A/N: Don't own don't sue
Lyrics at the beginning are from 'If I Knew by Bruno Mars
Lyrics in the middle are from 'A Case of You' by Joni Mitchell
If I Knew
Chapter Three
I was a city boy
Right into danger's where I'd always run a boy who had his fun
But I wouldn't've done
All the things that I have done
If I knew one day you'd come
I know it breaks your heart
To picture the only one you wanna love
In someone else's arms
But I wouldn't have done
All the things that I have done
If I knew one day you'd come
Oh, baby, please
Let's leave the past behind us, behind us
So that we can go where love will find us
Yeah, will find us
I know most girls would leave me
But I know that you believe me
Baby, I, I wish we were seventeen
So I could give you all the innocence
That you give to me
No, I wouldn't have done
All the things that I've done
If I knew one day you'd come
Eira waited over week before she returned to see the Prince again. She was schooled in the game of court enough to know that men, even princes, lost interest unless you allowed them time to muse about you. Being locked in a cell surely gave him more than enough time to think about whatever played on his mind when he wasn't plotting. After taking their supper one evening, Eira and the Queen had gone riding in the gardens in the pleasant mid-afternoon air. Eira was a very skilled rider as her father's lands were mainly open grounds. If the Queen had one of her adventurous moods, they would ride out at a gallop and let the wind whip their hair into veritable bird nests as they raced at a breakneck speed that would have given Frigga's royal guards a heart attack. Today, however, the Queen preferred to ride at a leisurely pace and only in the gardens where they could be seen from the palace at all times.
"Eira."
Eira had been daydreaming slightly and she flushed at being caught out when the Queen lightly touched her arm.
"Apologies, Your Grace."
Frigga waved a hand, dismissing her apology as unnecessary. She slid her eyes sideways to look at the young girl riding beside her. Eira rode as elegantly as she danced; her back straight in the saddle and her head held high. She almost looked like a Princess and Frigga wondered briefly how different her life might have been had she borne a daughter.
"How are the visits with my son?"
Eira fidgeted a little in the saddle, wondering what to say. She didn't want Frigga to think she had forgotten her promise but there was every chance that the Queen already knew she hadn't been to the dungeons for a week. Frigga was well loved and no doubt had spies of her own at court. Eira couldn't very well inform the Queen that she was taking her time between visits to tease her son.
"Well, Your Grace."
The thick crimson, green and gold trees surrounding them complimented her colouring and emphasised the bloom of her youth. Frigga watched her profile carefully, a small smile tugging at her lips.
"He is not falling into the darkness?" Frigga said carefully, even now glancing around the gardens as if they were likely to be being watched.
"I don't believe so, Your Grace." Eira flushed slightly at the memory of their last encounter; his mocking smile against her ear and his body warm against her back.
"Good." Frigga was making no attempt to hide her smile now. "I knew I could trust you to keep up with his clever mind."
Eira wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not so she simply smiled and bowed her head as they circled around for another turn of the gardens.
As the sun started to set and the air started to nip sharply, they turned back to the palace and Eira helped Frigga change out of her riding dress and into a simple gown. The King and Queen spent the last hour of the day together every night. Even if they didn't speak, if Frigga simply read while Odin pored over his papers and maps and battle reports, they spent that hour together without fail. It was sweet, and it gave Eira a much needed extra hour to herself each night. As Frigga slipped into the private hallway that linked her chambers to the King's, Eira grabbed the books from the usual table sitting inconspicuously by the bathroom door and headed for the dungeons.
The guard behind the wonderful mirrored doors was her acquaintance from her first visit. He blushed when she approached him, ducking his head in a minor bow. She smiled at him and decided to keep Loki waiting a little longer. She chatted sweetly with the guard, fluttering her lashes and touching his chest armour as she laughed. Flirting was always such fun.
Eventually she continued on her way, the books clasped under her arm.
LOKIEIRALOKIEIRALOKIEIRA
As always Loki heard her from the second she entered the gates. He heard her flirtation with the idiotic guard who could barely hold his sword the correct way round. He would almost have experienced a tiny flame of jealousy, if he had felt the guard could compare to him in any way. He watched her as she entered. She looked as if she'd been riding in the palace grounds. Her russet-red gown was cinched in tight at her waist emphasising the swell of her chest and her long slender arms, and flared out to her ankles. The skirt was cut into panels to give freedom of movement and beneath it, he could see endless willowy legs encased in buff breeches and soft brown leather boots tied behind her knees. Her molten hair was braided down her back until it touched her waist. There was a smudge of dust on her cheekbone that was somehow endearing.
"I believe I heard the guard refer to you as 'songbird'." Loki observed idly, leaning one shoulder against the wall of his cell as she moved across to the table to deposit the new books.
Eira glanced over her shoulder at him warily, wondering what angle he was playing at now. She felt they were at a sort of impasse, neither willing to attack or back down. She didn't believe he would hurt her, given the affection his mother felt for her, yet she was wary. As one rightly should be when locked in a room with a tiger. She knew the guard he meant, the one who had helped her the first time she'd visited. He was somewhat enraptured with her. She shouldn't have stayed and flirted with him.
"The Queen enjoys my singing." She shrugged, exchanging the pile of books he had finished for the new selection Frigga had sent.
"Enough to give you the epithet 'songbird'. You must have the voice of an angel."
He was mocking her. She knew he was pushing her for a reaction so she clamped down on her annoyance and kept her face a careful mask of disdain. Realising she wouldn't rise, he changed tactics.
"And what does my Lady Mother request you sing for her in this voice of the ages?" He enquired, every word dripping with derision as he sauntered across the cell towards the books she had carefully stacked on his lonely table.
Eira remained exactly where she was; knowing he had deliberately chosen to stand a mere inch away from her while he teased to gauge her reaction. He flipped open the gilded cover of the first book in the pile, tracing one long elegant finger idly across the printed page. Eira fought not to shiver, for a brief moment she had almost felt that finger trailing down her spine with the same deliberate barely there nonchalance. He hadn't deigned to look at her while he pricked at her pride and that needled her far more than his words. So she told him the secret she kept with the Queen, before she had actually considered the consequences.
"Midgardian songs." She murmured breezily, examining the silver sheen painted on her long nails.
Loki's fingers froze on the page before him and he half turned towards her. His wicked blue eyes were narrowed. He was close enough to her that she could see the arch of his cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass with and the surprisingly elegant curve of his ear. She had surprised him. For a moment he swung wildly between fury, that she had managed to knock him off guard, and curiosity at this side of his mother that even he had never seen before. She was determinedly studying her nails, those long thick lashes hiding her emerald cat eyes from him.
"Curious." His voice was low and dangerous and Eira felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
"Can you really blame her? Asgardian singing is all the same song, harping away for hours at a time. Even women singing those songs sound as though they're eunuchs." Eira burst out, her pride at her unusual voice winning out over her caution.
Loki made a mental note to use that against her later.
"And where, pray tell little songbird, do you find these Midgardian songs?"
Eira bit her lip and turned her face back to the cell floor. She should not have said that. Until now she had managed to keep her identity private from him, something every inch of her brain had convinced her was in her best interests.
"My father. He has ties with Midgard." She told him sullenly. "One of the dishes our land specialises in is created using our spices and a certain fish only found on Midgard. My father supplies it to Asgard."
"Indeed. A fisherman's daughter." Loki observed mockingly.
Eira clenched her hand into a fist to stop her from punching Loki in his smug face. From what she had told him he'd know exactly who her father was and he knew very well that her father was not merely a fisherman. He turned with slow exaggerated care, strode across the cell and seated himself in the plush chair. He placed his fingers together and propped his booted feet up on the stool.
"Very well, songbird. Sing me a ditty."
Eira almost flinched at his use of the moniker given to her out of affection by Frigga but she managed to catch it before she gave Loki something else to use against her.
"No." She said calmly and sweetly with a half mocking smile.
Loki felt his anger, always simmering below the surface, rising at her refusal to do as she was ordered but he knew striking her would not be the best way to deal with this one. This called for a touch more subtlety.
"A shame." Loki waved his fingers in a dismissive gesture. "If you have such little faith in your talent. So be it. You're dismissed."
He saw her fists clenching out of the corner of his eye and he knew she wanted to strike him something awful. Yet she was schooled enough to control her face and that did make the game more interesting. As he had suspected it would, his taunt struck her where she was most sensitive and she rolled one shoulder in a careless shrug. But opened her mouth nonetheless.
"Oh, I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid
I remember that time you told me
You said, "Love is touching souls"
Surely you touched mine
'Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time
Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling
And still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet
I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said, "Go to him, stay with him if you can
But be prepared to bleed"
Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling
And still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet."
Loki blinked at her. She was well within her rights to be proud. She had a glorious voice; gently enticing with a sexily beckoning undertone. It filled the stark bare cell and rose the tiny hairs along his arms. And she was correct; compared to the high keening tones of Asgardian music, her voice was wonderfully deep and unusual. He had never heard anything like it. He kept his face determinedly blank as she sang the short verse, staring at his cell wall. Her voice seemed to continue echoing around the small cell even after she had finished singing.
"One of your mother's favourites." She said quietly when he remained silent, turning her face away from him sitting as still as a statue in the velvet chair.
She felt as if she'd stripped naked before him and he had simply walked away. The air was heavy in the cell, thick and viscous as if the song had been oil poured between them. Loki couldn't bring himself to criticise her performance but he wouldn't praise her either. That would give too much power away.
"No comment?" Eira goaded him, her eyes a faint green glitter from under her lashes. "Even the Queen is not rendered speechless when I sing."
Loki snorted, the tension dissipating.
"I was merely contemplating the lyrics."
Eira smiled prettily at him, lifting her eyebrows.
"Of course."