Chapter 6 – The Morning After

The next morning, Eris woke up and moved to sit up slightly and she noticed that Loki was still asleep; this caused her to get out of bed with great ease and creep over to the bathroom. Where she turned the shower on, grabbed a towel that was big enough for her, and she stood under the scolding hot heat, where she was able to watch the water run down her body following the veins of her shaded form, before she felt a pair of familiar, yet strong arms surround her and pull her closer into a well toned and pale chest.

"Good morning." She sighed, feeling content as she looked back at the tall, dark and handsome man that was her husband.

"Good morning." He echoed kissing the top of her head as he let his hands moved down to her waist to emphasis his next question of: "How are you feeling?"

"I'm a bit sore, but I'll be okay." She promised him.

"Any regrets about yesterday?"

"One being, that I was in my shade form." She looked up at him as he gave her a look of confusion. "I could hear the whispers and sneers; they say that I have disgraced you."

He spun her around to face him immediately. "In no way have you disgraced me, if anyone had disgraced me, it is I." He told her. "I love you."

"I love you to." She whispered to him. "And you haven't disgraced yourself."

When they had finished with their shower, Loki helped Eris to get dressed into her armour and dry her hair, stealing kisses at any interval that he wanted to, before she done the same to him. Once they were both dressed, they interlocked their fingers with each others, and walked to the hall which was reserved for royalty so that they could go and get some breakfast. When they got there, they found Darcy, Eric, Jane, Frigga and Thor all sitting at the table, talking and eating their breakfast.

"There's the married couple, we didn't think that you were joining us." Darcy smiled, her voice still overly loud.

"Darcy, we are guests of royalty, try and have some manners as well as keeping your voice down." Jane told her as she and Eric glared at her.

"Sorry." She mumbled, and she shared a smile with Eris when she sat across from her and Loki sat next to her.

"We are sorry that we're late my Queen, but it took him a while to drag me from the shower." Eris explained.

"It's quite alright dear, you must have needed the warmth, and Loki's room isn't the warmest place in the palace, so a hot shower would have been understandable." Frigga agreed with her new 'daughter'. "We didn't actually think that you two would be joining us, so I was going to ask the maids to bring you in something."

"Would they really have wanted to go in if these two were too busy fucking to join us for breakfast?" Thor asked his mother almost sarcastically, but he soon wished that he hadn't said anything, when he suddenly found himself pinned to the ceiling. "Alright Loki, put me down now."

Loki looked up at his brother when he said his name, and he smirked. "This has nothing to do with me." He told him as he started laughing and he looked at Eris. "Come on love, put my brother down."

Eris looked at him as Thor suddenly face planted the floor, which caused a small scream of surprise from Jane, a laugh from Darcy, a smirk from Loki and a face palm from the Queen. "Sorry, my shade didn't like his comment." She shrugged, looking sheepish as she went back to her breakfast – a cracker if you want to be precise.

"It's alright Eris, Thor just doesn't know when to keep his opinions or questions to himself." Frigga looked pointedly at her eldest son as he got to his feet, recovering from hitting the floor.

"It was only a joke; she didn't need to drop me." He grumbled.

"So what are we going to do today?" Darcy suddenly asked them.

Everyone looked at her, then each other before they looked at the Queen when she decided to give them the idea of going to the mountains to visit the hot spring. "You can see the whole of Asgard from there."

"That would be so cool; can the other warriors come with us?" Darcy asked, obviously more excited than you would expect.

"You'll have to ask them, but since I'm still seen as a warrior, I'll go and the rest of them don't really have anything scheduled to do today, so they might actually say yes."

"Come on Eris, let's go and find them." Darcy stood up and walked to Eris, before she grabbed her hands and dragged her to her feet and then out of the room.

Once the two were both out of the room, Thor looked at Loki. "So brother, now that you're married, what's your next big step?"

"Brother, I have no idea what you mean." Loki told him.

"He means have you and Eris talked about having any children?" Jane told him.

"We've only been married a few hours, so no I haven't asked me yet, but I'm going to wait for a while."

Frigga smiled at hearing Loki's answer, glad that he had almost thought most of his life through and he wasn't rushing Eris. "After all Jane, to Loki Eris is only just coming out of her teenage years. He is twenty six now, whilst she is still nineteen."

"So there is actually a seven year age gap between the pair of you?" She asked.

"No, its six years but close enough." Loki laughed.

"Oh, well to be honest Loki I thought that you were both the same age."

"I don't know whether that should insult me or not." Eris told her as she walked into the room again. "Though six years isn't that much of an age gap, it should really be three, but because of what I am, we only age every two years, while Asgardians and Midguardians like you, age every year." Eris told her as she walked up behind Loki's chair and she slid her arms around him from behind and she kissed the top of his head as he leant back so he would have been leaning against her if it wasn't for the chair.

"I love you my shadow queen." He told her.

"I love you too, my shadow king." She told him with a smile, and she kissed his lips before Odin came in and she pulled away and along with Jane, Eric and Darcy bowed to him.

"Good morning everyone, Eris may you please join me on the balcony for the moment?" He asked and everyone looked at Eris.

She looked at Odin and nodded. "Yes, of course, my Lord." She glanced back at Loki, before she walked onto the balcony with Odin.

Everyone then moved to look at Loki, who shrugged completely confused by the whole scene, before Frigga spoke again.

"All of you go and get ready; I will send Eris out to join you." She looked at Eric who hadn't said anything at all during breakfast. "Would you like me to escort you around Asgard so you can get some data for your research?"

"That would be lovely, your highness." Eric smiled at her, and he watched the others leave, before he and the Queen started to talk about what his research on Asgard would entail. When Eris finally came back into the room with Odin, she gave a bow to the King and Queen before she disappeared and ended up at the doors to the palace. She pushed the doors open so that she could go outside, and she caught sight of the gleams which came from her engagement ring when the sun came into contact with it.

Loki looked at her, and she smiled as he watched a stable boy bring Eris' horse to her and she took a running jump being so agile she landed on her horses back, and he made his horse join hers. "That was neatly done, Eris." He told her with a smile.

"Thank you, Loki." She smiled and they rode their horses after the others, though they stayed side by side as they managed to catch up.

The group tried to ride in silence, but the only ones who really managed it, were Hogan and Loki. When they got to the mountains, Eris and Sif jumped down off their horses without any help from the men, just as the Warriors three done the same and Darcy was helped down by Loki – this got Eris' blood boiling – and Jane was helped down by Thor. She tried to ignore the looks that Darcy gave Loki, but she wasn't able to hide her jealousy as Sif bumped her in the ribs as she got her saddlebag and weapons from their horses, and sent them on their way as they started climbing the mountain. They managed to get halfway to their destination on the mountain before they decided to take a break to let the midguardians rest for a while, and Eris and Jane were sitting on some rocks away from the others, sharing a water bottle, and Eris was answering Jane's questions which were based on what Eris was able to do as a goddess.

"So when do you have to go and do the whole chaos thing?" Jane asked her, handing her the waterbottle.

"I'm doing it right now." She told her as she took her sip from the bottle. "I don't have to go to the place that I'm causing the chaos in, I can stay here and do my job."

"Have you ever gone to watch your 'work' unfold?"

"Yeah, before I met Loki, I used to so that I could get away from my father, but now I stay in one place and get it done quickly so that I can concentrate on other things." She looked pointedly at Loki, who was using magic to entertain Darcy, and she suddenly felt extremely jealous.

"Hey Eris, come back into this world." Jane told her, clicking her fingers in front of her until she snapped back to herself. "And don't be miffed about Darcy, Loki loves you and we can all see it, so you have nothing to worry about."

Eris smiled slightly. "Sorry, I just...I don't know, I guess it's because I haven't had many good things happen in my life, and Loki is the biggest...I guess it's a case of if this was a dream, then please don't ever wake me."

Jane laughed. "That was what I felt like when I woke up in bed with Thor...Don't worry, I was fully clothed!" This had both of the women nearly falling down the mountain in laughter.

"What are you two laughing at?" Fandral asked, as he sat beside Eris.

"Eris, I am shocked that you would laugh at my brother's ugliness, especially since he is now your husband." Thor told her and he watched Eris walk over to the two brothers, and slid her arms around Loki almost in a protective manner.

"Don't listen to them; they can't see who you really are." She whispered to Loki, as Thor got distracted by Jane walking to him and kissing him.

"And who am I really?" He asked her playfully.

Eris gave him a rather playful smirk, before she stood on her tiptoes and whispered sweet and slightly rude things into his ear.

At her words, Loki gave her a playfully shocked gasp. "Save that talk for the bedroom." He stage whispered to her, before he playfully rolled his eyes. "God, what is with teenagers and their hormones?" He didn't even need to see the look that Eris gave him; he already knew that he was going to pay for that comment later. With a chuckle and a quick kiss, they joined the others as they carried on climbing up to the hot spring.