After the thirtieth blow was struck, Loki rose to his feet without assistance and Angrboda rushed to embrace him.
"You were so brave!" she said. "So strong!" He set her aside very gently, took his tunic back from the guard who held it but did not put it on, and bowed to the crowd. He then turned and saluted Odin, and marched back into the palace.
Where he promptly collapsed just inside the doors.
He was rushed to the Infirmary and awoke after about half an Asgardian hour of unconsciousness, on his side in the hospital bed, with someone rubbing something cool and soothing on his back. He assumed it was Eir, the Royal Healer. He was wrong.
"I'm sorry about today," Sigyn said as she applied balm to his welts. "I feel like I wished this upon you."
"How do you figure?" he said, wondering where Eir was and why Sigyn was attending him.
"Because I wanted you to be 'properly' punished for your crimes. I didn't know the truth and I made a lot of assumptions based on hearsay. But no matter what I believed, I never wanted this. I don't believe in capital punishment. It's wrong. It's ungodly."
"That belief puts you solidly in a minority," Loki said. "Why are you treating me? What happened to Eir?"
"I asked her if I could look after you. I felt like I needed to do something, after not being able to stop the caning. I almost got arrested, by the way."
"You what?"
"I sort of… attacked… your father. I didn't know quite what I was doing, I guess. I just felt like I had to do something to stop the flogging. I've never felt so powerless in my life. His Majesty let me off but I had to spend the rest of the… the event… under guard. Your mother talked to me about it. She would have made a very good healer."
"Where is Angrboda? How does she feel right now?"
"Angrboda is resting. When she found out you'd collapsed she went into hysterics and had to be sedated. She seems very fond of you."
"Still making the push for me to choose Angrboda."
"I'm just saying, it seems genuine enough. Your son… wants to see you, but your mother is keeping him company until you're discharged. I felt you'd rather."
"Thank you. I don't want him to see this."
"I have to wonder… why your father sentenced you while your brother was off-realm. It seems convenient, somehow."
"Don't read anything into it. Father acts as soon as he makes up his mind. Thor being gone is a coincidence."
"Still, if anyone would have stopped it from happening."
"Even Thor has no power to stop Father."
"I think… your father is more devious than you give him credit for. You could perhaps learn something from him, Trickster."
Loki laughed outright. "You think I have not? You think I came by my deviousness naturally? The penchant, perhaps, but the skills? No, those I learned at Odin's knee."
"Then why do you trust him?" Sigyn said.
"I don't. But he is King, and my father. I have little choice but to follow. You would not have me foment revolution."
She was silent. "Would you?" he said. More silence. "Odin is a good king. Why would I depose him… now that I'm not out for my own selfish reasons?"
"You shouldn't. I'm just not so certain anymore that Odin is a good king."
"He is. Look – a realm is only as good as its people, right? But the happiness of the people depends very strongly on the management of their leaders. Asgard's people are happy, yes? Odin is a good king."
"He is cruel."
"Look, I don't know where he stands on the whole capital punishment issue, I really don't, but I know he didn't want to cane me. But it gave me a chance to regain some of the people's respect, and I thank him for it."
"Respect?"
"The whole of the bloody city saw me take thirty strikes. There may have been tears in my eyes but I didn't cry out. And I walked away at the end with my head held high."
"And collapsed as soon as no one could see you!"
"Yes, but that's the point – no one could see me. Hopefully, by now everyone is telling everyone else how I took it like a god."
Sigyn bit her lip. "I don't believe in violence, and ancestors know you've been hurt badly enough today, but I would very much like to hit you right now," she said.
"For what?" Loki said, sounding genuinely surprised.
"For being a boneheaded male. You're all obsessed with honor and respect and appearances."
"And women aren't obsessed with those same things? How long did it take you to pin up your hair this morning, my lady? It's very well-tamed considering how curly it is. And exactly why did you agree to be paraded before me like prize livestock in the farmer's markets for this marriage arrangement? I'm guessing some novel idea of respect and honor, am I right? Probably your family's."
She sat back and breathed a few deep breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. "I… yes, I suppose I did," she said. "If you must know the truth, my family is on the verge of bankruptcy. My marriage to you would save them from having to sell the last piece of land we own."
"And being commensurately humiliated and lose all respect and honor as nobility," Loki said.
"Yes."
"So you would agree with me, then, wouldn't you, that the Pride Bone, that keeps the back straight, the neck stiff, and the chin up in trying times, is genderless?"
"Yes."
"So glad we understand each other. Are you done slathering that stuff on me? I feel like I'm ready for baking now."
"You complain, but does your back hurt?" she said.
"No."
"That's because of the balm."
"Does it have to be so greasy?"
"Says the man with a pound of grease in his hair."
"Not this again. I told you – I'm taming the fleuff."
"And I happen to think you'd look just fine with a little… fleuff."
Loki was silent for a moment and then said, "Do you… think I look all right? Fleuff or no fleuff? I mean, Asgardian goddesses think I'm ugly, but you're from Vanaheim, you have a different set of perceptions."
"I don't consider looks a high priority, my Prince," she said.
"So you think I'm ugly then," he said.
"No! I think you're quite handsome, actually, or would be if you'd cut down on the pomade. I just don't find it the first, most important thing about you."
"What is, then?"
"Well, personality is a big concern."
"And mine is bad?"
"No, I just don't think yours and mine could ever coexist in a family setting. You love fun times and I'm much more settled."
"What if I told you I don't love fun times as much as everyone thinks?"
She laughed briefly. "You're the god of mischief, I'd find that hard to believe."
"I like humor. I like jokes. But I don't like parties, or drinking, or loud noises, or crowded places. To be honest, my favorite thing in the world is a warm fire, a comfortable chair, a hot drink, and a good book."
"That's… pretty much my favorite thing in the world, too," she said slowly.
"I used pranks and humor as my means of joining peer groups I otherwise had no chance of fitting in with," he said, more than a little dismally. "It didn't get any easier as I got older."
"I could see that. I had a hard time fitting in, myself. I assume this was here at home, and not at school."
"Yes. There's no making friends at school as such when you're in the Battlemage program. You're not really even allowed to speak to each other. Definitely no pranks or jokes."
"So you had all this pent-up energy from while you were away at school, lonely and scared and unable to release it in any way, and you found vent at home in jokes and mischief."
"Must you psychoanalyze every least detail of my life?"
"Most of your life appears to have been pretty traumatizing."
"Well, in case you haven't noticed it, my dear, we are no longer at the Sanitarium, and I am no longer your patient. If I were to lose my mind and choose you, is this what I could expect from you over the course of eternity?"
"A healer is a caretaker, and so is a wife. If we were married, I would take care of you. To the best of my ability."
"Well we shouldn't have to worry about that," Loki said. "Someone hand me my tunic." And he got up, against Sigyn's strenuous objections, and left the Infirmary, pulling on his shirt as he went.
