Written to: Someday - The Strokes, crosspost from AO3
Dépaysement: When someone is taken out of their own familiar world into a new one.
Laufey is nothing short of delighted when Loki comes bustling through the door of the ice palace, blowing snow out of his eyes and cradling what looks like a huge bundle of blankets in the protective circle of his arms. Laufey is nothing short of disgusted when Thor follows him a moment later, shaking snow and ice out of his travelling cloak like a giant wet dog and spraying the foyer with melting puddles of cold.
"Darling, we're so glad you could make it!" Farbauti exclaims with a huge smile on her face as she comes forward, holding out her arms to envelope Loki and Modi - who really could not understand why his mama felt it necessary to bundle him up in nothing short of ten fleece blankets - in a hug. Pulling back, she pinches Loki's cheeks with a smile, grins up at Thor in an impish manner that he is all too familiar with, and greets him as well.
Modi waves a little fist around in the air, trying to grab at Farbauti's hand, and Loki gladly hands him over to his mother as he bends over to unlace his boots.
"Your first visit to Jotunheimr," Laufey says, looking at Modi over Farbauti's shoulder. "How do you like it here, little prince? Is it too cold for your liking?"
Modi babbles up at him unintelligibly, and Laufey laughs, nods in understanding as if Modi and he are having some deep conversation on Jotunheimr's frosty climate. Modi opens and closes his hands like tiny starfish, trying to grasp at the little snowflakes that seem to constantly float down from the ice palace's upper floors, examines his hands curiously when the snowflakes melt upon contact with his fingers.
"Oh, yes," Farbauti says, looking up to the castle's upper floors. "Your brothers have been engaging in some...rather explicit activities, and so are rather indisposed," she tells Loki, who is brushing his shoulders off. "Byleistr is rather infatuated with that doppelganger you sent over. And Helblindi...I believe he is seeing a Midgardian woman? Oh, what was her name?" She taps her cheek, trying to remember, while Modi squeals in delight and grabs at the dangling ice bracelets on her wrists, pouting when they do not come off or make amusing noises or melt in his hands.
"Darcy?" Loki supplies, and Thor just goggles at him in surprise and disbelief. Surely he couldn't mean that Darcy, not the one that was friends with Lady Jane. Surely not.
"That's right!" Farbauti says, smiling benevolently down at Modi, who babbled up at her as if to complain about the lack of amusement provided by her sparkly jewelry. "Darcy Lewis. Helblindi seems to like her very much. He's visited Midgard so much, he's started to turn purple! But come, now, you must be famished. You've gotten so thin, are you sure you're eating properly?"
Farbauti continues this babble as she begins to walk with Loki towards the ice castle's dining hall, catching him up on Jotunheimr current events, and Thor makes a move to follow before Laufey clears his throat.
"Ahem," Laufey says, more of a snarl than a statement, glaring down at Thor's feet. "It would...benefit you not to track water and ice all over my halls."
Thor glares at him, glares pointedly up at the snowdrifts still sprinkling down from the ceiling before bending down and unlacing his boots.