Responses to a couple of guest comments below; I normally don't do that (though I always reply if the PM option is there), but these were particularly interesting comments so really wanted to, apologies to those of you who aren't interested, you can of course skip that part.

Magic & Mead

Chapter Ten: Healers & Horses

Loki's mouth twitched. With the twitch came a twinge of discomfort. With the twinge came another twitch, and then another twinge, until he became aware of the wet patch of silk on the pillow the side of his face was pressed into. He pushed himself up a little, tried to roll over, found that he could not, and decided he may as well sit up instead.

"Good afternoon," his mother said.

Loki lurched back into the obstacle behind him, blinking heavy-lidded eyes at his mother, sitting there in his bed, a book in her lap. She stared down at him serenely, smiling broadly, as though it were perfectly normal for him to wake up to find his mother reclining on his bed. He brought his fists to his eyes and rubbed them. Perhaps it was just a weird dream.

"How do you feel?"

He dropped his fists and pushed himself up further into a proper seated position. Not a dream, then. "My head hurts. And my tongue feels like it's grown fur. And my stomach feels…bad." He wasn't sure how to describe exactly what that cavernous twisting pit felt like, but "bad" was accurate enough. "And my hand hurts," he added, flexing the fingers of his right hand.

She furrowed her brow at the last. "What did you do to your hand?"

Loki shrugged. Mother didn't really like him to shrug, but converting thought into words was presenting a challenge for some reason.

She took his hand and held it up so that the palm faced both of them. Loki grimaced. It was reddened as though chafed, the top layer of skin cracked and peeling as though severely sunburned. He had never gotten a sunburn on his palms, though.

"Did you burn yourself?"

He shrugged again. The pain in his hand was fading and the pain in his head was growing worse, easily eclipsing it.

"Loki Odinson," she said, gripping his hand less gently by the wrist. "Were you conjuring fire?"

Even through the pounding in his skull he recognized from her tone of voice and the use of his full name that she would not view that as a good thing. "I don't know," he said, managing the words this time. He had a vague memory of seeing a whirling red ball in his palm…but he didn't remember it being made of fire or getting burned by it. "What happened?" he asked, giving in to the urge to lean forward and rest his head on his palms.

Frigga let go of his wrist. "You don't remember drinking mead until you passed out drunk?"

Loki's eyes went wide, hidden in his hands. Mead. Thor. Poetry. He remembered it in jumbled fits and snatches. "No," he lied, words muffled against his arms.

"We can talk about it when you're feeling better. And we will have to talk about it. But for now…"

Unable to see what was coming, Loki let out a startled cry when his mother threw her arms around him and drew him close, fingers pressing hard into his back, then rubbing as though massaging him the way Eir did on his legs or arms if he got muscle cramps after training or those awful random "growing pains."

"Motherrr," Loki whined, squirming.

"I know, I know. Just give me a minute to reassure myself you're alive."

Loki tried to hold back his grimaces and let her do just that, wondering what exactly had happened and how close he'd come to being not-alive that she needed to virtually crush him to believe he was alive.

/

/

After convincing his mother he was alive, Loki next convinced her to stop worrying and leave him be. Frigga left, but with promises to send Eir to look at his hand. He dragged himself out of bed, went to the window, drew back the heavy curtains, and blinked in surprise at the sun's brightness and position. It was already well past noon. He put his left hand to his forehead and rubbed hard, trying to remember. But trying to remember made his head hurt worse, so he stopped.

He took a good look down at himself for the first time. Other than the circlet on his left arm his armor was all gone – he saw two pieces on the bedside table. On his green tunic was a stain that looked disgusting; one sniff confirmed it was disgusting. With all possible haste he stripped out of everything down to the black short pants and short-sleeved shirt of his underclothes, dumping everything he discarded in the bathroom. He set about looking for the rest of his armor and his boots. He'd just located the second boot – it had somehow wound up under the bed – when a knock came from the main door.

It took a second to get through his pounding skull, but then he remembered Eir was coming.

"Eir, are you alone?" he called.

"Yes, my prince. Your mother sent me to check on your hand."

"Come in," he told her, unconcerned about her seeing him only half-dressed; she'd been his healer all his life and she'd seen him in less.

"What have you done now, Loki?" she asked with a smile, coming to stand before him in the antechamber.

"I don't actually know," he answered, forcing a grin onto his face that still looked more like a grimace.

"Short-term amnesia?"

Loki squinted at her. He hadn't thought of it like that…but he hadn't thought about it much at all, so that was unsurprising. "I guess so. I just remember little pieces of things. Individual images."

"I see. The rest may come back, then. Give me your hand."

He obediently held it out to her, palm up. She traced a feather-light finger over it.

"This has the residue of magic. Loki, do you know how dangerous it is to use magic while intoxicated? You could have hurt yourself or someone else, and much worse than this. Or you could have set your chambers ablaze."

"I don't even remember doing it," he said with a shrug. Eir never scolded him for shrugging.

"Because you were intoxicated. You are unique, Loki. Just as we all are. Your body will not react the same to alcohol as the next. You must not drink to such excess. And if you do drink mead, or even wine, you mustn't do it alone," Eir told him, her voice firm but kind, no trace of the anger he'd seen in his mother.

"I understand," Loki said, signaling his agreement with a nod, and meaning it. Talking to Eir was almost always easy. When he injured himself in some way, his mother would get emotional and overreact, whereas Eir would remain calm and factual.

"This is minor. A single healing stone will suffice to repair the damage. It will still take a day or two to heal fully, though. If you'd come to me immediately I could have healed it fully on the spot." The words were chiding but again there was no anger in her voice and Loki found himself nodding again. Eir reached into the beige satchel slung around her neck and under one arm to pull out a stone. With a sharp clench of her fist the stone crumbled over his palm. Loki watched for the crackling of the energy, still able to detect only part of it. She rubbed the dust gently but firmly into his skin to make sure it was fully absorbed into the flesh that had already begun to heal itself imperfectly. When she released his palm the skin was pinker than usual but looked healthy. Loki looked down past his palm to his long, skinny legs.

"Eir…"

"Yes?"

"Why is my body so different from Thor's?"

"Because you are two different people. Much as many were tempted to think otherwise when you were younger, you and Thor are not twins," she said with a warm smile.

"I know, but we don't look anything alike at all."

"Your skin tone is similar."

"Thor tans and I burn."

"Your eyes are blue like his."

"Not like his. Mine are more gray than blue."

"Your height is similar."

"I've been taller for years."

"There's something in the smile."

"That's not- Really?"

"And something in the heart."

"Now you sound like my mother," Loki said, rolling his eyes.

"Your mother is a wise woman. You should listen to her."

"I do. Usually," he couldn't help tossing in with a smirk.

"Mm-hm. How's your head?"

"I think it might explode."

"Normally I wouldn't do this for a hangover, but just this once, because you're a special case…" She lifted both hands to his temple and spread her fingertips, almost but not quite grazing the skin.

"I'm not sure how I should take that, Eir," he said, keeping his head still for her.

"You may take it however you like, my prince," she answered, smiling serenely.

Loki's posture sagged in relief when she lowered her hands. The stabbing pain had receded to a dull throb that made him realize just how dulled all his senses had become.

"Eir…" he began again, a question he'd had earlier having popped back to mind. He wondered why he hadn't thought to ask her before.

"Yes?"

"If I wanted to have more muscle…do you think I should eat more?"

Eir quickly took in his frame. "No. You aren't underweight. You could change what you eat somewhat. More protein – lean meats, beans, certain cheeses…I can talk to the kitchen and have them tailor your breakfasts and lunches. And I suppose you could add some small snacks before and after your training sessions. Shall I speak with the kitchen workers?"

"Yes, please! And what about special exercises?"

"Loki, some are naturally predisposed to great strength. But muscles also grow from use."

He listened with rapt attention as she named his muscles and explained what kinds of activities would strengthen them. He asked why she didn't teach them these things as part of their formal lessons, and she said she would be glad to do so and would ask his parents' approval for it. He couldn't wait to meet his trainers again, now that he knew what he wanted to ask for. They were only teaching him how to fight and how to use weapons – not how to get stronger.

"Satisfied?" Eir asked over an hour later.

"Yes! Yes, Eir, thank you so much. I didn't know who to ask."

"You can always come to me," Eir said, deeply bowing her head of curly blond-gray hair. "I shall be your healer all my days."

Loki took her hand and kissed the knuckles, on his best behavior and then some – it really was unnecessary formality to kiss her hand when he was in his own chambers and wearing only his underclothes.

She bowed again – also entirely unnecessary under the circumstances – and turned to go.

"Eir? One more question, please?" he said as her hand touched the door handle.

"Of course, Prince Loki," she said, gracefully turning and releasing the door handle as though she'd never intended to leave.

"Can you teach me what you did? How to heal a headache?" Thor occasionally gave him headaches. And if he knew how to heal them with magic, he'd also know how to cause them with magic.

"It would bring me great honor to do so," she said with a nod.

"Perfect! When can we start?"

"When you reach adulthood, my prince."

A sudden wave of anger swept over him. More than five years from now was hardly the answer he'd had in mind.

"Will that be all, young prince?"

"It will. I'll see you when I turn twenty," Loki spat out, childish petulance mingling with that recent taste of the exercise of his position to turn into something ugly.

If Eir was surprised by the sudden change she didn't show it. Her expression never altered; she simply bowed a third time and departed.

Loki stormed over to the small desk, grabbed the heavy horse-head paperweight Thor had given him for his twelfth birthday, and hurled it at the door. It was not well-aimed – weak, tired, and still with a slight headache, he hadn't actually put all that much effort into it. "Why does it always have to wait until I'm an adult?!" he shouted at the door. He yanked out his chair and sat in it, a wave of fatigue passing through him. Soon after the fatigue came the guilt. He should never have spoken so disrespectfully to Eir. Especially not after she had just spent so much time healing him, answering his questions, and teaching him.

But she didn't understand. None of them did. None of them knew how much he already could do with magic. He didn't advertise it, with only rare exceptions due to necessity, as with Ranka. Not since he'd come to understand how much his father disapproved. Even his mother was uneasy with it. Only Thor completely accepted it, though with the occasional teasing. Why did everyone else seem to think it was better for him to stumble around on his own than to have it properly taught like any other skill? "You don't understand what you're dealing with," his mother had said once when he'd pressed her. But that was the whole point! Why was magic any different from history or nature or cosmology or sword-fighting or any of the other things he studied?

He sighed in resignation. You didn't win arguments with Odin All-Father. Not that he'd had the courage to truly argue in the first place.

Loki stood and walked over toward the door to retrieve the paperweight. He really ought to stop mistreating Thor's gift. It wouldn't be damaged, but it was the principle of the thing. He picked it up, set it on the palm of his healed right hand, and with his left stroked the mane three times. The paperweight quickly transformed itself into a miniature horse that threw back its head and neighed. It was made out of some kind of enchanted material – obviously. Loki had asked incessant questions about it but all in vain; Thor had no idea. He'd seen it among the wares of a traveling merchant on Alfheim when he was there with their father while Loki was home sick, thought Loki would like it, and bought it without asking a thing other than "how much." He knew only what the Light Elf had volunteered, that it was indestructible. Loki scoffed at that. If it was indestructible, he'd asked, then why wouldn't they make everything out of that material? "I'm just telling you what the merchant told me," Thor had said, growing annoyed that Loki could not simply accept and enjoy his gift. "Indestructible, hm?" he'd said, giving up. "I think we should test that." And then he'd thrown it – in its unnaturally heavy paperweight form – at Thor. Repeatedly. Until Thor finally managed to get to it post-impact before Loki did. "It may be indestructible, but I'm not, you root-slime!" They'd wrestled for a while after that until their energy ran low, then they'd set the magical miniature horse loose in the palace, and that had been a marvelous game, until it ran between the legs of an Einherjar sentry who was sufficiently startled to sound an alarm, and that had been followed by an extremely uncomfortable summons to the throne room. Thor had accepted the full blame, along with the punishment – it was Loki's birthday after all – but Loki could tell by the way Odin looked at him that he knew better.

Loki stroked the mane thrice again and again held a horse-head paperweight. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to clear his mind of random memories, conflicting emotions, anger, and frustration. His eye was drawn to the wall, which was, like his brother, not indestructible. Not by a long shot. A paperweight-sized chip had been knocked out of the marble. Wonderful, he thought with a dejected sigh. Now I'll be in trouble. Trouble on top of trouble, he added, remembering that Mother had said they would have to "talk" about him getting drunk. He couldn't even remember why he'd done it. He tried to remember again and met less resistance. Thor. It was Thor's idea. They'd both been drinking mead. Lots and lots of it. Was Thor in his own chambers sick with a hangover? No. As soon as he asked himself the question he knew the answer, though it took him another moment to remember how he knew it. Thor had been in his bedchambers already. Shoving moistened crackers in his mouth. Forcing him to sit up when all he wanted in all the Nine Realms was to lie down.

Loki groaned, frustrated that he still couldn't make all of the pieces fit. His eyes slid to the left in thought, but as they did, they lit on something else: a small scorch mark on the wall, only a few marble blocks over from the chipped one. His eyes went wide. He reached out and touched the mark – it hummed faintly with trace magic. A memory as clear as a vision of his combined delight and fear when the red ball he'd made impacted the wall flashed before his eyes. And then it all came back. Not literally all, but enough that he remembered how the drink had quickly changed from an unpleasant fire to a bearable burn to something reasonably agreeable to something effortless and sweet and smooth. He remembered his steady loss of control during the night. He remembered Thor leaving, and continuing to drink without him. He didn't remember much after that. He remembered the reason they'd been practically inhaling mead in the first place: his poem.

His poem! It was still due today. But the afternoon was drawing to a close; it was too late to recite it today. The desk was disorderly – very unlike him – and a little sticky from where he and Thor must have spilled some of the mead. He grabbed and rejected papers with various notes written in something less than his usual neat penmanship until he found the booklet where he'd been toiling over his poem.

"I stand and watch the Falls, / And as I watch I…calls?"

It went on from there, but there was truly no point in continuing. He had written in the "s" after the fact, he could tell by the way it was scrunched up. The meter was all wrong, but that was entirely beside the point. He dropped his head to his desk with a thud that seemed to echo through his head and he moaned. This was the dumbest idea Thor had ever had, and Thor was constantly coming up with dumb ideas.

Loki's head shot back up. This day…he'd lost almost the whole day. He was supposed to have breakfast with his mother. To help select the sweets for the feast for King Gullveig's visit because she'd liked his ideas.

King Gullveig's visit!

Loki's mouth fell open in horror. He was in danger of missing something even more important.

/

In the next chapter, Loki's really lousy day just keeps getting better. Okay, actually, Loki's lowest moment and highest moment both are to come in the next chapter.

Couple of responses to guest reviewers - Guest (12/30): Thanks so much for your impassioned comments! You know, while I would apportion the blame differently than you (Thor has more experience with alcohol than Loki, albeit not by much, so while he did this out of ignorance and not ill-intent he really should have thought it through a bit more, particularly the leaving him alone part; and Loki was simply trusting and naive) you are absolutely getting at something I wanted to include in this story. There are plenty of "all the problems lay at Odin's feet" stories out there; I try as much as possible not to repeat stuff seen in other stories, otherwise it would be boring for me and probably for you. So I try to present a family in which no one is perfect, and everyone has made mistakes. Frigga is in a way overcompensating - she has always worried more for Loki because of his particular circumstances (the whole Jotun thing), and also as Odin and Thor began to gravitate more toward each other she tries to fill in that gap for Loki. If you asked Frigga if she is playing favorites with Loki, she would tell you no (but she would be wrong); same with Odin toward Thor. Decisions are being made out of good intentions - but bad decisions can also be made out of the best of intentions. Favoritism can really wreck a family. I do cut Frigga more slack than you - one thing to keep in mind is this is a Loki-centric story, but underlying the conception here is definitely that Frigga also has a good relationship with Thor and spends time with him as well - it's just that in the current circumstances Thor is busy with his father. But does Frigga spend more time with Loki overall, yes, she definitely does. She is not a perfect parent, and I really appreciate that you recognized that even though I never overtly point out those imperfections in the story. (In fact, I suspect readers who strongly favor Loki will view this Frigga in a very favorable light. As for me, actually, I really love them all.) Maybe food for thought for other readers as well? Anyway it was such an interesting comment I really wanted to be able to respond.

jaquelinelittle: Yes, Loki is rather naive here, maybe this will bring that to an end? He's used to Thor being an awful liar and for probably the first time in his life Thor had a story behind his lie with enough truth in it to make him able to pull it off, so Loki trusted him. I think this is vaguely addressed a bit more somewhere down the line... But mainly I wanted to be able to respond to let you know that Loki still needs a poem for his class and he'd like to know if he can use yours! ;-) Happy New Year to you to, and to everyone!