3. Karnilla I

Mm-hm. Called it.

Just because I say little don't mean I know little. Princeling should'a known. By the looks of it, he didn't.

I turn from knittin' another armor enhancement before his feet step through the arch. He stops in the frame.

"How is it you know I come to you?"

"Queen of the Norns knows all, sugar." He tries to pretend he ain't bothered, steps inside, and closes our door behind him.

"You lookin' weary, boy. Sit and eat something."

He walks on towards his jammed bookshelf, peering up to the top. "I am well, Karnilla. Carry on." He reaches up to his scrawling journal and it falls into his hand. He gets on with flippin' and pacin' and it makes me tired.

I snap and his armor goes to my pocket dimension. Good. Where I may upgrade it well enough for once. Another snap and a bubbling mimosa appears in my grasp.

"Sit. Now."

I don't have'ta turn around to know when he barely manages to not roll his eyes. "I said I am well."

"Set your tush down before I set it down for you." Ever the Trickster, he moves to sit at his desk. "Nope. On that couch, boy. Right in front of me."

He plops down. Finally. What a surprise: without his journal.

"There. Now I better see you drink six'a these goblets. That backside ain't moving till you do."

I make a mimosa for myself. Might as well relish his misery. Speaking of misery, he's sure lookin' like it.

"Blimey, that weight's just melting off you. You look like a horrible excuse for a scarecrow." He's about to talk back like usual, but I point a finger at him. "Uh-uh, you ain't talkin' till you done drinkin'." He gives me a mild sneer, but it don't match my glare.

With a wave five more goblets await him on the odd, small table. A quarter way through his second drink he quits his scowling. Halfway through his third his eyes start drooping a bit. Finally, the moment he finishes downing the drops of his last, he lays down.

I toss my glass against the wall, where it shatters into smoke that disappears, then I peel my blanket off the bed I sleep in most.

"I am taking a breather, not a nap," he mumbles once I drape it over him.

"No, you're taking a nap. Even you need 'em." I take his boots and socks off next. "Norns, you took the smell of dead trolls with you. Don't get moving."

While I go about gathering dried soap-lotion, warm water, and towels, he keeps talking. "T'was a troll graveyard. How did that form?"

"Well, did it feel like Helheim?"

"Yes and no. It had a similar constellation and echoes of its energy, but it wasn't it."

"You know there are many dimensions... Didn't you take Talkie there?" I ask as I start with cleansing the worst of the grime off his feet.

"Karnilla, I do not need a foot massage," he says, and whisks 'em under the blanket. I pick 'em back up.

"You need lots'a things you say you don't, like sleep. Hold still."

"I am not tired and no, I do what I want."

"'Course, that yawn you're hiding ain't got nothing to do with being tired." I start anyways. "Your feet might as well be rocks."

"Mmhm... Dwarves would kill for them."

I almost don't catch the laugh in my throat. "Whatever."

He props himself up with his arms, devious as the devil Himself. "Aren't you in a good mood. No chiding my ego?"

"My yellin' means I care about you. Right now I don't."

Norns, I hate that smirk. I hate it with all my guts. It's that dippy curve up in the corner of his lips that says he damn knows the truth. "Fair enough." He leans back again, eyes closed. "As for your prior question: No, I tried to take her to Svartalfheim."

"Must have been a shift in Yggdrasil. There's too many things changin' at once."

"Jordmungand wakes as well."

I cover his newly warmed feet again, then take a seat on the table. "One manipulation at a time. Let me see that wrist." He extends his arm to me. I push up a bloodied forest green tunic sleeve. "Botchy."

He nods about the deep cut on his wrist. It's green and orange and purple and black and puffy and hot. "I was rather preoccupied with containing his memories."

"Botchy job at that too. I had to tie up your loose threads," I say while revivifying the layers of his wrist claimed by black magic. "While you was recruiting Talkie there he ran around yelling for 'Zola'."

"Ah, yes. The man was his assistant on Midgard. Pity I could not muster enough energy to fetch that one too."

"Why, he still his assistant?"

Loki smiles as I cover his healed arm again. "In a different form and a different way. It is quite a remarkable achievement for a mortal I must say."

I bring out his armor from his pocket dimension, and start weaving charms next to him. "Whatever. I advise you to bring your team to balance, now. You got a worshiper, a blabberer, and a saint. Find somebody between."

To which the princeling rises, arms tense. "I am capable of leading my team, Karnilla, which you are a part of. I have no need for your assistance besides dire circumstances."

I don't stop weaving. It ain't news that he is a contumacious jackanape, just like his Pops.

"Forgive me for stepping on toes, Captain."

The princeling scratches his head, taps his feet. It takes a few minutes before he says what's on his mind.

"Would you...happen to have any suggestions?"

"Uhh-hhu."

"It would help—"

"Uhh-hhu."

Then he considers me for once. Catches onto the purple prisms I weave together, then constrict into little crystals, then expand again.

His ridiculous bun makes him look like a smiling princess in drag. "You clever dame."

"Mmm-hmm."

"And if it takes black magic again?"

I keep weaving but meet his gaze. Oh, I know he knows. "Mmm-hmm."

He rubs his hands together, a stupid grin stretching across ghostly fair skin. "I owe you all of Yggdrasil."

"The Hel you do," I murmur, but I ain't about to give him the satisfaction of seeing my leap-century smiles. He hurries to his wardrobe. "You'd better put on thicker clothes too. I ain't up to coddling an icicle."

"Hush, dear Karnilla. What queen does not love to pamper a prince?"

I glare at him changing his shirt and coat. "Ones that have to deal with you."

"Then I will leave now as to make you deal less for a while." He pops up his collar and rushes to the door. "Do not wait on me for late feast."

"Good, one less yapper to feed."

I move to sit on the couch, lay back, and weave enhancements in beautiful silence. That is, five seconds of it. Talkie comes in.

"Evening Karnilla how is the mending going I am awfully bored I think it loathsome that we get bored do you know where Delectable was off to I was hoping we could have a game night during feast..."

Great thing is as the Queen of the Norns I can smite her. Yup, snap her neck right in half...I don't feel like it.

"Shush, pick up a piece of his armor, and get a'weaving."

She gasps in that idiotically dramatic way half the population of those air-headed Bereets do.

"Just because I am a sorceress does not mean that I want to volunteer my talents to something so trivial as upgrading armor why does he need armor have you seen his power because I have seen his power mind you just a portion but still you have no idea what he can pull out of those veins what can you pull out of your veins since you're a Queen and all?..." And on and on and on she goes.

Aye.

She should have white hair and pink skin, but no she gotta be blessed with perfect milky skin and a fiery pink dragon's nest of hair that looks good no matter how she turns. Too bad she screws it all up with mismatching obnoxious face paint.

Witch...

. . .

TBC