Ævi Dœgr
At long last, I've finally rewritten it! I've also added a few translations to help the story make more sense:
ævi dœgr – happy birthday
fjórir – four
sjau – seven
tíu – ten
ellifu – eleven
100 years old – human age of 3-5
468 years old – human age of about 14-15
1300 years old – a young adult, probably about 22
1842 years old – still a young adult, though now closer to 25
2600 years old – a more mature adult, early 30s
He awoke to the sight of golden sun streaming in his window as it rose above the tall stone gates outside. At first, Loki pulled his covers over his head, mentally whining, "I don't want it to be morning yet!" But then he remembered what day it was. Instantly, Loki's sheets were tossed to the side, and he was dashing out his bedroom door and down the hall to his brother's bedroom.
"Thor! Thor! Thor! Thoooooor!" Loki yelled, excited. "Get up get up get up!" Thor groaned and rolled over to face away from his brother.
"Come on, Thor! Today is my ævi dœgr!"
When Loki's words finally registered, the crown prince quickly sat up. "It is! Happy ævi dœgr, brother!" Thor boomed. "How old are you to be..." He gasped. "You are to be 100!" he yelled, even louder than before. Loki nodded enthusiastically.
"Will you come play tricks with me?" Loki asked his brother, who eagerly agreed. It was the brothers' tradition to spend the entire day every year on Loki's ævi dœgr playing tricks. They snuck out of a window together and disappeared into the streets. They were still wearing their nightclothes... But the two princes of Asgard had done stranger.
First, the troublesome duo snuck into their parents' chambers. "Shall we hide Mother's slippers once more?" Thor suggested as he peered into the closet.
"No," Loki whisper-yelled from where he was looking at their mother's jewelry box. "We did that last year, if I recall correctly. It simply would not do to become repetitive. Repetition breeds predictability. Being predictable would be no joy at all."
Thor rolled his eyes. "Then what do you advise we do?" he asked Loki.
"Mmm… How much punishment do you believe we shall receive if we 'misplace' all of Mother's golden jewelry?"
"All of Mother's golden jewelry?" Thor repeated worriedly. "All of Asgard is covered with gold! Mother would be furious if she was made to wear silver without her consent. It… It… It is surely a form of crime, even! To wear silver rather than gold for anything other than a funeral," Thor said.
Loki huffed and thought for a moment before suggesting instead, "Then why do we not misplace all of her golden jewelry but one set, so she has no choice but to wear that one set?"
Brightening, Thor replied, "That 'tis a wonderful idea! Let me pick what she wears!"
"No! It's my ævi dœgr!"
"But it was your idea! You cannot have all of the fun."
"…Very well. You select the necklace and ear pieces, and I shall select the rings, bangles, and headwear," Loki acquiesced.
"Alright!" Thor agreed.
Several minutes later, the two princes exited their parents' room heavily burdened with nearly all of their mother's jewelry, having left only a large red necklace and ear pieces with stones of a different shade of red, one thin bangle studded with emeralds and diamonds and two rings and a thin ringlet in the place of the queen's usual crown that were also adorned with the same gemstones.
"Where shall we put these?" Thor asked his little brother.
"I thought that we could put them in Sif's jewelry cabinet. She does not even wear jewelry, and surely will not notice."
Thor nodded in agreement. "Brilliant! We can return them this eve, and no one will catch us."
They stealthily deposited the jewelry in their friend's jewelry box, and quickly escaped out yet another window. Rather than reentering the palace, this time the brothers left the royal court altogether and entered the marketplace.
"Loki, look! Sweet rolls!" Thor exclaimed, pointing to a shop that had an assortment of pastries displayed in its window.
A mischievous smile slowly grew on young Loki's face as he leaned over to Thor and whispered, "I have a grand idea."
Ten hours later, all of the strawberry sweet rolls had mysteriously disappeared from the entire kingdom.
"Why did we only take the strawberry ones?" Thor asked Loki in between bites of sweet roll.
"Because," Loki replied, not bothering to wait until he'd swallowed the bite he was chewing, "it would have been too much effort to take all of the sweet rolls in Asgard. Strawberry ones are the best, anyway."
He knew morning had come, even though his drapes were shut and he could not see the light outside, because he awoke every morning at precisely sjau, unlike his brother, who often slept soundly past ellifu. Loki had long since stopped bothering to wake Thor at a proper time.
Loki began to sit up, but paused, furrowing his eyebrows. He was certain he was forgetting something… His eyes lit up. Of course! It was his ævi dœgr! He was to be 468 today. Eagerly, he sprang from his bed and raced through the halls of the palace toward his brother's room.
Thor and Loki's rooms used to be quite close together. Loki had been waking in tears from nightmares and going to sleep with Thor since an early age, and having the rooms placed close together was most convenient. Recently, however, Loki had been deemed "too old" to be seeking his brother's comfort from bad dreams, and their rooms had been moved to opposite sides of the enormous castle. As he ran, Loki cast a quick spell to change himself out of his nightclothes and into leather pants and a green tunic.
After a while of running, Loki spotted Thor's gold-encrusted door and burst through it. He pounced on top of Thor and jumped. It was very immature behavior for a prince his age, but he didn't care.
Thor was quickly roused by a stream of, "It's my ævi dœgr! It's my ævi dœgr, brother!" He smiled and began to greet his brother when Loki magicked him, too, into his clothes, and nearly dragged Thor out of bed. "Come on! I have the perfect prank, brother!"
"What is it?" Thor asked, still sounding half-asleep.
"We shall catch a water serpent and move it to the women's bathhouse!"
That woke Thor up the rest of the way.
"Did you say—women's bathhouse?"
"Loki?" Thor whispered, hoping that his brother was somehow sleeping through this. When he received no response, Thor cautiously backed up, and turned to his friends. Hogun, Fandral, Volstagg and Sif were with him in Loki's chambers, helping Thor surprise his brother. Sif would rather toss Loki off the Asbru Bridge for what he had done to her hair, and the Warriors Three weren't terribly fond of the younger prince either, but all four were willing to aid Thor in anything—be it a perilous battle against the Frost Giants or pranking Loki.
The five quietly snuck out of the room and back to Thor's, and settled down to wait the half hour until sjau, when Loki would wake up and find the "gift" they had left him.
Sure enough, one half hour later, a very heavy thud was heard, followed by Loki's curses, clearly heard across the entire castle. The five conspirators grinned.
For Loki's 1300th ævi dœgr, Thor had ordered a set of the finest armor in all the Nine Realms to be made for his brother. It was in Loki's colors of green, black, and gold and would be a truly magnificent gift—once Loki managed to get it off of himself. Thor, Sif, Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg had positioned the armor so that it would fall right on top of Loki the moment he moved.
Thor had the feeling he would be receiving as many of Loki's pranks as he helped to set up this day, no matter how much Loki liked the new armor, and he was correct.
The five warriors had parted to gain a few more hours of sleep now that their task was complete—none of them were accustomed to waking before tíu.
Three and a half hours later, Thor began to wake. He groggily sat up and immediately sensed that something was wrong. He shot out of bed and picked up his nearby sword, preparing to fight off an enemy—but realized as he looked in the mirror that the fiend had already escaped. Loki.
His hair—his luscious, thick golden hair that was the envy of half of the maidens of Asgard—had been braided. Braided. Like a young girl's. And what was worse; as he attempted to undo the hairstyle, he found that the task was impossible. Loki must have used his magic so that Thor could not undo it.
"LOKI!"
"Yes, brother?"
Spinning around, Thor prepared to strike at his brother with the sword still in his hand… but stopped mid swing when he saw that Loki was wearing his new armor and looked genuinely happy.
"This is truly exquisite. I greatly appreciate your gift," Loki said brightly, following Thor's gaze down to his armor. "Now, are you quite ready to go? We do not have all day."
Laughing, because they actually did have all day, Thor put down the sword. "I am aware that it is usually you who thinks of our pranks, but this year, you have given me an idea," Thor said.
After blinking at his brother for several moments as if judging whether Thor was insane or not, Loki slowly nodded.
"I do not believe it fair that I should be the only unlucky Asgardian with a poor hair day," Thor began, causing Loki's face to slowly break out into a grin as the plan was explained to him.
"Happy ævi dœgr, brother!"
Loki shot up out of his bed, quickly casting a spell to summon a short sword to his hand as he turned to slay the Frost Giant who had infiltrated his room—and found that instead of a Frost Giant, Thor was sitting on the edge of his bed. He was more bouncing than sitting, actually, and it was quite unnerving.
"Thor? What are you doing?" Loki asked incredulously.
"It is your ævi dœgr, and I have thought of a most incredible way to celebrate!"
"You had best be cautious thinking. 'Tis dangerous, you know."
Thor rolled his eyes. "Oh, come now! I have it all arranged! We—only the two of us—are going to Midgard!" Loki looked at Thor as if the crown prince had entirely lost his mind.
"Midgard?"
"Yes! Father will not punish us for playing tricks on the mortals like he would if we caused trouble on any of the other Realms," Thor explained animatedly.
"That's… That's actually quite clever."
Scoffing, Thor teased, "You doubt me?" Loki couldn't help but grin.
"Always."
Less than an hour later, the two princes were riding their steeds across the Rainbow Bridge toward the Observatory.
"Greetings, Heimdall!" Thor called out once they were close enough for the Gatekeeper to hear him.
"Greetings, Your Highness. To Midgard, I presume?"
"Aye!" Thor replied cheerfully. "With haste! 'Twould be a waste to not take full advantage of our day."
Loki was almost shocked when Heimdall actually opened the bridge and let them through, still half believing that this entire adventure would turn out to either be a hoax or a dream. Perhaps… He had fully expected that by his 1800th ævi dœgr, Thor would have ceased to go adventuring with him simply to celebrate his day of life. Even Thor's ævi dœgr was no longer recognized. But, perhaps he had been wrong.
His doubts proved useless, and Loki had great fun tormenting the mortals with Thor. He managed to convince a King named Gylfi not only that he was in Asgard—and of all Asgard, Valhalla—but that he, Loki, and two of his illusions were three different factions of Odin. Then he spent hours spinning absurd tales about the gods, and managing to make the mortal believe them all.
By the time the King had finally left, Loki was in a very pleasant mood, and did not object at all to Thor's insistence that they hunt for hydras—creatures everyone knew could not be found on Midgard.
Many, many hours later, the two stumbled back across the Bifrost. By the next day, Loki knew he would be a shadow once more; but how he loved having all of the attention on himself, for once.
He smiled to himself as he and Thor watched the various Ambassadors' reactions to the All-Father's helmet turning into a small dragon. The delegates of the Realms should learn not to hold inter-Realm meetings on his ævi dœgr.
"Come, brother! Let us hurry, so we are not caught!" Thor whispered. Loki rolled his eyes at Thor's worrying. His illusions were well spun. They would hold.
For his brother's sake, however, Loki reluctantly turned away from the chaos and slunk down the hallways, Thor following behind him, though not half as stealthily. His frame did not lend itself to hiding in the shadows as his younger brother's did.
Loki continued this tradition of theirs solely because it was the only day of the entire year when Thor paid attention to him, and not Thor's friends.
Even he found it odd and a bit uncomfortable to still celebrate his ævi dœgrs after 1842 winters, but he welcomed the attention, and went along with Thor's half-thought-out ideas of pranks and trouble making.
He waited by the statue of Bor until well past the middle meal before deciding that Thor was not coming.
Loki spent his 2300th ævi dœgr alone in his rooms with a text on rune translations, attempting to ignore the stinging in his eyes.
It was early in the morning. Very early. Fjórir, at the latest. Not that he could see the stars to be able to tell. There were not even any moons or planets in sight. None that he was familiar enough with to tell time, at least. No, he knew this information because of the "internal clock" he had thanks to his magick. He had an "internal calendar," too. That was how he knew what today was. His ævi dœgr.
Today he was to have seen 2600 winters. A fairly significant ævi dœgr.
It had been 2500 years since that day he and Thor stole all the strawberry sweet rolls in Asgard—and ate nearly all of them. 800 since he dropped by Midgard with Thor and they had somehow left their marks on the Midgardian's history books as "gods."
And now Loki was laying, beaten, bruised, and broken, on a moon so dark, even Heimdall could not see him, at the mercy of a mad Titan. A Jotun monster, not Thor's brother, a failed king, and, in Loki's eyes, disowned by Odin, whom he had spent nearly his entire life trying to please.
He lay there, his wishes not that he would either die or be left be by his torturers, as they usually were, but that he could spend the day by Thor's side as his equal, like he had on his every ævi dœgr for so much of his life.
Later Loki would curse the sentiment he felt in this moment, the level that he lowered himself to. But then he would have Thanos's influence in his mind, so there would be no way of knowing whether or not that thought was actually his.
He lay in the dungeons, long forgotten, eternally alone. His punishment for attacking Midgard had been fair, and the elongated solitude had purified his mind of Thanos's hold, leaving him in self-loathing, despising what he had done, thinking it his fault for being as weak as to allow Thanos into his mind.
At first, he believed it to be his imagination when he heard a heavy metal door open. Believed he was finally going mad. But slowly, ever so slowly, a figure made its way to the door of his cell—his cage—and then opened it. It stepped inside, and left the door open.
Loki wondered if his sentence had been done. He had expected to be left forever, and had not listened closely to his sentence. It was doubtful that he even would have recalled correctly, having been under Thanos's hold at that time, but he had not listened, either way. And because of the spell that had been placed on his prison to make the time that passed inside it a hundred times longer than that that passed outside it, Loki would have had no idea what the date was, even if his magic had not been bound.
He was nearly positive he was dreaming when he heard the voice, but then he felt two strong arms embrace him, and the warm tears fall on his shoulder, and he realized that this was real.
"Happy ævi dœgr, brother."