~Chapter Twenty Eight~ Sunset and Sunrise
Loki dozed as he never had. Sleeping in Káta's presence was one of the rarest pleasures he had ever experienced, but knowing that she was there from the touch of her hands against his skin was a sensation he could not understand how he had managed to live without all his decades thus far.
The thrall that she held him in lasted until the sun shifted on its axis enough that a cool shadow fell over his rooms wakened them both, for Káta had also succumbed to the peculiar trance-like quality of what had passed between them, and fallen asleep, her hands cupping Loki's jaw and neck.
Loki crossed to the window where the book still lay and scooped it up, moving to return it to its secret compartment.
Káta, after watching him sleepily for a few moments, stood and followed him over to further investigate.
"This is where I keep all…nearly all of those things most precious to me," Loki explained softly, sensing her by his side as he returned the book to its position, and Káta could make out the faint glimmer of the snakes Auðun had made in one corner, partially hidden by the folds of the black scrap of cloth they sat on, which she thought looked like a child's fabric eye patch.
"What's that?" she pointed to a large, loosely folded piece of leather with uneven edges, a corner of which was bright with a smattering of colours.
A soft smile rose to Loki's face, and he reached in, drawing it out, and slipping the bindings from it.
Káta followed him as he moved away to where there was a clear space in the floor, and watched in awe as he unfolded the pile into a roughly circular piece of leather-backed silk large enough to cover a decently sized table top, every inch of it covered in the most intricately worked replica of the Sea of Space she had ever seen. It was as though a hole into the night sky had suddenly opened up in the middle of the floor, and Káta teetered on the edge a little, her mind confounded by an artificial sense of vertigo.
"Who made this?" she asked, her voice a breathless whisper of wonder as she dropped to her knees, the better to look at the detail of the work. It was the sky as she had never seen it. Alive with a million, million constellations that she had no knowledge of even existing, constellations belonging to other worlds, fringed with the explosive flowers of colour from supernovas, starburst galaxies, and brilliantly dazzling clusters of nebula, with spiral galaxies spinning sedately through it all. It was impossibly beautiful, and made the simplicity of the night sky that she knew and had spent so many nights of her life gazing at in wonder suddenly seem very poor in comparison.
"I painted it many years ago," Loki murmured, his gaze running lightly over his handiwork with neither pride nor diffidence, but detached scrutiny. "It took a little while."
"It's beautiful."
His eyes flickered to her, a shade of amusement chasing across his features. "You've never seen the Sea of Space before?"
Káta shook her head, looking up at him for the first time.
Loki smiled, and extended a hand, "Let me show you."
The moment Káta placed her hand in Loki's she found they were in a different place entirely. She spun around, now on her feet, her lips parted in a gasp of awed astonishment as she took in their surroundings. They stood on the Bifröst Bridge, bathed in the rainbow light of it.
Káta stared down at her feet, confused and momentarily concerned by the fact that they did not appear to be standing on anything solid, just the blended beams of dancing light that flickered as though flames, despite the fact that she could feel a very definitely solid something beneath her feet. The bridge glowed brighter where they touched it, and sparkling particles reminiscent of cinders from a fire rose up from its surface like mist from a mountain, winking out of existence before they could rise any higher than their knees.
The sea rolled beneath them under the bridge, uncountable fathoms deep, slowly making its way away from the city of Asgard behind them, and towards the edge of the world where it would endlessly pour down for all eternity. They were close enough to the edge to hear the constant rush and roar of the cascade, and when Káta turned to Loki with questions in her expression, he nodded and pointed forwards.
Káta turned to see the object of his indication, and saw Heimdallr's enormous Hall, Himinbjörg, blending into the darkness beyond, a faintly glimmering spot on the very edge of the world where the bridge met the Sea of Space.
"What is it made of?" she asked as Loki began to lead the way across the burning rainbow bridge towards the Hall, confused. Himinbjörg seemed to be constructed out of some kind of stone or metal, burnt blacker than obsidian, the pockmarked surface home to tiny flames that flickered here and there, like candles set in sconces, but without any visible form of fuel.
"The remnants of dead stars," Loki replied.
Káta turned to gaze at him with disbelieving astonishment, but Loki's expression, although amused, was truthful. He led her along the bridge towards the great double doors, which opened of their own accord as they drew near so that Káta jumped slightly.
Loki could feel her shivering slightly beside him, but a single glance at her expression told him that it was from excitement rather than fright or cold.
"Shouldn't we ask for the Watcher's permission before we enter?" Káta asked, pausing before they passed over the threshold of the open doors, highly aware of Loki's tendencies to flout expected social etiquette.
Loki smiled and shook his head. "Heimdallr knows we are here; it is he who opened the doors for us."
Reassured, Káta followed Loki through the doors, which closed noiselessly behind them. Inside, Himinbjörg was just as any other godly Hall might be expected to appear, save it was crafted from the same inky black of the star remnants as the outside. The stone, or rock, whatever it might be called, was polished and smooth inside, however; bright enough to shine back a reflection of them in the floor beneath their feet, and in those walls nearest.
"Well met, Prince Loki. It is long since last we saw each other." A voice, layered with all the ages of wisdom and beautifully refined slipped out of the darkness of the Hall, and Heimdallr appeared before them. Káta had never seen the Watcher god before. His robes were patterned with depictions of his gold-maned steed Gulltoppr, and the great winding shape of Gjallarhorn, with vases pouring streams of mead along his sleeves. His hair was the colour of the mead that he was known to drink as he took his endless vigil, and when he smiled his golden teeth flashed in the gloom of the darkness. His eyes shone like the stars that they watched, and there was a strange sort of silvery quality to his skin, although it did not glow as hers did, that made it clear why he was known as the whitest of all the gods. His righteousness could be seen in every line of his youthful face.
"That it is, Heimdallr. Might we avail ourselves of your Gazing Room?"
The white god smiled, and inclined his head. "Of course."
Káta was not sure what happened, but all at once he seemed to have vanished, subsumed by the darkness of his Hall's walls.
She swallowed her surprise, and followed Loki through various rooms and corridors, until they finally passed through a set of doors and into a large circular room, unlit, open, and bare of any ornament.
The sole feature of the room was a huge circular pool that stood in its very centre, the water of its surface as undisturbed as glass, and a perfect reflection of the Sea of Space above, which was visible through a huge circle cut into the ceiling that opened right out to the sky.
"We are at the very edge of the Dome of the World," Loki said, his voice hushed in the darkness of the room, as though he felt the same sense of meaningful weight in being there as Káta did. "This room projects from Himinbjörg and is the northern most part of Asgard."
Káta moved forwards into the darkness of the room, illuminated only by the light from the stars and galaxies visible through the open window in the roof, and now by the faint golden glow of her skin. She paused near the edge of the pool, just far enough away that her own light did not disturb the perfection of the reflection.
"The constellations have changed and the galaxies have moved since I did it, but this is where I painted that image." Loki murmured, now by her side.
Káta heard the faint swoosh of displaced air, and a quiet thud behind her, and knew that Loki had conjured a bench for them to sit on. "It's like no night sky I've ever seen," she whispered, still hushed with awe as she sat beside Loki, her eyes fixed on the still reflection. She nearly felt Loki's low chuckle beside her more than she heard it.
"It is not yet night, Káta. We are close enough to the edge of the Dome that the Sea of Space dominates the sky, but for those privileged enough to see it, the sky is always like this. Valhalla is close enough to the peak of the Dome that what you see as the sky of the day on the ground is merely an overlay over the Sea of Space, like a curtain of blue gauze. Where you are closest to the edge of the Dome the Sea of Space reveals itself in its true form, and the sky falls away to reveal this. Only at sunset and sunrise from Valhalla does Sól completely overtake the airy dominion from Máni."
Káta took in a deep, glorying breath, and then turned to gaze at Loki. "I want to watch the sun set and then rise again with you."
Loki blinked, his own sun temporarily transformed to the glowing, elated gold of her eyes, but gathered his thoughts. "There is only one place to watch the night pass, and the sun set and rise," he replied, a light flashing in his eyes that had become increasingly familiar of late, and which lit flames burning in Káta's belly.
His hand found hers in the darkness, its coolness reassuringly familiar, and a moment later, they were gone.
Atop the great golden dome of Valhalla, Loki and Káta reappeared. Sunset was drawing near, and there was no sign of the Sea of Space at all, the gold of the dome impossibly bright to look at. It seemed almost molten beneath their feet, radiating the last warmth of the sun for the day.
Together they stood in silence, watching as the sun slowly inched closer to the horizon in the west, gilded by the flame of its parting rays. The sun itself was a burning white spot still blinding to look at, the edges flushed with crimson, and the sky looked as though every barrel of wine and mead in existence had been poured into it, forming a blazing shifting vista of reds and shades of gold.
As the sun slipped below the horizon, which was now a burning scarlet line, the colour of the sky deepened to plum, bruising as the faintest dark flush of night crept in from the colder eastern sky with a violet veil spangled with the beginnings of the stars to overlay the heavens with the colours of dusk.
Loki and Káta remained unmoving sentinels to the passing of the day, their eyes pools that reflected what they saw. With the coming of night, the ordinary wine colours from the sunset and the powdering of pastels from dusk fell away, replaced once more with the impossible brightness of the Sea of Space.
In the illumination of the stars and galaxies and supernovas overhead, the gold of the dome glimmered like a wind-ruffled lake filled with the reflection of a full moon, silvery and shifting, taking on the cold bright colours of the constellations overhead in place of its usual sun-kissed fire.
Loki drew Káta towards the centre of the dome where a low set cupola from the roof, the side of which was more carved pillars set at intervals than a true wall, the gaps between them letting light fall down into the golden throne room of Valhalla below. They sat side by side on the eastern side, their backs against the edge, content to observe the wonders of the night sky in companionable silence.
Later, they lay side by side, the stars and galaxies they gazed at reflected in their eyes. A slight heat still radiated from the gold of the dome, but it had mostly dissipated. What heat remained was welcome, for it was cold here at the highest point of Asgard. It felt as though the temperature had lowered to match the cold brightness of the stars and moon that now served as their illumination.
"Tell me a story," Káta requested softly. Her voice was the first proper noise to fall on their ears in well over an hour, for it was now long past the time when even the most determined of revellers would be awake, and they had been left in the peaceful silence that lay between them, interrupted by nothing save the usual gentle night-time sounds, and the whisper of the wind across the dome and through the pillars of the cupola.
Loki lay gazing up at the stars, thinking, but nothing presented itself. "I…can't think of any to tell," he murmured. "I'm not a very good storyteller." He thought he caught a faint sound of amusement from Káta, but he could not be sure.
"Make one up," she suggested softly.
Loki opened his mouth to protest, but words he had not ever thought to say came forth instead, the first threads of a story falling into his mind. "There was once a man whose fate was to spend the long years of his immortality earning the right to his own worthiness."
Káta stilled. Of all the things for Loki to say, she had hardly thought that this might be it.
"In his childhood he had committed he knew not what in order that he was thus fated to strive, but in his adulthood he came to the knowledge that it was not by any action of his own that he was thus assigned, but that instead it was what he was born to be, and that in him Fate had played a cruel joke.
"In many things he tried to find a diversion during the long years of his youth; but it was all to no avail, for none can turn from their true path for long. His forays taught him that the world was an ill place to be honest and open in, for such trust was terrible naivety in the company of those that would use it to do harm, and there were none that he met who did not so.
"The setbacks he encountered were numerous and frustrating, but eventually truth came to his mind, and he realised their purpose. It was not his fate to prosper in such avenues as others might, but instead to pursue that which he had been born without: worth. Without his worth, he was denied the pleasures of all other sweet enticements that were open to others, and so he set himself to his task.
"And there he has dwelt across millennia; toiling to earn his worth, unaware that it was his fate to remain a fixed point at the beginning of a path, ever attempting to reach its end, and never to do so."
There was a long silence, and Loki glanced left towards Káta to find her head turned towards him, watching him closely. He turned away once more, a flush of embarrassment rising in his cheeks.
"I told you I'm not very good," he mumbled.
"No," Káta replied softly, and there was something in her tone that made Loki turn back to gaze at her, "it was…very interesting." She smiled faintly at him, and her hand slid across the empty span of gold separating them to take his, her fingers entwining with his.
For all the darkness and the silver light of the stars and moon, her eyes as he met them still retained their golden illumination just as her skin did. Loki was not sure how long he could have remained like that, lost in her eyes, reading without comprehension the emotions that swirled within them. Forever, perhaps, but the pressure of her hand within his was too inviting – a sight that he would never be able to get enough of, that no amount of proof would ever assure him of its reality – and he glanced down to see his hand haloed gold in some of the light from hers.
What felt like a punch that felt as good and dizzying as a sudden influx of seiðr pushed its way through his chest, and he was suddenly unable to meet her eyes again. Instead, he turned to gaze up into the sky once more, hoping that perhaps in the heavens there might be an answer to the undefined question that had been circling inside him, growing so gradually for so long that he hardly knew when it had begun.
"Look!" he breathed.
Káta followed his finger with her eyes, and together they watched as a shooting star went burning across the sky, white hot, with a long comet's tail of sparkling embers trailing temporarily in its wake.
Káta laughed softly in light delight.
"We used to see these from the orchards," she whispered, her free hand outstretched above her, her fingertips tracing the star's cindering trajectory. She turned to Loki, her face lit brighter than before in the blaze of the burning star. "Make a wish."
Loki gazed at her for a long moment, staring into her eyes, and then turned to look up the star just before it passed out of their vision, and wished with all his being. He wasn't sure what he was wishing for. Just that it was a want…a need that resided deep in his heart.
"The dryads used to tell me a story about shooting stars," Káta murmured. "They said that they were the messages sent between two lovers – Fríða and Unnarr – who were condemned to live at opposite ends of the Universe – as far away from each other as it was possible, because they had offended three nornir sisters. They had fought to stay together, fought against Fate itself, but in the end they were separated.
"In the east Fríða wept for Unnarr, and in the west Unnarr cried out for her. The dryads said that their tears were what made the stars; every single one, preserved and sparkling to fill the night sky between them. But even after all they had been through, even when they were so far apart that it seemed even memory could not connect them, their hearts still burned strongly with their love; so strongly that the very cinders of it burst from their chests and sped across the skies and past all the worlds that separated them to each other, so they would always know that the other was there, on the other side of the universe, loving them."
Loki felt Káta's hand squeeze his reflexively, and he found that he too was holding tighter than before.
They lay, gazing up at the stars, their minds inhabiting some faraway place together, and Káta shivered slightly. Loki wordlessly passed a hand through the air, a fur rug dropping into existence over them to ward out the night's cold.
There was something about the night sky above them that kept the pair from sleep, and so they lay side by side through the night instead, awake and silent but for the occasional murmur that passed between them, connected by their hands beneath the furs, and, although they did not know it, in spirit.
Eventually, the shades of night began to pale, and dawn crept towards them, at first no more than a hazy lightening in the east, but with the slow inexorability of time, the sun rose.
It was only a gentle golden spot on the horizon, the gentlest of primrose yellows as it first began its ascent, but then, as the sun rose higher, chasing the last shadows of the night westward, its colour intensified, flushing a deep brassy gold, the sky orange streaked with stray trails of fluorescent magenta.
"I think I could grow to like cities," Káta murmured dreamily as she slowly sat up, her eyes gliding over the gleaming vista that the city of Asgard became in the pale gilding of dawn's first light.
"I want you to stay," Loki said suddenly, pushing the words out before he could make up his mind to stop himself, finally giving voice to the anxieties that had begun to plague him over the preceding days. In the enchanted timelessness of the night that they had inhabited, he had been able to forget everything and thinking only of the girl beside him, but now it had passed, and his cares had returned to him. He had spent the greater part of many nights turning the matter over and over in his mind, and the more he thought on it, the more he knew he could not stand the idea of never seeing Káta again once she returned to her mother's orchards; whenever that might be.
Káta turned to gaze at him where he sat rigidly beside her, smiling in gentle bemusement. Where had his sudden concern come from? "I'm not going anywhere, Loki. I promise."
A frown of pain flickered through Loki's brows, and he pressed his eyes shut, shaking his head. "Promises made to me are made to be broken," he muttered, so softly that Káta knew the words had not been meant for her ears, and that Loki was not even aware of speaking them. They opened anew the ache in her heart for the Prince. Loki did not seem able to meet her eyes, for he addressed his lap when he next spoke. "No…not now. But one day you will. And I…I don't want that to happen."
Káta blinked, her head tilted in unconscious imitation of the way he did when trying to understand, although her expression was merely curious. "Why?"
Loki drew in a breath, somewhat taken aback by the question, and surprised enough that his eyes briefly flitted to hers. "You're my friend," he murmured, "I like who I am when I'm with you. You…you make me better." He stared down at his chest, and muttered into it, "I know you don't like cities, but would you…would you stay? If I asked you to?"
Káta's silence stretched between them for so long that Loki began to grow anxious, and when he eventually looked up, he was surprised to see an emotion in her eyes that he could not name, but that he had become intimately familiar with ever since meeting her. It was something that only she had ever made him feel, but he was yet to divine what it was called.
Loki opened his mouth to say something, although what he didn't know, and was startled by Káta as she leant over, wrapping her arms about him and curling against his chest.
He slowly leant back against the golden wall of the cupola cradling her against him, his arms now around her, holding her close, his surprise having given way to a deep sense of contentment. He hummed in low satisfaction, the vibration travelling through Káta as she drew a deep breath of Loki's piney, snow-fresh scent, wishing fiercely that the moment could last for eternity as much Loki was. Even if they stayed there for decades, it would never be enough.
The feeling that had flooded her heart was so sweet it hurt, and Káta was not sure why something that felt so good, so right, should hurt. It was an echo of what she had first felt in Loki's room, a surging tide that she desperately wanted to let take her towards what she craved, but she knew she couldn't. She knew that the answer was hovering beyond the golden capsule of the moment they had fallen into, beyond the enchanted gloaming time that only ever existed between twilight and the edge of dawn that was painfully close to ending now with the rising of the sun, and she did not want to break it sooner than could be helped, because she knew that the answer would bring heartache to her.
They remained as they were as the sun peeked above the horizon before them, inching with gentle inexorability that Káta wished she could reverse, up to take its place in the sky. They lay with their eyes closed, for all the world slumbering, as though they were owls falling asleep with the coming of the day, but neither was in so dulled a state when the last fragments of so sweet a moment remained to be savoured before dawn stole it away.
When Káta lay down to sleep that night, the answer in her mind, and its pain in her heart, she shook her head, and hid her face in her pillow – there were some things that she wanted to push beyond the horizon; and this was certainly one of them. Knowing she would regret it eventually, Káta ignored the answer and its attendant ache, imagining instead that her pillow was Loki's chest, and that his steady heartbeat was in her ears once more, a lullaby to carry her into sleep.
So it feels like it's been AGES since I last updated, but perhaps that's because I posted the last chapter earlier in the month than this and since there a lot of water has passed under the bridge.
Anyway. SQUISH-YOUR-FACE FEELS AND SUBTEXT.
I hope you liked it :3
Please do savour the happy feels while they last, because in several chapters' time, we'll be plunging off the deep end back into angst again. Just a warning. ;)
And yes, that child's eyepatch in Loki's secret cupboard is the eyepatch he and Thor used to use when they pretended to be their father when they were little :3
For those on you up on your Norse Mythology you'll know that "canonically" Heimdallr and Loki weren't exactly on the best of terms... I've decided to make them pretty friendly acquaintances with each other in this before any proper trouble gets stirred in the mix to estrange them. :)
Also, in case I wasn't very clear: Sól is the Norse word for the Sun, and Máni for the Moon.
The nornir (singular: norn) in Káta's story are female beings that rule the destiny of gods and men.
Oh, and:
Fríða means "love/peace" and "protection/defence"
Unnar means "to love/to wave, billow, roll, undulate" and "army leader/general/warrior", "one who wards/defender", "spear"
Please do review and/or favourite :) Tell me what you like or don't like, and I love reading speculations ;)
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