"So, princess, what is your family on Midgard - pardon me - earth like?"
"Oh yes, do tell, Your Highness."
"To have become the representative for a whole realm your lineage must be impressive, I'm sure. Many kings and queens in the bloodlines?"
"Uh," Maisy bit her lip and looked down at her hands, "Well… not really."
Now that her honeymoon was over, she was back from earth, and Tyr hadn't been heard from in a week, Odin had declared that it was time she got to know the court a little better. If she was going to be part of the royal family she was going to have to learn to act like it. Seeing as she was currently the only female member of the Asgardian royal family, Odin had given her many of the tasks that his wife used to take care of. Sadly, one of these tasks was chatting with the noblemen's wives, sisters, and daughters while the men were in meetings with the king.
"My dad is a contractor," she looked back up nervously, "He builds stuff."
"Hmm," one of the ladies looked down her nose at Maisy and opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by another voice.
"A noble profession," Sif commented and Maisy relaxed, "Where would we be without those who construct our homes?"
Sif hated chatting with the other ladies of the court, she'd confided earlier, but she'd promised Maisy that she wouldn't abandon her to the wolves on her first day of dealing with them.
"Yes, yes, of course," Lady Fulla commented, sipping her tea. Maisy suspected this woman was only here to keep an eye on her for Odin and report back.
"And your mother?" Another lady asked.
"She… she was an ornithologist."
"Was? I am sorry to hear of her passing. Was it recent?"
"Err, she didn't die. She, uh, left my father."
There was a shocked gasp that echoed through the room and all eyes looked at Maisy in horror. If they hadn't all been so close together they probably would have started whispering judgmentally with each other. Maisy grabbed a scone from the platter nearest to her and bit into it, waiting for them to say something. Crumbs went everywhere and she winced, not sure if she should brush them onto the floor or try to clean them up.
"She left your father?"
"Yes. Several years ago."
"I do not mean to pry, princess," a lady, who Maisy recalled from one of her first dinners in Asgard, wrinkled her nose, "But was it because she'd found another man?"
"Lady Astrid!" Another woman shushed, "Do not put the princess on the spot!"
But Maisy could tell that they all wanted to know.
"You know, I honestly don't have a clue if it was for another man," she replied, ignoring the crumbs and taking another bite, "I just woke up one morning and she was gone."
"How terrible!"
"What did your father do to cause that?" A woman scoffed, propping her feet up on another chair and throwing back her tea as if it were ale. Sif had introduced this woman as Skadi. She was a sportswoman with little patience for meetings like this, but she was also a terrible gossip and wanted to meet Maisy.
"He used to be an alcoholic. We had a really bad time in our family life and that's when my mom left. My dad has been working on changing ever since and he's gotten a lot better ever since he met his current fiancee, Ima."
It was true. Maisy hated Ima and Ima hated her stepdaughter, but they had come to sort of an understanding when it came to Mr. Sichore's habits. Ima had been as heavy as a drinker as Josh had been, but one day Ima got so drunk that she'd hurt her son, Bret, and she'd been disgusted with her own behavior. She and Josh had both started going to AA meetings the next week and, even though they were struggling, they were trying their best. They helped each other and Maisy respected that.
"If he had the potential to change then your mother should have stayed," a lady declared, "A broken vow in your family does not bode well for you and our prince."
"Lady Var!"
Maisy stiffened and looked down again. She'd felt brave talking about her parents. It used to be something she was ashamed of, but she'd gotten over it. She could handle talking about them now, but she hadn't ever thought anyone would relate their relationship to her own.
"Don't be absurd, Var," Sif snapped, "If our parents' actions determined our own then you would be a weakling who never left home or meddled with other people's business."
That shut Var up quickly and she looked like she might cry. Maisy winced and Sif grinned smugly. Skadi laughed as if that were the funniest thing she'd ever heard in her life and then stood up.
"Oh I forgot how fun you could be, Sif," she dusted all the crumbs on her dress onto the floor, "You really must come and visit again sometime. I'd love to ski with you."
"Always a pleasure, Skadi."
And just like that conversations turned to things like the weather, skiing, husbands, and children. It moved so fast that Maisy felt dizzy. Right as she was starting to get used to things the doors opened and a few men started trickling in.
"Ladies, gossiping as usual," one man said, bending to give Lady Astrid a kiss, "Hope we aren't interrupting anything too silly."
"Of course not, love," Astrid fluttered her eyelashes.
"And is this our new princess?" Another man asked, approaching Maisy and taking her hand gently and pressing a chaste kiss to her knuckles, "A pleasure to meet you, Highness."
"Hi."
"I hope these vicious gossip mongers haven't cut you with their tongues yet?"
"Just a scratch."
"How are you liking your life in our fair realm?"
"It's very nice. I especially-"
"Wonderful! Now, if you'll excuse me, I must collect my wife and be on my way."
"Right."
Various lords and ladies all said their goodbyes until it was only, Maisy, Fulla, Sif, and Skadi left in the room. Maisy breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
"Don't mind them, princess," Skadi said, "They are all insane."
"Lady Skadi, are you not supposed to meet your husband before dinner?"
"That I am, Lady Fulla," Skadi sighed and rolled her eyes, "Njord can wait though. It's been a month since he's seen me, another few minutes won't kill him. In fact, he's probably glad of the time away from me."
"I don't think I've met Lord Njord yet," Maisy commented, "Does he live in the palace?"
"No," Skadi shoved a scone in her mouth, "Wish he did though, food's much better here. He lives on the shore. He just loves the sea."
"I take it you don't?"
"I'm a mountain girl myself. Reminds me of home," she licked her fingers, "You and your royal hubby stayed not two miles from my hunting lodge, actually! On your honeymoon?"
"Oh really? That's cool. Do you know Loki?"
"Who doesn't? He's a wack job. No offense."
"None taken. What's Njord like? And if it's not too prying, can I ask why you guys live so far apart?"
"Njord and I have a weird marriage. And we like different things. So we live in different places. Our marriage was… well, the best way to describe it was arranged, but that's not exactly true. So we're like good friends who occasionally sleep together, but hate visiting each other's homes."
"Oh."
"Works for us," Skadi dusted herself off again and got up to go, "It was nice meeting you. Give my greetings to Loki. I might have to pop in for another chat sometime."
"Nice to meet you too!"
Skadi left and Fulla silently followed her.
"Oof," Maisy flopped back in her chair and started at the ceiling of the lounge room, "That was a lot."
"They can be quite the handful," Sif agreed, "Var didn't hurt you with her words?"
"I'll recover. What's her deal anyway? Why was she so upset about my parents splitting?"
"The Midgardians call her the goddess of vows. When she found out she took it a little too seriously and now she's always checking in on married couples to make sure they are getting along. I've been told it is aggravating and that is why, should I ever marry, I would never tell Var."
"Wish she could magically forget that I'm married."
"Sort of how you magically forgot that you are meant to meant Loki in the training area in five minutes?" Sif smirked and Maisy jumped to her feet.
"Crap!"
"You could cancel with him and you and I could have more fun training together. I'll even go easy on you," Sif teased.
"Sorry, Sif. Maybe next week," Maisy sprinted out the door, "Crap, crap, crap!"
She didn't have time to change out of her fancy dress and she just barely made it to the training area as the clock struck the hour. She slid in and found Loki standing in the middle of the area with his arms crossed and a brow raised.
"Cutting it close, aren't we?"
"I am exactly on time!"
"And wearing a dress."
"I… I thought I should learn how to fight in fancy clothes too. Just in case I get attacked at a party or something," Maisy crossed her fingers behind her back and smiled brightly.
"I am a bad influence on you," Loki approached her and grabbed her crossed fingers, holding them up, "And though your lies are getting better, you'll never fool me."
"Alright fine. Odin told me I had to go talk with a bunch of noble ladies and I lost track of time," she rolled her eyes, "For whatever reason, I wasn't supposed to tell you about the meeting, though I don't see the harm."
"I do," Loki sighed, "It's because that is something my mother used to do."
"Yeah, so?"
"My mother the queen. Odin doesn't want me to know that he has you doing queenly duties."
"Why?"
"Because then I might get bigger aspirations then I am meant to. A queen is married to a king, after all."
"Oh. That's dumb. You aren't going to start plotting Odin's demise just because I'm doing something your mom used to do. And if he thinks you are that easily triggered then he shouldn't have me doing 'queenly' things in the first place."
"I doubt any of us will ever understand the enigma of Odin's mind," Loki offered her a dagger, "So let's not waste another moment trying to."
"Right, the training thing. Why is it that you suddenly want me to start training in combat stuff again?" She took up a defensive pose like she'd been taught.
"In case."
"In case what?"
"Something unfortunate happens."
"Such as - aaah! No fair, I didn't know we were starting!" Loki had shuffled forward and pressed his knife to her throat so quickly that she'd barely registered it.
"Tyr is still out there. And he has the funds to hire an assassin if he wishes to. I want to do everything in my power to stop the hypothetical assassins from being successful. And I gave you the ready signal, so you should have known we were starting."
"Wait," Maisy paled, "You really think he'll send someone to kill me?"
"After the way you humiliated him I'd be surprised if he didn't."
"Seriously?! I've had way more death threats in my life than an aspiring fashion designer should have. This is nuts! I thought we were through with the dangerous part of our marriage and we could start the more domestic part."
"Such is the life of an Asgardian royal."
"Ugh. Don't remind me," she waved her dagger in the air like a wand, "Princess this and princess that and curtsey, bow, hand kiss, curtsey, and bow again!"
"It must have been some meeting, hmm?"
"If I hear one more person call me princess today I swear I'm going to flip out!"
She knew Loki was humoring her by letting her rant. She was glad of it though, because she was sick of keeping up with this perfect lady routine. It was fun to explode for once.
"And don't get me started on the ladies! They are seriously cutthroat! Like, damn! Every word out of their mouths was a thinly veiled insult and they still all acted like the best of pals!"
"I am aware. When I was a boy I sat in on their meetings, playing by my mother's feet. There is none so cruel as a peeved noblewoman."
"I just," Maisy took a step forward and planted her forehead on his chest, "I'm just tired. Sorry."
"I'm sure it is overwhelming," Loki pulled her closer, "Perhaps training is too tiring an activity right now."
"But I wanna spend time with you," she mumbled into his chest, "I've got a schedule tomorrow like you wouldn't believe. I've got so many people to meet and talk to."
"Let's spend time together then," Loki snapped his fingers and Maisy felt something magical pass over them. When she pulled away and looked down at herself she was unrecognizable. Loki had on a different face too.
"I don't follow."
"You're tired of the royal life? Let's not be royals. We'll go for a walk in town. See a play, have some drinks at a tavern. Peasant stuff."
"Peasant stuff?" Maisy snorted, "Wow, yeah, you really need to spend more time with the people, Mr. High and Mighty."
"So you want to go?"
"Yes please. I would love to do peasant stuff with you."
"Excellent."
"But you know, on earth we call going to a show and getting a drink a 'date'."
"Whatever."
A note from the author: And so the story continues! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I thought it would be kind of fun to show all of the ladies of the court and their reactions to Maisy even though they aren't really in the story after this.
For anyone curious about Norse mythology, Skadi was actually a frost giantess. I can't remember the exact details, but I think Odin murdered her father and then she got mad and came to Asgard looking for a fight. To calm her down the Asgardians did some stuff (like make her laugh... which Loki did in a rather alarming fashion) and said she could pick any of the Asgardian men as her husband. She either wanted Baldr or Frey (I can't recall which, but either way she wanted a super handsome one), but the catch was that she had to pick her husband by just looking at their legs. So they covered up the torsos of the dudes and showed off their lovely legs. Skadi picked the buffest legs she could find and ended up with Njord, the sea god. And they didn't really get along, but I thought it would be cute if they still liked each other in this.
Thanks so much for reading!
Special thanks to my darling reviewers:
ferbette: He certainly does not need the ego boost. XD
Ninja Squirrel: Now I kinda want to draw Tony with the noise maker and Loki with the part hat lol. The big fight won't be for quite a while, but it'll definitely be a "humdinger". XD
nina del carmen: I'm a little confused about what your review says, but I'm pretty sure you said it was your birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! :D I hope it was awesome!
You guys are the best! Thank you so, so, so, so much!