Hi everybody! I'm so sorry about the eons it took to get this chapter out. I was overseas for the semester and trying to avoid writing in English. I want to thank everybody for their kind reviews (you have no idea how happy they made me!) and I'll try to answer them all this week. Ummm...in other news I'd love a beta if anyone is interested, I might try getting one through the site as well. I'm really sorry about how the chapter is still a bit choppy. *shiftyeyes*
Disclaimer: Marvel characters are not and never will be my property.
Loki stood at his brother's side and watched the girl as she spoke with Heimdall and his parents regarding her current predicament. The wind whistled over the bridge and drowned out their words as Loki and Thor waited by the horses a short distance away. Loki brushed a gentle hand over Agmund's snout and resisted the urge to cast a spell allowing him to eavesdrop-Darcy Lewis was open enough and would probably tell him anyway, either on purpose or revealing the content of the conversation through a series of careful questions. In either case, it wasn't as if he would mind the conversation. She seemed unphased by their titles; it was oddly refreshing.
The midgardian woman was fairly short, and seemed childlike compared to her current companions. Her unbraided hair blew every which way and Loki and Thor snickered as Odin again placed a hand on her shoulder to help her keep her balance in the strong winds. Loki wondered if the weather was especially vicious today in order to protect his parents from perked ears such as his.
"Who is she really, do you think?" Thor asked, leaning in to make himself heard over the wind. Loki shrugged, he saw no reason for her to be anything other than who she said she was. She was obviously studying to become an adviser or a soothsayer, learning the art of politics and star-gazing if her comments were anything to go by; she was likely from a lower house of nobles. She appeared to be an otherwise perfectly ordinary woman, who had somehow managed something quite extraordinary. "Why did this Jane not come herself, if she is my lover?"
"Surely my brother has not forgotten what it is to be bound by duty? She sent you her handmaid, who is younger and more common."
"But still lovely."
"Indeed," Loki bit down on the not quite jealousy that flared in his chest and nodded, "though I wonder how your adoring lover might take it if you added her to the mix."
Thor considered this and added his own observation that she might already be betrothed. Loki didn't really think that would stop his brother if it were the case and he were truly interested. To be fair, it wasn't as if he himself hadn't had such dalliances in the past. It wasn't that Thor was malicious, or overly selfish, he was simply impulsive and did not consider the consequences of his actions-especially when they only affected him indirectly; rare was the man who would challenge Thor over the virtue of his beloved.
Thor shrugged and sighed as Frigga turned and motioned them forward. Loki thought his brother may have muttered something under his breath, but could not be sure with the howling of the wind in his ears.
The wind suddenly dropped, and Odin's voice was clear as day once he deemed them close enough. "She will stay, until we find a solution."
"Since she was your consort's apprentice, Thor, it has been decided the Lady Darcy Lewis will serve as my handmaid for the time being." Frigga placed a hand on Darcy's shoulder and fixed Thor then Loki each with an intense gaze. "I trust I do not need to remind you to behave in a manner befitting your stations."
Loki and Thor shared a side-eyed glance and tried not to laugh.
It had been a week and Darcy was not adapting overly well to Asgard. She wasn't really the kind to assimilate in any case, but she felt like a bumbling Victorian anthropologist who couldn't put aside the eurocentricism despite good intentions. Asgard was beautiful, interesting, foreign and totally made up for not studying abroad when she had the chance, but a lot of these interesting and foreign dynamics struck Darcy's sensibilities as distinctly not okay. She honestly tried to be an unbiased observer, but her brain to mouth filter seemed to have been damaged when a certain billionaire playboy alcoholic accidentally shot her backwards in time and space.
Not that it worked very well in the first place.
Fortunately Asgardians generally found her candor amusing, rather than offensive. When she called them out on what she found to be inappropriate behavior they usually stopped, though not without teasing. This meant they now warned her before bursting her personal bubble, no longer grabbed her ass when drunk (she suspected Loki, Thor, or both had something to do with this though) and in the case of her fellow Ladies in waiting, only brought up marriage and children in a roundabout manner.
Thor was the only one who still burst her bubble without warning. He liked to envelope all his friends, male and female alike, in monstrous bear hugs and did so at his pleasure. Loki had once grabbed her from behind in what Darcy was sure he thought would be a funny bit of a joke, but when he just barely missed a fist in the face he disappeared and hadn't tried it since.
He seemed to keep to himself, that one. Which was a shame, given those pretty cheekbones and the fine figure he cut in the ring. Not that she was paying attention or anything-she had to figure out how to get home after all. The training grounds just happened to be visible from the ramparts where she and Sigrid spent the afternoons.
Being in the Queen's service meant that Darcy had few friends here who were not already mothers. Thinking positively, this meant they doted on her and were incredibly patient with her. Their daughters were mostly married off by now and so Darcy had a few very nice hand me down dresses and some hunting garb that apparently only needed minor alterations to become fashionable again. She was glad these alterations included getting rid of the bell sleeves in favor of something more fitted and less likely to trip her. The cultural lag surprised her-there was evidence of advanced communications technologies and weaponry but in other places life resembled an oddly pre-medieval social and economic order. Women, surprisingly, seemed to have a stronger grasp of the technologies-which did indeed appear magical, though Darcy remembered Thor's explanations in New Mexico.
On the whole, she found Asgard a very confusing place. She wasn't sure how well Jane would do here and hoped to god Thor would decide to just stay on Earth whenever they got him back. Sigrid, who had opened up her family's apartments in the palace to Darcy without being asked, tried her best to help guide Darcy through Aesir society and despite her gruff exterior was quite patient with her. Having been taken under Thor's wing in public also made things somewhat easier on her socially, but had the added side-effect of making it near impossible to know who was really a friend and who was jostling for power. The politics of the place were also confusing, and that included the politics of learning to weave, which were very different than the politics of urban development or the geopolitics of Central Asia.
The way she saw it, there was no reason for there to be any politics involved in it at all. The way everybody else saw it, even if it wasn't the All-Mother teaching her there wasn't any question that every choice of yarn and it's color would bear some meaning beyond her finding it aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes a girl just wanted blue yarn.
She preferred knitting anyway.
"Why does it need to have any meaning at all?" she groused while untangling her work and longing for knitting needles rather than the thick toothed combs she and the others used on the as yet untreated wool.
"You wouldn't say that about a marriage." Frigga observed, calmly leaning over to correct her technique.
"Um. So not the same thing." Darcy was truly worried about how often the topic came up, she wondered if they thought she was stuck here for good and considered making up a boyfriend to stave them off. "One's a major life decision and the other is about practicality and which colors look good together."
"Sometimes my dear, I wonder if you ever think before you speak." Sigrid's comment earned a glare from Darcy though any retort was cut off by a guard entering to announce Loki's arrival moments before the younger prince came swirling through the doors.
Loki offered his mother and the assembled ladies a charming but perfunctory greeting before getting to the point, "I would speak with my mother in private if it didn't disturb her work."
The ladies in waiting, understanding this as a dismissal, began to gather up their affairs; Darcy remained seated next to Frigga, engrossed in the knot she was making a valiant attempt to untangle and trying to watch the leather clad prince out of the corner of her eye. Frigga sighed and took the yarn from Darcy, "I would have my sons learn manners. I know you try Loki but it is unwise to disturb a woman at her loom."
Darcy furrowed her brow-the loom was on the other side of the room, they were spinning. The other ladies paused in their places.
Loki inclined his head looking appropriately abashed and Darcy was shocked by how easily he surrendered to his mother "Forgive me Mother. Might I accompany you to dinner?"
"You may."
"Then I shall see you before dinner is called." Loki kissed his mother's cheek and excused himself from the room, sparing a glance at Darcy.
The mystery of Loki's surrender was solved easily enough- meeting his mother before dinner had been exactly what he wanted; he simply wanted everyone else to know that he had some sort of news as well.
"Why not just say: hey guys I got some great news, let me talk to my mom first though else she'll be totes jealous." she asked after dinner when he came by their table to offer his apologies to Sigrid for disturbing their work and extend Thor's invitation to Darcy. She'd apparently been invited to their card games.
"l only ever understand half of what you say." Loki guided her down the hall "I never said I had news of any variety. I was simply eager to speak with my mother-perhaps I had an inquiry to make."
"You don't strike me as the type to give up easily, Mama's boy."
"There are more productive ways to waste my time than arguing with the All-Mother." they entered a new corridor Darcy hadn't yet seen, the steadily glowing torches cast pools of light along the shadowy ground and cast Loki's thin face into sharp relief. He paused and let Darcy take in the tapestries of a hunt long past. "Is it pleasing to you?"
"Can you imagine the work that went into this?" her fingers hurt at the mere thought of it.
He chuckled, "I had never considered it."
Darcy snorted and approached the tapestry; it was not embroidered but woven in fine detail and the hunt more closely resembled battle than the quiet early morning waiting that had been Darcy's limited experience (she tried once at her father's insistence-they wound up having to find other bonding activities). It was oddly surreal, in that the hunting party made its way through a blue forest, and as they traveled down the wall to the death of the stag Darcy wished that she'd taken some classes on Viking culture or anything that would help her understand the appeal of the topic. A smaller deer, perhaps the offspring of the stag who'd been gutted and speared, followed the hunting party back to the palace. Though lovingly rendered, it seemed oddly out of place.
"The All-mother wove this alone." Loki's comment only served to underline the effort involved in such an undertaking.
"That's what Mummy-dearest is teaching me?"
"Please do not be so disrespectful."
Darcy decided to be a good friend and ask why Mom was always Mother. She understood that things would not be so warm in public—but to use her title? "Why are you always so formal with your mother?"
"We are not simple peasants." Loki shrugged, seemingly unperturbed by the uneasy manner in which filial relations were conducted. "Come, Thor and his buffoons will be waiting for us."
They were already assembled, but Thor and the others had also occupied their waiting with drinking and cards. Also with Thor, Sif, and the warriors three (of whom Hogan was probably her favorite) was one of the younger librarians, lithe like Loki but of a more open and approachable disposition, a few off-duty guards and some ladies of the court who Darcy suspected might be in danger of losing their marketability. Loki spared a harsh glare for his brother when Thor took it upon himself to welcome Darcy and Loki with enthusiastic hugs but didn't say anything when Darcy was seated next to Fandral and given a pint of mead, instead taking his own place between the librarian and Sif and inquiring after the status of the game.
Darcy got the impression that these were not quite school friends but something similar; Sif was not quite as scathingly dismissive of the ladies as usual, the guards were more familiar with the princes than someone of their status had right to be and the scholar was also in on the fun though he belonged to a completely different part of the hierarchy that seemed to run parallel to the warrior class. He and Loki poked fun at the others, laughing when the ladies took their side in an argument regarding military prowess.
"Not to worry my dear friends, I shall care for your lovers and protect them in your absence!" The scholar Erik boasted, laughing when Fandral demanded with what Erik expected to protect them with. "The pen is far mightier than the sword."
"If a great deal smaller." a guard remarked snidely.
"Clearly you haven't seen my pen." Erik shrugged.
Darcy rolled her eyes, clearly dick jokes were beyond cultural if even ancient space faring beings weren't above them. "Just because you have a big one doesn't mean you know how to use it." she commented lightly, earning some raucous laughter.
"Rather like a sword." Erik agreed, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Quick Lady Darcy!" Sif crowed, "Take up arms before he tries to read you his poetry."
"Not to worry!" Loki disappeared from his seat and reappeared between Darcy and Fandral with a poof, "I shall protect you from his clumsy rhymes and overwrought metaphors."
"They are staples of Asgardian literature." Erik insisted, "Just because we lack the subtlety of Vanaheim doesn't make our art any less valid."
"Tough critics." she remarked to the librarian who simply shrugged and reminded her that those who couldn't produce great works shouldn't critique them only to prompt Loki and Fandral to remind him it was a librarian's job to organize great works, not write them.
The discussion soon devolved into an argument on the role of scholars in society, and the Ladies at the table, Sif included, joined in enthusiastically as did Volstagg. "Yet they would not accept a scholar prince." Loki murmured conspiratorially in Darcy's ear as Fandral swiftly backpedaled and explained that while scholars were indeed honorable and useful they simply were not necessary to the defense of Asgard. He pulled a deck of cards from his vest and handed them to Darcy, instructing her to shuffle. They were heavier and broader than what she was used to, and upon examination the deck was different, though she couldn't tell if it was merely the system of numbering or an entirely different basis "Even the basest of scholars are trained in defense and simple healing magics beyond the skills of most warriors." he argued, returning to the conversation, "All of us have needed their services at some point or another and they are quite necessary to the defense of Asgard."
"Not all scholars are healers."
"Not all scholars specialize in healing," Erik corrected, "I assure you my prince that all of us are indeed capable of treating most battlefield injuries."
"But Erik,"
"Of course the kind of odd curses and injuries his highness and his companions tend to bring home require Eirod's skilled hand." Erik cut off Thor's remark, "But for most Aesir any scholar's hand would suffice."
"Thor is not the most skilled of strategians." Loki explained to Darcy in a stage whisper intended for the entire table.
"I have led many a successful quest!"
"Straight into the jaws of danger, Brother mine." Loki smiled, "were it not for me you'd be dead many times over."
"He who is swift to act and slow to reflect will have songs sung to his glory." A guard snickered.
"I believe the saying is actually folly." Loki corrected, snatching the deck back from Darcy and sliding it into his coat, "Glory means nothing when it comes at the cost of a brother."
"You criticize your brother's strategy but have come home with some strange maladies yourself." Sif commented slyly and Loki fixed her with a bland smile that Darcy had seen a million times at Model UN. It was the sort of smile that said Bitch, I am a nuclear power and I dare you to fuck with me.
"I have indeed suffered the consequences of my miscalculations." Loki conceded, "I am generally the only one to do so. How many times have you been to the healer because of Thor's?"
"Can we just get back to the game?" Thor cut in, inciting a chorus of agreement. Loki and Fandral explained to her the rules and values of each of the cards as the group finished their first round. Darcy picked it up fairly quickly and for the first time in a while began to feel more at home.
Back in the calm of his room, Loki spread out the cards Darcy had shuffled and considered the information at his fingertips; his mother was not the only one in the palace to read the future and though she was more skilled than he, the second prince also had tools at his disposal. The cards were inelegant and inexact to be certain but it was not a fuzzy vision of the future that interested him so much as her past and for that the cards were ideal. They were more adept for reading a person's character than grasping at a potentiality not yet developed. Ambitious, unattached, and fully possessing the scruples to inhibit the rise to power foretold by the cards the Lady Darcy Lewis presented an interesting puzzle. What in the world was she doing here? The cards read multiple possibilities but Thor, though clearly an object of near filial affection, was not among them. He could have sworn he saw himself but chalked it up to having been careless in his handling of the cards. Loki frowned and ran a finger over the cards, detecting no dissimulation in her spirit. Either she had been misled or the norns had other plans for the wayward maiden. Perhaps it was time to have a chat with her.