Vara was so infuriated with her advisor that she went to her mother's mausoleum to blow off some steam.
She was pacing up and down the room, shouting some gibberish like words and insults, shooting fire balls out of the windows and door. Loki just happened to see one being flung out the window and heading up across the dark orange sky from his room. He frowned and walked up to his balcony and looked for the source. He saw that it was coming from Sinmoera's mausoleum. He smiled and knew Vara was in there letting off steam. Or fireballs, as it were. This was his perfect time to strike. Her faith was shaken and she was beginning to distrust her council.
He cleaned himself up and made sure that he looked even more dashing than normal and made his way down to the mausoleum entrance.
He took in a deep breath and put up his protective spell again in case one of those balls was flung in his direction. He then walked into the mausoleum, acting as if he didn't know she was there. He walked into the last room where she was and looked up to see her.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, I didn't know anyone was here." he said, looking at her pacing up and down the hall.
She stopped and looked at him. The red cuts in her skin were clearly visible from this distance and he frowned. Surely that talk couldn't have made her so angry. Still, he knew this was his only chance to get at her psyche and drive a wedge between her and her advisor.
She suddenly realised she what she must have looked like to him.
"I'm sorry; I'm just trying to cool down." She said, turning away from him, hiding her skin under her hands and going to sit on the cool marble seat.
"Likewise." He said, walking up to her and sitting down beside her.
"This is the only place in your realm that I feel comfortably cool." He said, looking around the mausoleum for a convincing act.
"If I may ask, why are you trying to cool off?" he asked her. She sighed and leaned back on the wall, slumping down a little.
"He told me not to trust you. And that you were going to lead us into a fight we had no business fighting. He said you want to go to Midgard for another reason, not just to help us." She said to him, looking at him, her head tilted sideways against the wall.
Loki nodded slowly and looked back down the entrance hall. He had to come up with a convince response to that.
"He's just an old man, he knows nothing about advancement and…" she began but she was cut off by Loki.
"He's right. You shouldn't trust me." he said, looking back at her.
She smiled weakly and sat up right, leaning forward on her knees.
"What are you saying?" she asked him.
"I'm the god of mischief. No soul alive can plan a hoax like I can. And no one can weave webs of lies and deceit like I can." He said, softly, looking down at the ground. He hoped that by playing this truth card, it would make her trust him a little more.
She nodded and looked at her mother's sarcophagus.
"300 years." She said eventually, stilling looking at the carving.
"That's how long my father has been trying to marry me off." She said to him, before looking at him.
"He's tried with everyone. Other Fire Giants, kings from other realms, literally everyone and everything. But I didn't click with any of them." she said, leaning back against the wall.
He noticed she was especially restless today.
"Luckily he loves me just enough to know when I won't be happy." She chuckled, beginning to fidget with her fingers.
He sat quietly, listening to her. Taking in information he could later use.
"I've tried so hard to be what he expects me to be." she said, looking down that entrance hall, staring blankly.
"Strong, independent, defiant, a good warrior." She said, looking at him and chuckling as the next statement playing into her mind.
"His right hand warrior when Ragnarök comes. But now…" she said, biting her lip and shaking her head despondently.
"I feel like I've been abandoned to lead them into this fight." she said to him, looking down the entrance hall again.
"I have no leadership experience; no way of knowing what I'm doing is right or wrong. And the Asgardians will win because of it. I can feel it in my bones." She said softly, leaning back.
He nodded and thought that he should tell her a little something about himself, with her being so open with him.
"I'm adopted." He said simply.
She looked to him and kept her gasp to a minimum.
"Trust me, that's how I felt when my father told me." he said, taking his helmet off and putting it down on the seat next to him.
"Only, I found out on my own, and I literally had to drag it out of the old man." He chuckled.
"He took me from my real family and raised me as his own, hoping I would never find out." He carried on.
She felt her heart melting for him.
"But the signs were always there." He said, remembering the times back in Asgard.
"He always favoured Thor above me. Even making him king when he was clearly not ready." He said to her, looking at the floor.
"I was ready. I could have made him proud." He said softly.
"But why would he want that. I'm not his son." He said sadly.
"I don't know why I didn't see it sooner." He added.
She felt her heart breaking for him now. He seemed so lost and broken. She wondered if this was the reason he wanted them to attack Asgard. Did he want revenge on his father?
"Is your shield up?" she asked him.
He had to remember what she was talking about before he looked at her and nodded slightly. She reached out and touched his hand.
"Sometimes we're blind to what is happening in clear daylight when it involves our loved ones." She tried to comfort him.
He nodded. She was right. He did love his Asgardian family, but he could never forgive them for lying to him.
"Thank you. You're too gracious." He smiled and squeezed her hand softly.
"And here's a little piece of advice for you." He said, turning in his to face her.
"Expectations are put on us, hoping that we rise to and meet them. But really, they are there to be ignored." He said to her, taking hold of her other hand.
"That's the only way we can surpass them." he smiled at her.
"Do what makes you happy. Take no one else's opinions into thought. They cannot live your life for you." He added.
She smiled and blushed slightly, now feeling his pulse through her hands. Her heart sped up and she looked down at the ground.
"That makes sense." She said, smiling.
He lifted his hand and placed it under her chin, making her look up at her with a gentle push.
"Do what you want." He said, leaning in slightly, merely to see if she would lean in and kiss him.
She saw him move closer to her and she lost her heart yet again. She waited a few moments to see if he was in fact leaning towards her, or had she inhaled a little too much volcanic gas. He was leaning in towards her so she leaned into him. She closed her eyes and leaned closer. He smiled and pressed his lips to hers, connecting and kissing her softly. He reached towards her face and cupped his hand over her cheek softly; careful not to seem as intimidating as he was the night before. She broke the kiss softly and leaned her forehead against his. She was breathing a little faster than normal and her eyes were tilted down avoiding eye contact.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me." she whispered to him.
"The Midgardians call it lust…" he whispered back to her, softly stroking her cheek before setting his hand down on her knee.
"Lust…" she said softly.
"What does it mean?" she asked him.
"It means that you want something so badly, that you'll do anything to get it." he explained.
"Lust usually refers to another person." He whispered to her.
She looked up and met his icy eyes and blushed even more.
"Kiss me again." she ordered him.
He smiled and obliged. She was a queen after all and he was bound to listen to her in her realm. Not that he was fighting hard against his own lust.
He leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers, softly playing with her malleable lips. He reached up and softly cupped her cheek with his hand, before he began stroking it slowly with his thumb, and then moving up, to run his fingers through her soft, long black hair. She blushed deeper, making her face heat up and her blood run hot. She reached towards him, reaching for his belt buckle. She realised what she was doing and she had to stop herself. She broke the kiss suddenly and stood up, before walking a few steps away from him.
He was perplexed, things were just getting good.
"Did… did I do something to displease you, my lady?" he asked her.
She shook her head, her long hair whipping side to side subtly. She touched her lips, tasting his lingering taste on them.
"No…" she whispered as she turned to face him.
"If I don't walk away from you now…" she said, blushing deeply, giving colour to her ashen cheeks.
"Then we'll do something we'll both regret." She added, looking down at the ground.
He got up and walked over to her, choosing his method off attack carefully. He reached up and touched her cheek tenderly.
"I won't regret it." he whispered.
She looked up to meet his eyes and blushed deeper.
"Can't you see Vara, that's why the fates brought me here? For you." he whispered his silvered seductive words to her.
She shook her head and looked back down.
"No, I'm not that lucky for the fates to have woven my thread in with yours." She whispered.
"Maybe you are." He whispered to her.
"I would never think to come here. But somehow, I ended up here, and just then, you're crowned queen. Can't you see the pattern here?" he whispered to her, caressing her cheek softly.
"You're supposed to give into me. Allow me to be your lover." He said, leaning down to kiss her.
She thought of kissing him back, to taste his sweet poison again, but instead she pulled away at the last moment. She bit her bottom lip, pulling away slowly.
"You know nothing of our laws." She whispered to him.
"If I take you as my lover, you become my partner. And for a queen of Muspelheim to have an Asgardian as her partner when Ragnarök comes, it would be disastrous." She rationalised with him, but he needed to push her just a little bit further.
Time to tell a little bit of the truth again.
"I hate them Vara, as much as you do." He whispered.
"Maybe even more." He added.
"The things I endured when Thor imprisoned me in Asgard three weeks ago, it was nothing short of cruel and torturous." He said, remembering the lashings and punishments he was subjected to.
Let alone the humiliation by the person who claimed to love him the most.
"They tortured you?" she asked him, the concern in her eyes authentic.
"No… Thor, tortured me." he corrected her.
"For thousands of years, we grew up together and lived beside each other. I loved him, more dearly than anyone, and he turned on a dime and tormented me till I couldn't breathe anymore." he admitted to her, forgetting that he was supposed to be acting in this production, he let a little of his humanity show.
"But, why?" she asked him.
It was clear she didn't know anything about how war worked.
"He was trying to get me to tell him why I wanted Midgard so badly." He said to her, pulling her back to the seat and sitting down.
She sat down beside him, still holding his hand.
"Why do you want Midgard?" she asked him.
She had figured out that he wanted it too, but she didn't know why. He shrugged and smirked.
"After my darling brother was made king, I wanted revenge. I know I'm no match for him in battle. So I wanted to strike him in the heart. His love lives on Midgard, a mortal woman. I just wanted him to know she was mine." He said without thinking. He then realised what he had said and looked to Vara.
"She was yours?" She frowned while quoting him. She looked at him, the anger boiling just under the surface.
"No, no, no, that's not what I meant." He said, just as she got up and began to storm towards the exit.
She then stopped and turned, ready to face him.
"Is this what you said to her?" she shouted at him.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, getting up and walking up to her.
He reached out for her but she slapped his hand away.
"Are these the words that you used, to try and bed her as well?" she clarified her statement, breathing heavily under the weight of her anger.
"No, no, I never met…" he began to explain but was cut off by her next accusation.
"The fates brought me here… NONSENSE!" she shouted at him.
"Did you get it right, to make her yours?" she asked him and waited for a reply.
He waited a little while, making sure he wasn't going to be ambushed again before answering her.
"I never met her. She had died before I got there." He said, lying about her dying.
The truth was that she never made it to New York, where his invasion started.
The little wheels in her head began to work then. He wanted that human woman to make Thor jealous. Then why did he want her, she had nothing to offer him.
"Why me?" she asked him.
He frowned and smiled slightly, unaware of her chain of thought.
"Why do you want me as a lover?" she asked him slowly, making every word crystal clear for him to hear and comprehend.
"It matters not why I want you, the reality is that I do. Reason cannot explain something as mysterious as feelings." He began to reason with her.
She shook her head, not falling for it.
"No, there is something else. What is it?" she asked him.
He shook his head but he had to be more convincing. He couldn't fold now, not now that he was so close.
"There is nothing, Vara." He said, reaching out and placing his hands on her shoulders.
"I'm alone and lonely, and I want love, just like everyone else in the nine realms." He said, thinking about how pathetic that sounded.
That had to work.
"And you are like me." he said, before her remembered that she didn't know he was a Frost Giant.
She hadn't missed that and she frowned at him.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked him.
"I mean, that for a short while, I was king of Asgard. And you're queen of Muspelheim. We're the same." He covered up quickly.
She thought for a few moments before nodding and accepting his explanation.
"Okay. But still, if I'm going to take you as my lover, you can't talk about other women in front of me like that." She said to him.
"I know you're many millennia old and have probably had many lovers, but when you're with me, I'm the only one. Do you understand?" she said to him.
He nodded in understand. She sure was little firecracker of a woman. How had he missed her existence for so long? Then he realised what she had said.
"So you'll take me as your lover?" he asked her, a smiled breaking over his lips.
She smiled and turned to walk away from him.
"Maybe." She said, over her shoulder to him as she left the mausoleum.
He smiled silently to himself as she walked away. This was going to much more enjoyable than he had first thought. He squeezed his lips gently, with his fore finger and thumb, tasting her lasting flavour on them. Who knew she would have tasted so sweet.