1 Flames
It started with the flames, a tiny circle of fire in the hearth. One of Helblindi's pets must have been chilled in the bitter ice and stones of the royal towers, and she started a small fire with a set of flints she had smuggled into Jotunheim from Alfheim. Caught by the smell of smoke, Loki stole inside the elf-maiden's room and hid behind her curtain to watch the fire. He ignored her sobs muffled in the furs on the bed, and crept closer to the mantel to look into the heart of the coals.
There he swore he saw a vision, that of a girl unlike any ever seen in all of Jotunheim. Hair waved around her face in curls the same color of the fire, and as he watched, entranced, she flickered just out of reach. The figure of that bright girl made him catch his breath with no reason for it; just seeing her there made him pant and lust more wildly than any of the sex-teachers he had been given up to as a youth, more than the wives of Jotun thanes he had talked into his bed.
The heat from the hearth seared his blue skin, but he ignored the pain. Loki's eyes closed, and he pictured the firebird coming into the Royal Tower, climbing the spiked ladders to his own room and consorting with him. Among his furs she would kiss his skin and taste his tongue until the pleasure set them both on fire...
Those dreams were interrupted when Helblindi himself burst into the room, causing the elf-maiden to gasp and sit upright in the bed. The tears on her high cheekbones glittered in the flames as Loki's brother threw the jug he carried into the mantel; the pot shattered among water and ice hissing over hot coals. The flames were extinguished at once.
The lady elf sank back on her furs, but Helblindi ignored her. Instead he strode to the corner where Loki crouched and dragged him out with his ear in one fist. The prince caught one final image of the lady, frozen with fear and astonishment, before he was pulled out into the hall and the door slammed shut with a kick. "Get out of that!" Helblindi bellowed. "Sniveling runt – were you sniffing around my pet's skirts hoping to get the spoils I leave behind?"
"Skadi knows I should never touch anyone you have already enjoyed – the mere thought makes me want to vomit," Loki retorted.
"Bugger off." Helblindi raised one mighty arm to strike, but without another word his brother twisted away and escaped.
Thus began Loki's fascination with fire. He stole the set of flints from the elf-maiden and spent several days looking for things to burn: branches he hacked from trees during the spare hours of light, and old furniture claimed from an attic room. There among the discarded weapons and ancient writings he created a small spark with the stones and lit the fire in the ashes of a forgotten fireplace, long since discarded.
Far away Farbauti shouted for Laufey and pounded her spear on the floor of her attic chambers. The floor trembled with the blow as well as the heavy thoom, thoom of the soldiers marching out of the Tower – they must have been advised of another attempt on the realm. Just beyond the window the wind howled, flying with skirling snow and spatters of ice on the panes.
Loki ignored it all as well as the heat on his skin. Already his heart beat faster, so close to the deadly warmth of the fire. Enough time spent by the heart could cause him to contract sótt from the flames so close to his Jotun flesh.
The elf-maiden expired three days after Loki's discovery of the flames, tears icing on her cheeks in front of an open window. Apparently she had seated herself in front of the icy air rather than submit to Helblindi's embraces any longer. The Jotun prince, bereft of his pet, pounded up the stairs to the attic rooms in search of a different victim. "Loki!" he shouted. "Come here, you mud worm, you sand pox, vile vermin!"
Loki stared into the flames and covered his ears. To help ignore his brother's insults, he concentrated on the memory of the girl in the flames and he thought she might appear if he waited. One of the eldivðr popped, and a shower of sparks cascaded onto the hearth; he tumbled backwards with one arm over his face to protect his blue flesh.
And there she was – the girl in the fire. She seemed to hold something in one hand, an object she studied intently. It looked like a scroll covered with writing; Loki had a few of his own, stolen from Laufey's library, hidden under the flagstones in his room.
Growing careless, Loki peered closer. The vision was so clear, so close! He could see her lips move as she read, and her hands moved together as though to cup something. Her fingers were long and beautiful, her flesh of a sheen like pearls stolen by Laufey from one of his many raids on the realm of Asgard.
He shifted to see more of her, and within the fire the flame-maiden looked up suddenly. Her penetrating glance seemed to see him from the prison of the grate right away, and her eyebrows lifted in inquiry. One corner of her mouth curled as well, in a look that Loki recognized as pure mischief.
"I wish you could hear me," he muttered.
Hear you, the vision whispered back. The sound went right to his prick with a sensation of thunder, of lightning. Loki felt electricity bolted through his body, and his mouth opened in surprise.
The eldivðr shifted, and to his intense disappointment his firebird disappeared. That was how he thought of her now: his firebird.
As if of its own volition his hand crept to his crotch, thrust inside his furs, and found the hardness her look had woken. Loki pretended it was those long, pale fingers as he stroked himself, squeezed the base, manipulated his flesh, swirled the clear drop at the slit to ease his touch as he palmed the tip…
"Loki!"
The shout came from Helblindi. Loki had no desire at all to face his brother and confront another onslaught of insults especially with an erection jutting from his furs; he would never hear the end of it. Hastily he crawled behind one of the large ruins of old furniture in the room to crouch there, shivering with fear and desire.
His elbow knocked against a bump on the wall – an old carving on the lintel of a dragon in full flight. Loki cursed at the pain, but as he did so a section of the stone wall moved to once side with a harsh, grating sound to reveal a dark hole.
Here was the very thing – a hiding place for when Laufey or Helblindi came to drag him by the ear downstairs. There he would be mocked and bullied as usual, not only by the king but also by the toadies and hangers-on who wished to winkle riches from the crown prince's pockets. Life was not easy for a runt among that brutal crowd.
The hole stretched behind him as far as his groping fingers could reach. Once his eyes grew accustomed to the dark Loki was able to see he was actually inside a tunnel, one he had never heard of or seen on any of the maps of Jotunheim and the Tower. He realized he could stand upright, and a breeze on his face told him there was air enough to breathe – at least for the moment.
"Loki! Come do my bidding, whelp! Appear so I might slit your belly!"
Not a chance. Bidding a mental farewell to Helblindi, Loki slid the panel shut and tiptoed into the tunnel to be swallowed by the dark.
"They are scrolls from my mother's room." Carefully Thor smoothed one of the parchments out on the table; Natasha leaned over his shoulder and looked at the writings within the document. "Alas, I never had the inclination for such things when she lived, and now it is too late."
She pressed his arm in sympathy and cautiously pointed to the marks on the page. "These tell of magic?"
"Yes. Queen Frigga was mistress of incantation and enchantment, and she tried to show me some of her skills several times. As I say, she was unable to teach me even the simplest spell."
Natasha scanned the scroll. She knew some Icelandic, and the writing was close to that glorious language with several unknown cuneiforms among the beautifully written words. "This is a spell here?" She indicated a section that almost seemed to swirl like smoke as she read it.
Thor pulled a face. "I am not sure – yes, I suppose it is. How did you know?"
"To be honest, I have no idea. It just looked magical."
He tossed back his golden hair and gazed up at her. "It speaks to you, does it not?"
She shrugged. "Maybe. And this section here – it is dark. I'd guess it's a curse."
He stood so suddenly the chair shot back and crashed against the wall. Tony, who was half-asleep next to the coffee-pot, awoke with a loud snore and a grunt of "Whacha mean asleep I was listening the whole time."
Thor ignored him. "You seem to have the ability to feel the magic behind the texts. Ever did my mother try to show me, but I was completely unable to – well, to be honest, it was frustrating for us both. At the end she gave up on me entirely."
Natasha nodded; she could just imagine. Thor was the shining prince who was good at everything… she always thought of him as a bit of a pampered son. Perhaps his status as only child of two royal parents made him expectant of easily-won rewards. "I wish I could have met her," she said as she rolled up the scroll and carefully handed it back to him.
He grinned and pressed it back into her hands. "It would make me very happy – just as it would have thrilled the queen herself – if you would accept this scroll as a gift. Frigga would have loved to see it in the hands of someone who could at least sense the potential within."
"Hey, can I have a scroll too if you're handing out Asgardian knick-knacks?" Tony tried to grab Natasha's prize.
"No way. It's mine, Stark." She held it out of reach and went on tiptoe to kiss Thor's cheek. "Thanks so much! This is awesome. Know what? I'm gonna steal what's left in Stark's coffeepot and go read this before Fury calls me for babysitting or loan retrieval."
The one luxury Natasha added to her tiny apartment when she moved in was a small fireplace. Ice pellets rapped against the glass as she entered, and she thought a quick fire would make her rooms – cold and impersonal as they were – much more welcoming.
Once the flames leapt up inside the box-like hearth, she sat on the floor and unrolled Thor's gift. Under her fingertips the words and runes twisted and turned like tiny ink lizards warmed by the heat.
Phrases leapt off the page as she scanned it. "For finding hidden paths… to reveal the true nature of things… to hide one's form …" It was all fascinating and quite different from the love philters she had expected. One described a method of creating a light in the bearer's hand, and she cupped her fingers instinctively to try and create the spell as though she could actually get it to work.
The log in the flames popped, and Natasha looked up. In the heart of the fire she saw a figure with blue skin and red eyes watching her; his mouth hung open with fascination – and more. Yes, what she saw in his face was desire…
I wish you could hear me, he mouthed.
It's difficult to hear you, she replied inside her mind. At once his lips parted, and the red eyes widened; she could see his pupils darken with...
Yup, definitely desire.
Natasha shook her head, and the image disappeared. Studying texts hundreds of centuries old must have made her hallucinate. The act of deciphering the faded ink made her eyes blur and imagine a picture in the flames – one that moved and tried to speak to her.
That had to be only explanation.