Bryde one Brere
(Bird on a Briar)
All righty! So this is my #LokaneDeckTheHalls exchange gift to the lovely lmpandora, who requested a Medieval AU. Title is from a medieval love song of the same name, which has very interesting and rather unsettling lyrics. Hope you enjoy, dearie!
Note: Warnings for general creepiness. No fluff to be found here.
Jane Foster, affianced of the king, sweating in the sunshine, hitches another arrow to the nocking point and pulls back the bow. The broadhead — pointed towards the target twenty yards distant — wavers as she fights for her aim.
"Come now," she mutters to her exhausted arms, as though they are some separate entity from herself, a tool to use and discard. Her fingers bleed from the stiff fletching. "Do not be weak."
Do not be weak.
She looses the shaft. It flies past the target to skitter harmlessly across the lawn.
Jane's shoulders slump.
"Your technique is wrong," says a smooth — and not wholly unexpected — voice behind her.
"Is it." Jane lowers the bow, pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve as she does so. Her surreptitious wipe of her face cannot much help; she is hot-cheeked and panting for breath. These rich dresses suit her ill. "Odd; I do not recall asking for your opinion."
A chuckle. "My opinion and fact are one and the same — in this instance, at least."
Ah, he is in a teasing mood today.
"Lady Foster." Lady rolls off his tongue with simultaneous amusement and derision. (Justifiable, perhaps, given how absurd the title is. Her future crown is irrelevant. Jane came from nothing, and no one will forget.) "There is useful advice to be had. Will you reject it based purely on your distaste for the messenger?"
He knows she will not.
It is not in her nature.
(You must protect her, Thor told his brother before he departed for the wars. You know how capricious Father can be. Without my presence, he may withdraw his consent. Preserve her. Defend her. Swear it to me.
I swear it, brother. On the blood we share, I swear it. I will guard your betrothed with my life.
It seemed only Jane had known what lurked behind his words.)
Loki — proper English names the princes have, but their foreign mother called them for her pagan gods, and in their home they answer to nothing else — comes to Jane's side and bends to pick up the bow. Is it her imagination that his cheek brushes her skirts as he rises? "Why the sudden interest in the art of war?" he asks, his fingers sliding across the curved yew in a quest for imperfections. "Do you doubt our guards will protect you from ruffians and marauding hordes?" His smile shows all his teeth. "For even should they fail in your defense, dear Jane, I certainly would not."
"I wish only some active engagement for my days."
"Is that so. I suppose your kind were not born to be idle."
Another backhanded strike at her roots. From Loki it means nothing. The rumors of his parentage are everywhere; the false son, they call him. (Quietly, in whispers, for the only man to speak it aloud hung in the town square for three weeks before permission was granted to cut him down.) The truth of it died with the king and queen, but the man who holds the throne may be of even humbler origins than Jane herself.
Perhaps that is why he cannot let hers be.
Loki takes her hand — she ignores the tremble that travels through her body, the twisting warning to pull free — and places the grip of the bow back in her palm. "Allow me to show you how to use this weapon properly," he says, as though she has a choice in the matter.
Still, he waits for Jane's stiff nod before continuing. All part of his pantomime.
(As he boarded the ship, Jane, sick with love and worry, begged Thor to marry her then and there. The captain could perform the ceremony. She did not need dresses or jewels. If something should happen to you, she said, let me be your widow, so the world will understand my grief.
And if something should happen, but no one knew for certain? You would languish in uncertainty, not knowing if you were still wed, or whether it were safe to move on with your life. Thor tried to kiss away the sting of his refusal, but Jane turned her cheek. His lips brushed her forehead instead. If I do not return in two years time, you must consider me lost, and you will be free to love as you will. Then that smile that melted her heart when first they met. But if I do come back, Jane, I shall marry you within the hour of my return. I promise.)
It has been eight months. Eight months without word. Without so much as a rumor.
Thor may not even know he is now a king, that only weeks after his departure a sweeping sickness took his father, that his brother, his brother of barbed words and sly smiles and cuts of playful malice that grow clearer with each passing day, his brother rules the kingdom in his stead.
"When you pull the bow," Loki tells her, "you hold too long. This is a pointless expenditure of energy. Lift, draw, and release in a single movement."
Jane frowns. "I must aim first."
"You must do no such thing." He plucks an arrow from the quiver. "All you need do is rely on instincts."
Then he moves, steps behind her silently, wraps his arms around her body, tucks her head beneath his chin. His touch slides down her wrists slowly — so slowly — to cover her hands with his own, lace her fingers through his. He guides her to notch the shaft to the string.
And oh, how she holds her breath.
"Your hand—" words soft as the rustle of spring leaves "—wishes to follow your eye. Your mind plays no part in this desire. It needn't be involved at all." Perhaps Jane does not breathe, but the prince's exhale ruffles her hair and brushes his chest against her back. "Thinking is to your detriment.
"Now try again."
(If Jane had known who it was that washed ashore in her village, wounded and sick from the river, she would have guarded herself from the start. But Thor shared nothing — nothing but an arrogance that melted away with the passing days to expose a true heart beneath — and then she was too much in love to consider what it meant when he revealed himself as the crown prince, nor to object when he presented her to the king and declared he would have none else for his wife.
The king relented, though he would not shake her hand.
But the younger prince seemed all too pleased to accept the introduction. I am Loki, he had said, and I can well see why my brother lost his senses.
Jane took the compliment without suspicion. She would regret it in time.)
Gardeners prune hedges on the far side of the garden. Maids beat rugs from the castle windows. No one looks, but nevertheless, as Loki draws her tighter against his frame under the guise of this 'lesson', Jane feels eyes watching.
"I cannot shoot any more today," she objects feebly. "I am too tired."
"And that is why I am here to assist you." The prince leans down — he is so very tall — and his lips brush the shell of her ear as he says: "Listen to your body, Jane. Do as it commands."
A shiver runs from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes.
Jane lifts with Loki's guidance, draws with Loki's strength, and releases on her own impulse.
The arrow flies true.
(A season after Thor's departure Jane stopped walking the battlements at noon, looking to the horizon. Instead she walked them at midnight and looked to the heavens. The sun brought disappointment; the stars brought solace.
One night, not a week after the death of the king, Loki — regent — found her thus. She had not seen his approach, and nearly jumped from her skin when he said: You will catch a chill, Lady Foster.
I am warm enough. It was true; her fur-trimmed cloak was the most luxurious item she'd ever owned. But I thank you for your concern.
To Jane's surprise, instead of moving on, he had remained silently by her side for several minutes, joining her in her observation of the cloudless night sky. And what does a river girl find so interesting about the stars? he'd said at last.
She'd bristled. The stars are not the sole domain of nobility, my lord. His chuckle — oddly genuine — made her regret her sharpness, and she added: My uncle taught me the constellations.
He was lost in the sickness, was he not?
Yes. One of the first.
Loki acknowledged this with a curt nod.
The king had been one of the last. In camaraderie of bereavement, she offered: I am sorry about your father. You must be grieving. Especially without your brother. If you've any need of—
Even in the darkness of the night, Jane could see Loki's face grow cold. I've no 'need' for pretty sentiment, said he. What's dead is dead.)
They would not speak privately again for some time. But slowly every discourse, every interaction, every glance became laden with nuance and clever wordplay, until Jane felt herself lost in an ever-climbing thicket of roses — a very beautiful setting, until she should step wrong and tear herself upon the thorns.
After a half-dozen arrows bury themselves in the target, Loki finally releases her from his encompassing embrace. Jane knows it is not her imagination that his palms caressed her shoulders or that he smelled her hair. "Well then," he murmurs, sounding disturbingly satiated, "was that not better?"
Honesty will not allow Jane to deny it. "I'll take your input under advisement," she says reluctantly, turning to face him. "I did not know you were an archer."
"It behooves a king to be skilled in all weaponry."
"You are not king." Such a comment cannot be allowed to pass. "Thor is."
"Thor is not here. Until he returns — unless he returns — all that was to be his is mine."
"Not all," declares Jane. "I am still his betrothed."
And Loki smiles. "Indeed you are," he says. "For sixteen more months." He leans in, and for a startling moment Jane is sure he intends to kiss her… but he only tucks a loose hair behind her ear. "Until that day you are queen in name only—" his fingertips linger on the curve of her throat "—but I promise you, Lady Foster, a queen you shall be."
That night no water removes the memory of his touch, and the stars provide no solace.