4.

Thor

"Th-or," you wailed, that petulant whine that I found in turns both endearing and annoying – "Thor please, how old do you think we are?"

You made it sound as though I were dragging you as we headed outside into the snow – and not following me perfectly by choice, albeit dragging your feet in the least convincing display of unwillingness I had ever seen.

"As always," I replied, remorselessly. "Old enough to know better but young enough to do it anyway". I must have smiled faintly at the quickness of my own reply, for you rolled your eyes at me with what I could only take as an affectionate, long suffering air.

"I can only suppose that passes for both quick and witty where you come from," you drawled.

"Well then you are as slow as I since we come from the same place, idiot."

You smirked a little;

"I must be adopted."

I pushed you and you yelled, not because of the push, which was nothing – but because we had just stepped out into the cold of the garden leading off from my quarters. It was a private garden, normally a rich green jungle hidden within golden walls, though so large that you could stand in the centre and see nothing but green on all sides. Though at the moment the jungle was gone and in its place was a shimmering sculpture in a thousand shades of dazzling white – that white that is never really white but a palatial prism of tiny fractal shards, glittering rainbows.

"It's cold," you moaned.

"It will be a lot colder with a face full of snow," I retorted, again rather quickly I thought.

"What?" you turned, just as I was hoping you would, and took a perfect face full of snow. You blinked, standing still for a moment like an indignant cat caught in an unexpected rainstorm.

"Why, you absolute –" you started, but grinned before you were finished, bending down and whirling round, graceful as in one of your battle moves and catching me full in the face with a fist full of snow right back.

That was our cue, I suppose, to start hurling snowballs at each other in a wonderful flurry of icy activity. My heart sang and spirit soared, for I had been determined to show you that snow could be fun at the very least – and I had been prepared for it to take much longer than it had. Snow in our eyes and hair, trickling down our necks and the fingers red but uncaring – you were right – it was as though we were still children with never a complex conversation between us in our lives. We yelled at each other inanely and pretended to be disgusted with every fresh thump of snow against flesh but I could see the rare flush in your cheeks and your eyes glittering with an excitement I had missed seeing there all this day.

Then suddenly you stopped still, just after I had successfully thrown a good one down your neck, you looked at me intently, mischief blazing in your eyes. I could see your breath on the air, your chest rising and falling with our playful exertion – and that very breath was beautiful to me. You grinned slowly and widely, and with that ran off into the trees. I followed as though you were a deer and I the hunter, but you were always quicker than me. Still I followed your footprints in the snow, and in the sunlight they sparkled where your feet had fallen. I came through the small group of trees to find you on the other side, beneath the sky once more. The snow had stopped falling now and the sun dazzled all around, lighting golden on the snow, emerald where it caught in your clothes and silver in your hair. You were breath-taking.

You were guiding your hand as though you held a wand, sending a shimmering stream of snowflakes spiralling up from the ground and into the air just above and in front of your head, forming an enormous snowball that hung there, steadily growing in the air. You were watching your work intently and with a gleam in your eye, and I watched you watching and followed the spiralling ribbon of magical snow so intently that it took me longer than it should have to divine your actual purpose. Indeed you had already started to move the mountainous snowball through the air towards me before I had caught on. I did not have turn to even curse my slowness before it caught me, not only in the face, but burying me to the chest in a heap of soft snow, which in such quantities I feel I should tell you, is not that soft at all, brother.

I yelled as you giggled, the light sparkling sound like bubbles in a glass that I had come to hear from you less and less the older you become. But it was a laugh that warmed the heart like the sparkling wine it so resembled. And my heart needed warming for this torrent of snow.

"LOKI!" I roared, though I confess I was half laughing myself – "I am not a snowman!" You laughed even harder, creasing up in merriment, holding yourself in so tight I could have sworn you were seconds from lying on your back and kicking your legs in the air as you had when you had pulled such pranks on me as a child. I glared at you, in a complete mock – rage that even I could not pull off well, and growled at you unconvincingly.

"Oh but brother –" you mocked – "The snow is so much fun!" You went into another crease of laughter, amused by your very own self as well as the ridiculous picture I have no doubt I made.

"I hate you Loki." You ignored me completely, as the comment deserved.

"Really, I wish you could see yourself. The mighty Thor! Oh dear, you look utterly ridiculous!" you chuckled.

I heaved myself out of the snow, with a giant surge, shaking snow off myself in all directions and getting no small satisfaction in showering you as I did so.

"Right!" I roared, unable to think of anything more imaginative than to chase you. You were so caught up in your own amusement you let me catch you easily, grappling you onto the snow and pinning you there with a mighty "Ha!"

But then – predictably I suppose, at finding myself in such a position I found myself mesmerised by your laughing eyes and intoxicated by the warmth of your body in all the cold air. I found myself smiling down at you, feeling nought but warmth for all the snow and gently brushing your flushed cheek with my fingers.

"Feh!" you spat – "Your fingers are cold!"

"Well, so is your face," I retorted.

"Well, don't even think about kissing me, for I swear our faces will fuse together and much as I love you –"

"Oh you do, do you?" I grinned, for you said it so rarely, you would not have now, I think, had you been thinking about it and you turned your face away, your lips forming a silent damn.

"Shut up Thor," you grumbled – "Let's – oh I don't know – build a stupid snowman." I grinned at you harder, knowing you would not be so rude about the idea if you were not actually taken by it. I could not resist –

"Aww, does Loki wanna build a snowman?" I mocked – "Does little Loki –"

You threw a snowball at me hard and it got me right in the groin, I winced and obviously that made you chuckle again.

"No" you said, too pointedly – "But you clearly do."

"Well alright – but by hand – no magic."

"Tell you what – you use the hands, I'll be the magic, deal?"

"Fine."

You perched yourself in the branch of a tree to watch as I rolled snow around the garden, like a little green bird singing out to me with rarely helpful advice and suggestions and though I did little but grumble back at you in reply, I still remember that afternoon as one of the happiest of that time. When you had quite finished laughing at my two clumsy structures, little more than large piles of snow with stones for eyes and twigs for hands, you hopped off your branch and came down to inspect them.

"That one looks like you," you pronounced, pointing to the largest, then observing that I had given the other a rather crooked pebble – smile frowned and said – "Brother – did you make us?"

"I tried."

You sighed heavily, nodding to yourself a silent right.

"Take a seat," with a wave of your hand you flew me and landed me on the branch that had been your vantage point for watching me. It was excellent. I rather wanted you to do it again, but you had fallen into strict tutorial mode –

"Watch and learn brother," you grinned. I did watch, fixedly, for your illusions were perfection, without ever touching it you shaped the snow until the figures of us were not mere representational blobs but perfect duplicates of us in shimmering white. You fixed shimmering cloaks of finely spun snow, one in glittering crimson, the other in emerald green to the snow – people's shoulders and when you were quite satisfied, made them turn to me and bow. I had to resist the urge to clap, for I had had no idea your abilities reached so far. Indeed, even you looked rather proud. Apparently, however, you were not done.

"Wait," you grinned up at me – "Watch this." You crafted a perfect little Mjolnir out of snow – this was still in the days I had yet to receive the real one – and, placing it in my double's hand had me attack the replica of you with it. The snow-you flung magical sparks of snow at it and dodged – and so you had us, rendered in snow, perform a small battle across the garden until your replica pinned mine down and mine bowed its head in surrender. I snorted –

"Now that is just ridiculous!" I called. Your eyes sparkled back up at me, you were breathing heavily, no less exhausted from your work than I had been from mine –

"I can make it more so," you replied, and your replica got slowly off of mine, pulled mine to its feet and into a kiss. You looked at the tableau, as though trying to decide on something and then held out your hand in a gesture to stop, frosty air streaming from your hand in a dazzling mist, freezing our replicas to stay that way for their whole brief wintery existence, shimmering statues of fragmented rainbow ice, locked together in one sculpture. I suppose I would have been happy for us to have frozen ourselves the same way. I could not help but wonder if you were having the same thought, you looked at me so – it was hard to imagine it – but shyly, and you smiled as I dropped from the tree to enfold you in my cloak like wings, to kiss you, protect you, keep you safe forever. I was so naïve back then.

When I let go your lips you looked at me and I was almost sure you were on the verge of conceding my point about the joys of snow. Perhaps you were, and certainly there must have been a concession to it when you spoke, though what you actually said was just–

"I am still cold though, shall we go in now?"

I grinned –

"Of course – and I will warm you, little brother."

You were already beginning to warm me with the smile, both enigmatic and innocent, that begin to creep across your face.

_x_

I'm sorry this chapter has been so long in coming, my modern AU fic has been taking over my life! In good news I've surprised myself by discovering that there's another chapter of this to go and I have it planned in my head and everything! Hopefully it won't be as long in coming as this one, after which I'll be starting "Sepia and Starlight" in the same series! :-)