Notes: Planning :D
Dinner that night was definitely a tense affair. Loki had an inkling of what was going on but really, that was boring, more so when he was excitedly talking about a small contest about finishing the labyrinth, the rules and a possible reward for the first one who crossed it without cheating. Of course he had found really funny to release some beasts inside to help motivate the participants and even though Svad said that it would certainly add to the game, Jane had outright refused to participate. Boring.
"So, I was thinking that then we could add a few runes on this pathway and over several of the walls so when someone comes across it the path changes and then we could add some arrow traps over there..." he was showing Svad a rudimentary map he had drawn after coming out of the labyrinth that morning with Thor. His nephew had been as excited as him about a competition and he had even suggested they add moving walls. Oh! That would be so much fun. "And then if you step on that trap the tiles on the floor would change directions, so if you ever came back across the same place you wouldn't really know."
He was sitting on Svad's lap, feeling his hand on his hip and being fed by his other hand while he planned over his map. Svad hummed here and there and laughed when he suggested something dangerous.
"Ha! No, Loki. I'm sorry but I have to stop you there, we cannot put a pool of lava inside the labyrinth," Svad laughed. Loki puted for about half a second before smiling again. He could feel how tense Jane was, sitting between Svad and Thor and his nephew's eyes on him. Maybe he was not used to having an uncle? Oh. Oh! That was true, he was his only uncle, wasn't it? Even Frigga was an only child, as far as he knew. He looked up from the map and grinned at his nephew. His nephew! He wanted to take Thor everywhere now. It would be so much fun!
"What do you say, Thor? Do you think a pool of lava would be a bad idea?" he asked Thor. By the corner of his eye he could see that Svad was smiling genuinely at his nephew. Oh! Svad was warming up to him too! He loved it. Family was the most important, after all. Not Odin, though. He could live without Odin. Stupid little brother. Why did all little brothers had to be so stupid? Well, he now looked like an old fool. Hum! Served him right!
"Oh, I don't know, uncle," Thor said, and Loki felt his heart swell with warmth. "Maybe a pool with some gulper eels, solane's viperfish or even mantis shrimps," he suggested, smiling.
"That is a thought, nephew," Loki answered, jumping excitedly over Svad's lap. The man laughed and steadied him with both hands, lowering him to kiss him on the neck.
"Behave, I'm not a chair," he whispered to his skin and Loki shivered happily.
"Sorry, love," Loki mumbled kissing him on the lips. Then, he turned to his nephew whose frowning face changed into a bright smile in milliseconds. Mm... Interesting. "Now, I want to know how many people are going to participate. I will need to prepare some ingredients for the spells needed if we are going to give life to the labyrinth. And I know, we won't be using manticores nor gryphons," he added before Jane could even open her mouth. She smiled at him and shook her head.
"I woud participate if it wasn't for the fact that you are trying to design a death trap. How are the contestants to arrive alive at the end of the maze if you keep adding all these things? The mist of misfotune? Really? A normal labyrinth is difficult on its own without you needing to add more to it. Most of the participants would be trapped for hours."
"I know, isn't it fantastic?" Loki said, jumping over Svad again like an overexcited child.
"That's it! If you cannot stay put go to your own chair. I want to eat," Svad admonished him while laughing. He took Loki by his hips and lifted him. Instantly, his arms circled Svad's neck.
"Savage!" Loki pouted when Svad seated him on the empty chair at his other side. Instead of retorting, Svad beeped on his nose and kissed his cheek, sitting back on his own chair. "Well, as I was saying, the fountain should contain some sort of drugged liquid, so in case anyone drinks from it, they will have hallucinations and..." he continued through the whole dinner, adding notes to the margins of his map and taking note of all the suggestions Thor made.
And now, after he was sitting on his own chair, Loki felt the mood lighter. He bickered back and fothr with Jane about the possibility of using lions instead of minotaurs and she, dramatically, hit the table with her head. As Thor patted her shoulder reassuringly Svad kicked Loki under the table, just hard enough to for them to make eye contact.
"You should let them rest. Give it time. We have still weeks here, so you can plan it slowly."
"But after the planning comes putting it into action! That also takes time," Loki pouted halfheartedly and Svad came to rest on his knee and gave him a light squeeze. The look of pure desire in his ambers eyes was enough to ignite something within Loki's stomach.
"Who wants dessert!" Jane exclaimed, breaking the moment. Loki looked at her, but she was glancing at Thor who was looking out the window with a frown on his face and a tormentous look in his eyes.
"We can take it on the reading room," Svad suggested, getting up extending his hand to Loki, who huffed and rolled his eyes before taking it.
"I can walk fine already!" he protested when Svad took him by the waist.
"I know, but I cannot let this fine excuse to touch you," Svad grinned wolfishly.
In the faraway distance, thunder rumbled.
00000
The storm had become worse gradually but Thor had no intention to stop it. The servants had closed the windows and lit the fire of the hearth. They were sitting on comfortable chairs and armchairs. Jane was reading aloud from a book of jokes and Loki's laughter filled the room He was sitting on Svad's lap again and he paid attention to Jane while Svad just entertained himself by touching him or kissing him.
Thor couldn't help the scowl on his face, so he had taken a book and feigned that it was out of concentration more than jealousy. Oh, yes! He was jealous. Svadilfari still had everything and he wasn't even a real prince! Not by blood, as far as he knew. It had been a happy coincidence that he had that stupid mark on his back –his uncle had decided to lift the confusion that the pirate having two names created– that seemed similar enough to that of the real prince. And still he had the gall to touch a real prince with such filthy hands.
"...a song," Stark was saying. He looked up. Everyone froze.
"Stark..." Svad started to say.
"Oh, please! You pay me for knowing things Sigurd," Stark mocked. "C'mon Svadilfari, we all know already that he is the merman that saved you from dying. The magic being on the lost island," he added, putting both hands at one side of his face and battling his eyelashes rapidly in a mock gesture. The rest laughed. Thor looked aroun, Jane was interested and Loki just sat relaxed on top of Svadilfari.
"It's not me who has to give permission," Svad harrumpted, his hands gripping harder at Loki's waists. But his uncle only laughed.
"Oh, that I can give. I have singed since I was a newly hatched pup," Loki said, smiling, and graciously got up from Svad's lap. "Though I must warn you, my voice, as the rest of my peers, can affect your perception of your surroundings. I could command you to put your foot on the fire and then eat it after it's propperly cooked and you wouldn't know how it happened," he said, smiling dangerously.
"Ehh... On second thought..." Stark smiled and bowed lowly, then he left. The rest of the crew scattered too. Loki, who had walked to the fireplace, put his hands on his hips and laughed.
"So easily scared," he purred.
"I want to listen," Jane said. "I mean, I've heard Thor sing before."
What Thor nor Svad knew was that Jane had been cleared off of Loki's song, so she would be unaffected. And while Thor thought that Jane and Svad would be affected, and Jane though that Svadilfari would be the only one, Loki knew that none of them would be. Why? Simply because he could control his song. Young mer people were unable to control their song in a way that made humans unaffected so they had to practise. Since the hunting of humans had been more or lees banned, not many mer practiced their song until they could sing without enchanting the listener. Loki, on his part, had done that.
"Oh, I don't know... I know a lot of inappropriate songs," he said, coyly, winking at Jane who only stuck out her tongue.
"You shouldn't worry about enchanting us," Svad said, reclining in his armchair and stretching his legs. Thor followed Lok's eyes, he was openly staring at Svad's bulge. But Svad was busy picking at his nails with a dagger.
"Don't you know any lullaby?" Jane ventured, intrigued. "Do your people sing those to their young?"
"Oh. Well... Yes, I know a few... I used to... My mother used to sing them to us when we were little," Loki's voice had gone soft. Thor's heart was hammering in his chest. He had never seen such a open look in his face, such tenderness. Coughing, maybe to clear his throat, Loki made a small harp appear. He plucked the strings to see if it was on tune. Thor leaned over his knees, interested. Loki took a seat on the armrest at Svadilfari's side, but Thor was too interested in hearing Loki sing to feel slighted by his uncle's choice. "This is an old one." And he started to sing.
Thor didn't know that song. His mother, Frigga, had singed a great deal of lullabies to him when he barely knew how to use his fin. Loki's face had a faraway look. It was as if he was reminiscending something dear yet painful, if the tears slowly clouding his green eyes were to be counted. Still, he didn't stop singing until the last note of the lullaby was sang. Then, instead of saying anything he let the hapr drop to the floor as his tears fell from his eyes, turned around and left them.
The storm outside, that had been claming down, grew back into full force as Svadilfari shot up and ran after his uncle. He looked at Jane.
"What was that?" he asked, trying to make sense on what had happened.
"Do you think he had children before and they died young?" she countered, her face serious. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed. If tomorrow these sudden summer rains don't ruin it again, I will have another lesson of swordplay," she said, stretching. She came to him and squeezed his shoulder. "Don't be up too late, I think your uncle will love it if you can discuss the bloody maze tomorrow at breakfast with him." And with that, she left too.
Thor stayed there, thinking about her words. He truly knew nothing about his uncle.
00000
He woke up with strong arms around him, a steady breath on his nape. It was as usual, but not as comforting as before. He stayed there, laying on his side, watching the night bleed out into the new day as the light won the inevitable fight between light and darkness that repeated itself twice a day. Svad's lips rested on his bare shoulder.
"What are you thinking?"
"Shoul I curse you?" Loki asked in response, after a while, not looking away from the sky.
"What kind of curse?" he said, tightening his grip and kissing his shoulder again.
"One that robs you of half of yourself," he whispered. He felt sad.
"I don't know if you would like only half of myself," he retorted, bitting. It was his way to chastise him for thinking too much. "What is it that you want, exactly?"
"You are going to die," Loki said, with a sigh.
"I know."
"You got upset with me because you were going to die sooner than I."
"... I'm sorry."
"No. You are right. You are going to die. But what...?" Loki turned around to look at Svad in the eye. "What would you say if I told you that there's a way to live with me, for as long as I do?" Instead of answering, Svadilfari let go of him and got off the bed, reaching for his breeches. "Svad?" Loki couldn't help the slight tremor of fear in his voice.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said, still not looking at Loki. He sat on Loki's side of the bed, giving him his back. "You want me with you..."
"Yes."
"I..." He looked at him now, he looked confused. "I don't know what to say, Loki. I do want to be with you. But I have been trying to get myself used to the fact that we will not be forever together. It takes a lot of effort on my part not to start breaking things when I think that long before my death you will be with others and..." He stopped to take a deep breath. "I don't want to be the one to drag you down –don't laugh, it wasn't a pun– and keep you further away from your family or the other merpeople. If you are already despised... Won't I be another reason to add for that?"
Loki propped himself on one forearm.
"You wouldn't be a reason nor an excuse. There's a way for us to... to be together and they wouldn't have a say in it."
"Yes? Like tying our souls or something and if you die I die and if I die you die?" Svad said jokingly, but after seeing Loki's serious face his smile was erased. "No. I won't do that to you," he said, frowning and turning away. Loki sat up and moved to stay behind Svadilfari, leaning over him and resting his chin on Svad's shoulder.
"You wouldn't be doing anything to me, I would be the one doing the thing..."
"Have you been linked like that before? How do you know you will still want me around in a century? In two? Humans have shorter lifes for a reason."
"... I have... Twice." Svad looked at him, surprised. "It doesn't hurt, and it doesn't break your soul. The only thing that breaks is your heart," Loki said. He knew he wasn't being quite clear. "Though if you die I don't die. I just keep living with an acute feeling of emptiness."
Svad turned completely towards Loki and embraced him.
"What happened? Who?"
Loki took a deep breath.
"The first one was my twin. It's something that sometimes happens with twins. Our link made us able to hear the other. We could talk from afar to each other. We were never alone. Once, Vili swam too low, too close to the abyssal zone, way below the normal bathypelagic zone where we usually dared each other to go down. He was so lost. He couldn't see and he didn't know wether he was going up or down.
"You see? We have very sensitive eyes adapted to go either up or down. We have a third eyelid that we close when we go up into the surface so they won't get damaged by the intense light. When we are on our usual deep we don't really need it and our eyes can see infrared waves but even with that, Vili was unable to locate me and go back up. He was truly lost and scared. He couldn't hear anything beside his heart in his chest and it was difficult for him to breathe. Then, he saw an abyssal creature coming right at him. It had come from the nothing and attacked him. He yelled for me, not with his voice, but with his mind. I located him and threw light spell after light spell in his direction as I swam down.
"I found him. I dragged him up. We managed to dislocate the creature that was bitting his arm. We never told anyone where we were that day, but if it hadn't been for our bond, he would have been lost for ever and eaten by the creatures down below," Loki was looking down, eyes lost into a distant past.
Svad rose his face, putting a finger under his chin.
"You saved him thanks to your link." Loki nodded. "And the other?"
"Her name was Sygin. I turned myself into a man and lived with her. Then she died. I heard her screams, but when I finally arrived by her side it was too late." Svad hugged him. "The worst part is not hearing them. The worst part is when you realize that you are alone and that you won't be hearing them again. The silence is more deafening than their yells."
Svad's arms tightened around him.
"And you want to go through that again just because I am selfish?" he said, kissing Loki on the neck.
"I suppose I like to suffer?"
"No... You are just being stupid. There's no reason for you to be tied again to such a fate. Besides, with your charm, you are making so many friends I wouldn't be surprised you get killed way before I have time to grow grey," Svad said, using a lighter tone in his voice. Loki laughed.
"You are right. I'm being stupid," Loki said, looking at Svadilfari. "Why do you always know what to say to cheer me up? It's so strange that a mortal like you can do it," he added, kissing him on the lips.
"That's something I wonder myself. Now, let's get up and go have breakfast. I'm sure your nephew will be thrilled with the new ideas you have about the labyrinth."
"How do you know that I have new ideas?" Loki asked, playfully.
"Because you never stop thinking."
"Well! I have this idea about the prize. It isn't refined, but I think that it is an interesting item and besides, the greatest reward is beating the labyrinth," he started chattering. Svadilfari laughed and threw at him his shirt.
"Get dressed!"
"Yes, sir."
More Notes: The lullaby that I picture Loki singing here is "Noble Maiden Fair (A Mhaighdean Bhan Uasal)" from the Brave OST. :)
