HK: Because I love you all to buggery, I decided to do you a Christmas special! I decided this on the 23, because you see my planning is wonderful like that, so here's the product of my latest insanity! It's a tiny bit (actually only one line of dialogue so I shit you not a tiny bit) inspired by a freaking hilarious comic on deviantArt, this time by LadyNorthstar. Here, just have a link. :P The usual delete the spaces drill. http:/ ladynorthstar .deviantart. com/#/d3l2x42 This story was actually gonna go up on dA as well, but then dA decided to be all "fuck you you can't post stories". GFD deviantArt, why do you such so much?
I have to add something new actually… it's been crazy warm this year, I mean it's December and we only got snow YESTERDAY. For the education of anyone who doesn't know, I live in Canada. We usually have several FEET of the fluffy crap by this point. But no, we have a few shitty centimetres that mostly melted today. GFD global warming!
Disclaimer: HK: Since it's around that time of the year… you know, Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah (I totally didn't know that was in my spell check), Dong-something it's Chinese and sounds awesome and involves dumplings… sorry bros I totally forget and since it's Christmas day in like, 20 minutes and since this is a Christmas special I can't go check… anyway, the point is that I figured I could impose on Odin to do a disclaimer for us!
Odin: In your dreams wench.
HK: But I love you!
Odin: (sigh) Very well. You own nothing. Especially not me. Happy?
HK: (sparkly eyes) Yeeeeah…
WARNINGS! The usual levels of hurr durr, this time with ODIN AND HONIE! HOORAY!
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On a particularly slow day in Asgard, Odin did something a little unusual. Well, maybe not unusual as such, just something he hadn't done in a long time. He asked his wife to keep an eye on the children while he was gone and went to find Loki and Hoenir.
Hoenir was quite easy to find, given that he lived in Vanaheim and always responded quickly to his brother's call. It was their other brother that was more of a problem. Eventually Loki was found lounging around in a tree in the middle of the city. He barely looked up as Odin and Hoenir approached.
"If this is about Baldur's furniture, I swear I'll do it eventually." Odin chuckled, pulling a travelling cloak more tightly around himself.
"I'm sure my son can handle this matter alone." Some disbelieving mutterings from the tree. "And that is not why I have come to find you. I was merely wondering if you were up for a quick trip to Midgard?" Loki sat up so fast he almost fell out of the tree.
"Are you serious? You haven't gone on a quest with me in decades!" The Allfather smirked, beckoning Loki down from the tree.
"I am. Hoenir has even come to join us." A decidedly devious grin crossed Loki's face as he jumped down from the tree, landing nimbly on the ground.
"It'll be just like old times." Hoenir paled slightly, remembering a few of those "old times".
"I hope not…" This only made his companions laugh. With a wide grin on his face, Loki wrapped an arm around Hoenir's shoulder and pulled him into a side hug.
"So where are we going? Does anyone feel like jotun smashing?" Odin wrapped an arm around Hoenir as well, the better to drag the more reluctant member of their party.
"Actually, I was thinking we could go and celebrate Yule with the citizens of the future of Midgard." The look on Loki's face suggested that he hadn't even dared dream of such a thing.
Hoenir looked from one to the other, and although he wasn't sure what they were talking about (poor guy is a little out of touch, living in Vanaheim and all), he just assumed from the looks on their faces that he wasn't going to like this.
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Loki actually hummed all the way down Yggdrasil. He had meant it when he said he missed going on quests with his blood brother; Freyr and Thor just weren't quite as much fun. For one thing, once Odin worked out what he was humming, he burst out laughing and sang along loudly.
Hoenir rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. The Vanir were a lot more laid back than the Aesir, but even they hadn't been able to keep him from missing this. All three of the elder gods were smiling as they reached Urd's well, and Skuld watched them cautiously.
Naturally she already knew what they were going to ask, but if anyone could make the future unpredictable… Odin marched over to her, beaming and clapping a hand on her shoulder, possibly a touch too hard.
"Mistress Skuld, we would ask you to open your gate to the future again, that we may join the humans in their celebrations of Yule!"
Skuld looked from one to the next. Loki was grinning even wider than Odin, which was far from reassuring, and Hoenir gave her a conciliatory shrug. Not terribly comforting either. The norn sighed, already preparing the spell.
"I hope you realise that the more I perform this spell, the more unstable the future becomes. Time itself could be destroyed." Odin paused, all levity leaving him. He hadn't thought of that.
Loki, on the other hand, had been giving this kind of thing a lot of thought recently, mostly to try and persuade Skuld to let himself and Freyr go wenching.
"Actually technically, since this is the future we're talking about, everything we're doing now has already happened. It's these actions that we haven't even done yet that shaped the future, so there's nothing to worry about. All your decisions have already been made for you, and all you have to do is play along. Unless, of course, we accept that the web of fate and the entire idea of destiny is wrong, in which case you could never see the actual future, only the most probable one, and Ragnarok might not even happen."
Skuld glared at him, but eventually she had to give in. After all, she and her sisters spun the web of fate. Arguing against the inevitability of the future would be the same as saying they wasted their time. And no one believed in inescapable destiny like a norn.
"I'm still not letting you and Freyr go wenching." Loki pouted, but since this trip was currently far more interesting he didn't really mind. Odin was still a little concerned about the fabric of reality.
"You are sure this will not damage time?" Skuld sighed, already weaving the spell in the air.
"Loki brought up a good point. As I have technically already done it, it doesn't matter. However, since the future still exists, it's safe to say that time will remain unharmed."
The Allfather breathed a sigh of relief, his excitement claiming him once more. He hadn't wanted to spend this whole trip worrying about destroying the universe after all!
"Excellent! Shall we proceed then?" Loki grinned, this time linking arms with Hoenir.
"Definitely. We should introduce Hoenir to the wonders of coffee." For a moment, Odin paused. The wise, responsible Allfather who watched over Asgard and did all he could to prevent Ragnarok was warring with the wild, carefree man he had been as a youth.
He remembered what coffee had done to him. Of course, Loki and Thor had assured him that it wasn't meant to do that, and would only do it in large quantities.
But this was Loki he was talking about, of course he meant to feed Hoenir large quantities of coffee, if only to see what would happen. The trickster's curiosity was as insatiable as it was ill advised.
Finally Odin gave up. He was going on this mission for a bit of nostalgia, to take back some of his youth. Feeding his brother coffee could only help that mission. He smirked at his brothers, and Hoenir paled.
"Sounds like a plan." Hoenir shook his head, trying to disentangle himself from Loki's arm, but stopping when the arm became a snake.
"I don't think I shall like this… coffee. Perhaps we should miss that and observe the celebrations instead?" Loki laughed, tugging him through the swirling portal Skuld had created.
"Don't be ridiculous Hoenir! We aren't going to be observing the celebrations at all!" Hoenir was now worried and confused, which was his default state on these quests. It was kind of nice to be back on familiar ground. Odin was now blatantly grinning as he followed them through the portal.
"We're going to join in!" Behind them Skuld rolled her eyes as she closed the spell and prepared for the journey back.
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Loki wasn't sure where they were this time, all he knew was that it wasn't the same city they had visited before. This was a smaller, more suburban town, covered in snow. It was late at night, but street lights kept the area sufficiently lit.
Several groups of people were still moving around, wrapped up warmly against the cold. Odin was also taking in his surroundings, and he nudged Loki.
"Have you been here before?" Loki shook his head.
"No… this is nothing like the place I went to with Thor. Give me a minute and I can find out a little more." One of the groups had wandered closer, and now they could see that it was comprised mostly of middle aged and old women.
They all seemed reasonably happy, despite the frigid air and snow underfoot. Loki decided that this was because of the Yule celebrations. However, dipping into their minds he was surprised to realise that they knew nothing about Yule. He took a few steps back, a little surprised. "I… I think we missed Yule." Odin rounded on him, startled and angry.
"What? How could we have missed Yule?" Loki shrugged, getting over it and fishing a little deeper.
"I don't know… I don't think the humans worship Yule anymore. These ones don't seem to know anything about it." Odin stared incredulously at the group of women as they hurried on down the street.
"How far into the future have we come?" Hoenir rested a hand on his shoulder, a little unsettled by that turn of events as well.
"Don't worry brother. This is merely one small part of a large world. In other areas surely they must remember us." Odin nodded slowly, pulling himself together.
"What shall we do? If we have missed the festivities that is." Loki frowned thoughtfully, still watching the women. They had arrived at the door of a nearby house, but rather than going in they had collected on the doorstep and appeared to be waiting.
"Wait a moment… something is happening. Perhaps instead of Yule they have a new celebration?" A half smile crossed Odin's face.
"It's a little humbling to realise that we have been forgotten. But since we're here, let us see what has replaced us." Loki rolled his eyes, elbowing the Allfather.
"If you're going to be all mopey and serious I'll just rename you Hoenir."
"Hey!" Hoenir tried to frown reproachfully at Loki, but he was having a hard time not smiling. Odin chuckled, slinging an arm around Loki's shoulders.
"No need for such drastic measures yet, my friend. Maybe we should give them reason to remember us?" A wicked grin crossed Loki's lips, but before shit could go down, the door to the house the women were at opened, and the whole group broke into song.
The gods paused to stare at this seemingly random occurrence. Oddly enough, the people inside the house didn't seem to object to this obvious display of public insanity. They smiled and listened to the songs. Hoenir frowned, folding his arms.
"This is very strange behaviour." Loki nodded slowly, still trying to work out what the fuck was going on.
"Do you think it's part of the celebration?" Odin shrugged, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
"Perhaps… it looks intriguing." Hoenir knew exactly what that look meant, and although he already knew it was hopeless he held on to the vague chance that this time, just maybe Odin would listen to him.
"No… It wouldn't be fun. Or interesting. It's too cold to walk around singing! And we don't know any of the appropriate songs!"
Just pause for a moment and imagine how effective that was. That's right, not at all. The others didn't even seem to hear him. Loki grinned, already fishing for lyrics.
"Let's give it a shot." Odin smirked, pulling his travelling cloak tight again. He had bluntly refused the norns' suggestions for new clothing, and as such all three looked quite out of place.
Loki and Hoenir had been bundled into giant puffy winter coats half way through the transfer, but since Odin was the king of bad assery he just whipped out his spear and killed the coat that came for him. We digress.
Loki placed a hand on Odin and Hoenir's head to transfer the information to them. Hoenir squirmed under the mental download, but Odin was so used to Loki's shit by now that he didn't even blink.
Once all three knew the words (they could have actually legitimately learned them, but that just wouldn't be as fun), Odin and Loki grabbed Hoenir by the wrists and dragged him out onto the street with the ease of long practice.
Hoenir didn't actually need dragging, as by now he had gotten used to the fact that he couldn't actually stop either of the other two when they wanted to do something. Picking a house at random, Odin knocked on the door and the three waited for someone to answer. Hoenir made one last ditch attempt.
"Guys, this isn't a good idea… we should go and watch for a while! To see if we get it right!" But then the door was opened by a little old lady, and Odin and Loki broke into song. Technically they both had exactly the same information, and to give credit where it's due, they were both singing the same words.
They were just singing them at different speeds, in different pitches, to a different rhythm. The old lady watched them with a bemused look on her face, and Loki elbowed Hoenir hard.
"Sing along!" Hoenir gave the old lady an apologetic smile and hissed back.
"No! I'm not good at singing!" Loki resumed the song, this time at Odin's pace, and Odin paused.
"Doesn't matter, it's the spirit of the thing!" Hoenir shook his head and opened his mouth to refuse, but Loki just elbowed him again.
"Shut up and sing, Hoenir!" Hoenir rolled his eyes, and took up where Loki had left off.
Odin and Loki both paused to turn and stare at Hoenir. He had lied. He had SO lied. Hoenir had a beautiful singing voice. Not that the other two were horrendously bad, they just sounded horrendously bad when they were trying to duet at different speeds and different pitches.
The little old lady finally seemed to understand what they were doing as she smiled widely.
"Oh, you're carollers! How lovely. Tell you what dears, I have some hats left over from when my girls left home, they're no use to me here so why don't you pop them on?" She disappeared into the house while Hoenir hesitantly finished the song. There was a moment of awkward silence. Then Loki patted Hoenir on the back.
"Well don't you just sing like a girls choir. I think that was the prettiest thing I ever heard." Odin snickered, folding his arms and grinning at his brother.
"Yeah, you realise that when we get home we have to tell everyone else about this discovery." Hoenir sighed, hanging his head in some kind of shame of his amazing singing voice.
"That's what I was afraid of…" Just then the old woman returned with two fluffy red Santa hats and a set of reindeer antlers.
She handed them to Loki, who stared at them like they were made of pure devil magic, wished them a "Merry Christmas" whatever Christmas was, and closed the door in their faces. Because you see she didn't want to let any more of the cold night air into her house.
Loki regarded the hats for a while longer, and Odin frowned down at them as well.
"So… who gets the antlers?" Loki shrugged, trying on a Santa hat. It was actually quite warm, and nicely fuzzy.
"Don't care, as long as it isn't me." There was a brief moment of silence, which Hoenir broke.
"Here, let me just say what you're thinking. Let's make Hoenir wear them, we haven't messed with him enough yet today anyway." The other two stared at him. Apparently Hoenir's gotten sassy since he was living with the Vanir.
So since they weren't actually doing anything, he just took the antlers because if he was going to do it anyway he may as well rock those antlers. In a manner similar to that of a professional person at the top of their field. Otherwise known as LIKE A BOSS. (This is why the author shouldn't be allowed to write/exist after reading on BetterMyths all day).
Gradually a wide smile spread across Odin's face, so contagiously that it spread all the way to Loki's as well. The Allfather let out a loud laugh, turning to walk away from the house and wrapping an arm around his brother's shoulders.
"It seems that living with the Vanir has worked out well for you Hoenir! Perhaps I should thank them." Loki snickered, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he followed them back to the street.
"For bad-ass-ifying him? Yeah, probably." At this point he realised that one of his hands wouldn't fit into his pocket because he was still holding the remaining Santa hat. The one that was fated to go on Odin's head.
Naturally the only solution to this problem was to violently body check Odin from behind and force the hat onto his head. This plan would have worked out perfectly if only it didn't involve violent body checking.
Since Odin wasn't prepared for this, he actually stumbled and fell into a snow bank, beginning a brief bout of actual wrestling over the hat.
Hoenir, who had the presence of mind to duck out from under his brother's arm the second he realised that he didn't know exactly where Loki was, considered trying to stop them.
Most of the time on these quests that was his main role, to run around after his brothers and try to stop them from messing up everything in the vicinity and then taking the consequences. But as has been previously mentioned, living with the Vanir (and possibly also the lack of proximity to a pair of maniacs) was good for Hoenir.
So instead of doing the usual panicking and failing to calm things down bit, he just leant against a handy streetlight and watched the others fighting in the snow. Loki almost made it to his feet, only to body tackle Odin again, letting out some kind of weird war cry.
Odin responded with a war cry of his own, jamming a handful of snow down the back of Loki's coat, making the trickster scream. Hoenir chuckled, shaking his head. Honestly, looking at them now you'd never know that these two were actually gods. Trips to Midgard were a wonderful stress reliever.
Actually, watching his brothers wrestle in the snow like children was pretty funny, and before long Hoenir was flat out laughing as he watched them fight. The hat that had started it all was now lying discarded in the snow at his feet, but Hoenir couldn't be asked to do anything about it.
People were also starting to stare at them, but Hoenir didn't really care about that either. It was oddly freeing to be able to do that, to just decide that he didn't give a crap. That was probably why Loki does it so often.
Freakishly enough it was about then that something on the street happened that was even weirder than two grown men having an all-out battle to the pneumonia (death wasn't likely, but oh the flu was already plotting against them).
A group of three young women that Loki might have recognised if Odin hadn't presently been pushing his face into a pile of snow came walking down the street, pulling a cart behind them. On the cart was what at first glance appeared to be a snowman. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a young man with a large floppy hat, whose body had literally been encased in snow.
All four of them were singing at the top of their lungs, drawing almost as many stares as Odin and Loki. As they passed Hoenir, the girl with the blue hair paused in her singing to give him a wide grin. She darted briefly away from the rest of the group.
"Hey, are those your friends fighting?" She gestured over her shoulder at Odin and Loki, who were now rolling over each other to try and gain superiority. Hoenir grinned back, shaking his head happily.
"Worse, I'm afraid. My brothers." The girl looked a little surprised by this, but she got over it very quickly. She passed him a small back of squishy coloured shapes.
"Well, I figured you shouldn't be a spectator without snacks. Have some marshmallows. Oh, and merry Christmas!" Hoenir accepted the bag curiously, giving her a bright smile of his own.
"Merry Christmas to you too." She waved goodbye, running back over to her friends and picking up the song from where they were.
Now that he actually listened to it, Hoenir realised that it wasn't actually a Christmas song. It didn't sound like any of the ones Loki had downloaded into his brain. It didn't actually sound particularly festive.
But they appeared to be having fun, so Hoenir decided not to question it. Instead he went back to watching Odin and Loki wrestling in the snow.
Yes, it was immature behaviour that wasn't really befitting of their status as gods. But it reminded him of a simpler time, when all he had to worry about was keeping this pair of idiots alive.
Not that that wasn't hard in and of itself, but Hoenir couldn't resist the fond smile that had hijacked his lips. Life was good.
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HK: Love me I posted on Christmas! Never mind that it's short and kinda shitty and probably the cheesiest happy ending bs I've ever written. But whatever your holiday is (mine isn't actually Christmas but hey, my family likes it and I like presents and happiness and time off school and work so I'm down), make it a freakin' sweet one, because who knows! Maybe the world will end and this will be our last Christmas/Kwanza/wtfever. Pfft, yeah right. But have an awesome day anyway, for no reason other than because we can. :) Spread the love guys!
