Warning:

Dubious Morality Bathing/Washing Dubcon Cuddling Manipulative Loki Too Much Information

Heavy Petting in Disguise

Rated: M

The Slip

Judging by the powerful storm raging about the Queens Forest, it would take a few months for the secret roads outside the barrier to be passable for humans. Until then, she'd be trapped here in this nightmare court. Lucky her. A few months would be manageable. Years were maddening.

After cleaning her up, he'll leave her in the roost with all the other elderly servants. Those stationed in the kitchens were the least notable in the castle and were not over exposed to the prying eyes of Nobles. It seemed the safest option available for a young maiden to reside during recuperation. The kitchen Leads will assume she's new shipment, freshly picked from one of the villages, and hopefully no questions would be asked.

Two foul breaths of air was all it took to sneak the mortal into the brightly lit hallways of the servants' quarters. Masking their presence with sedir, the Prince impatiently waited by the kitchen doors as servants rushed in and out. During this time of night, when the festivities were in full swing, the stress level is high amongst the servants, making it all the easier for him to slip by.

From time to time, a servant would stop in their tracks and sniff the air in disgust; Loki made a mental note to learn how to mask the scent of others. As soon as the traffic near the doors dwindled down, the invisible Prince slipped out into the brightly lit corridors.

The greatest risk to him now was the possibility of being detected by the Ice Elves. Although elves lack the ability to identify the magical signature of others, they could easily see through both illusion and invisibility spells, and they also had a keen sense of smell. If the elves were too close they'd catch a good whiff of the garbage dump in his arms, and he'd have a lot of explaining to do; which he wouldn't because he's far superior to those slathering, overindulgent, half-wits.

By the time Loki reached the foot of stairs leading up to his royal suites, he was on his third lungful of air. The female's teeth clattered loudly and her violent shaking put her at risk of slipping out of his grasp. Try as she might to prevent further manhandling, Loki's strength far outweighed her own. Her coordination quickly deteriorated to the point of random muscle jerks and half-hearted flailing; it was a bad sign.

Taking the steps three at a time, the Jotun Prince juggles the mortal up and over his shoulder. Waving his hand in front of the locked double doors, they open on silent hinges and close just as quietly. Walking briskly through the parlor; Loki dared not to touch anything with his filthy hands. With the flick of a wrist over random objects, he vanishes them into a pocket of space, and enters his bathing chamber.

The dampness of the room intensified the stench of her tattered furs. Unable to handle the smell, he did what any normal person would do when something offends their sensibility; get rid of it. He crouched down and gently leans his burden between the junctions of the wall. Dirty fingers flutter about his hands. Pressing his lips into a firm line, he swats them away.

Gathering up a good chunk of clothes, he ripped the layers apart like paper and flips the split fabric over her shoulders. Startled by the jarring sound of tearing, the female cried out an incoherent name and jerks away. The filthy creature stared at him in bewilderment.

Pausing a moment from his task, he considers her reaction and his instinctive response to it.

To Loki's perspective, she had just bounced for him. Unintentional as it may be, insignificant to anyone else, everything comes down to matters of opinion, and to him, what she did was fascinating. The vocalization of protest merely sweetened the visual stimuli. It was a good thing he considered her pale dirty face mildly passable to gaze upon, or he'd have to question the kinks to his perversions.

With an air of professionalism, he grabbed another handful of rags, only to be hampered by her trembling hands. Wide brown eyes infused with confusion gazed deeply into frost green. That dirt smudged mouth of hers was parted slightly, giving him a peek of tongue and the white tips of teeth.

"Honestly," he grumbles under his breath as he lowers his hands, this mortal was no fun at all. "No one here is so modest."

Averting his gaze away from the half frozen female, he stood up, and said indifferently, "Strip, bathe, warm yourself." Taking a backward step, he makes his way out of the bath house, calling over his shoulder, "If you faint I won't fish you out until you're dead."

"I-i-is... a dr-ream?" The faraway tone of her voice, was sluggish.

He slowly turns around, "Come again?"

"Yo-you-r n-n-n-no-t re-real." Lifting from her slouching position, she stands on trembling legs. "F-fi-f-fig-g-ment of... f-firs-s-s-t aid-d-d. D-d-delu-sion."

Taking a half step, she fumbles with the torn layers of her clothes, wiggling her arms up and down, the weighted garments slap wetly on the floor.

"I'm afraid..." an idea occurs to the trickster mid-speech, "I am... not real," he confirms.

Loki halts near the lip of the pool and positions his hands over the tepid water. Clawing at the air, he tugs upward. From the rippling surface of crystalline waters came vaporous heat rushing high in looping spirals, and slowly descends in white misty waves; enveloping the floor in a low-lying blanket of fog.

Along the walls of the midnight blue room, glimmering strings of silver light begin to pulsate through the cracks. They darted about like lightning along the tile flooring, then spreads out across the rim of the pool. Curious eyes stare in awe at the display of sorcery, pleased by the sight, yet doubtful of the reality of it.

"N-n-no suh-such th-thi-thin-n-gh as muh-mu-magi-g-g-c."

Grinning, Loki says, "Indeed, it is but a figment of your delusional mind."

Nodding her head, she turns her attention on the clothes that have yet to be removed. Pale fingers search up and down the middle of her rags. "B-b-bottons?" Fumbling to find the circular objects, she whispers. "v-vi-sh-sh-sion b-be-bef-f-for d-da-dah-dying?"

He nods his head in affirmation, finding it amusing that the creature tries so hard to communicate with him. At this rate, she'll never get to bathe.

Turning away from him, a frown on her face, she lets out a little sigh of acceptance and gives up the search of nonexistent buttons. Slowly lowering herself back on the floor, she says, "J-ju-st g-go in n-n-now." Staggering toward the warm pool, trembling arms gave out and she collapsed - knocking the side of her jaw on the tile.

"What's your name?"

Oblivious to his inquiry, she rolls over, and grabs the hem of her coats to tug them up and over her head. Loki suppresses the sudden urge to laugh when she gets the garment stuck halfway over her eyes and nose. What made it even more hilarious, in the most pathetic of ways, was how her arms dangled awkwardly above her head like a limp puppet with its strings cut.

Yes, yes, he's a mean soul.

Figuring she was too far gone to berate him, Loki lets loose the chuckle he tried to suppress and a wide mirthful grin spreads across his face. Little Jane Doe's misfortune was too funny. Shifting towards her prone figure, he tugs at her soiled layers, freeing her from the jumbled mess of coats. Chunks of grit speckled her face and across the floor.

Wrinkling his nose at the sight, he says in disgust, "I swear, I just saw a waterfall of fleas migrating back to the motherland."

Her confused expression made him laugh.

Unlacing the tops of her boots, Loki notices how the bottom half was securely tied with string and bound tightly with cloth. Ripping at the cloth, he tilts her foot up to get a better look at the underside. Socked toes peek out from ripped seams and the curve of her heel is visible through a sizable hole in the sole. The hole was obviously formed by excessive traveling.

It takes a great journey to ruin shoes so thoroughly.

Removing all footwear, he examines her toes. The nails were in need of a trim. Fortunately for her, there was no sign of frost bite, but her feet are noticeably swollen as is her ankles. Excess water accumulation no doubt.

Glancing down at her face, he took note of her unfocused stare.

"Can you hear me?"

No response.

Without giving it a second thought, he lifts the few remaining undershirts from her waist and methodically hooks his fingers through the layers of her pants; the skin there is cool to the touch. Bony hips jerk upward as he splits down the seam of one leg and then the other. The ruined pants are tossed into the growing pile of discarded garments.

Gripping her upper arms, Loki hulls her up and twirled her away from him. Holding her steady, he pressed her flush against the wall. Pushing oily hair over her left shoulder, slipping a hand into the collars of her underthings, he tears straight down the cloth to reveal the knobby bones of her spine.

Flipping the garments over her shoulders, sliding it free from her arms, he scoops her up and deposits her into the misty bath water. The abrupt shift in temperature shocks her and she's gasping in short bursts. Small dirty breasts heaved heavily as the mortal hunched her shoulders, displaying the protrusion of her scapulas. Loki's eyes are drawn yet again to the prominent swells of vertebrae and lingers on the slight ridges of her rib cage.

Suddenly, overcome by the drastic transition of heat, Jane Doe slouches sideways, submerging completely into water. Quickly leaning over the pool, Loki fished out a visible chunk of ratty hair, and tugged her dead weight upright. This will not do. Loki drags her limp form towards the steps of the pool and positions her head sideways for easier air flow.

It is highly doubtful that she will ever recall what transpires this night.

Staring at the pile of filth on the floor, he waves his hand and it vanishes from sight. Quickly leaving the room, doors swing shut to keep the moisture confined as he enters his living quarters to deal with the rags. With the wave of a hand, flames erupt to life in an empty fire pit. He drops the rags into the blazing inferno and watches them burn away to ash.

With decisive purpose, the trickster turns back towards the bathing chamber. As he walks, his armor slowly dissolves in a glimmer of green and gold, and appeared in a jumble in his hands. Stripped bare, he tosses his clothes in a basket to be cleaned later.

The double doors swing open and a heavy waft of warm mist dampens his skin. He spots the mortal amidst the steam, struggling to lift herself from the edge of the rim. Without hesitation, Loki descends the steps of the bath. The heated water is on the verge of uncomfortable. Submerging hip deep, he sits on the third step down. Long elegant hands are placed firmly against a tiny waist, and lifts the mortal into a kneeling position in front of him.

Her little mouth is slack, face bloodlessly pale, and her pupils are slightly dilated. No longer stuttering, the mortal whispered dreamily if he were the grim reaper. It's an improvement from the way she was before, and Loki thinks she'll survive this night. He looks into her glazed eyes, considers his options, and nods affirmatively.

Shifting closer, she sighs mournfully and grumbles out, "This is such an odd dream..."

As if in surrender, the female glides into his lap, tucks her face against the crook of his neck, and waits there for her life to end. Lifting her thin arms up the slope of his stiff figure, she drapes them around narrow shoulders. The tip of her nose nudges against the lobe of an ear and she whispers innocently against his pulse point, "But such a sweet one. It's too bad I couldn't..."

That breath of hers smelt horrible.

Swishing his hand in the water to rid of the dirt, he summons a mint and slips it in her mouth. He's grinning in amusement as she instinctively chews and asks for more. Feeling generous, he feeds her two.

Her body temperature still remains a degree or two lower than his own. Loki could feel the coolness of her breasts press against his heated skin. The smell coming off of her was that of a Downer and the feel of her rear pressing into his thigh is bony and uncomfortable.

Summoning a pitcher, Loki dunked it in the water, lifts it high, and upends it over her head. The woman moves her face from his neck, presses her nose against his chest, and ventilates the water out of her clogged orifice.

Cringing at the feel of it, Loki is disgustedly amused. "You are the most audaciously, revolting creature..."

Disgust far outweighs amusement. And he shoved her off his lap to watch her sink under the water like a stone. Laughing rudely at the bubbles she's making, the dark haired trickster cups her under arms and positions the spluttering creature to sit one step lower than him. He holds her captive between his thighs, examining the way water streams in muddy rivulets down her back.

She doesn't even protest.

"Tilt your head."

With a flick of his wrist, a bottle plops into his free hand. Never imagining that he'd be using this old mixture, Loki wonders if its properties were still effective. Uncorking the bottle, pouring a liberal amount of the blue potion into her hair, he sets the vial aside for later use and messages the gelatinous substance into her scalp. Dark brown suds begin to form. Imagining all sorts of crawling insects living in her hair, Loki grimaces in disgust, if the potion should fail, several delousing attempts was eminent in her future. Lucky for him, he only finds twigs, moss, and clumps of dirt.

Rinsing and scrubbing thrice over, the Prince considered if a fourth lather was necessary. Shaking the bottle and finding it empty, it's flicked over his shoulder and disappears from whence it came.

Glancing at the side of her face, wondering if she fell asleep; he noticed that her heavy-lidded eyes were still open, and she stares fixedly at the silver threads of light zigzagging the wall. Pale fingers run through her brown hair, patiently removing snags and tangled knots- wondering how far to take this.

The quiet sound of water lapping against skin was calming, and yet his mind races along the avenues of indecency. Summoning a dark beige sponge in one hand and a bar of soap in the other, he dips them in the water, intent on giving the mortal the scrub down of her life. He starts with her back, then her sides, shifts to her legs, over her feet, and between her toes. Soaping up the sponge a second time, he scrubs her rear and over her thighs. Frothy hands run up her calves, feeling the trail of wiry brown hair peppering her skin. When he scrubbed under her arms with the sponge, he felt hair there as well.

Draping her arms over each of his thighs, he dipped the sponge back into the water. The trickster loops his arms under hers, places the sponge against her breast bone, and leaned her back against his chest. Pressing his chin against the side of her temple for a better view of what he was doing, Loki begins to apply more lather to the sponge.

She whispers softly, "Is that a natural sea sponge?"

Not pausing in his ministration, he scrubbed at her collarbone, then over and under her left breast. "Yes," he says brusquely, stroking the sponge up her neck and the underside of her jaw.

"I thought they'd be a lot softer..."

"I thought you'd be softer," he teased. "This one's used for scrubbing grime from pots and pans," the Prince admits with a mean smile, while he rubs the sponge and soap bar across her protruding ribs and up each breast again.

Judging by the feel of her, the mortal wasn't as skeletal as he previously thought – more like a ballerina's physique than anything. A little more weight and she'd be just right. His hand dipped low on her belly and pauses there, cupping the swell. For a starved person, he wonders why her stomach was slightly distended; like her swollen feet, it must be linked to some form of malnutrition.

Tugging her around to face him fully, he examines the brownness of the suds trailing down her front. Loki warned her to hold still so that he could clean her dirty face. With a nod of her head, the mortal maiden lets out a yawn, closes her eyes, and did as she was told. The soapy sponge went up the bridge of her nose, along the arches of her eyebrows, her forehead, and down her cheeks.

A stain on the right side of her face was proving difficult to remove, so much so that he was applying too much force, causing the Midgardian to wobble unsteadily and latch slick hands against his shoulders for balance. Wondering if she had sap stuck to her cheek, Loki holds her steady by the waist and runs his thumb over the stain. To his surprise, he discovers that it was another mole. Reaching out with both hands, he cups her face and rolls his thumbs across both beauty marks, feeling the rise of skin.

As he rubs the back of her ears and tugged gently at her lobes, he thinks of the Courtesans and one of the positions required for them to take while they kneel before their masters. Biting the inside of his cheek, he grazes his hands down the slope of her arms and capture her wrists to slowly bring them high behind the back of her neck. Looking at the way her small soapy breasts were lifted high for a long moment, he releases the hold and plants her hands on his shoulders again.

The entirety of the pose never did look appealing to him.

To distract himself, Loki squeezes the foam from the sponge into his hands and smears the suds on her face. By the time he was done, it appeared as if she had a white fluffy beard and an overgrowth of eyebrow hair. Suds flutter about near her nostrils. A glob flies off by the air pressure of her breathing and smacks his belly. It was such an amusing sight that he couldn't help but laugh in boyish delight.

Fetching the pitcher, Loki tilts her head forward, orders her to hold her breath, and slowly pours water over her head. Spluttering the liquid from nose and mouth, her hair follows the flow of cascading liquid and shields her face from view. Reaching up, Loki splits the curtain of hair with his pinky and tucks half of it over her left shoulder. Her eyes are open, and she regards him with a sense of curiosity.

Loki pauses; swiped his tongue over his mouth, and scrapes his teeth over each lip to remove excess saliva. Fascinated, the Prince lifts the rest of her hair away...

The sight of her- repressed darkness stirs.

Lips pressed into a firm line, he acknowledges its existence, but is repulsed by it just the same. Not bothering to share his sordid thoughts with this sickly thing, Loki watches brown suds streaking down her belly...

Marring her flesh...

Going farther down...

Into her navel...

Wrapping a hand around her tiny waist to steady her, he pressed his thumb gently into her belly button; pushing rhythmically slow, in and out, cleaning her there. Ice green eyes examines every inch of her face.

Loki pulls the mortal close and with a forceful tone, he demands, "Open your mouth. Breath through your nose."

Frowning, she asks, "Why?"

Unwilling to explain himself, Loki clutches her jaw with one hand, and warns her not to bite down. Rinsing the hand that probed her navel, he slips a pointer finger in her mouth and runs the pad against her teeth. None were loose and all were present save for the wisdom teeth. She's trying to push away from the intrusion and he guiltily slides his finger out her cool mouth.

Unlatching her hold on him, Loki guides her back around and she leans up against his chest again. For an ill, malnourished, creature, the mortal was disturbingly...

Frothing up the sponge, Loki stoically nestles the coarse scrub between the junction of her thighs, and the mortal reflexively pressed her legs together.

"It'll hurt," she protests.

Her reaction to the pain, but lack of awareness to the wrongness of this moment signified that her cognitive functions were returning bit by bit.

It does not faze him in the slightest.

Summoning a smaller, softer sponge, he shows it to her. "Will this do?" Loki rasped.

The maiden examines the smaller scrub as he pressed his mouth against the side of her neck, breathing deeply of her scent. It's an oddly shaped sponge with large spiraling holes, though the texture was far softer than the one currently in use. Plucking it from his grasp, she experimentally dips it in the water and squeezes, testing its buoyancy. She reaches for the bar of soap held firmly in place between his hand and her ribcage, and slowly begins to lather the sponge in order to clean herself.

'I should have washed her hair faster,' he thought petulantly.

Loki settles back, legs drifting farther apart. Swiping his damp hair away from his face, he watches as she cleans herself. The mist precipitates into dew and trickles down her pale skin. Licking his lips, he studies the way the water ripples around them, and how the white suds distort his view of the hand that shifts between her legs.

A minute of this hypnotic display drifts by.

He drags the course sponge up her back, around the curve of her slim neck, down across her arm, and rests it upon the hand that was cleaning her thighs. Slowly, Loki guides it back to the center of her womanhood as his other hand slithers up along her waist to hold her against him. His hand begins to move beneath the surface of the water. Suddenly, the mortal wavers, breathes deeply, and says sluggishly, "You smell nice."

"Hnnn..."

Physically exhausted, the mortal slumps against him, removes her hand and spreads her legs a little wider as the coarser sponge continues to scrub her. She hisses and jerks her hips away.

He recalls her saying she didn't like the rough texture.

Loki lets go of the sponge, snatched up the drifting soap, and lathers up his hands. Spreading her legs, he glides slick fingers down the slope of her swollen belly and cups her sex beneath the water. In a false pretense of cleaning, he scratches his fingers through wiry brown hair, and shifts his attention to her nether lips.

What he's doing to the human was despicable. He knows not her name. She's in desperate need for rest and sustenance; the lack of consent was an afterthought to him.

She moans, tilting her hips into his touch.

Loki shuts his eyes and grits his teeth.

He hasn't felt this in such a long time.

They stay that way for a long while as he fought down his urges. Thrumming with tension, berating himself for his actions, he knows he has more control than this. Removing his hands from temptation, breathing deeply of her damp hair, Loki promptly shuts her legs. When the pulsating desire subsides, he finally feels comfortable enough to move.

Sighing, Loki repositions his acquisition and lifts her prone figure out of the heated water. The mortal's soaking wet, so he summons a towel and tucks it around her. Carrying her out of the bathing chamber, he made his way towards the heated foyer and gently lays her against the low cushions surrounding the fire pit. Gathering a handful of furs, Loki draped it over her prone figure. Squatting beside her, still shaking with want, he repositions her hair away from her face, rubs a thumb over her left beauty mark, and leaves her to sleep in peace.

That night, Loki spends his waking hours considering his options, and whether he should keep her for his own.

A.N

Yup, I did hint out in the first chapter that he was slipping, and this tittle is called 'The Slip' for that reason. He was not a gentleman at all in this chapter. Loki was just being curious at what all the hubbub was about and it escalated to all the wrong places.