdlers, a destination to reach in their priorities. That grants them, if not the quiet and privacy Heimdall covets, a semblance of separateness from the chaotic mass.
Leant against the parapet, Heimdall gingerly wields his ration of dripping meat with knife and bread, mindful of his clean hands and the lack of water close by. Sitting cross-legged beside him, Loki offers a different spectacle of carefreeness and digs into his piece of meat with a distinct lack of refinement.
“By the way,” he says between one messy mouthful and the other. “I exchanged a few words with the King after your meeting, and I did sense a drastic change of attitude towards us. It can’t have been just because you dropped some useful intel. What did you do?”
As he meticulously finishes his own food, Heimdall shrugs loftily. “We had a talk.”
“Alright, keep your secrets…”
“I merely did what you asked of me. In my own way.”
“Did you now?” A spark of pride lights up his eyes as he looks at Heimdall before returning to his meal with renewed vigor. “Well, for whatever reason, we might have finally found a dwarf who doesn’t hate you.”
If Heimdall were to evaluate the righteousness of his actions on the basis of the number of people who like him, he’d be fighting a losing battle. He’s come to terms with his notoriety at a very young age, so Loki’s comment strikes him as fundamentally irrelevant.
But Loki’s care for relationships, which unnecessarily extends to Heimdall’s own, isn’t something he feels the need to undermine any further than he already does on a daily basis.
He can let him enjoy this small win.
“Herrauðr said something earlier, about titles,” he brings up instead. “It seems he’s heard ‘Heimdall the Loyal’ thrown around nowadays.” Cocking an eyebrow at Loki, he inquires, “Is that one of yours?”
It’s not a farfetched hypothesis, and Heimdall’s been wondering since his meeting with the King. Loki has a notable history of spreading rumors in the attempt to shape new nicknames for the two of them among the commonfolk of Midgard.
Some had worked out, building up to be common honorifics. Others had crashed and burned – or, funnily enough, become associated with the wrong god. The whole ‘Tamer of Beasts’ fiasco still weighed heavily on Loki’s nerves after two years.
Loki’s justification, when questioned about it, is that titles have power: they tell stories, and their stories can shape reality. Sometimes, they can work as prophecies. Who wouldn’t want to grow into a great title?
The truth, Heimdall thinks, is that titles have a weight which can easily turn into shackles. But Loki’s grown up in need of validation amidst mighty legends of war and salvation, dreaming to be included in their ranks one day. It’s understandable that his genuine eagerness to help people was spearheaded by a youthful hope of being framed as a hero of the masses.
The fact that Loki actually stops to card through his memory for an honest reply is pretty telling.
“Not really. Heimdall the Loyal, huh?” he repeats, as if testing its flavor on his tongue. Something in it makes him smile. “Not bad at all.”
“Certainly better than Glowy-Eyed Scourge of whatever it was,” Heimdall chides him.
“Dunno, both seem very fitting to me.”
Heimdall hums as he leans back on his hands and faces the night sky.
Violent streaks of iridescent lights have now fallen upon the valley, winding through the celestial vault like endless bends and turns of a Bifröst bridge, and spreading an ethereal glow on the mountains around Veithurgard and the lake mirroring them.
Heimdall used to expect no beauty in Midgardian nights, as there would be no innate magic in these forsaken lands which could turn the stars brighter, or the twilights incandescent.
But the spectacle above him, he’s inclined to admit, holds its own brand of magic.
[ tell him he looks pretty tell him I ]
“Hey,” Loki says. “I love you.”
Heimdall’s smug smile stretches on his lips as he tilts his head to him. “Hmm. That’s a good sign.”
“How so?”
He shrugs. “Couples should have things in common, and I do so love myself.”
It flits, through Loki’s mind, the desire to push him off the bridge. Instead, he shoves Heimdall’s white-clad shoulder with his meat dirty hand instead, which may be ultimately worse.
“Maybe they should call you Heimdall the Shitty Boyfriend. You haven’t even realized on what day Sigrblót is falling this year, do you? Don’t look into my mind.”
He already has, but feigns ignorance. “On the day you finally grow up and stop acting like a whiny toddler?”
Loki gives him a flat stare as he wipes his hands from the remnants of his finished meal. “No. It’s the anniversary of our first kiss.”
“Oh! You mean that time we got it on in your childhood bed?” Heimdall smirks. “Don’t you worry, I may forget, but those poor toys never will.”
“Shut up,” Loki protests hotly. “We didn’t even do that much.”
“We did enough to taint it forever.”
“I honestly can’t believe you still gloat about it…”
“You’re the one who brought it up.”
“Only to celebrate how after so long, my taste in people is still bad.”
“Didn’t you just finish flaunting your love for me?”
Loki sighs. “Very bad.”
Heimdall’s still gloating when the distant memory of a different evening of festivities finds him for the second time tonight.
“That wasn’t actually our first kiss, you know.” He isn’t sure what possesses him to bring it up now of all times, after so many years of silence, but he’s given no reason to regret it when Loki’s expression shifts from relaxed to a befuddled frown.
“Yes it was,” he repeats decisively.
“No, no. You may not remember it, but I do.”
Loki’s puzzlement grows, along with a hint of alarm. “What are you talking about?”
“The fall before that,” Heimdall elaborates, tasting every delicious word of truth rolling off his tongue and stoking Loki’s distress. “At the Yule celebrations in Hreinnvik, across the mountain where we found—”
“The Travelers’ Sanctuary,” Loki finishes, halfway from catching up with his own blotchy memories of the night. “I… Didn’t I get drunk?”
“Very. I had to drag you home, and there, you thought it wise to throw yourself at me and fall asleep right after.”
Unable to decide which part of all this to comment on first, Loki gapes at him dumbly. As the one who keeps count of the weirdest excuses for anniversaries – spanning from first kisses to first swims at sea – this must come as an earth-shattering revelation.
“Then you father found me over your unconscious body and thought I’d done something to you.” Every additional information seems to crack Loki’s calm further, so Heimdall goes on. “That’s when you came to and burst into tears, asking us to hug it out.”
“And you did?!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Heimdall scoffs. “I left.”
Still reeling, Loki’s gaze moves away, to lose itself in absentminded observation of the surrounding crowd. “Why did you never tell me?”
Heimdall shrugs. “Perhaps I was waiting for the perfect moment to shame you with this knowledge.”
Loki hums thoughtfully. After a bout of consideration, he shuffles closer to Heimdall on the parapet, leaning forward on one hand as he breaks into a grin. “Or maybe, you didn’t want me to know you let me kiss you.”
“Don’t think too much of it,” Heimdall says, eyes following Loki’s fingers as they tease the leather belt of his one-shoulder cape. “I was simply curious to see how it would go.”
“And how did it go?”
Heimdall huffs his displeasure against Loki’s face. “Bad. Sloppy. Inconclusive. Made me wonder how you could fetch anyone willing to kiss you.”
“Eh, I had an eagerness.”
That much is true, even Heimdall cannot deny it. One of Loki’s curious and dangerous traits that lured him in – and one he never lost, manifesting in every greedy touch and stolen kiss and, right now, the way Loki’s finger hooks into the cape belt on his chest and tugs Heimdall within reach of his mouth.
“I think I can do better now,” Loki chuckles, breath warming Heimdall’s lips as he looks up at him through his lashes.
“You’re sure?” Heimdall smirks.
Angrboda’s mind making a sudden appearance in the periphery of his attention almost prods an annoyed sigh out of him. He leans away before Loki can close the distance, just in time for—
“Loki!”
Loki’s head turns at the call, to find Angrboda waving at him. “Yes?”
“Freya’s free now! We wanted to show you the new seeds.”
“I’m coming!” Uncrossing his legs and jumping off the parapet, Loki starts walking backwards into the crowd as he tells Heimdall, “Behave?”
“I’m not the renowned trouble-maker here,” Heimdall reminds him.
With one last, guilty smirk, Loki spins on his heels and jogs after Angrboda.
Heimdall stays on the bridge a little longer, turning to the lake to enjoy more of the fresh breeze rolling into the valley from its placid waters. The moonlight shines down on its dark surface and the statue towering over it, built on the crumbled remains of Thor’s effigy. Its stern face looks over the mountain peaks as one hand holds an axe over the shoulder and the other is proffered to the world ahead.
And beside its leg, the lean shape of a wolf sits, with its ears perked up in eternal curiosity.
ᛝ
After putting a stop to the fourth drunken fistfight and a lukewarm stabbing attempt in the late hours of the night, which garners him the unsought, begrudging admiration of the dwarven guards, Heimdall starts to approach his limit.
His head pulses with the beginning of a migraine, and whatever new distraction he finds as a temporary sole focus for his overstimulated senses doesn’t hold his interest long enough to be effective.
Isolated in a quiet corner of the courtyard with five suspicious conversations playing simultaneously in his ears, he’s growing dangerously resentful of his self-imposed patrolling duties when Loki’s returned to him for safekeeping.
With Thrúd aiding his straying legs on a straight path, Loki points at him excitedly across the crowd. Between the shine in his eyes and the flush of his skin, it’s not hard to gauge the level of drunkenness as somewhere just beyond tipsy. “There he is!”
“Yes he is there,” Thrúd echoes, displaying much less excitement as she faces Heimdall. “Apparently he needed to see you, and I sure cannot stand hearing him sing your praises any longer. You keep him.”
He doesn’t inquire about the reasons. Through the dull ache in his senses, he caught glimpses of the single-minded craving currently inhabiting Loki’s mind, which is only made clearer when he sways away from Thrúd to throw his arms around his neck.
He nods as he steadies Loki by a firm hold on his waist. “I’ll take him.”
“Nice,” Loki quips, wiggling his eyebrows at him like an idiot.
Thrúd snorts. “I’ll leave you to it. See you later, Loki.”
“I’ll be back once I’m done!” Loki shouts at her retreating back.
“Done with what, exactly,” Heimdall teases, earning another flirty wiggle in return.
“Shouldn’t you know?”
“I have an inkling,” he smirks. “But I don’t mind hearing you tell me.”
“Why tell you when I can show you.”
Pulling away and slipping his hand into Heimdall’s, Loki leads them out of the courtyard and past the front gate of the fortress. His simultaneous pursuit of speediness, stealth and sultriness as he stumbles up the entrance steps would be admirable, if it wasn’t so terribly amusing to witness.
Loki makes up for the lack of coordination as soon as they reach an empty hallway, by promptly backing against the wall and pulling Heimdall’s body to him to assail his mouth with an urgent, hungry kiss.
As Heimdall predicted, it tastes of mead. Not unlike the first one they shared in a humble inn on Yule night – but whereas a young Loki’s mind was filled with half-baked thoughts of what he wished to do to Heimdall, sweet and corny and occasionally unrealistic, the present Loki knows exactly what he wants and how to get it.
How to slide their tongues together in an open-mouthed kiss that has Heimdall’s hands tighten against his hips. How to moan his name like it’s an exhortation to consume him fully. How to sneak his hand at the base of his loosely tied-up hair and tease the back of his neck with the light scrape of his fingernails.
Apparently he even knows how to time his appearance perfectly, because now that he’s here, Heimdall cannot imagine lasting a second longer without his thumping heart and the wet smack of his lips to focus his straining senses on. Wrapped up in each other like this, it becomes so easy push everything else into the background.
When they part, panting for air, the tip of Loki’s tongue darts back out to catch the trail of saliva connecting them, mind quickly cooking up his next move.
“You couldn’t wait to reach the bedroom?” Heimdall chuckles.
“No,” Loki simply confirms, proving his impatience further by fiddling with the buckle of his belt.
Heimdall doesn’t stop him, but he does point out, “The gate’s just around the corner.”
In reply, Loki quietly drops to his knees and sneaks his head under his gambeson to keep fighting with the belt. His hands, usually so nimble around Heimdall’s clothes, pull and tug fruitlessly, seemingly unable to coordinate toward their goal.
After a few seconds, he reemerges from his skirts to look up at him irritably. “Some help?”
With an amused snort, Heimdall leans on his forearm against the wall and loosely tucks the bottom of the gambeson in the upper belts of his armored skirt, to have a clearer view of Loki’s pout turning into an expectant stare when he finally begins to loosen the buckle of his interest.
Loki barely gives him time to let go of the leather before tugging his clothes down and getting one hand on his hardening dick.
The coolness of his touch, which initially makes Heimdall’s breath hitch, is quickly replaced by the warm breath ghosting over it as Loki leans closer – and then by the wet heat of his mouth when he takes Heimdall in.
The sudden pleasure rips a violent groan out of Heimdall. His scarred hand flies to Loki’s hair, to find a steadying purchase in the soft auburn braids.
His dick fills up on Loki’s tongue, stretching his lips further around it and invading his mouth until it tickles the back of his throat.
Loki wastes no time once it’s fully hard: he grips its base and begins to suck and bob his head rapidly over a comfortable length. His other hand, always desperate for skin touch, struggles up the gambeson and past the tight fit of the armored skirt just to claw at Heimdall’s lower belly.
Heimdall’s groans echo in the hallway, easy to catch even for the most absentminded passerby if any were to approach. But none are – or so Heimdall’s shrinking senses suggest – and each one of his noises seem to spur Loki to work him harder, so he makes no effort to hold them in.
He probably wouldn’t have been able to anyway, when Loki slips both hands on Heimdall’s naked ass and he uses his grip to help himself further down on his dick.
Loki’s muscles convulse around the head of his cock when it breaches his throat, but he doesn’t let up, stifling his own groan by swallowing more of him.
Only when he pulls back, Heimdall finds the voice to say, “If you want me to fuck your throat that badly, just say it.”
Loki doesn’t answer right away, his mind a pit of brewing desires as he takes his dick in hand again to deliver a long, broad lick at its underside, then swirl his tongue over its dripping slit.
His face is red, and not only from the alcohol, when he says, “I want you to do whatever you want to me.”
He drops his head back on the sheets where he lies naked, legs awkwardly spreading further apart, as if he expects Heimdall to just jump right between them and fuck into him with no preamble, and even though Heimdall looks at him like he’s an idiot, he can’t bite back another moan.
The first time Loki said something like that, Heimdall thought him to be terribly inexperienced and unwise, and didn’t hesitate to inform him he would come to regret giving him free reign. Despite Loki being, in fact, inexperienced, Heimdall was proven appallingly wrong and made to feel like he was the powerless one by the end of it. Now he knows better than to pretend Loki doesn’t know what he’s asking for.
He knows very well, and Heimdall hates him for it. He hates him for being such a tease, for testing his self-control with every word he speaks, for instilling something in him he can’t quite contain.
Towering over Loki’s kneeling form, he breathes, “You’re in a mood tonight, hm? Well if that’s what you’re looking for, I suggest you take a deep breath.”
Stepping closer, he sets one hand on the back of Loki’s head, then guides his dick back into his mouth and begins to push inside through Loki’s sharp inhale. His hips slowly close in until his dick slides into the hot grip of Loki’s throat and his nose is pressed into his groin. When Loki instinctively gags and makes to pull back, there’s no space to escape to, only Heimdall’s hand and the hard, unforgiving wall behind his head.
Loki’s chest rumbles with a wanton groan as his fingers scramble to clench on the back of Heimdall’s clothed thighs.
“It’s staggering how much you enjoy this,” Heimdall teases, popping his dick out of Loki’s throat to rest heavy in his mouth. “Being on your knees, sucking me off while everyone out there is wondering where you went. If only they knew, huh?”
Loki’s eyes, bright blue and teary, look up at him as he lazily rolls his hips back and forth, watching precum coat his tongue. They flutter shut when Heimdall pushes in deep again and stills, putting a strain on Loki’s lungs for as long as he can bear, to savor every clench of his muscles around the tip of his dick. They reopen when he pulls out amidst his gasps for air. Then all over again, once more.
“What a good little wolf,” Heimdall says, short of breath himself. “So eager to choke on me. You’d better not cum just from my dick in your mouth.”
Fingernails dig into his cheeks as Loki groans around his cock, the vibrations going straight to Heimdall’s groin.
Pulling at his hair to get his attention, Heimdall eyes him intently. “Think you can take more?”
Upon silent confirmation, he goes in faster with the next thrust, causing Loki to gag violently despite the warning. On the second quick push, he’s better prepared, neck craned up to accommodate the deep slide of his length.
Heimdall sets a pace, hard and fast, that makes spit well up around his dick and down Loki’s chin. His hold on himself slackens in the act, and as excitement rises to its boiling point in his veins, he realizes he’s going to come soon.
Not soon enough, however.
With half an ear still on the world around him – a world that has blissfully faded into a blur beyond the borders of Loki’s body – he manages to catch the two sets of footsteps approaching from the front gate.
For a second, he entertains the idea of going on without a care. Of letting the bystanders find out how debased they can get in private once they’re done playing nice with the public; how obedient Loki is when Heimdall pulls him down on his cock. He imagines letting them intrude only so that he can show them Loki’s only his to push around, and then tell them to fuck off with their insistent requests and power-hungry politics.
Instead, he whispers, “You should get up, unless you want a couple of innocents see you like this.”
Loki’s mind is crossed by a similar set of ambivalent thoughts, before he firmly pushes at Heimdall’s hips to free his mouth and murmur, with spit-stricken lips, a single word under his breath, while his tattooed fingers trace a rune in the air, its gleam stuttering quickly into nothingness.
Heimdall is, admittedly, a little impressed by the confidence with which Loki resumes sucking him off after the spell sets.
Despite his eagerness to move, he stills his hips as he glances around, noticing no difference beyond a veiled sheen of iridescence in the space surrounding them.
“Can they still hear us?” he asks, looking down at Loki, who can’t even bother to let his cock go for the time it takes to nod a yes. Heimdall’s fingers tighten in his hair.
He thrusts back in just as the King’s servants round the corner and head towards them, with the low, filthy sounds coming out of Loki’s throat accompanying their footsteps.
He doesn’t know where he finds the strength to rest against Loki’s lips when the pair reaches them and stares something down at Heimdall’s eye level.
“What’re these?” one asks the other.
“How would I know. Refills, perhaps?”
“Are we supposed to bring them out?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, they look heavy. I’m not breaking my back over them unless explicitly requested.”
Heimdall’s muscles tense with the thrill of danger at the strangled moan Loki lets out when he presses his hand to his bulging crotch, apparently unable to forbear from touching a dick for even one second if Heimdall keeps his own from him.
He yanks Loki’s head back to glare at him—but instead he loses himself in the pretty sight before him: Loki’s hair tousled and braids unkempt, half-lidded watery eyes on a flushed face, chin wet with globs of saliva all the way down. He looks positively fucked out and Heimdall hasn’t even begun with him.
“What was that?” the servant says in alarm, reminding Heimdall of their presence, now almost unbearable.
“What was what? Let’s just go already,” the other complains nudging him away, none the wiser about the truth hiding behind a flimsy illusion.
Once they’re out of earshot, Heimdall’s control breaks into rough, shallow thrusts in Loki’s slack mouth.
“You’re really growing into this new illusion magic,” he hisses through them. “I can tell it’s gonna be a favorite of yours, you nasty little deviant.”
Loki doesn’t care to deny it, preferring to push himself down on Heimdall again in his personal fight against an increasingly sore throat. And so the heat in Heimdall’s belly, fueled without pause, coils and threatens to burst. His harsh breathing hitches at every slide in, anticipating the coveted release.
“You’re gonna make me come if you keep this up,” he grits out between grunts.
He doesn’t expect that to snap Loki’s hazy mind to attention. Jerking away, Loki frees his mouth from Heimdall’s dick to grip it at the base instead, halting his climax just as it was clawing to the surface.
“Seriously?” Heimdall pants, with no small dose of annoyance.
Slowly, Loki slides his back up the wall with an unrepentant expression on his face. After wiping his wet mouth with a sleeve, he whines in a weak, raspy voice, “If you cum, you’re gonna use that as an excuse to torture me for the next twenty minutes while you get it up again. I’m not waiting for that.”
“You minx,” Heimdall growls, breathless and bewildered. “You’re giving me a very valid reason to torture you anyway.”
It’s a bluff, he fears. His restraint is good, but after Loki’s little show, probably not good enough to edge him on his fingers for twenty minutes while leaving his straining dick unattended.
As if seeing right through him, Loki brings their foreheads together with a hand at his nape and a knowing look in his bright eyes. His other hand palms his erection lightly, making Heimdall chase the friction, but without granting him his release.
“Come on, let’s just do it. Right here,” he whispers conspiratorially, as if pitching one of his pranks at the world. A secret only for the two of them to share.
Heimdall laughs in his face. “There may be an illusion around us, but you seem completely unaware of how loud you get with a dick in you. I don’t think your ‘right here’ is gonna happen without causing a diplomatic incident.”
“I can be quiet! You can cover my mouth,” Loki protests, and Heimdall feels like he’s growing a little more delirious with every new proposal thrown at him tonight. “Just a quickie, and then we go back to the party.”
“Go back?” Heimdall asks, once again judgmental of how gravely unaligned their intentions are. “Are you certain you want to further compromise your already dubious reputation by wobbling around shitfaced?”
“I’m not that drunk. I swear,” Loki stresses, facing Heimdall’s critical look with determination.
The worst part is that it’s true. He may stumble around like a newborn fawn for a while longer, but the list of after-sex projects is too clearly outlined in the sober part of his brain to doubt he’ll pursue it as soon as he’s done with Heimdall.
Which, of course, makes Heimdall especially eager to break his resolve.
“No. You wanna get fucked? Then you’re gonna go to the bedroom,” Heimdall insists, with his own plans in mind. Disentangling himself from Loki’s grabby hands, he takes a step back and painstakingly refastens his trousers over his aching cock.
“But it’s so far!” Loki laments.
“I’m sure your motivation will carry you through.”
Without a speck of shame in his entire adult body, Loki pouts and throws his arms around his neck. “I’d rather you carry me instead,” he says, lifting one leg to Heimdall’s waist, then the other, like a bear trap springing slowly on its prey in order to not agitate it.
“You’re not a child nor you are small,” Heimdall tells him as he’s subjected to his awkward climbing. To be fair, it’s his own fault if he gets completely ignored, because by then his hands have already hooked under Loki’s ass to keep him up.
The bedroom is indeed far, perched on the upper level of the fortress’s left wing, at the top of a long staircase and at the end of a long corridor of similar chambers, where Heimdall senses a few presences.
Beyond closed doors, thankfully, as it would be difficult to explain the overgrown tatzelwurm clinging to him, squirming and panting in his ear as he nibbles at his neck and ruts against him as if in heat.
When he does reach their room and kicks the door open, his cock is weeping in his pants from Loki’s constant grinding and his neck has collected more hickeys than he could ever appreciate.
He’s more than happy to peel Loki off and throw him onto the bed.
Loki lands with an ‘oof’, then promptly wriggles back towards the pillows to begin his struggle with clothes anew.
Heimdall climbs after him and straddles his legs as he watches amusedly. “Having trouble with belts today? Wrapped yourself up into a package you can’t get out of?” Pointing at the azure-tinted leathers hanging loosely from his waist to his thigh, he adds, “I see a couple new ones too.”
“They’re ceremonial, okay?” Loki retorts with growing frustration, pulling uselessly at the fabric. “It seemed like a good idea this afternoon.”
“Well you’re not gonna break free from your ceremonial belts anytime soon,” Heimdall says matter-of-factly. “And I’m getting tired at the mere idea of unbuckling them all just to get you naked.”
“No no no please,” Loki begs, as if Heimdall’s implying something too terrible to live past. “I wanna—”
“Tell you what, I do like my gifts well-wrapped, so I’m gonna deal with this one belt,” Heimdall interrupts him, pushing the flaps of his skirts out of the way with a captivating idea in mind. “And that’s all the help I’m gonna offer.”
His hands quickly work the one supporting Loki’s pants, loosening its fit a little around his waist rather than unbuckling it completely. Then he roughly flips Loki on his belly, ignoring the squeak of protest, and yanks his trousers down.
The belt struggles past Loki’s hips. Heimdall needs to give it another hard tug to set it snugly under the curve of his ass. The pants bunch up just below, their downward movement impeded by the additional thigh belt holding Loki’s secret knife pocket.
Heimdall grabs a handful of the pert, naked cheeks under him, and parts them to eye his prize for the night.
“I only need access to this after all,” he casually says, brushing the pad of his thumb against the furled hole.
Loki’s legs twitch, trying to spread at the light touch, but the belt keeps them bound together, limiting his options. Whether his wish is to push back on his finger or press down to get some desperately needed friction on his dick, he cannot seem to accomplish anything that may give him some fulfillment.
His groan of impatience and helplessness, as he waits for Heimdall to take off his cape and push his pants down his hips at a deliberately unhurried pace, is a lovely sound to Heimdall’s ears.
One he successfully turns into a yelp of surprise when he seizes Loki’s hips and hauls them up, forcing Loki to scramble for balance on his knees.
“How do you want it,” he wonders as he teases Loki’s pucker again. His thumb presses harder on it this time, pushing in an inch to enjoy the interested twitch of Loki’s hips, before drawing back. “Fancy something more than spit?”
“Spit is fine, just get a move,” Loki hisses, made borderline feral by less than half a finger. His pushiness gets swiftly punished with a smack on his cheek.
“You really think you’re in the position to be bossy?” Heimdall asks, bending over him to stick three fingers into his mouth. Loki doesn’t need to be prompted: his tongue laps and twirls around them, coating them with a layer of saliva, but not one Heimdall deems sufficient. After a few seconds, his fingertips dig insistently at the back of Loki’s throat, earning a choked noise and causing globs of spit to drip copiously past his knuckles.
Heimdall grins. “Much better.”
When he slips two digits inside, Loki’s initial reaction is to lean away from them, but he’s quick to welcome the abrupt stretch and push back on their next slide, sucking them deeper with an eager roll of his hips. His rim is snug around Heimdall’s knuckles as he rapidly works it open, thrusting and spreading his fingers inside until Loki’s body is yearning for more.
Heimdall’s own body yearns no less to take their place. His erection keeps nudging Loki’s cheeks insistently in search for friction while he rushes through preparation, but it’s far from gratifying. He allows himself a few hard pumps, until Loki rubbing his legs together in hopes of some reprieve inspires him to do more.
Shuffling closer, he slips his dick in the snug space between Loki’s bound thighs, brushing with every rough glide against his testicles.
By the way Loki clasps his legs even tighter and keens, Heimdall gathers he appreciates the idea just as much.
“We’re not at home,” he says as Loki’s voice reaches a new volume. “You may want to keep your voice down. We have company on the other side of this wall.”
“I don’t really care,” Loki grunts, then lets out a whorish moan when Heimdall pushes a third finger in with no warning. His stretched rim convulses around him, instinctively trying to push him out, but he doesn’t budge, pressing further in instead, feeling for that familiar bundle of nerves inside him that will change Loki’s tune.
“Fair enough. You’ve never been a good guest,” Heimdall comments, just as he forcefully presses down on Loki’s sweet spot.
Loki’s back arches beautifully in reply, swept by a violent, full-body shiver that even Heimdall feels through the shaking thighs gripping his dick.
Heimdall knows he’s being an impatient little shit misled by pleasure when he begs, “Please put it in.”
“You sure about that?” Heimdall drawls as he takes out his fingers. “You like the prospect of limping your way back to the party that much?”
“Yes, whatever, yes,” Loki says, fingers clenching and unclenching in the sheets.
As per request, Heimdall pulls away from Loki’s warm thighs and lays his hard dick on the cleft of his ass, thrusting lightly along it in excited anticipation.
“Suit yourself,” he says, and in the next movement catching the tip of his cock against Loki’s rim, he rolls his hips forward and digs his way into him in one forceful thrust that tears an untamed cry out of Loki.
[ ask what that was go investigate or DON’T stay here don’t intrude ]
The heat within Loki takes his breath away for a long moment. He realizes he’s closed his eyes only when he has to reopen them, called by the need to stare down at where Loki’s rim stretches wide around him. Passing his thumb over it elicits another broken moan out of Loki. The small of his back, arched downward, glistens with sweat.
As Heimdall’s hand slides soothingly along his spine – wishing it could tear the rest of his bundled up skirts off and follow the line of naked skin all the way to his nape, revealing all the lean muscles trembling under him –Heimdall checks Loki’s mind for real discomfort. He only finds debauchery, familiar and thirsty for more despite, or because of, the tinge of pain.
Hiding his awe, Heimdall chuckles. “That attracted some attention. If you won’t shut up, you should at least make sure to scream my name next. That’ll certainly offer the eavesdroppers some context.”
He pulls out slowly, enjoying the way Loki’s insides seem to cling to him to keep him there. Then, he thrusts back in, hard and fast, fighting against the resistance and tearing another strangled yelp from Loki’s overworked throat that sounds a lot like his name.
Rinse and repeat, out gently and in brutally hard, and with every new push Loki’s muscles give way a little easier under the pressure.
When Heimdall finds a good angle to brush over his sweet spot on most thrusts, Loki starts biting into the pillow to muffle his noises. The fierce need to touch himself and heighten his pleasure to the edge of climax washes over him, but between his position and the roughness of Heimdall’s thrusts dragging his knees forward bit by bit, he can’t afford to move his hands away from the headboard.
“Heimdall,” Loki says, voice breaking on the next stab of his cock inside. “Touch me.”
“Where do you want me to touch you, Loki,” Heimdall urges him, unable to resist the sound of filthy words and pleas coming out of his once shy mouth. “Tell me.”
“My dick, please touch it, please, I need your hand on it.”
His reward doesn’t delay. Heimdall’s fist closes around his leaking dick and Loki’s hips spasm forward, chasing the makeshift hole like a rabbit.
Heimdall lets him have it, until his movements grow too frantic to mean anything other than an incoming release.
“Alright, that’s enough for now. I’m not done with you yet.” Heimdall pulls his hand away, leaving Loki to whine wantonly. Now that the resistance in Loki’s inner walls has ceded under the constant pistoning of his hips, it’s time to put his back into it.
Pushing Loki down flat on his belly, he drags him back so his head isn’t lolling dangerously against the headboard, then straddles his thighs and spreads his ass cheeks, to sink his dick back into Loki’s hole in one smooth glide.
He groans loudly, almost shamefully so. The new position makes it a tight fit, almost too tight, and as he rolls his hips back and forth, savoring the feeling in the private darkness his closed eyes offer, he almost changes his mind about the rough fucking. He could have Loki warm his cock through the night instead, enjoy the quivering insides, their heat, Loki’s red face half-buried in his pillow, tipsy from mead and nonstop pleasure.
Then, like a sharp wind cutting through a fog bank, the urgency returns to him along with the memory of Loki’s words at the party.
“Oh, not to worry, I will take it upon myself to deliver them,” Loki promises with a mean, crooked smile and Heimdall moans once again, letting the wave of desire take over his body. His hands grab the edge of the headboard as he raises his hips until the head of his dick barely breaches the rim, and then slams down.
“You know what would solve the issue pretty well? Marriage,” Loki says between one dance step and the next, his body jolting into the bed as if zapped by lightning. This is the best position for hammering into his point of pleasure, so Heimdall proceeds to do just that: he pounds into him relentlessly, pulling out all the way and punching back in.
Nerves swamped with the intensity of his thrusts, Loki trembles and buries his cries into the pillow, while his amused voice still bounces mercilessly around Heimdall’s brain.
“Children too,” he says with a grin, and Heimdall lets go of the headboard to blanket Loki’s body with his own, damp with sweat. Breath heavy, face burning, and so very glad Loki’s too lost in the violence of his own climax to look back and see him taken over by the fierce need to make him come apart, fill him up with come until he’s dripping with it, until he can’t take any more, until he’s—
Heimdall’s orgasm hits him like a punch, taking away his breath. He hugs Loki’s waist and empties deep inside of him with a choked moan.
“Shit,” he mumbles into Loki’s hair, feeling like he’s done something forbidden.
Through the mind-numbing afterglow, Loki squirms under him, still taut with pleasure as his convulsing muscles milk him dry. When he calls his name imploringly, unaware of his mild inner crisis, Heimdall’s glad for the excuse to focus on something other than his own thoughts.
“Didn’t you just come?” he groggily replies to the silent request in Loki’s mind.
Loki whimpers, his lack of answer a mix of embarrassment and unwillingness to string coherent words together.
His body’s pliant as Heimdall lazily rolls them both on their side. Slipping his forearm under Loki’s head and propping himself up on the elbow, Heimdall gains a proper view of Loki’s flushed dick, still undeniably hard and in need of relief.
“Oh, I see,” he says, voice brimming with smugness. Gently, he tucks some disheveled auburn braids behind Loki’s ear, to uncover the burning skin of his neck, damp with sweat he’s tempted to lick off. “You were enjoying it a little too much, huh? Couldn’t even wait to come from your dick.”
While one hand remains curled tight into the pelt as Heimdall grinds into him, the last languid thrusts he can afford with his softening dick, Loki’s other hand reaches up to sink his fingers in Heimdall’s hair.
Splayed against him with abandon, he makes such a pretty picture Heimdall can’t resist the invitation. After wetting the palm of his hand with spit, he takes a firm hold of Loki’s cock and begins to pump it.
Loki’s approval takes the shape of sweet little gasps rolling out of his lips with every upward stroke.
“You want to come properly?”
He nods fervently, his eyes falling shut as Heimdall thumbs his dripping slit over and over.
“You think you deserve it?” he teases.
That summons a spark of fight back in Loki. The glare he shoots once he turns halfway towards him, however, falls short of looking threatening when he has barely any breath to grumble, “I put up with you, don’t I?”
“Hmm, still feisty,” Heimdall sighs dramatically, making to pull away before Loki’s hand rushes to his withdrawing wrist.
“Don’t,” he gasps out, his voice walking a fine line between needy and demanding. “Heimdall, don’t you dare.”
Perhaps Heimdall’s grown soft with time, or perhaps it’s just particularly difficult to resist Loki when he says his name like that, breathy and uneven, because he caves in too easily.
As his strokes speed up, he bends down to kiss Loki’s parted mouth.
He’s very close, Heimdall realizes as Loki’s panting grows harsher. The movement of his hips turns frantic as his fingers tighten in a grounding grip around Heimdall’s wrist.
Heimdall likes to see him this way, on the verge of breaking down from pleasure. There’s a certain level of pride he nurses within himself, in knowing he’s part of the reason why Loki’s so thoroughly wrecked.
As his lips travel from Loki’s mouth to the shell of his ear, he chuckles breathily.
“You know, maybe we should have fucked at the dance,” he murmurs. “It would have made everyone so terribly envious, witnessing what a pretty face you make when you come for me.”
As if trying to prove him right, Loki’s mouth falls open, eyes squeezing shut as his expression morphs into a perfect picture of overwhelming bliss.
Cum wets the palm of Heimdall’s hand as Loki’s whole body shakes and curls up in pleasure. Heimdall keeps stroking the head of his dick through it, until everything Loki could give is taken from him and he goes boneless against him, gasping for breath.
In the minute of shared quiet that follows, Heimdall noses the crook of his shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent of Loki’s hair where it sticks in stray, damp tufts against his skin.
After absently wiping his cum-stained hand on the bedsheets – with a mental note to request new ones to the servants – he returns it to Loki’s hipbone to idly stroke the soft, heated skin.
There’s a sense of contentment wafting off of Loki’s relaxed body. Only ruined by what is already surfacing in his mind, and coercing him to grab the back of his pants and attempt to pull them up.
Heimdall doesn’t quite let him, hand slipping down teasingly to his reddened hole, to push the trickling cum back in with a thumb.
Loki lets out a tired sound, appreciative of his every touch but clearly asking Heimdall to make this easier on him.
“Heimdall. It was all very nice, but I need to go back.”
“You don’t need to do anything,” Heimdall corrects him. Brushing a slim braid off his neck, he plants a kiss in its place. Like a flower opening up to the spring’s sunrays, Loki cranes his head to offer Heimdall more skin to torment.
“I promised Durlin to discuss his new mining operation,” Loki sighs, sounding regretful of all his prior commitments. “And I told Father I’d get one last drink with him.”
His belly, or what of it Heimdall can touch before too many belts seal the rest off, is warm. He trails his palm over it – and just like that, his mind is back to having ridiculous thoughts. He forces himself away from them by considering his next steps. “You should skip all of that and stay here for those additional twenty minutes of torture.”
Loki whines as if the thought of refusing the offer is inflicting him physical pain. “Stop it. I have to.”
Sensing his defeat, Heimdall huffs in disapproval, saying nothing more. He leaves his arm around Loki, not truly binding but not light either. Loki can work for his freedom if he wants it so badly.
However, rather than pulling away just yet, Loki turns around in his hug. His thoughts are wandering, with a lightness not due only to his dwindling tipsiness and fucked out state.
“Today’s a pretty good day, isn’t it,” he says, thumb fondly brushing Heimdall’s cheekbone.
“How so.”
Loki shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just happy.”
The tightness in Heimdall’s chest comes back, insistent in his request to be let out. So he leans in to kiss Loki, steady and slow, like he has every right to prolong this for hours and ignore Loki’s wish to leave.
Their parting almost brings a confession out of his mouth: that in truth he’s glad the party downstairs is as far as Loki is planning to go, that he’s not sailing west with his father tomorrow. But he doesn’t want to witness the longing the words would elicit in him, the proof of his heart’s actual wants.
Instead, he says, “You’re getting drunk-sappy. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
In a peak display of maturity, Loki sticks a finger up Heimdall’s nostril.
Heimdall’s reactions are admittedly slow at this point, and his retaliation comes without much heat.
“Ow!” Loki laughs as Heimdall grabs the offending hand and nips it. “Why can’t I bite but you can?”
“You can’t? I can feel the hickeys all over my damn neck.”
“Ugh, whatever. Guess we’re even.”
Gingerly, Loki plays with his fingers. There’s some thoughts of biting he thankfully refrains from, before his mind spins back to their conversation.
“Are you?” he asks. “Happy, I mean.”
The touch of his hand is innocent, but also purposeful. It makes it easier for him to press down on the difficult barrier gods always seem to hold against his powers, to try and feel his emotions.
However hypocritical considering his own abilities, Heimdall used to hate the breach it created in him. Now, he knows it’s mostly Loki’s way to feel closer when Heimdall can’t spell the right words for him.
“In loud, obnoxious Veithurgard? Never.”
The lack of actual reply doesn’t seem to bother Loki, who huffs a chuckle as he places his hand on Heimdall’s forehead. “Right. How’s that going?”
Though he does feel better, the prospect of returning to the below chaos is unpleasant. “Like I could use some leaving and not coming back.”
“Just one more night and then we’ll be home.” Leaving him with an apologetic pat on his head, Loki sits up on the edge of the bed. “You can stay here if you don’t wanna go back.”
Heimdall scoffs as he watches him take more time than normal to unfasten the belt and stand up successfully on freed legs. The simple action has his jelly-like muscles quiver with fatigue, and yet, to Heimdall’s dissatisfaction, he perseveres. “And let hundreds of people go unmonitored while being granted free access to rivers of alcohol and countless good angles to stab you in the back? An excellent idea, Loki, why didn’t I think of that?”
“Alright, alright. Have your fun spying on people then. I would tell you not to overdo it, but I know you won’t listen to me.”
With sluggish motions, Loki goes through the necessary steps to make himself more or less presentable: grabbing a towel, he wets it in the basin of fresh water prepared by the maids and slowly washes himself. Then he refastens his pants at a proper width around his waist, with a question flickering by his head as he assesses the sting in his lower back. To heal himself or not?
Heimdall smirks at his silent decision to keep the reminder.
After one last check at his hair in the surface of the shield on the wall, adorned with far less flowers than he started the evening with, he saunters back to the bed on legs still wobbly from his orgasm, and bends down to peck his lips. “I’ll go ahead, you come whenever you’re ready. I love you.”
“I can see why,” Heimdall comments.
With an exasperated roll of his eyes, Loki turns and leaves, closing the door behind him.
In the quiet of the room, Heimdall stares in his wake with a mild frown, wondering whether this is some unconscious retribution for all the times he’s ignored all demands for cuddling and left Loki behind in a bed right after fucking.
But even if it was the case, it doesn’t exempt him from his duties. Calling his sense of honor upon himself, he also stands up, fixes himself and follows Loki.
When he reaches the party, Loki’s on the threshold with his father, plus an endless number of acquaintances trying to whisk him away.
After getting a brief promise to come back for a drink soon, Kratos watches him leave with the same trained acceptance Heimdall hates spotting in himself.
However, his perceptive eye picks up on the dark bruises on his neck, badly hidden by fabric and darkness.
His stern gaze crosses Heimdall’s, and Heimdall, as ready as ever, sends a wicked smile back.
ᛝ
The body of the wyvern, corrupted and mutated by Seiðr magic, lies lifeless in the pile of rotten wood and leaves.
“She’s gone,” Heimdall states.
Loki lets out a small, rueful sigh. The careful excitement thrumming in his veins earlier in the day, when he learnt of the sightings of wyverns near Goddess’ Falls, has now petered out. There’s nothing left to do here: they both know that nature is not kind; Seiðr users, even less so.
“Guess we tried,” he says half-heartedly, but the guilt in his voice remains.
“Let’s go,” Heimdall says curtly, eager to leave this mess behind. After one last glance at the dead creature, he turns to leave.
“Wait!”
Heimdall does, instinctively spreading out his senses to look for danger. But upon closer inspection, it becomes clear Loki’s thoughts aren’t alarmed: they’re interested in the source of a specific sound in the Vanaheim forest that has caught his attention.
“I think she had cubs. Can you hear them cry? Wait, is it cubs? Puppies? Chicks?” Loki wonders while he excitedly skips over the carcass and looks around the massive rocks surrounding them.
That’s when Heimdall realizes the chirp he’s been absently hearing may not come from chittering birds.
He follows the faint noise, across a broken tree and a boulder blanketed in lichen and caved in on the side. At its top, a tight mess of branches and leaves is nestled, scarcely visible from where he stands.
“Found something?” Loki asks agitatedly, and Heimdall nods upwards.
“Loki,” he says warningly as the other rushes to climb the rock.
When they reach the top, the pathetic sight of five little screeching reptiles greets them. Huddled together in a spacious nest still holding the remnants of their eggshells, they’re obviously underfed and greedy to receive food in their open beaks.
Beside him, Loki is a whirlwind of dangerous ideas. When he opens his mouth, Heimdall preemptively says, “No.”
“Why! Look at them! They’re gonna die out here alone,” Loki rebuts with a defiant frown.
“Then let them. Nature works that way. Only the strong can survive.”
“They are strong for surviving until now without their mother,” Loki objects.
“Our place is already invaded by beasts. We can’t add five growing wyverns to our porch.”
“We don’t have to keep them all. Once they get a little older, maybe they can find their own home in Ida’s Rebirth. There’s Aesirs there who must remember how to care for wyverns. I have a feeling Thrúd would love one.”
Looking at the ugly little beasts, too young to even look like wyverns, Heimdall sighs. If they take them and die under their care, Loki won’t get over it for ages. If they must rescue them, it might be best to bring them to Ida’s Rebirth directly.
“Also, it’s been a while since you’ve had a mount,” Loki says cautiously. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have one again? And you’d be able to fly along when I’m a falcon. I swear it’s so boring to wait for you sometimes.”
Heimdall sends him a nasty glare, which gets parried by a hopeful look.
“There aren’t many wyverns left in the Realms, Heimdall. We should protect the ones we can.”
And that’s what it all boils down to. The true reason behind Loki’s concern.
There is more to this than just animals in need. Wyverns are native to Asgard and thus, in his eyes, a precious token of its past existence. Proof that the destruction brought down on it wasn’t absolute: something did outlive Odin’s ruling and, most importantly, Loki’s own actions.
It’s a pattern Heimdall knows well by now. Loki faces his regrets not with acceptance but with an obsession to fix what went wrong, even if that requires making more mistakes. His guilt is a silent parasite sitting still for long periods of time in his mind, making him seem the most untroubled person in all Realms – until the occasion appears to catch stray remnants, and he does everything in his power to build a simulacrum of what once was out of them. Atone, for his inability to foresee the real consequences of his decisions.
Heimdall used to hate him for it. Whenever he could, he would dig the knife in that wound, enjoying the bittersweet taste of retaliation. For the hypocrisy, the gall of wreaking havoc and believing it could all be fixed afterwards, as if he deserved the chance to feel better about himself. For trying to recreate pieces of a previous life that only looked like the real thing, but weren’t.
Once his hatred bled into acceptance, he still didn’t lose the belief Loki had a dangerous way of thinking. How does one learn from their mistakes, if they keep being absolved of every memory of it?
Even now, Heimdall’s first instinct is to tell him this is an easy cop-out. It’s time for him to learn to live with the consequences of his actions like Heimdall did, like everyone else. That he should stop looking for ways to fix something that cannot be fixed. Saving five scrawny wyverns won’t bring Asgard back, nor will it free him of the weight he carries. If anything, some old, ever-bleeding part of Heimdall would argue wyverns should have perished along with their world. In honor of it, like the most loyal generals do when their king dies. Like he himself should have.
But Loki looks at him with hope in his eyes, and Heimdall doesn’t say any of it.
Because he’s grown tired of cruelty, or maybe because he’s found that heeding Loki’s ideas doesn’t always lead to catastrophes. In fact, many fine moments Heimdall’s experienced wouldn’t have happened without him.
What Loki’s proposing isn’t illogical: the chicks have a small chance of survival, and the Aesir would love to care for them. Just like when he went on his search for the missing giants, or convinced Heimdall to work on a new arm, he does raise some good points.
Loss is an ever present facet of life which never seems to spare anyone. So, in the rare times of luck when something proves to be recoverable, why not embrace the chance?
With a sigh, Heimdall kneels down in front of the nest. “Wyverns have volatile temperaments. They’re prone to electric shocks, setting things on fire and getting hyperactive during thunderstorms. They get very territorial and competitive. They will need to be disciplined.”
Sensing a breach, Loki follows him into a crouch, tapping his knees restlessly. “Seems fine to me.”
“You will fetch the food,” Heimdall states with a tone that brooks no arguments, and Loki nods enthusiastically, “And I will teach them to behave.”
“Yes.” Loki’s excitement is overflowing from him like an annoying beam of light pointed right into Heimdall’s pupils. “We’re gonna do great. And one day, we could actually have a flight together.”
Heimdall eyes dubiously the sickly chicks, cheeping away with their song of hunger.
“We’ll see,” he says, and reaches out to pet the long sharp beak of Annarkostr’s, who chirps happily at the attention.
“Who’s my best girl,” Heimdall coos as her claws break into a little dance on the spot. “Have they been treating you well? I sure hope so. For their own good.”
The dwarven woman feeding the goats behind the outside fence hears him loud and clear, and goes make herself look busy sweeping the floor.
At the sound of his voice, Loki’s wyvern also peeks out of the adjacent box, stretching out eagerly to receive his own share of scratches. Like owner, like pet.
“Soon you and Fimir will both be free and we’ll go back home,” Heimdall says, for their sake as much as his own. After one last pat to their scaly necks, he leaves the building and heads back to the fortress to prepare for their departure.
He left Loki this morning while he was still sleeping, but their room is empty when he returns to it. The bedsheets have been rearranged and Loki’s belongings have been lumped on the wooden desk, ready for pickup. His precious sketchbook is among them, forgotten open on a freshly drawn series of doodles.
What seems to be a young girl with long, darkish hair covering half of her face looks back from the page with intense, clear eyes. Beyond her defining features, the lines are a little uncertain, as if they’d been sketched through a foggy memory. Around her, a frame of runes, deleted and rewritten over each other. A likely attempt to remember an unfamiliar spell seen in a dream, given the hastily jotted note to the side, ‘Some kind of cold magic?’, followed by a smaller ‘Who’s Hela?’.
Quietly, he closes the book and puts it in Loki’s bag.
Loki generally prefers keeping it private, and Heimdall knows he wastes enough time interpreting and memorizing the details of his visions for the both of them. Especially now that they’ve grown scarce in the last few years, as if their rarity has somehow made them intrinsically more valuable. If anything of relevance comes up in them, Loki will share it with him – or he’ll think about it often enough for Heimdall to catch up at some point.
Eager to depart as soon as possible, he dons his armored skirt and cape, then listens for Loki’s voice.
He’s on the floor below, in the company of his friends, and when Heimdall reaches him in the kitchens, he’s sat at one of the tables, taking a bite of a fresh loaf of bread while laughing over last night’s events.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ljómi and Lúnda dance like that,” Angrboda says, her giggles escaping under the hand covering her smile.
“Yeah, I wasn’t ready for it,” Thrúd says. Noticing his arrival, she adds, “Not ready for him either.”
Loki’s reaction is visibly happier as he turns and sees him. As Heimdall comes to stand behind him, he leans his back against him. “Hey, go easy on him, he’s actually been great last night. I think he even impressed a couple important people.”
“Don’t coddle me like a baby,” Heimdall warns him.
“I’m not! I’m just saying you looked very cool last night,” Loki says glancing up at him with a charmed expression. “Breaking up arguments, keeping peace, and all the things. Didn’t he?”
“Loki, I’m sorry… You’re the only one who’s ever thought that,” Thrúd comments.
“Shall we go inform the King we’re heading to the village?” Heimdall tells Loki, ignoring her.
Angrboda’s curiosity is piqued. “Where are you going?”
“Someplace not far. A small favor to the King,” Loki explains.
“Wish I could come.” Thrúd’s groan seems to come straight from her soul. “Instead, I gotta go to Ida’s Rebirth because mom wants me to have some… hands-on lesson on diplomacy. Dunno why she’s so insistent on this. It’s not like I’ll ever leave the Shield Maidens.”
“She just wants her daughter to be as knowledgeable as possible, it’s not bad for a warrior to ‘learn the ways of peace’,” Angrboda says, switching to a deeper, stern voice for the last part, in quite a remarkable imitation of Kratos. “I mean, look at Freya. She does both amazingly.”
“I suppose…” Of course, it only takes one mention of the former Queen of Valkyries for Thrúd to give some ground. “What about you, Heimdall? It’s been a while since you’ve come around, and to my surprise, some people are actually asking about your next visit.”
Unwilling to endorse any more rabid investment in his social life and reputation, Heimdall pointedly doesn’t look down at Loki, whose proud gaze is boring a hole in his face. “I’ll pass by when I can.”
Thrúd shrugs as Angrboda stands up and distracts Loki with the offer of a hug. “See you tomorrow for our ingredients hunt?”
Always the touchy type – and to make matters worse, one who grew up with the nemesis of physical affection – Loki doesn’t skip on the invitation. Up on his feet, he warmly returns the embrace. “Yeah, I’ll meet you at our house.”
The one commonality Heimdall and Thrúd share as relatives: they observe hugs from a safe distance, careful not to be pulled in by the likes of the giants.
Thrúd’s goodbyes are indeed a quick, aloof business, and when they part ways at the fortress’ gate, she’s ready to spread her wings and fly off toward the closest mystic gateway. A brisk side of her Heimdall’s come to appreciate, as a foil to all the slush certain people bring about.
Less than a minute passes from the women’s departure before they’re ambushed for another farewell in the hallway.
“Lad! We were looking for you,” Mimir exclaims, held up between Kratos and Freya in their approach.
“Hey. I expected to find you in Sigrún’s company until the very last minute,” Loki jokes lightheartedly.
“Aye, you’re not far off. We spent the whole night together, in fact! But alas, she left a half hour ago.”
“So… you’re leaving now?” Loki’s tone doesn’t do a great job at hiding his longing, but there’s also an excitement there, for watching his father step out on his own personal adventure toward untrailed paths.
Heimdall’s focus shifts to the usual land beacon that is Loki and his emotions. There’s nothing more than what he already knows there: the wish to go, the wish to stay, the happiness of watching his father continue his own journey on his own, the wish to be a part of all journeys.
“Never a better time than after a good rest and a tasty breakfast.”
“Don’t hold them any longer, Atreus, or Kratos may just reconsider,” Freya says teasingly.
“Hm. I will not change my mind,” Kratos grumbles, as always unable to concede a lighthearted reply to a joke. “Though I will miss the familiarity of these lands.”
“I’m sure you’ll find something to appreciate in the new ones too,” Loki chuckles. “And in any case, this place will be here when you return. That’s the nice part about home.”
“Well said, like a true wanderer,” Freya agrees, her smile warm. “And when you come back, you’ll have much to tell us.”
“I will… try,” Kratos says, following up with a noncommittal noise that gives an idea of how much he looks forward to spinning tales of his travels.
Well aware of his father’s flaws, Loki breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank the gods you’ll be there Mimir. I can’t stand the thought of Father going alone, only to keep all the stories to himself.”
“I’ll do my best to sate your curiosity, laddie.”
“Well then,” Freya says, bending down to leave a light kiss on Mimir’s hair, and then offering her arm for Kratos to grasp. “Travel safely, you two, and don’t doubt that we will all miss you. I’ll be waiting for your return.”
Kratos doesn’t quite expect the one armed hug she tricks him in. Foolish on his part, as he should be familiar with Freya’s sentimentality. He’s wise to not resist it, and with one last intense look that seems to promise repercussions if they were to return in pieces or not return at all, Freya leaves them.
“Ah, I’m getting teary-eyed here with all these goodbyes,” Mimir mumbles, voice thick with genuine emotion. Heimdall has to make an active effort not to shoot him a flat look. “But I guess it’s good to leave on a good note, aye? This Sigrblót was a success! Kratos and I feared it would end in a tumble between Heimdall and the dwarves, and yet all was good. You didn’t even attempt one public shaming this time. I’m impressed!”
“I can be polite if everyone around me also is,” Heimdall says irritably. “Loki has caused much more ruckus than anyone else at parties. But everyone seems quick to forget that.”
“Stop bad-mouthing me,” Loki whines.
Mimir exhales a thoughtful hum. “You may be onto something there.”
“No he’s not!”
“Atreus, let us talk,” Kratos says. Before snatching his son for a private goodbye, he puts on his own display of contrived respect. “Heimdall. To our next meeting.”
Nonetheless, the offer of his arm, mirroring Freya’s gesture, comes as a surprise to Heimdall. Under Loki’s owlish gaze, he has no choice but to take it, nodding in salute.
He grants them space afterwards, retracing his steps to the upper floor and waiting silently beside one of the embrasures facing the courtyard. At the edge of it, Loki and Kratos have their heart-to-heart, give each other one last hug, and then go their separate ways.
While Heimdall’s eyes may be on them, his ears exceptionally try to focus on other voices, different conversations, and not intrude.
When Loki rejoins him, expression oscillating between contentment and heartache, Heimdall says, “Shall we go?”
He nods absently as he leans a shoulder on the other side of the embrasure, throwing a glance outside. His father has already disappeared beyond the bridge, and the courtyard is active with workers dismantling the booths from last night and the many guests preparing for the trip home. Now that Sigrblót has come and gone, a soothing sense of quiet has descended upon the valley – and, it seems, on Loki too.
When Loki’s mind reaches for new lands, his whole body sings with bone-deep yearning, tricking him into restless nights and intrusive daydreaming until his need is quenched. His wanderlust is a fast-spreading disease, and the knowledge of someone being out there, sating their own, is a surefire way to ignite it anew.
But right now, even in his wishful plans for sailing the seas, he’s still and unhurried as he asks, “Did you have fun?”
“Could have gone with less drunkards,” Heimdall replies.
“I was one of them.”
“You were. You have a tendency to throw yourself at me when you are.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It makes little difference from when you’re not drunk,” Heimdall comments, readily parrying Loki’s annoyed kick at his shin.
“I personally liked it a lot,” Loki quips, as if Heimdall didn’t know. “In fact, I was thinking it would be really cool if we held a party at our house too.”
“You—” Heimdall startles in alarm, just before the mischievous intent in Loki’s mind registers. Collecting himself, he still deems it important to complete his warning. “You are not opening our house to the masses.”
“Alright alright,” Loki snickers. “But honestly, it was nice to see everyone. I hope we get to do this again soon. Maybe when Father returns.”
A long moment passes quietly observing the moving crowd in the courtyard before Loki asks, “Were Freya and Father thinking of anything when they hugged?”
Heimdall stifles his derisive laugh at the studiously casual tone, as if that could hide his nosiness. “For the last time, Loki: I won’t endorse your obsession for Kratos’ romantic life. Leave me out of it.”
Clearly dissatisfied with his recalcitrance, Loki puts on a mask of offense. “I’m not obsessed! I just think there’s something there, and it’s frustrating to see it go nowhere!”
“Have you considered that it may all be in your head?”
Loki scrunches up his nose in a comical expression of distaste. “No. I could swear my Father doesn’t act like that around anyone else… and I feel like I could be doing something to, I don’t know, push them on the right track.”
“Because things go so well whenever you meddle,” Heimdall says flatly.
“Did you know that in Father’s homeland,” Loki continues as if not hearing him at all, “there was a god who shot arrows at people and made them fall in love with each other?”
“And did the little chaotic archer garner a good reputation for his line of job?”
“Whatever,” he mumbles vaguely, knowingly leaving the question unanswered. “I’ll find my own way to speed things up.”
“How about you stop prying, let them be, and see where it goes naturally.”
“What if that means another ten years of tiptoeing around each other?”
“So what?”
With a huff, Loki opens both his arms in what he seems to believe is an self-explanatory gesture.
“Well. Whatever that meant, your nefarious plans will have to wait for his return,” Heimdall points out. Then, perhaps snarkier than necessary, he adds, “Or is relationship talk gonna be your excuse to follow Kratos on that boat?”
“Contrary to popular belief, I’m actually fine with staying behind,” Loki huffs. His head tilts against the wall as he shoots him a funny look. His foot lolls out to tap his shin again. Not an attack this time, just an acknowledgement of their closeness. “I happen to be exactly where I want to be right now.”
Just like that, Loki softly nudges Heimdall’s whole being into a violent impetus. To do what, is an understanding that always comes to him belatedly, after reason resurfaces in his mind and gives a proper definition to the itch in his fingers and the unsettling lightness in his chest. Pull him closer, usually. Kiss him stupid, to make sure he won’t change his mind any time soon.
But after all these years, he’s still dismally unprepared for Loki’s tenderness, and before he can figure out what to say, Loki has all the time to continue, “However… you know what would mend any lingering heartache?”
“Sex in the war room?” Heimdall asks, though it’s not a question at all.
Loki nods with the sad pout of a baby who got their candy snatched from their hand.
“You’re a nasty little thing,” Heimdall informs him, painfully aware of his voice’s distinct lack of heat or even mock. His mind is still wrapped too tight around Loki’s words to remember what smugness is. “They gave you private chambers and other privileges, and you just want to sully the room where their greatest plans arise.”
“It would add value to this whole experience,” Loki objects. “And don’t forget you’re the one who brought it up and then failed to deliver.”
Letting out a heavy sigh, Heimdall zones out, spreading out his hearing to the opposite wing of the stronghold.
After some seconds of cursory investigation, he surmises, “The war room should be empty right now. The King’s in his chambers and his attendants are scurrying about.”
Eyes perking up, Loki’s quick to slip his hand in Heimdall’s and give it an eloquent squeeze.
“So…?”
“We’d need to be quick,” Heimdall clarifies.
“Very quick,” Loki nods fervently in agreement. “Then we go.”
Without a good reason to oppose his wickedness, Heimdall lets himself be kissed and pulled steadily in the direction of the war room.
ᛝ
“Thank you once again for the hospitality. It was an honor to be here.”
With his braids visibly unkempt and shoulder guard barely hanging where it should, Loki sounds a little winded in his speech. He could put on a better performance, Heimdall thinks, to pretend a blowjob hasn’t knocked the breath out of him a minute before. But if he doesn’t care, Heimdall surely won’t be the one to.
The King doesn’t seem to be onto them, anyway: his gratitude for the gods’ support is a blinding shield standing in defense of their dignity.
“The honor was mine,” he says, his words carrying more honesty than they did the previous day. “We will wait to receive your news on the situation. However selfish of me, I do hope your investigation will come out to be a simple waste of time.”
“As do we,” Loki says understandingly.
When they leave Veithurgard’s court to fetch their wyverns, Loki asks, “So, what do you think of it?”
“Some sort of Ancient has woken up under the mountain?”
“I thought so too, but for it to cause an avalanche? And what of the night lights?”
“Binding enchantments, perhaps.”
“What kind then…” Loki’s eyes stray ahead as his mind coils around the mystery at hand like a snake contemplating how to start eating its prey. The countless hypotheses and theories he churns out in his guessing game go unshared, and Heimdall doesn’t disrupt the flow with pointless questioning. When he’s ready, Loki will start talking anyway, and will refuse to stop.
For now, Heimdall’s fine with letting the noisiness of his thinking drown out everyone else’s.
The wyverns, waiting impatiently inside the stables, look as eager to leave this place as Heimdall is. They shriek excitedly once freed from their confinement, springing into the air with powerful flaps as soon as their riders mount on the saddles.
Being no ordinary sight in Midgard, nor known as docile beasts, their takeoff earns some stares from the commonfolk of the valley. Awed and nervous in equal measure, their eyes linger as Heimdall proudly guides Annarkostr upwards, over the rocks peaks of Veithurgard and into the sky.
Soon, their thoughts are a distant memory, and Heimdall can finally focus his senses on simple things: the crisp air hitting his face; the humid smell of low-hanging clouds; the light electric bite of his wyvern’s scales when his legs rub too hard against its sides.
Flying wasn’t always his favorite activity. The clouds would frizz out his hair, the cold wind would howl into his ears and the hard ground would mock him from below whenever his wyvern acted up in training. But once he and Annarkostr found their rhythm, flying came to mean being far up over everything and everyone else. Overlooking the world, the stretch of the horizon, the lack of invisible threats. It would remind him how it felt to stand on the Wall.
He’s come to appreciate its perks since then.
Loki, keeping up at his side, rides his wyvern like he was born on one. With hair whipping at his back, he guides Fimir into a vertical loop with a shout of excitement.
“Showoff,” Heimdall says to the wind.
Their destination isn’t far. The small village the King spoke of is perched halfway up the mountain side among grey rocks and evergreens. A handful of tortuous paths slither to and from it, and a long trail of people and carts slowly travels down the largest one, keeping a careful distance from its edges and the fatal drop they promise.
“Looks like they’ve started leaving the village,” Heimdall says.
Loki squints his eyes, trying to spot them. “What do you see?”
“Families, dwarven and human, with their belongings and beasts of burden. A stuck cart and some soldiers.”
“We should land and check if anyone needs help.”
Coasting the mountain side, they find a landing spot about midway into the caravan, where a line of slow-paced pigs has created some space from the villagers ahead.
Among the fearful glances of the mortals, Loki and Heimdall dismount, directing the wyverns to remain in flight above the area. Easing the tension with an encouraging smile and a wave of hand to the onlookers, Loki asks Heimdall, “Where are the closest guards?”
“They’re coming to us,” he replies, starting to head in their direction.
Loki follows. Never one to skip icy surfaces, he does so by sliding ahead across a wide frozen puddle, until something shiny catches his eye at the edge of the path. With a nimble hop off the ice, he jogs away to pick up what seems to be a couple of stray hacksilver pieces. “Hm. Nice.”
“Can you grow up?” Heimdall suggests.
“Wha—”
“Halt!” Two armored humans, swords at the ready, run out of the tail end of the crowd with heavy breaths and mild concern. “Who are you?!”
“The reason these mortals may be able to return home at some point,” Heimdall tells them curtly.
“Apologies for his rudeness,” Loki intervenes, holding a hand up. “I am Loki Laufeyson. King Herrauðr sent us here to investigate the tremors.”
The humans’ attitude, as that of the other mortals passing them by, changes at the name. It makes them take in more closely Heimdall’s eyes and clothing as well. “Loki, you say? So, you…” The guard’s eyes dart between the two of them. “The Wanderer of Realms, and… the Tamer of Beasts—”
Something closer to a pathetic pout than a scowl replaces Loki’s friendly expression.
“Seriously?” His arms open in exasperation as he gestures at Heimdall like he’s some sort of disappointing wonder. “You think he is the Tamer of Beasts?”
“Uh—”
“I am,” Loki clarifies, pointing passionately at himself. “I am the Tamer of Beasts. The Great Wolf Fenrir? The Hafthorpe Kraken? The Giant Dreki of the Aurvangar Wetlands? Do any of these ring a bell?”
“Umm, a-actually…” The guard sweats visibly, trailing off.
“Whatever,” Loki mutters, shoulders falling in dejection. “We’re just here to help.”
“You’ve got a cart stuck on the road,” Heimdall maturely points out, bringing the group back to the tasks at hand.
The human latches onto his words like a lifeline. “Y-Yeah, there is. We’re trying to free it, but it’s taking time.”
“We can take a look at it,” Loki offers.
As they begin to walk in the guards’ wake, Heimdall takes great delight in telling him, “You’re aware this is your fault. If you hadn’t gone around trying to spread random names for yourself—”
“If people didn’t see the point in it, it should’ve simply died out!” Loki protests fervently. “I don’t get it, what did you even tame to justify the confusion?!”
Cocking an eyebrow, Heimdall sizes him up, an eloquent stare from head to toe and up again that Loki doesn’t seem to appreciate.
“Oh, shut up.”
“In any case, I think I’ll leave the heroic show of strength to you.” Without waiting for permission, he picks up a blood-red apple from a passing basket, to the silent confusion of the mortal carrying it. “I’ll go do my own thing.”
Loki squints at him, wondering what his ‘own thing’ entails. A valid inquiry, yet not one Heimdall feels like he owes an answer to.
“Okay… Maybe ask some questions to the villagers in the meantime?”
Opening his arms wide, Heimdall performs a pompous bow for him. “Your word is my law, oh Tamed Beast.”
Turning on his heels under Loki’s flat look, he brings the apple to his mouth for a bite and walks uphill.
Worry weighs heavy among the people here, for the homes left behind and the dangers ahead. They whispers among themselves about the mountain’s will, but also about the wyverns flying above their heads and the ‘man with glowing eyes’. The rumors travel up the caravan like river fish.
“A bad omen, I tell you.” An older man with an unkempt beard walks mere feet ahead of Heimdall, carrying a cart full of sacks. His low voice holds the heavy, foreboding tone of soothsayers as he speaks to his travelling companion, a young man barely holding himself together through his disquietude. Both unaware of Heimdall’s presence behind them. “The Chaos Bringer reaching us here. Prepare for the worst, for wherever he goes, problems follow soon. We’ll be paying the consequences for his visit.”
[ get far away from them leave them to the mountain we should have chased them out accept your punishment for not having listened to your instincts beware the chaos bringer ]
“Gods are more trouble than worth. I remember Ragnarök—”
“I remember it too,” Heimdall interjects, and the two men jump from the fright, turning to him with eyes wide. “In fact, I bet I fought in it more than you two combined. More than most, really. So trust me when I say, the god you’re speaking of is your only chance to see your homes again, because he’s the only one willing to put himself in danger to solve your sorry little situation. So you may want to show some respect.”
The faint tremble in their body, as the realization of having gravely misspoken slowly dawns on them, is what Heimdall was waiting to continue. “If that’s settled, do tell me more what you’re actually escaping from. It isn’t just the tremors, is it?”
“There… there have been some newcomers in the village,” the young one stammers out, keen on making up for any perceived ungratefulness. “They passed by, then disappeared up the mountain. Some thought they’d found something big somewhere in the upper caves, like a gold vein, but when old Harald went to check on them up the mountain pass, they wouldn’t let him through. They’d blocked the way. Whatever they found, they wanted it for themselves. Got violent if we pushed.”
“Good thing we didn’t, given how the King’s men who went to check didn’t come back,” the old one interjects gloomily.
“They weren’t heavily armed, but they were scary in their own way. They came back sometimes, for food or other stuff, and sometimes brought around someone new, but then they showed up less and less. The tremors, though, they became more frequent.”
“It was no gold vein,” the older man says with bold confidence, breaking his tense silence. “But some ancient, powerful secret. Those were cultists, I tell you, protecting gods know what evil source of magic. Think of Bodil, he was the one who brought them here!”
“Who’s Bodil?”
“He used to live in the village until like a moon ago or so. A cripple from birth, tormented by all sorts of pain in his bones, and a real loony on top of that. Rarely left his house during the day, and went around making weird noises at night. Then one day, out of nowhere, he covered himself in furs and walked up the mountain, all on his own. We all thought he was going to put an end to his life in the privacy of the mountain’s shadows. ‘I must,’ he said, and we didn’t stop him, because mind you, it wasn’t too bad to see him go: he had no use for the village and no family either. Brother died young and the parents fell off the cliff in an accident not longer after. We all thought we wouldn’t see him again and many of us were grateful for it. But instead, a week later he came back. And with tricks at that!”
Heimdall’s eyebrows rise. “What sort of tricks?”
“Seiðr Magic,” the old man hisses. “Or something even worse, who can say. Before his trip, he could barely walk for an hour without his legs swelling, but afterwards… His legs were. Different.”
“They were as grey as stone. Just as sturdy too,” the young one fills in. “He moved better than he used to, didn’t seem to tire as easily. He wore heavy clothes so I couldn’t see everything, but I could swear his whole body seemed bulkier in places… and not in a normal way. Anyway, he knew my cousin, who lost a leg some time ago. He went to her and told her family he could give it back, one better than the old one, like he’d given himself. He never used any magic before then, you see, but suddenly he thought he could cure the entire village of any physical ailments. But the family… they got scared of him. They didn’t believe his mutations were a gift of the gods, and he didn’t deny it. He said his magic came from a higher being than gods.”
The man gulps as his mind travels back to that day. “Soon after that, he left in the middle of the night.”
“Tell him about the others,” the other prompts him. “Tell him! The cultists!”
“Y-yeah, they started coming after Bodil left. But I don’t know… we didn’t see Bodil again after that. How can a person who’s learnt some healing magic can be related to the trembling earth?”
“They’re related alright,” the old man spits out in a zealous fury. “He was up to no good. Tell him of the eyes! You’re the one who saw them!”
“What about the eyes,” Heimdall inquires, staring at the rattled man, who wrings his hands nervously.
“His eyes, the last time I saw him, they glowed green. They didn’t do that before, and they looked…”
Crazy, the other one’s thoughts quietly complete for him.
“You’re the Watchman, the God of Surveillance, aren’t you?” the older man says, unexpectedly showing a level of devotion he didn’t grant Loki. “You will help us, won’t you? Strike the cultists down and protect our village?”
Heimdall hums, taking a perfunctory look into their skittish minds. They’re convinced of their tale. Whether there’s any truth in it, it’s something Loki will certainly love to figure out himself.
“Tell me how to reach this mountain pass the men took,” he requests, and the two villagers hasten to present a detailed description of the path before he leaves them.
By the time he comes back, Loki has lifted the cart out of its pit and repaired the broken wheel with magic. With a satisfied smile, he straightens up and wipes his hands like he’s finished a long day of work. A cluster of dazzled people surrounds him, to examine the sturdy roots sprouting out of its wooden frame to secure it to the axle.
Waiting on the side of the road, Heimdall tosses the remnants of his apple over the cliff’s edge and grants Loki another five seconds of praise-seeking before calling his name.
“Done showing off?” he asks when Loki jogs to him.
“It’s called helping, Heimdall. But I get why you wouldn’t know that.”
“That’s too bad, because you definitely need the reputational boost with these people. While you were busy ‘helping’, I was getting useful information from someone who really didn’t seem to like you, despite your best efforts.”
“What?” Loki’s frustrated frown returns. “What did I do?”
“Build a notoriety for being a menace.” Heimdall heaves a dramatic sigh as he watches the flow of villagers pass by them. “How to blame them.”
“Sure… Wanna tell me what they thought of you then?”
For someone who genuinely cares for Heimdall’s fame, Loki seeks comfort in the widespread reputational advantage he’s got on him oddly often. This time, however, Heimdall can offer none. “Only good things.”
With a suspicious squint of his eyes, Loki says, “Yeah, stealing apples from poor evacuees does that. You may want to start pulling some carts too if you wanna be appreciated.”
“If I cared for it, which I don’t, capitalizing on their dislike for you would be a much better strategy. I’m sure I’d win their favor in a heartbeat.”
“And how would you even do that?”
Stepping right in front of him, Heimdall smiles.
“Like this,” he says, pushing hard at Loki’s chest and sending him to stumble back and over the brink of the cliff.
Loki’s eyes widen right before he falls, hands reaching out frantically. “I can’t shapeshift—!”
The warning is so sudden and unexpected that Heimdall’s instincts kick in faster than his powers.
The air particles slow down around him as his hand shoots out in a fit of alarm – panic – to snatch Loki away from a gruesome fall—then his rationality catches up.
The moment passes, in two heartbeats louder than he’d have liked, and Loki disappears off the edge, his mind a nest of mischievous intent.
When his falcon form rises up in the sky, Heimdall considers throwing a rock at his stupid bird face.
[ run away tell my friends step back from them look below see if he killed him don’t meddle ]
As he turns around, his glare startles some villagers into silence.
“He deserved it,” he snaps at them, resuming his trek upstream.
Loki rejoins him leisurely half a minute later, first in a soft flap of feathered wings, then on two feet landing softly on the uneven ground.
“Gained some fame?” he chirps.
“As promised,” Heimdall says irritably, deliberately avoiding the sight of his shit-eating grin.
“You know, for a moment there, it looked like you suddenly remembered you love me.”
“Hmm, no, that was me remembering you aren’t worth the hassle.”
Loki’s hum is an eloquent, drawn out noise of cockiness. “Sooo… What information did you gather from your fans?”
Accompanied by Heimdall’s recounting of the humans’ peculiar tale, soon the last of the caravan passes by, leaving them to continue the climb alone.
“Healing magic?” Loki questions with predictable curiosity. “That’s complex magic for the most part. To be able to regrow limbs or erase a deeper malady within someone’s body takes hard work, and doesn’t always lead to success.”
“You recreated my arm,” Heimdall points out. “Couldn’t it be something similar?”
“The principles could be the same perhaps, but it took me months of study and then forever to get it done, and I doubt it would have worked on a mortal. If what they’re telling us is true, this guy couldn’t light a candle with magic one day, and the next he was healing himself, and potentially others, on the spot. That’s not normal.”
Mulling over the information, Loki bites his bottom lip. “And how are the earthquakes connected to that? Did he receive these new abilities from some sort of entity? What is it doing under the mountain? This entire situation is really weird.”
Agreed, Heimdall leaves unvoiced.
When they step foot into the abandoned settlement, the eeriness of the place is a hulking presence encumbering its silent corners and ghostly clusters of huts and stables. Devoid of its people, Grœnnfell is a shell of a village, trying to maintain a semblance of life through the remnants of daily activities left scattered in the empty streets.
On the other side of it, a handful of steep paths curl up around and through the mountain. Heimdall guides Loki to the left one, its impervious floor making their ascent slow and cautious.
Then, Heimdall catches a male voice in the blowing wind. It speaks with another, about the villagers leaving.
“What is it?” Loki asks, noticing his distraction.
“There’s someone, way ahead.”
The conversation stops as they both move forward.
Many feet up, the path widens into a moss-covered clearing hugged by jagged rocks. There, two men in dark robes and furs stand at the mouth of a cave, the darkness within hiding its depth. Their posture seems relaxed, if not for the underlying impatience dictated by growling stomachs.
[ wait for Bodil to finish then change guard then eat ask about the ritual ask how it went wait for your turn to be free ]
“Should we approach normally or…? Can we talk?” Loki whispers.
“I bet not. But you can try.”
Taking the bow off his shoulder, Loki puts himself in the men’s line of vision, with Heimdall in tow.
“Hello?”
The figures flinch, spooked by their appearance. With the villagers gone, they weren’t expecting visitors. Their eyes zero in on Loki, his armor and bow, and prepare for a decision Heimdall does not like.
“Hi, are you Bodil’s people?” Loki asks aloud, evidently choosing to go out on a limb. “He told us to meet him here. Is this the right place?”
The men’s doubtful scrutiny darts between them, taking in Heimdall’s glowing irises with concern and a spark of recognition. “What do you want with Bodil?”
“My friend here, he got cursed by a witch. Now his once clear sight is fogged over by her cruel magic and he can barely see beyond his nose!”
“Woe is me,” Heimdall follows up flatly, refraining from rolling his alleged blind eyes to the sky.
“Bodil told us he could cure him! Please, bring us to him. We’ve tried everything, but nothing worked. This is our last resort.”
At the distress in Loki’s voice, the shorter of the two men relents, his grip on the dagger hidden at the hip under the robes slackening. The other one, however, keeps racking his brain for the source of familiarity Heimdall’s face has sparked in him.
Before they can answer, a deep rumble shakes the earth under their feet. It’s as sudden as it is short-lived, nowhere powerful enough to knock them off balance, but enough to feel its reverberation in their knees. From the cave’s mouth, an eerie echo of grumbling rocks rolls out like a sigh of pain.
“What was that!” Loki exclaims dramatically.
[ hide don’t say hide the ritual don’t answer ]
The men exchange glances, and silently agree to offer no insight.
“Bodil’s unavailable right now,” the short one says, without acknowledging Loki’s pretend-worry. “But if he’s waiting for you, he’ll talk to you when he’s done. We’ll let him know of your arrival.”
“Okay, uh… are we just supposed to wait here in the meantime?” Loki wonders. “Can we come in? What’s your name?”
“Ivar. And yes, for now you shall stay here.”
“When did you meet Bodil?” the taller one asks abruptly.
[ beware of them of the village beware of incoming help do not let them stop Bodil or your chances at freedom ]
“…Over a week ago,” Loki lies. “Down by the river. He saw us and offered help, but we were reluctant to follow him at first. We now realize he’s our only solution. Is it true?”
“What is.”
“What he said, about being able to cure all ailments.”
The ardor of Ivar’s nod is boosted by the conviction of first-hand experience. “It is, he fixed my hands.”
As Loki takes a step forward to take a closer look at Ivar’s raised palms – visibly greyed by a mysterious layer of something that definitely doesn’t look like normal skin – the nameless man readies his dagger in alarm, and Heimdall instinctively puts his right arm in front of Loki to stop him in his tracks.
“Uh, no worries, I won’t go far my blind frie—”
The recognition clicks, to Heimdall’s genuine surprise, almost instantaneously at the sight of his rune-scarred hand. Dodging the dagger the man aims at him with a simple tilt of his head, he lunges forward.
“Fall back, he’s the Aesir,” the man urges Ivar, words thrown out so fast they mesh into each other. “The—”
Heimdall delivers a steady hit to his cloaked head and knocks him unconscious before he can finish the sentence.
Feet away, Ivar moves on instincts through his shock, slamming a smoke bomb to the ground and shrouding the cave’s entrance in a bubble of silvery fog. His desperate run deeper into the tunnel, where his reinforcements await, reverberates among the dark walls of the mountain closing in on him.
“Vindr.”
A soft breeze rises around Heimdall, dissipating the fog and clearing the path. Staring off into the shadows, Loki walks up to him, hands on hips. “He ran?”
“Low tunnel echoes are shit to make sense of,” Heimdall explains. “But he’s loud enough. He’ll bring us to their hideout.”
“Okay, but…” Loki opens his arms in an exasperated sort of bewilderment. “What the heck just happened?”
“He recognized me. Eyes and arm.”
“Really now. When have you become so famous?” Giving him a critical once-over, Loki hums pensively. “Maybe I should learn how to mask your eyes with illusion magic. You’re impossible to bring around nowadays.”
“Are you trying to give them more time to prepare for us or what?” Heimdall asks.
“Alright, alright. Give me a moment.” With a well-rehearsed movement of Loki’s hands, roots spring from the ground and wrap around the unconscious man’s body, binding him into place. As they begin to follow in the runaway’s footsteps, Loki throws a puzzled glance his way. “Everything okay?”
“Yes.” Heimdall turns to him. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, you seem tense.”
Is he?
Heimdall hadn’t realized. The men’s thoughts have forced him on the alert, but he can’t put his finger on what about them felt particularly off-putting. This isn’t the first enigmatic danger they investigate, nor the first group of cultists they butt heads with. If anything, the men they met seemed widely underprepared to fight two gods. With any luck, they have unearthed nothing worse than a nasty monster that will need to be put down in order to stop the trembling of the mountain. The last hassle of the day, before heading home.
“I’m fine. Let’s just get to the bottom of this. These people want something from this Bodil, something they’re desperate to protect. And whatever it is, it lies inside the mountain.”
“Any idea as to what?”
“Guess we’ll find out soon.”
Lighting up the walls with the steady flame summoned on the palm of Loki’s hand, they venture in.
It’s a good thing Ivar’s run off to his people: they cross a few forks in the path, and his frantic sprint makes it easy to pick the correct way.
Under the man’s gasps, gradually increasing in intensity ahead of them, Heimdall’s ears pick up a faint echo of undiscernible whispers rising up from the tunnel. They must be getting close to the group.
In the silence of their descent, Heimdall has to admit Loki was right: the more he mulls over the situation, the more he grows aware of the odd itch crawling up his nape, and into the back of his mind. An uncanny feeling of familiarity he can’t place, as if something he should remember was keeping just out of the light. His skin tingles with a sense of unease under the touch of the damp cavern air, and his eyes never seem to adjust quite right to the pale green hue marring the shadows dancing against the tunnel walls with every quiver of Loki’s flame.
A magical force is afoot in this place, and that’s Heimdall’s least favorite kind of problem.
If the information they have is correct, it gave a cripple the power to cure himself in ways Heimdall’s never seen Freya or Loki practice; a power exceptional enough to bring others to follow him down this pit. For what purpose?
The noises of shuffling feet and agitated murmurs grows louder as they enter a broader section of the cave. Heimdall’s hand readies at Hofuð’s hilt, even though he spots nothing but jumpy minds and weak plans for an attack. On his nod, Loki extinguishes the flame to blend into the low light of the candles scattered around the natural bends of the rocks.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t insist with Bodil—” someone whispers from over a wooden ledge.
“Shut up,” another one hisses. “No one shall disturb the rituals. We’ll deal with this.”
The men are well positioned, but their attempt at a covert ambush is so arguable Loki decides to forgo stealth in favor of one more conversation.
“Hi, so. We’re actually here on behalf of King Herrauðr,” he announces to his nervous audience. “He sent us to look into what’s causing the tremors and weird lights in the area. Do you… know anything about it?”
“Turn around and leave,” a woman’s voice orders, tone brimming with threat. “You may not get your answers, but you will live.”
“Oh. Well, we can’t do that,” Loki argues with the misplaced lightness of someone talking to a friend over a beer. “The situation seems kind of serious. I promise we’re not here to cause trouble, we just want to make sure no one gets hurt. If there’s something dangerous in this cave, we need to know. Bring us to your leader, and we’ll figure out what to do, together.”
[ distrust protect the tear protect Bodil stop them from getting the power for themselves ]
“You people stick your nose in anyone’s business and prod at things that don’t concern you.” The hiss of a sword being unsheathed follows the woman’s shout, in a prelude to her next one. “Everyone, with me! Do not give in to the false gods, ascension awaits us all at the end of this!”
“Listen, we—” Loki starts, just as Heimdall grabs his arm and tugs him out of a flying dagger’s way. “Ugh, fine!”
A shower of golden sparks envelops his body as it morphs, swift like a snap of fingers. Iron-grey fur blankets his pale skin and his fangs grow long inside his snarling mouth, bracing for a bite into the meat of the attacker’s leg.
At the bellow of pain, the mortals attack all at once. From every direction of the cave, they spring up from behind their cover to either hurl weapons or charge head on across the improvised battlefield. They must be more than a dozen, but it quickly becomes obvious who has never clashed in an actual fight, and who carries at least a few years of experience on their shoulders. The heavy hitters swing their double-edged axes down on them with steady precision, while their companions scramble to find a weak spot.
Unfortunately for them, dimly lit caverns and uneven terrains are a perfect battleground for Loki’s wolf form.
Letting him fend them off by himself, Heimdall faces the one dashing toward him without hesitation, striking the side of his head with the sword sheath and kicking him off his feet. The second warrior comes up to him from behind, longsword poised to slash his hip open. Heimdall deflects it easily, whirling behind him and returning the force of his hit twofold against the back of his knee.
The noise of the impact is not one Heimdall expects: it isn’t of slapped skin or broken bone, but of a sturdier, stony nature. The man drops to the ground like a sack of turnips, but his fighting spirit remains strong. Forgoing the sword, he lunges at Heimdall’s leg with a dagger, only to be knocked on his back by the slam of Heimdall’s sheath under his chin. Something cracks upon hit, and the man’s eyes roll up, blind to the companions coming late to his rescue.
As a wave of them rushes at him, Heimdall starts to notice something bizarre about the way some of them move, or look. He sees a man with half his face a smooth darkened surface veined with emerald streaks. Another one’s eye vaguely burns with a faint, unnatural green light. A couple of them advance as if their joints are stiff like tree bark.
However, no matter the hidden secrets behind their mutation, their crazed fervor is a blunt, ineffective tool against two gods. One by one they go down, their defeat inevitable.
At the other end of the cavern, four burly fighters huddle tight around Loki, now a man again, trying to restrain his movements. They’re not ready for how slippery the little runt can be in any form: calling forth roots to immobilize one of the looming men, he forces his body into a crouch and uses his shoulder as a prop to jump off and aim a rattling blow to the head at the second one, who falls under his weight, giving him space to shoot an arrow at the third.
The last one standing barrels into him, lifting him off the ground with a cry of anger. Heimdall’s about to rush in their direction when Loki twirls on him like a giant ferret, bringing up his thighs for a headlock. The momentum pushes the guy off balance and to the ground, where he has barely any time to react before he gets stabbed in the crook of his neck with an arrow. His body falls limp as Loki disentangles from him.
Loki’s fighting style has always been all over the place, an unpredictable tangle of archery, magic and pure physicality. Most of the time, Heimdall knows for a fact, not even Loki himself is sure of what he’ll do next. What seems best in the moment, he’s explained in the past, proving to be a creature of instinct – not a shocking trait for him to embrace considering his father’s fighting style, but an odd one for someone who relies on thought-out slyness in most other instances.
Somehow, though, Loki makes it work. And sometimes, looking alluringly good at it.
“What?” he pants, noticing Heimdall’s intense stare.
“Nothing. Focus,” Heimdall says, mostly to himself.
Only two adversaries are left, mindlessly coming at them with raised weapons. As Loki takes aim with his bow, Heimdall steps forward, ready to counter the attack—and then he hears it.
A dissonant whisper echoing in the shell of his ear, like a chorus of unkind voices speaking to him in tongues. Urging him to listen even though there’s nothing to discern.
A sound he hasn’t heard in over a dozen years.
[ stop them stop THEM ]
Heimdall looks past the running man whose defeat is already traced, to the tunnel ahead. Dark, empty, and offering him no answer.
The whisper has been there, slithering just beyond the edge of his senses, at least since he stepped into the rocky clearing, he realizes. A muffled hiss in a noisy crowd, mistaken for hostile human voices.
He performs his dance blindly. Duck, hit, finish, his feet carrying him forward while, in the back of his mind, a weak, ancient part of him screams to turn away and never look back. Another body falls to the floor and he absently steps over it, with bile rising up his throat.
“…dall. Heimdall!” Loki’s voice repeats, demanding attention. The last woman lies unconscious or dead at his feet. “What’s going on? What did you hear?”
“Do you sense anything?”
Taken aback by the urgency in his tone, Loki falls silent. There’s a question in his mind, one he decides to put aside for now. Heimdall can tell he’s focusing his senses in search for his reply.
“There’s pain, distress and… hope, but not the kind that feels good. Honestly, this place hasn’t felt good since we entered. Either way, we should check these people, see if they show signs of Bodil’s magic.”
It’s not a bad idea to stop and surmise the extent of this Bodil’s powers, or check if anyone still has enough breath in their lungs to answer some important questions. Heimdall should agree with Loki, recognize it’s best to proceed with caution, do his job—but he can’t.
It’s like finding a flaw in a tapestry: spot one, and the illusory sheen of perfect precision in the weave breaks, and all the other blemishes follow after, insufferably blaring and impossible to overlook.
His awareness of the whispers has sharpened his senses to a painful degree. It seems so obvious now that the tunnels have been overripe with wrongness all along. The barely perceivable green hue marring the walls, the magical charge in the air. There’s people ahead, their minds trembling messes of abidance as hitched breaths of pain fill the air, and then there’s static. Crackling and popping, like an veil itchy to the touch, encouraging the curious to leave it be. Not unlike the unreadable mind of someone who should be long dead, killed by a hammer on the polished surface of a marble—
Heimdall paces forward.
“Heimdall? Wait!” Even without a satisfying answer, Loki catches up and sticks close behind him, bow at the ready.
The passage bends and turns, but whatever awaits them is not far.
“Are you ready to welcome the freedom I grant you?” a soft male voice reverberates among the walls, loud enough for Loki to hear too.
“I am,” another one, tight with fear and anticipation, replies.
“Then blessed be your soul. May it find its way home.”
“Who’s that?” Loki whispers. This too goes unanswered in the unsettling noise that follows: a muffled lament, flesh torn open and a guttural creaking of rock and bone as the earth shifts again. It’s only for a few seconds, but it is harder than the last time.
After one more narrow curve, the tunnel emerges into a wide, roundish cave with a low-hanging ceiling covered in stalactites.
There’s much to take in at first sight. The people, the eerie humanoid sculptures of rock rising from the ground amidst unlit braziers, the groans of pain, but for a long moment, Heimdall only has eyes for—
the tear.
The luminous jagged line suspended a foot over the ground, shedding its greenish halo in the surrounding space, glinting off the walls damp with weak rivulets of water and creating long, shivering shadows behind every pointy stalactite and chunk of jagged stone strewn on the ground.
A ghastly crack in the fabric of reality, identical to the one that used to be in Asgard.
And in front of it, stand two cloaked men. Or more precisely, a man and—something which was formerly one.
As the first one keeps his hands up, weaving whipping streaks of green light in the air, the other’s body is… slowly disassembled.
Even if Heimdall had any reaction left in him in front of such a horrifying display, it would too late to intervene.
The mortal’s chest is already ripped open, his ribcage unfolded towards the ceiling like his reaching arms. The green light embraces him softly as it pulls his feet into the floor, for the stone to reach up in reply and turn his legs into a sculpture of agony. The transmutation conquers his body from below and climbs up steadily. His protruding bones turn to earth and rock, at one with the cavern hosting him.
[ endure the change transmute escape the pain transcend ]
Once it reaches his head, it solidifies his mouth open in a soundless scream and buries his dying thoughts and their stench of fear in abrupt silence. His final breath arches his body further upward, in a final yearn for freedom as a green flash erupts from him, like a last stutter of life escaping along with his soul.
Behind him, the tear flares like a fire rekindled by a log of wood.
“You have joined the ranks of the liberated,” the last standing man utters in the heavy silence, amidst a scatter of unnatural humanoid statues. “Be at peace, my friend.”
“Is that what you call that…? Liberation? From what?”
At the sound of Loki’s voice, the man turns, his shabby robes shifting with the movement and his cloaked face revealing gaunt cheeks and green-glowing irises.
It is not Odin. Little in that thin, lanky figure is reminiscent of him, except for the loathsome crackling sound his mind makes and the rapt stare he directs at the rift, as if it’s the most precious entity that ever graced the world.
Although there should be nothing relieving about it, the sight of the mortal’s face, unknown and youthful despite its emaciation, unlocks Heimdall’s limbs from the taut stasis they’d fallen into.
Loki’s mind, on the other hand, is tumultuous. A roaring storm of questions and uncertain intentions.
“You’re not a disciple,” the man says loudly, to cross the distance dividing them. There’s no blatant threat in his voice, only bland curiosity.
“We’re not. I am Loki Laufeyson, of the Jötnar,” Loki declares, his interest in charades now lost. “Are you Bodil?”
“Yes, but who I am now does not matter as much as who I will soon be.”
“And what’s that?”
“A higher being, returning to its primeval home.”
The static in his mind sends a small stab of pain into Heimdall’s temples, making him grimace. There’s a speck of something discernible beyond its veil, where Odin’s used to be impenetrable. Enough to make him aware of the readied rise of the figure’s hand and push him to keep his own on the hilt of his sword.
“I don’t understand,” Loki yells back. “What do you mean by higher being?”
“It is pointless to explain when you haven’t seen what I’ve seen, heard what has been whispered in my ear. You, more than any mortal, won’t be able to comprehend.”
“Try us. What happened here?”
“I looked into the tear,” Bodil murmurs, admiring the rift with a spark of devotion. “And it granted me knowledge beyond that of any mortal or god. I didn’t understand it right away, at first I thought it had simply revealed to me a solution for my ailments. But no, it gave me much more than that. An understanding of how malleable matter is and, more importantly, how corrupted.”
His words are calm, measured, a jarring contrast to the gruesome spectacle of violence circling him. Every fiber of Heimdall’s being wishes he’d stop speaking rather than abide Loki’s wish for clarity.
“We’re all born in this world thinking we belong in it, but we don’t. We’re desperately attached to bodies that in truth are our worst enemies. Hard shells, preventing our souls from going back home, keeping us as tools for the gods, or dragging us into the winters of Helheim. Let me ask you a question, Loki of the Jötnar.”
His green eyes shift, to rest their light on Loki’s face.
“If you knew with absolute certainty that just beyond this world lies a higher plane of existence we’ve all been cruelly denied, a place of true unity and peace free from the painful ailments of these realms, where our spirits could be part of a greater consciousness as they were meant to be… wouldn’t you want everyone to be set free? Wouldn’t you beg for ascension yourself?”
Loki’s fingers tickle the arrow notched on his bow as he wets his lips, thinking of a thousand additional questions he’d like to ask if the situation was different – if dead humans and dwarves didn’t stand torn apart before them as a legacy to Bodil’s craziness, if Bodil weren’t irreparably changed, if Loki could come up with a solution to bring him back from a brink they don’t even understand. Heimdall doesn’t need to read his mind to know he’s struggling with the biggest question of all: is there any speck of truth amidst the madness, even just a little bit?
But ultimately, he’s as aware as Heimdall that if this is what the man believes in, he cannot be allowed to step out of this place.
“Didn’t look like ascension to me. From where we stood, it kind of looked like you were just killing that man.”
“And that is why you cannot understand.” Bodil’s tone hides none of his disappointment. “You are false gods, fearfully holding onto the foolish belief of being the highest form of life in our cosmos. But you are also imperfect. Corrupted. What became of my men?”
The ominous change in the man’s attitude doesn’t convince Loki to lie about it. “We had to fight them. I’m sorry.”
“You’re right to apologize, you took liberation away from their willing hearts. I am sorry too. For having to stop you.”
Neither of them needs the power of foresight to spot the incoming danger.
With a flick of Bodil’s hand, the ground swells and ruptures in an explosion of rocks and mud like a cresting wave at sea. They both jump out of the way, though the next quake is on their heels. Chunks of earth and transmuted flesh coalesce into boulders, lunged at them from all angles.
“Wow, how does he do that?!” Loki yells, astonished whereas Heimdall is simply disgusted. “Guess he doesn’t only heal and dismember people!”
“You’ll wonder about that later!” Heimdall shouts back, just as the man traces an unknown symbol in the air.
It is destabilizing to not know what it means, what the next move is. He’s experienced the loss of control during a battle, the frustrating inability to keep up with the information thrown at him, but he’s never had to fight against a blank slate. The only person Heimdall couldn’t read never trained him against that. What purpose would that have served, after all? To prepare him for rebellion?
For a split second, his own shortcomings weigh down on his limbs like an anvil as a large puddle of water gets sucked off the walls and projected through the cave.
It’s the realization the target isn’t him that jolts his body into action. The water shoots towards Loki and closes around his head like a bubble. With surprise having left barely any breath in his lungs, Loki sinks his hands into the water, trying to pull it off, but he only manages to slap droplets around.
Charging his arm with the singeing burn of Bifröst, Heimdall hurls a rapid succession of bolts at Bodil, who staggers back with flailing arms, causing the bubble to tremble violently.
As he gurgles something underwater, Loki’s index and middle fingers tap his chest, then whip forward, blasting all his remaining air out of his mouth in a violent gust that slices the bubble open. Wet but breathing, Loki notches another arrow and shoots, stunning the man further and allowing the both of them to close in.
When Bodil finds his footing again, the floor returns to be a danger as much as the walls, ever-changing and ever-moving, but Heimdall maintains his focus.
He’s not the same fighter he was under Odin. Whatever weakness he used to suffer from, he has trained out of him in the years. However dangerous the blind spots in his mind-reading are, Heimdall’s still left with enough fighting instinct to spot the patterns and counter them – and soon realize that, despite all his abilities, Bodil isn’t a real threat.
Heimdall isn’t an expert on magic. He’s got an uncanny sense for manipulating Bifröst and he’s learnt a few additional tricks that come in handy during a fight. But he’s been around Loki – around Odin – long enough to understand what real magical talent is.
The man in front of him uses his abilities like a beginner warrior would use Mjolnir: without experience nor true control over them. Magic courses through him like a flood threatening to destroy the dam that limits it. A mighty weapon unfit for its wielder. As Heimdall fends off each attack, a part of him wonders what it would’ve been like had Odin stood in his place, with this same power.
But Bodil isn’t even a shadow of Odin.
Jumping away from the patch of floor turning to slime under his feet, Heimdall sends another wave of Bifröst against him just as Loki ignites his shot with a fire rune: the thick layer of iridescent energy slams into Bodil and explodes in a thunderous deflagration when Loki’s arrow hits its mark, sending him sprawling to the ground with flames licking his cloak and skin.
The rift flares behind him and the cave shudders, but it is of no significance in this moment. Green light bathes every corner of the place as Heimdall flashes lightning-quick on top of the man before he can get up. He grabs Bodil’s head firmly and slams it twice against the hard stone, then shoves his hands apart.
Bodil’s eyes are lolling in their sockets when Heimdall’s knees land heavy on his forearms and his blade rests at his throat. It takes all his willpower not to pierce through: Loki’s not the only one with questions.
“Move and you’re dead,” he promises. “You know how to close the rift?”
“It… it came here for us, and our will keeps it open,” Bodil mutters deliriously through the pain of his burns. “It cannot be closed.”
Heimdall grits his teeth. The static concealing his thoughts pops unpleasantly, but mind-reading isn’t the only way to tell a lie from the truth. His heartbeat doesn’t spike, his expression doesn’t twitch, if not in pain. In fact, it seems to grow lax with relief, and the certainty of purpose.
Whether his words are true or not, he believes them. Heimdall, on the other hand, refuses to.
The earth shakes again and the rift light glares violent. Bodil’s arms jerk weakly under him.
[ STOP his hand HIM ]
“Heim—”
The warning of danger ricochets to his mind from Loki’s own rather than the man’s, but it does the trick.
His eyes dart to the tiny spark sizzling out of the corner of his eye, to see Bodil’s hand stretch and then curl to tap his leg. Heimdall drags his knee away just in time, at the cost of freeing Bodil’s arm, ready to strike as much as Heimdall’s blade is—but Loki’s arrow is faster than both.
It pierces right through Bodil’s hand and knocks it against his chest as the spark on his fingertips still lives.
A mindless force indifferent to its target, the magic held within ignites, springing on Bodil like a snare. He gasps in surprise as the skin of his hand turns dark and cracked like crusted mud.
Heimdall’s quick to distance himself, standing up on his feet and stumbling back, though his eyes can’t seem to tear away from the disturbing sight.
Whatever transformation Bodil’s kicked off with his spell spreads fast to his wrist and under his sleeve. Heimdall imagines it travel up his arm, conquer his shoulder and then worm its way down, where his chest now rises and falls in a swelling cacophony of scraping noises. The singed robes may conceal most of him, but the sounds his body makes – the creaking, the wet panting, the unsettling gurgle bubbling out of his blackening mouth – tell their own tale.
Bodil’s glimmering eyes dart around through it all, looking for an escape from the swallowing earth where there’s none. Inexorably, the magic of the rift turns him into a part of the mountain, another grotesque sculpture decorating its halls.
“That was close,” Loki breathes, his relief incapable of chasing away the memory of danger still hanging over them. “You—”
“I didn’t see it,” Heimdall grits out, because he knows what Loki’s wondering: he has to play ten games simultaneously to take Heimdall by surprise for a simple prank, and yet Bodil almost one-upped him despite being the sole focus of his attention.
“What?” Loki says dumbly.
“I said,” Heimdall repeats, harsher. “That I didn’t fucking see it coming.”
“You weren’t focusing?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“Then how’s that even possible—”
Another rift flare, fiercer, fills the cave with bright light, and Loki swears under his breath before running toward it with every intention to try and stabilize it.
Heimdall’s instincts urge him to keep him close, but even now he’s unable to turn away from Bodil. He doesn’t know why: he has nothing to offer as a comfort, nor he’d take pleasure in taunting him in his final moments. Perhaps Heimdall just wants to make sure he dies, bringing with him the ghost of his past as he does.
With nowhere else to go, Bodil’s gaze falls on Heimdall at last. His guttural gasps are growing weaker as life slowly vacates him. With the remnants of his voice, so faint only Heimdall’s ears could pick it up under Loki’s chanting, he manages to stammer out his final words.
“It’s all getting… so quiet… so… peaceful…”
A frown mars Heimdall’s brow as he observes the man in silence, until the glint in his eyes dulls, and dulls, and then, finally, goes dark. A thin, almost invisible trail of emerald glimmer escapes from him, like a final puff of breath.
Bodil’s heart is barely beating under the layers of rock and mud when the world explodes inside Heimdall’s head.
The whispers, an eerie background noise just moments before, take over the cave like a bellowing storm. Heimdall pushes his hands against his ears, though it changes nothing. They’re inside of him, piercing through his body, beckoning him closer—a call the whole of Heimdall begs to answer.
Although the words are undiscernible, they speak directly to his soul, beyond the barrier of language and the physical world, and they seem to want one thing only—
It’s the unforgiving bite of pain in his overstimulated brain that pulls him back from the insidious daze. His legs halt their trudge to the rift, now flaring like a dying star, expanding in bursts before visibly starting to shrink on itself.
His sight struggles to adjust through the headache-induced blur, and when it does, his stomach twists.
In the center of the cave, mere feet away from the rift, Loki stands transfixed. His hands fall away from his ears as he takes a few painstaking steps forward. His body jerks with each one, fighting against an invisible, overpowering will pushing him forward. Like a leaf caught in a net during a storm, he barely hangs on as the unnatural wind whipping at his back threatens to unmoor him.
[ pull back pull back look into it don’t listen LOOK ]
“Loki, get away from it!” Heimdall yells, but Loki doesn’t hear him. His mind is adrift, careening in a sea of conflicting impulses. The dread darkening the lines of his face is fading, drowned by the irresistible call to get closer, come in contact, know more. Know everything.
“Loki!”
His fingers rise up, reach out, and sink into the rift.
Time can’t slow down enough as Heimdall grits his teeth and runs to him, heart thundering in his race against a world fighting to keep up with him. Loki’s into the rift up to his wrist when Heimdall clasps his arm and yanks.
Loki’s body opposes him with a strength he didn’t expect. As if there was someone else beyond the tear, pulling his hand just as hard. Another yank, and all Heimdall gains is making Loki dig in his heels.
The vehemence of his swears scrapes his throat raw.
Abandoning all care, he seizes Loki’s waist with one arm and puts himself between him and the rift.
It feels better to cut it out of his sight, when even its eerie reflection in Loki’s pupils makes his skin crawl. The protective barrier of Bifröst he calls to coat the both of them does nothing to lessen its incandescent presence at his back.
Particles of Bifröst condense behind him, guided by his will into a dangerously explosive mass.
Through his concentration, he feels Loki’s body press against his, not in recognition but in a mindless attempt to pass through him, to get closer to the source of his reverie.
[ show me show me SHOW me ]
It’s not that but the hitch in his breath that calls Heimdall’s gaze to him. Loki’s wide eyes grow wider still at something only he can see, and his expression shutters. It twists into a mask of shock, until shock is far too weak a word to describe it. The green in his pupils strengthens and swirls, a reflection no longer.
On his mind falls a veil of crackling static.
Not wasting a second more, Heimdall tightens his grip on Loki, reaches behind him and kicks the mass of Bifröst into its simplest reaction.
The detonation hurls them off their feet and away from the rift. The Bifröst barrier shields them from the burn and the scraping as they skid across the rocky pavement of the cave.
When they roll to a stop, Heimdall keeps his eyes shut and Loki’s head tucked in the crook of his neck – half protective, half caging.
It takes him a very long moment to realize the wind has died down and the whispers have softened, no longer searching for ways into his mind.
Warily, Heimdall tilts his head up and looks ahead.
Albeit smaller than they found it, the rift shines tranquil, a motionless wound with rigid edges, shedding its dense glow to all in its proximity.
[ calm down understand what happened breathe ]
Loki wriggles against him, prompting Heimdall into action.
Picking himself up and pulling Loki with him, he steadies his stumbling legs with an iron grip on his arms. Too tight, by Loki’s wince, but his hands ignore the command and keep him in position for Heimdall to thoroughly look him up and down.
Against his worst predictions, Loki’s in one piece. Unscathed, if not for the few scratches and singed forearm that was closest to the Bifröst explosion. His hand, the one caught in the rift, is as pale, tattooed and whole as it’s always been.
His expression, however, is still slack with stupor and disorientation.
“Loki,” Heimdall calls.
[ see try to remember UNDERSTAND what was there understand REMEMBER ]
Confused thoughts roll around his head, occupying Heimdall’s senses as they should, familiar and discernible. It ought to be another cause for relief, yet Heimdall can’t shake off the tension clinging to his chest.
The expectation that, at any moment, the strange, revolting pop of static might present itself again within Loki’s mind. What if it returns, he wonders. What if it stays?
Anger boils within him, a sudden, vicious wave that makes him want to bark accusations at him. Why were you standing so close to it, why did you have to walk toward it, why couldn’t you pull away. Loki’s scattered thoughts only stoke the fire further. Heimdall needs him focused now. He needs him to know what to do next.
But Loki is lost in his own daze, and Heimdall’s patience has worn thin.
They’re walking out of this place. Everything else can wait.
“Snap out of it,” he orders, shaking him by the neck like a dog, as if that could physically drive out whatever influence may have been left by the rift. “We need to get out.”
“I…” Loki grasps at words unsuccessfully. His eyes dart to Heimdall’s, at last, and seem to find an anchor in them. His mind resurfaces from its eerie musings, carrying a growing concern.
“We can’t just leave this here. Someone may—”
“There’s no one left. We’ll make sure going out,” Heimdall states firmly. “Then you’ll seal up the entrance. We’ll come back another time if we must.”
Loki’s torn, Heimdall can tell, but it’s the only logical solution to this mess: they’ve unwittingly stumbled into something bigger than the two of them. If they want it dealt with, they’d better bring back-up. If Loki can’t see that, it’s Heimdall’s job to make him.
“The villagers—” Loki starts again, but it’s a useless thought.
“They’re already gone,” Heimdall snarls. “And we’re leaving too, Loki. Now.”