Notes:
Happy Weekend everyone!
Frosty Throne
Chapter 10: A Light in the Darkness
Loki turned, pillowing his face against Darcy's warm soft stomach, slowly blinking his eyes and taking in the fresh lavender scent that she seemed to always carry with her. He looked up into her sleeping face, her head bent at a bad angle against the back of the couch. Moving carefully he sent a tendril of magic to her, not wanting to wake her as he moved. Rolling off the couch, he looked down at her, as she curled up on the cushions where he had just been, searching for the warmth that had left her, not waking. He blew out a breath he hadn't known he was holding and made his way over to the bed and turned down the thick fur covers. He gently lifted the girl who had offered him her friendship and understanding and carried her to the bed, pulling the covers back over her, tucking her hair back behind her ear.
"You watch over her," he told Skrymir, who curled up against the girl's side. The cat just rested his chin against Darcy's hip and started to purr, the sound deep and rich in the quiet room. Loki nodded, filling her goblet with a honey scented potion and left it on her bedside table, before donning his father's visage and slipping from the room.
Darcy woke tucked in bed, a goblet filled with a sweet smelling liquid on the table next to the bed, and Skrymir cuddled close to her side. A note was left under the cup, the blocky scrawl matching the notes still strewn across the desk in her anteroom. "My dear Darcy, it seems we both had a bit more to drink than we planned. You will find an elixir that is designed to subdue any ill affects you might feel. I must thank you for listening to my woes as well as shaking of your own past. I look forward to our next encounter. Yours." He didn't sign it, but then he didn't need to. She smiled down at the parchment, folding it again carefully and put it back on the side table. The drink tasted like honey and spearmint and erased the slight tightening across her brow and settled her stomach. Darcy lay back in the bed, contemplating the late morning sun that warmed her rooms, her fingers idly stroking Skrymir's fur.
"Where did you get off to last night?" the cat had been conspicuously absent the night before. He just purred and rubbed his face into her hand. "Well, it's nice to have you back either way." Darcy thought about just lazing about in bed, but the empty grumbling of her stomach finally pulled her from the rich fur blankets. She pulled on a pair of her jeans and the green tunic that Loki had given her the day before, cleaned again of any horse hair or dirt it had acquired on their ride, and folded neatly with the rest of her tops in the dresser. "The thing I miss most about earth," she told the cat as they walked through the halls of the palace towards the kitchen, it being too late for breakfast. "Is coffee, just ask Jane or Thor, I live off coffee in the morning, and as nice as tea is, it just isn't the same."
"Dear sister," Thor's voice boomed down the hall, stopping Darcy in her tracks. "We were just discussing where you might be this lovely morning."
"Morning, Thor," she smiled up at the thunder god, letting him pull her into a deep hug. "I'm just getting at bit of a late start," she patted him on the arm, and letting him guide her down the hall.
"You are one to enjoy her sleep," he nodded, his arm settling over her shoulder as they walked. "I have been in council with father, and we have both decided that it is time you join Jane as she learns about Asgard. We have strong tea and breakfast waiting for you in the library."
"School?" Darcy nearly whined. "I thought I was supposed to be moral support."
"And what better way to lend your support then to join my Jane as she learns about Aesir state craft," Thor guided her through a massive door that lead them into a part of the library that Darcy hadn't been in before. A long table covered in books and scrolls was blanketed in bright sunlight, at the head of the table was Jane and a spread of breakfast foods, and Darcy's customary coffee substitute, a dark and bitter tea, that almost, but not quite, made up for the lack of coffee.
"You really need to get coffee here on Asgard, big guy," she rubbed her face and sat down in the proffered chair.
"I will endeavor to do so," he smiled down at his friend and his fiancée. "I will leave you both in the capable hands of Ragnvaldr," he patted the older man on the shoulder, Darcy winced at the power behind the casual gesture, but the Aesir were made of sterner stuff then she was, and didn't even flinch. "The Lady Darcy has long been a scholar of Statecraft; she will be an asset as you explained our political systems to my dear Jane."
"Earth statecraft, Thor," Darcy corrected quietly into her cup of tea, taking a deep breath of the bitter tea, not looking up at either the god or the teacher. "It's not quite the same thing."
"Non-sense, my dear," Thor clapped her on the back, causing her to slop tea over onto the table. "You are a most intelligent scholar my dear sister, you will be a boon to your title."
"Title?" she mopped up the tea she'd spilled with a gilded towel, which didn't strike her as right, but Jane had given it to her for that express purpose.
"Of goddess," Jane supplied. "As Thor's sister and my companion, it's only right that you are given a title as well. At the wedding I will be given my title, and so will you." Darcy just stared at her dumbly as Thor made his exit, not sure what she could possibly say to that revelation.
Loki entered her rooms through the balcony, already wearing his own face, not long after dinner. Darcy just looked up over her book towards him, a small smile on her face. "You're early," she tucked the ribbon she'd been using as a book mark into the tome. "I didn't expect you until much later."
"We have much ground to cover," he shrugged his shoulders and slipped onto the couch with her, taking her book gently from her hands. "I see you are taking to your study of Statecraft."
"I love politics," she smiled as he put the book down on the table and produced two goblets and a pitcher that smelled a great deal like the drink he'd left for her that morning. "No mead tonight?"
"I believe we have both had our fill," Loki poured her a cup of the warm honey brew. "This is a honey brew that has yet to be fermented." He raised his glass and watched as she clinked the rim of her cup to his. "An earth custom?"
"Yep, drink up Lokes," Darcy took a tentative sip and then a larger drink when the warm brew burst over her tongue with sweet floral notes. It did taste a great deal like the mead, but softer. "So, we gonna just dive in?"
"I believe that to be wise," he set his cup down on the table and folded his hands in his lap, looking down at the intertwined fingers. "I do not wish to keep you as late as last night."
"I didn't get a chance to say thank you for this morning," she set her cup next to his and curled up at her end of the couch, Skrymir settling his head against her hip, both of them watching the God of Mischief.
"There is nothing to thank me for my dear," Loki picked at the center of his palm, watching the girl from under his lashes. "It was entirely my fault that you found yourself intoxicated, it was my duty to take care of you."
"It was my choice to keep drinking, buddy," Darcy rolled her eyes and kicked her feet up in the space between them, lounging comfortably on the velvet couch. "But it was appreciated. Waking up in a funny position on the couch would have sucked, and listening to Ragnvaldr prattle on for hours about treaties that were signed before humans were first peeking out of their caves, without your hangover cure would have been torture."
"I do remember how dry that man can make even the most exciting battle," the trickster rolled his eyes. "But he does possess the most extensive knowledge of our political systems in the entire realm."
"He's boring," she reiterated, taking another drink of her brew. "If I'd had him in college, I might have ended up being an Art History Major, like I'd originally planned."
"Well, then we will thank the gods that you did not have such a tedious teacher," Loki nodded. "Shall we begin?"
"Yeah," Darcy took a deep breath and put her goblet down, her fingers digging into Skrymir, who could feel the tension in the room and scooted his head onto his mistress's lap. "So, you fell off the bridge, that's where we are?"
"Fell is perhaps too strong a word," he sighed, picking at his hand, his long curls hiding his face from her gaze. "I let go, Odin held onto Thor, who was gripping Gungnir. He begged me to let him pull me up, and back onto the bridge." Loki ran his hands through his long hair, pushing it up and over his head for a moment, before the soft locks slipped back over his face. "I was so lost; I did not feel like I belonged on Asgard any longer, and if I did not belong on Asgard, it was best if I was not anywhere."
"Loki," Darcy breathed, scooting down the couch, and pushing his hair out of his face, holding his cheek for a moment before he turned away.
"I feel through the last remnants of the Bifrost, which should have meant my death," he refused to look at her. "But instead I feel for what felt like an eternity, time moves differently outside of the Nine Realms, after all. I can't tell you how long I fell, for after a while, time ceased to have any meaning at all." He took a long drink from his cup and set it back on the table, wishing that it contained some form of intoxicant. "When I finally landed," he shook his head. "It was a world of darkness that I landed in. The ruler of the land, Thanos, took an interest in me; after all, it is not every day that an Asgardian falls into your hands."
"You don't have to tell me everything," she petting her fingers through his hair, even as he wouldn't look at her, situating herself along his side, and letting her heat warm him.
"I was chained in his dungeon, or at least I think it was a dungeon, as I did not see anything else of his realm, I have no point of reference," Loki leaned into her, and let her hold him while he relived the years of torture and pain he'd endured at the hands of Thanos' right hand, The Other. "He visited every torture he could imagine on me, finally resorting to the Mind Stone, when I would not bend to his will. If he could not mold me, he would force me." He shuddered, remembering the feeling of the stone touching his mind, the blue light that covered everything. "I was trapped in my own mind as he pulled out the darkest parts of me, and then set me on Midgard through the tesseract."
"Clint's told me about it," Darcy whispered. "How it was like this piercing light inside his skull, pushing down everything that made him Clint, and pulling out all the parts that made him a killer."
"Your brother is correct," the god nodded, pulling just slightly away from her, but not too far that she could not continue to run her fingers down thought his hair and along the back of his neck. "It was agonizing to watch as my body took over without my consent. I remember every action I took, but not one of them was of my own choice."
"You can skip ahead," she told him. "I've read the reports, and Clint doesn't hold back when he tells me about his nightmares in the dark of night. You'd never know during the day, he's such a bright light most of the time, but in the middle of the night, when he can't sleep, it's like he's a different person, the darkness seeps from his skin as he talks. I think, in a way, it's how he purges it from himself."
"It is good he has someone to talk to," Loki looked up at her for the first time, moisture shining from the corners of his eyes. Darcy wiped her thumbs under his lashes, and sat back. "Your Hulk did a great deal to bring me back to myself, but it wasn't until my near death on Svartalfheim, that I really fully came back to myself."
"Clint said that Natasha hit him really hard on the head with a metal pole," Darcy supplied. "I guess you godly types needed a bit of a harder reset."
"I feel that is an accurate statement," Loki agreed.
"So, all that time with Thor and Jane," she waffled trying to figure out how to go about asking.
"I was not entirely myself," he agreed. "While I had more of my faculties back after being bludgeoned by your green friend, I was still ruled by the darkest parts of myself."
"And still," Darcy finished off her drink and sank down on the couch. "You saved my best friend."
"That I did," Loki nodded, pushing his hair back from his face and sliding down to mirror her posture, both of them resting their head on the back of the couch, knees apart and resting close to the coffee table. "Has my tale satisfied your curiosity?"
"When Jane and I moved to the Avengers facility," she started, ignoring his question. "I was a bit lost myself. I'd lost my mother a few years before, and had let Jane dictate what we did, cause I didn't really have anywhere else that I belonged. I suppose Clint recognized another lost soul, because before I knew it, anytime I was at a loss of what to do, the spysassins would turn up. At first I thought they were keeping an eye on me, making sure the least qualified member of their little troop was watched over, so I didn't do anything I shouldn't, you know, like get on Facebook," she waved away his question. "I'll explain it another time," she smiled at his curious expression. "I thought they were trying to make sure I wasn't spilling secrets."
"Yet, you hold secrets very close to your heart," he tipped his head to hers, letting their foreheads rest together.
"I try," Darcy shrugged, letting her head fall to his shoulder, enjoying the weight of his on her crown. "It took some convincing, but eventually, I realized that it was just their way of adopting me. After we'd been at the facility for about a month, Steve brought his friend Bucky to live there, too." She smiled up at Loki. "I guess you could say that I adopt brainwashed assassins, because Bucky and I became fast friends. I moved out of Jane's rooms not long after Bucky showed up, Natasha insisted on having my new quarters in her hallway, the room between her and Clint was supposed to be for Sam, but he never moved into it, so it was open and they moved my stuff one day while I was in the lab with Jane."
"And the rest is history," Loki guessed.
"Sort of," she snuggled down into the couch as Skrymir curled up against her side, effectively caging her in between the cat and Loki. "Clint and I have our night time rituals. Natasha has been teaching me hand to hand in exchange for learning how to bake, cause she loves muffins and no one makes them like me, apparently. And Bucky and I bonded over movies and music, he loves to dance."
Loki just nodded. "So, you spent the day learning with Jane, today," he changed the subject. "How does it compare to your own political system."
"Earth has many different political systems," Darcy yawned. "Each country does things their own way, to some degree. As far as I can tell, Asgard is run as a pretty lose monarchy."
"We have learned some things over the years," he consented, gently lifting Darcy from the couch and carrying her to the bed.
"Are you putting me to bed, sir?" she rubbed her face against the front of his tunic.
"You are starting to fade my dear," Loki placed her on the bed and pulled off her boots. "It is partially my fault, I added valerian root to our drink."
"Thor puts that in my tea when I can't sleep," Darcy curled up onto her side as Skrymir joined her on the bed.
"As our mother did for us when we were young, as well," he leaned down to press his lips to her forehead, but Darcy turned her face to meet him, catching her lips against his for the briefest moment. "I," he looked down at her wicked smile and he closed his mouth.
"You taste like mint," she smiled and closed her eyes, tucking her fingers under her cheek.
"Good night my dear," Loki watched her for a moment more, as her breaths evened out and sleep over took her, before vanishing from the room, the lights fading in his wake.
Notes:
Now back to the rest of the story... cause we're just getting warmed up.
Please feed the muse.