17.

. . .

Lady Adenium met Loki at the entry to the upper court, and he didn't remark on her bemused expression or the fact that she smelled, faintly and absurdly, of greasy pepperoni and cheese, but he did spend the short march the rest of the way upstairs wondering what the hell had gone on in the palace while he'd been running around on his spy games. In return, she didn't remark on the small lockbox under his arm or why, for his arranged meeting, he'd come from a different upstairs wing and not through the grand gateway to the palace.

He forgot about his questions when the guards announced them and let them by, and he saw Imda first, interestingly, seated comfortably on a broad bench, and next Queen Aelsa, smiling beatifically with her hands clasped together, and finally the stout, white-barked and black-fleshed tree rooted in the center of the throne room that certainly hadn't been there the last time Loki was in attendance.

The tree shivered and shifted and Loki, a fast adapter, recognized immediately that this unearthly figure was King Oberon himself. The 'tree's' roots dug in close to the thick trunk, and the branches wound close around itself. He was small enough to be damn near a bush, and Loki took a guess that was because this was what passed for kneeling low in obeisance, for a fae.

As Loki came closer to the small court, he found he was half right. Like Titania, Oberon shifted when the king saw Loki, but this ancient fae's more human form was just as small and stout as his tree-shape, and his white-black slashed tunic was cut to show he only bent on one knee that had reshaped itself from the roots, not fully knelt. Oberon's humanoid face still seemed elk-like and elongated, with two crowning, white bone horns protruding from his brow, and his eyes were dark brown and full of mixed emotions. They never quite met Loki's.

Oberon had to have been half his wife's size, which, to Loki, called into vague question why she had never drop-kicked him over the moon for his nonsense.

"Oh good, you're right on time!" Aelsa's words came with a birdlike and merry chirping, and Loki realized with a chill at her choice of words that everything Titania had said was true. He'd seen something clever hiding in Aelsa at his earlier attendance, but even he hadn't seen it all. She patted at a second bench near Imda, a naturally smaller one. "Prince Loki, do come over and sit by me and tell me everything!"

Within boredom's reason, he did. Oberon moved during none of it, his head bowed before the Queen of Alfheim. A barely visible moue crossed his face at the mention of Mooar, a flicker of what seemed to be regret or sorrow, and Loki was careful about his references to Ayelah and his own ire at the library. The final proof to his story was granted with a theatrical flourish. The gem produced from Leamhan's lockbox gleamed brightly when Loki showed how the illusion worked. Once he knew to look for it, the trick was simple. In his palm, the marque shifted from simple watchman's gem to Oberonese sigil like sunlight over the water. A glamour so simple, so smooth, even he'd missed it at first.

Aelsa smiled brightly at him through the tale and she took the box from him to place it on her lap. Her hands rested atop it, pale and tight and utterly at odds with her face. "How excellent is your work, good prince! I'll have Adenium question your witnesses on the record, keep it all nicely above board so no one can say I've played favorites. I'm terribly grateful that you've brought us such trustworthy names to vouch for your brother's intent. A shame about the Archive's role in this, however. An absolute shame. I expect better from them, but, well, there's little I can do. They're quite entrenched in their ways, and quite beloved of my court."

That smile now seemed to have a great many teeth in it, even as the delight and cheer at Loki's presence seemed true. She liked him, plainly, and with a tiny bead of sweat at the back of his neck to underline what he felt, he understood this was a much better place to be than otherwise.

He also got the hint not very subtly buried in her words. He'd committed himself, wittingly or no, to a future of causing trouble at the Archive on behalf of the Queen. A role in which she would remain forever cloaked by plausible deniability - not unlike a better version of Titania's own game, it occurred to him. He caught a look from Ambassador Imda, amused and not quite pitying. What a curse, said that look. Poor you, with that reputation and that name.

It was a fair point. It was realizing that he was now formally cornered into it that grated a bit.

Aelsa's smile never wavered. If this wee scrap of an Elf could trash Titania with a word, then perhaps, as Daisy liked to say, he should just suck it up. Maybe he would eventually even get over his pique and enjoy it. After all, everything he'd said to Ayelah was still the truth. And Milkmane… oh, he did have it coming. It would be a game all its own to discover the ways a man like that was scraping cream off the business of books.

Someone still had to eat that box of receipts, after all. Loki found his mood perking up again, if slightly.

"It's honestly terrible that all of this got so far. Just terrible, isn't it, Obie?" That bright and shimmering face turned towards the kneeling king. "My goodness, that poor little Mooar, and everything that my former watchman got up to on your wife's behalf, and my other princely guest, and-"

"Your Majesty," said Oberon, and it sounded desperate. Desperate enough to, like Loki had, risk interrupting Aelsa. It felt like every single one of Loki's internal organs winced, but his face stayed still. Oberon's voice was deep and sonorous, but also wobbling with emotion. "Your Majesty, I'm terribly sorry this all comes about under the veil of my own house. I'm sorry for whatever I did to my wi-"

"You know exactly what you did." Aelsa's voice was frozen steel, seeming to come from an entirely different idea of her. Adenium went dead white behind her Queen. Seeing that, Loki didn't so much as blink as he shared another glance with Imda. Her face was just as tight, proving to him that, yes, this was indeed a frighteningly rare sight. "You may not understand, not yet, but you know well the roots of why Titania permitted this ruse against you. And that, good king Oberon, will be your charge. You will learn to understand. You will go to your Queen and-"

"I'll talk to her, I promise, I-"

That was a mistake.

Oberon lapsed into immediate silence, gaping in new terror at the charge in the air. Aelsa seemed to swell in size where she now stood before him, her magical aura sparking into wilding life. She might be unwinged, far more Elf than Fae, but those small horns on her brow suddenly grew with brutal power, raw and gleaming blue with her fury, and making her just as inhuman as her stranger Fae charges.

Oberon shrunk as she stepped closer to him, and her fingers cupped around his chin, dragging the ancient king's face up to hers, and she roared into his face. Loki winced, realizing her roar carried through the aether currents, making her words into the Word, a near-impossible state of pure archmagery that could not be denied without suffering. "You will listen, you piss-droplet fool, you will crawl to your wife before her oathed in her court at the hour she chooses to permit you, and you will kneel there and listen as she tells you for the final time what you did and why it matters, and you will abase yourself to her and then go away - go away, little Oberon, into the dark woods, with nothing but what I permit you to carry - for a decade to think upon what you have been told! Afterward, should I deem that you have indeed listened and begun to understand, I will have no more of your japery or hers taint my court or my guests for a thousand years! Should she act again, I will hold you responsible anew!"

"Your Majesty." Oberon shook, the willow at the storm's mercy, and Loki smelled from him a scent like burning leaves.

"The glashtyn Mooar will come to me and speak witness, as I command. And when he does, I will tell him that he will hold your goods and writs in a freeze until your exile is complete. For that service, he will be financed and protected by my word, as he is innocent here." Aelsa shot a glance at Loki, and though none of her ire was aimed at him, he still blinked at its heat. "He has acted honorably enough, I think, to be rewarded."

"Majesty," said Loki. "I have only kind words to say about Mooar. He wished to help a man who might be in need of the work he knew how to do, nothing else."

"Lord Mooar, now that I think of it. High time his family gained a proper head of house." Aelsa let go and turned away from Oberon, who now looked like he might vomit. "Do you begin to understand, Oberon, when doing nothing is worse than doing something? Do you understood what damage your roots can do, when they burrow themselves into soil unasked?"

He said nothing, but his head bowed lower to acknowledge her.

"You will think on this, too." Aelsa glanced at Adenium. "I'm done with the King. Will you bring my other guest when this one's led out?"

"I beg… one word." It came out weak, and Oberon didn't move. "Not for myself."

Aelsa didn't turn around, and her voice turned wry. "Be wiser than previous, old Obie, and speak."

The head lifted a scant inch, and those frightened eyes found Loki's. "I owe you a personal debt, Prince."

Loki arched an eyebrow, his question silent but obvious.

"It was not me that looked for treason, and it would have created a stain to my name and my house should that lie have stood. That… that the outcome is still justly harsh to me is not of your cause, and I still hold debt to you for the truth. For Mooar, and for my loyalty to - to my Queens." Oberon rose, and without waiting for a response, he followed Adenium with stiff legs and a bent spine.

Aelsa didn't move from where she stood and waited for her next guest. It was Imda that spoke in Loki's ear, soft and mild. "You mark that down, Prince. And you charge his debt when it's of most use to you. You earned that. Old fae fools."

. . .

Adenium led Thor into the Queen's audience, and his arms bore no chains. He seemed to have just finished chatting amiably with the little red fairy, bowing his head towards her so she didn't have to crane her neck too sharply. Loki set down the half-full glass of cold mead Imda had wordlessly shoved at him when Aelsa stepped away to secure the evidence Loki had given her, and he rose to greet his brother. "Thor."

"Loki." Thor grinned. "Three nights, barely, I think. You're always scarily efficient. The mess we were in, would have guessed it would take a week."

"Efficiency is a useful way to mask one's own impatience, I've found." Loki didn't show any of his relief on his face, but he reached out and patted Thor's shoulder in that particular dry way he had.

Thor turned away from him to bow deeply to Queen Aelsa, who now showed no trace of the strange and wild hostility Oberon had faced. She smiled just as brilliantly for him as she had for Loki. "Your Majesty, while I can't say I'm happy for the turn of events, you have my full gratitude for your hospitality. Courtesy, particularly, of your good Lady Adenium."

She seemed to gleam even brighter, delighted by this news. "Oh, you've made a friend of my little grump!"

The grump, set at the corner of their little triangle, grumped harder with a scrunched-up face. She also still smelled of earthly pizza, and the grumping didn't look as severe or as honest as it had a few days prior when Adenium had managed to shout down Loki himself.

Thor had that effect on people.

It drove Loki mad, sometimes.

"Your brother has indeed been terribly efficient, he's got this whole mess sorted out for us just the way I'd hoped." Queen Aelsa reached out and took one of Thor's hands in both of her small, delicate ones. Thor glanced at Loki over her head, saw the brief flicker of dourness on his face. The Queen didn't notice. "I'm so sorry the matter entangled you in this way. I have already personally begun discussing the issue with its antagonists, as your good brother can tell you!" She let him go and swirled away again, a little girl at play. "And now - what was it you were both here for, after all?"

"Madame - Your Majesty, we were seeking some clues to an old family mystery. Some personal riddle of mine." Thor shifted his weight and kept his head at a polite tilt.

"And did you find such clues?" This was said to Loki. "In amidst this nonsense, of course."

"Majesty, we found only more mysteries, I'm afraid." He stepped to Thor's side, seeing a chance and going for it. "While our trail at the city library came to an unfortunate dead end, I thought to look in the less important collections to see who might have come to celebrate the coming of a new Asgardian prince. Ask those who were in attendance a few questions and-"

"Oh! You mean the gathering Odin had almost a year before that little golden baby was born?" Aelsa clasped her hands together by her cheek and her eyes seemed to gleam at the memory. "Yes, of course! I was there, naturally, it was quite the interesting collection! All Nine Realms and more!"

The universe in its magnificence had thrown him another fateful bone. Eager at seeing the finish line appear so neatly before him, Loki stepped forward towards the Queen in what was more a hungry lunge. "Was there anything odd that-"

"Oh, but I can't talk about it."

"What?" It came out dead, somehow unsurprised, and in two conjoined male voices.

"The old growler made us all promise not to say a word about what happened at that moot. It was all kinds of fascinating, really, it's a shame about that. But he wanted to keep it in the family, of course. It's a very Odin thing to do." Aelsa looked rueful.

Behind Loki, Imda shifted, as if suddenly uncomfortable. Loki turned to look at her, and he read this expression, too. It said, simply, oh. "…Laufey's representative would never have taken that vow seriously."

Loki blinked. Then he blinked some more, rapidly. Aelsa had specifically said all Nine. "Would someone really have been in attendance? The hostilities were particularly strong in that century."

"It would have been regarded as intelligence gathering." A tiny corner of a smile appeared. "Further, his men may have been Asgard's enemies to the ends of their lives, but no one, not even those fatnecked fools, turn down free food and drink."

"And…" Loki surprised himself, unable to say the words as easily as he thought. He collected himself, then tried to pass it all off as some normal, overdramatic pause. "Would Queen Farbauti know that tale?"

"Almost assuredly." Imda looked at him, wry. "It would have been regarded as…" She left the sentence dangling for Loki to finish, amused by him somehow. He suddenly realized she knew, and she was, apparently charmed by that knowledge.

"Intelligence gathering." He rocked back on his heels, considering. Considering that little wordless 'oh' and the ambassador's out of place appearance here now in the court. Considering Aelsa, who knew exactly what they needed to know, yet kept her vows to another royal.

But she'd placed Imda here for the finale. Ostensibly because of that vow of honor that had let him run free on Thor's behalf. But in truth?

Plausible deniability. Even against the king of all the Nine. Because Loki had done Aelsa a favor, perhaps, or a royal guest of hers had been denied full hospitality, or because the sun had dawned just right. Regardless, now she was repaying it. Her way.

Much to his chagrin, if he had to go toe to toe with the Queen of the Elves, Loki knew now for absolute fact that he was going to die like a bastard. There was always a bigger fish in the water, and Loki was smart enough to know when it was swimming close.

Aelsa leaned up and kissed Thor once, quickly, one each cheek, then did the same to Loki, who knew better than to look too startled at the overly familiar contact. "You're both free, and I think now you've got something to help you get closer to what you need. I expect you're both full up on our hospitality, and would like to get your feet under you again. I know how you young boys are. Off to Jotunheim, then, like good little investigators."

"Majesty," said Thor with a bow, and his face as he rose said he knew there had been a lot here he hadn't followed, but a glance to Loki said he'd ask - later.

"Oh, but do come back, good prince Loki, do!" Aelsa stepped away from him and squeezed Imda's shoulder, her words a deliberate echo. "You really should see the winter court this century. It's just so lovely, and all my friends will be there this time!"

"Of course," said Loki, because at this point it was pretty much a command. Imda gave him a mild, sympathetic glance and a wry grin, and that was the pretty much the capper on what Loki thought of the whole thing as he led Thor out of the palace and towards the place where they could, finally, leave the land of the Elves.