#kissofmistletoe

                            she wakes slowly, a creeping melancholy settling deep within her bones. a hand slides out from her side, passes over the other side of the bed, the sheets the cool of an empty space, not the proper cold they once held. this is pathetic, she thinks, briefly, as her hand closes in the sheets. she allows herself a moment more of agonizing contemplation before using that hand to pull the sheets away and off of her body, forcing herself up and out of the bed. her bare feet pad almost silently across the hardwood floor, silent watching reminders of HIM all through the small home. 

                            she should rid herself of them. throw out everything and remake the home anew, fill it with furniture that does not hold the fingerprints, the imprints, of either god. but even just the consideration sends a tremor of anxiety through her. what if they come back? what if they swing through the door one day and see she’d erased every trace of them and they believe it a reason to stay away? for good this time. 

                            her hands brace the kitchen counter, back bent slightly over it. she swears she can feel the cool breath as the timbre of his voice rings in her head.      my beauty, this home is yours. should you not fill it wonderfully and beautifully with you?      maybe. maybe one day. her life is a long one; she can take centuries to grieve if she needs to. and perhaps, one day, the echoes of loki and baldr will not be so strong, will not cause so deep an ache, and she can fill her home with traces of herself without feeling agony. 

What reaction he had been expecting, Baldr could not say. A familiar, gentle lecture upon the topic, perhaps. A direction pointed to tomes and teachings of others, given with barely a glance above the scroll to the wandering Áss. A hardly warmed tone, gruff in voice and distant in answering, as often came when questioning the distracted king. An accustomed answer and little else.

Not a crack that resounding like glaciers splitting. A sound that echoed far beyond the audible. It ricocheted across bone, earthed within his sternum and froze both pulse and time. Discomfort was too gentle a word to describe the frozen state of the god, limbs unfelt amid the haze of awkwardness, as if plunged into nothing. Vision was Loki and no more, details in the peripheral faded as it seemed all sense had done.

Not eyes eerily wide, breath halted in the giant’s lungs. Not an emotion that so mirrored the stag’s often own. It was a starkness too brutal for the divine to bear. Now did a king, a captor, a saviour, resemble too closely Baldr’s own shadow. A figure crafted of emotions unreined, a caricature far different that the perfect mask of cobalt worn. Even in moments of solitude together, amid physical intimacies or muffled laughs, the acts seemed too fine, too perfect compared to this raw face upon regal shoulders.

He wanted to see more.

He wanted to map each crease and frown that fell in these new places, as studiously as he had once mapped them first. He wanted to rediscover the features seen, as if opening his eyes to the effigy that stood tall upon behind bars and locks. Something within Baldr yearned to run his fingers over the new face, to learn what fear tasted upon the other’s tongue, to burn the image of light within the scared crimson eyes. He wished to memorise this man, and hold both within a bursting heart.

Speech, stumbled and short, splintered the god from his thoughts. Vision focused once more, his heart returned to the unending clench and release of life again, and breath rumbled once more through his chest. Yet there dropped confusion, plummeting past his sternum as Loki cared to look away, as if the cobbles held more interest than question. Clipped came an answer, the only familiar feature within those moments to surface.

Anger, a trait so often known, an emotion no longer responded to in kind. Clipped tone and demanding speech gave no rise for the stag. Too close did the king’s expressions mirror his from the days before, fear to fury within moments. Now simply was it conditioned, an experienced mind to suppress all feelings that had caused reaction, to let a grey fog begin to writhe and choke it out. For if the one he knew closest would react so, so alien to everything before known, how should another react to an admission so clearly wrong for the Áss to possess?

‘’Forgive me,’’ came soft words in response, expression flickering like a guilty child who knew the words to speak but perplexed as to why they should. ‘’I, I did not know it would offend you.’’

How was Baldr to know of the workings of love?

This the King could not take. Rage was a ghost of the father’s, Farbauti’s, powder-kegged on a wave of irresponsible guilt and icily corked, festering resentment. His duty was never light upon him - his responsibilities were absolute and he chose them like a self-flagellation, praying that he would not crack beneath the burden. But the tight and sour feeling beneath his sternum was personal.

Wisps of frosted breath released into his half-curled hand. Bowed forward to shield his distress into a casual index finger, the other elbow resting uselessly against his knee. He could say none of it to Baldr. What he desired. It was too fragile, so starved of attention it was.

The King’s negation was muffled, “ ‘Tis no sin. Baldr. I am not offended and if I were it would be only upon your behalf.” it was a volume that strained to be heard over his hand. At face value, it was also polite. Even his scent was neutral, not that Baldr could pick it - cowing wretched sentiments into their proper place was a pasttime for Loki, for any faults he had been accused of in court, that was never one. He knew his strengths.

But the King did not look up.

“You do not know the implications of your feelings or why they are there, and you are within your right to demand and know and with full comprehension decide what to do with that knowledge. But on this, I will not answer. I cannot. Not of mineself.”

How armoured Loki had lived to be against hatred and prejudice. Under fire of their reputation and the rebellion beneath it, Laufey knew that her child-hope must have nothing but radical acceptance. And yet for all his pride in accepting things as they were, it had blinkered him. This was a possibility he rejected! To hear such a thing, he could not bear it. To tear Baldr’s fantasy falsehood apart for the raw truth. Yggdrasil’s most tainted monarch was no befitting object for feelings with no future.

Dark eyes watched the procession of his people filter away, hesitate heels moving across the blood-stained floor. Their reservations still lay thick in the air, subtly spoken words to linger in the shadows, and those left unspoken, far heavier in weight, as if to try to seed doubt in the Sooth-Sayer’s mind. They would find the ground harsh for that particular root to spread, however, as eventually the farmers of discord would learn. Ancient beliefs in systems archaic and obsolete had no place in worlds left scarred beyond any previous recognition.

It was thought for another time, another place. This was not a moment to dwell upon future actions, but consider past ones, dealt out by a hand now so known and cherished. The fingers that had once carried a torch into the darkened world had left their prints within the newly crowned’s mind, a thing to be feared, wished, adored, praised. So two had both of them come, time transforming them to this moment, far from where they had first met.

Irony, perhaps, that Baldr sat adorned once more in chains. Nestled within black locks, they snaked between precious jewels, now so willingly worn. Fragile in the softness of metal, as if a toy to give to a spoilt babe, their tenderness was a far cry from the iron that had constricted against a skeletal ankle. Perhaps that strength, shattered in a single blow from a giant, had slowly seeped into the god’s bones. To look upon the golden body now, it was unimaginable the state it had been found in, living despite the universe’s best tries for otherwise.

But had someone told that child, watching a world through a film of tears as the light disappeared for the final time, that he would sit upon a throne as leader for the cosmos that wished his demise, even the Truth-Seer would have not believed.

Silence fell, and was thankfully broken by the one who could seem to easily remove the weight of office, yet perhaps could not yet free himself from the feel of it. Muscles set in rigid formation, as a king would expect from any lord, Loki looked every inch of a subject in perfect respect of his master. A mask they both wore, with practised perfection, even with no on-lookers to see. It perhaps was a situation that demanded such a facade, for a time, as kings discussed matters of history and state.

Baldr listened, with no need to doubt the words spoken. Never had his lover lied to him with outright intent, but to conceal one half when needed. When necessary. It was a mark of deference that the stag had never challenged the decision, even when fury held every inch of his mind in control. He had accepted what was given and pried no further, in knowing the time would come when the light would reveal all. This time.

“It was this much I had gathered as I grew to know more about… everything. About the worlds and their runnings, about our people and about you,” replied the god-king after a moment, voice as equally reserved as his lover’s had been.

Before, when the mere concept of others had been a new found idea, such attitude would have sparked that beast they lay in angry dormant inside. Unable to understand the little-given emotion behind the Jötunns’ words, the unformed mind jumped to extreme conclusions, certain in their deduction that all were arrogantly entertained by a being they thought of as dim. Cats that would watched with smug superiority as their wounded prey desperately attempted to flee.

Between speech, silence was not able to reign. Already had habits of generations settled in, a thoughtless action to occupy the body while the intellect pondered. Another minute grain of stone to be whittled away, a mark left upon the world. The first of many, perhaps.

“I admit, it intrigued me that you did not go down that route.” The softest shrug, setting a gentle orchestra of ornaments to sound. “If you wish to hear rumours, I would advise a few weeks staying in the palace cells, for the guards kill many an hour contemplating the realm’s potential. There were more than a few who wagered my reason for being brought to Jötunheimer was to become some war beast like Mountainbreaker. It became apparent, eventually, that one would  not need to teach a warrior how to read or write, if all they intended for that person to do was kill.”

A slip of the mask, humour unable to be disguised in the manner so innate to those cobalt giants. Baldr could no more hide his nature than he could let loose a lie. It was a gift Loki so easily wielded in these private moments, and a demeanour that baffled the newly-formed councils. It passed momentarily, however, the spark of amusement dying down as a question passed into the stag’s mind.

“While, of course, I am still ever in your gratitude for your actions, and ever more so knowing they were done in a kinder intention than previously believed, I am still curious… Asgard was never your enemy, but it was and still is to many on this realm. There is still hatred towards my birth race, albeit far more tempered thanks to your diplomacy on the matter. You mentioned once, in the cells when I believed I had destroyed all chances of being released on your good will, that some had died over the discussion of me on this world. I raise the same question to you again.

Why bring me here in the first place? Later on, perhaps, I could have understand. When I had more understanding and strength, enough to know of the fine line my existence caused to your people, but straightaway? While I know now, should I ever be in the situation you found yourself in, I could not turn my back to one who needed help, as king I do not think I would risk bringing so fragile a person into a world already so fraught.”

The memories of that time seemed more than hazy, edges of images far more than blurred to nigh-on indistinguishable. Those first moments of viewing the world completely, the vastness shown to one who had never known, seemed dulled now, worn down by the expanse of deeds done after, but enough remained. Terror so pure was hard to shake, and awe so great were the few things that lingered on, even now.

“To be subject to so many new things then, any emotion conjured by each revelation was quickly replaced by another, until I was able to know enough to know myself. A baptism of fire, almost, in living. Mayhaps because I was the one to be made to walk through it, but I could not make another follow in those same steps. Did you question how I might react, in those first days of our meeting? Or had your intentions moved to a more political stance?”

It disturbed the elder more than he anticipated to be berated by accusations he had not considered before. For as long as memories were clear and tangible things, he had felt conditioned to pre-brace; to play strategy five steps ahead, ensconced in the shield of detachment and well developed compartmentalisation - and with a rather fair, final deterrent of, do not fuck with mineself, I am your King.

Yet Loki’s heavily scarred bulk was not such a shield on its own. It was Baldr who had the high ground here. His King could not have scraped nails down the chalkboard of his insides better if he had done so on purpose. Loki’s scent smelt rotten to his own awareness, shameful even, the emotions rising from his body, papercuts of salt and iron in his throat.

“You know the answers to those questions.” after a few ripe breaths that scarcely rose his broad chest, reassured somewhat that his bass issued with a level of composure he did not feel ---it was not Jötunar, the language, that had been spoken by him just now, and Loki watched as beloved took attention to his uncertain stare.

The space between them alters at the sound. Like an intimate touch. From the taller’s lips, coming their private lexicon. The pair’s Allspeak had assimilated it in recent years, of shared joy, and curious greed, pouring over battered tomes their own linguistic discovery; curated themselves, collected themselves, sung themselves, and kept alive as a dialect off a realm now lost forever. 

It punctuated Loki’s reply now with a wry click, as close to an unhappy tsk as his public behaviour was capable of.

Baldr did not yet understand the ability of prying ears here in the throne room - which was not the As’ fault. It was a gap in his education. To have Loki reliquishing the throne was new to them both, and the nuances that went on across Jotunheimr was a to-do list which was far too long to wait to learn by heart, before crowning the rightful monarch of the Nine. Baldr’s time to be King was now. 

Adornments clinked together, painting the air in glass tones as the elder clasped a wrist to hand behind his back. Formality and politeness were quickly transforming what had been vulnerable. At a glance they were alone. But Loki knew a reprimand here was oh so public, and his skin crawled,

The threats did little to perturb the stag, ice unwavering in the apathetic gaze. Kill him the king could try, but that victory could not come from those battle-hardened hands. That fate was an immovable truth, and no punishment or retribution to rain down otherwise would sway the promise he had made to the Norns. Success would be his and no other, no matter the challenges to be crossed.

“An exchange, one hopefully worthy enough for your grace.” A tip of the head, an acknowledgement. You hold some of the power here.

“While I had hoped your attendance would be somewhere with a little more grandeur than this, I seek aid. I ask for Loki’s location. In return, I gift you a favour of your choosing.”

[ ϟ ]—– Interest piques, rises to the surface in the form of flare within ceruleans, a flicker of light transforming cold blue into something paler, ominous and frigid.

Beneath the god’s weight the blood is congealing as eyes then narrow, gaze turning into one of scrutiny whilst the other is assessed. Aid, in whatever form it was needed, was not what he expected sibling’s request to entail, and he considers it, fingers curling and unfurling in languid, oddly slow-paced forming and undoing of fists.

‘ You wish to know the location of Loki...’ Repeated with all the faux gravity he could muster, a near-mocking sound coloring the words. ‘ My surprise is, as you can see, enormous...’

Wrath was a beast burdening many with it’s hunger, it’s demands, and it was no secret to him Baldr craved to feed - and perhaps finally conquer and defeat - his own.

---There was a quiet snort, a note of mirth humming through the taller’s chest that coloured warmly what might have been an unpleasant sort of reply,

 “I took a map, and a pin, and pretended I had a choice.”

Inked fingers gave a twitch at the tickle of the other’s touch, that which coiled about his wrist, dancing across the runes.

   “There may have been some vodka involved. It is not the first time I have had to do this.” Loki’s chin relocated to a different section of the florist’s curls and settled there, like a dog’s affectionate weight. He would absolutely not be outdone by Nanna, who happily drooled at their feet -and yes, it was a competition when Baldr was involved, 

“If it weren’t for you, I would say I had erred. You Americans smile too much when you are suffering. 'tis unnerving.” This, Loki did say, coming from a tattoo artist. His impish grin was evident then, even out of sight. 

[ ϟ ] —– ‘ That is something...not easily explained.’ 

  For a moment he considered the remark at the forefront of Bald’rs query, why such would bother his sibling, yet thunderer recalls then, how few of his kin knew, understood, wished to know of Midgard’s strength, of Midgardians and their worth. His love for them raised questions such as these often.

‘ They are capable of remaking their world to their liking, but more importantly, capable of remaking themselves often, and thoroughly, if life requires it of them. It is easy to be resilient and courageous when strength and power resides in your body, it is admirable when such exists in those who should be considered weak.’

“-And they must be at least three centimetres long, they have to be the highlight of every table you see, that was her dream for years - oh and all the same length if you can.”

It was a good thing that a man of Loki’s proportions was silent in his footsteps; leaning light, back against the wall next to the peonies, he fought, ribs aching with contained laughter. The woman in the white floral blouse, and white suit jacket, and red-bottomed pumps was wringing her hands, crowding forward, restless heel-clicking shuffle by restless shuffle, closer and closer into Baldr’s personal space. It was truly one of the finer miracles of life that her shoes had not caught between the peeling floorboards.

“Madam-”

Flap. Flap flap. The woman’s flailing nail polish matched her shoe bottoms. 

Of course they did.

“Oh and don’t worry if there’s no leaves on the stalks. Gosh I really can’t thank you enough for accomodating me this late in the afternoon young man, honestly, I rung around but nobody else would stay open on such short notice - would you believe?? I’m a paying customer, my money is as good as anyone elses, and it’s guaranteed business for local businesses that don’t usually get large orders like this right?”

That adored cherub head of dark, wild curls jolted, the florist glancing past the woman in apparent desperation, and in doing so, caught onto his audience. Loki simply grinned back, all bright, sharp white teeth, and dark eyebrows waggling meaningfully as he released one hand from his winter jacket pocket to offer a thumbs up behind her back,