He was a good pupil for magic, Angrboða learned. Quick, intuitively gifted in the art and dedicated. From the first day Loki watched and listened, following her directions and asking precisely the right questions. The basic groundwork that Frigga had given him served its purpose but now there was much more to master, and Angrboða enjoyed watching him absorb her lessons.
Illusions for one; although he'd done well in learning to replicate himself even before his fall from the bifrost, there was always more to assimilate. Loki had tried to fool her with a light figure of himself but she passed through it without comment, which annoyed him.
"What gave it away?" he demanded.
"It was not you," she replied. "It carried no scent, and failed to lay a shadow on the wall, little prince. It might have fooled someone else for a few moments, but the eye and nose would eventually bring truth to the minds of your opponents."
Angrboða showed him how to give solidity to his projections, how to add depth and touches to the other aspects to flesh them out. He pouted less and concentrated more, taking to cold heart her instructions as they settled into an odd relationship. During the mornings she taught, the pair of them roaming the Iron Wood together. By the middle hours of the day Loki would leave, heading off to any number of places through the nine realms, often with no indication of where he was going.
She didn't worry. Fate would keep him alive if not in one piece, surely able to return to her bed and bring about the end of the worlds, eventually.
In the meantime there were visitors to consult with, ingredients to acquire and hundreds of little matters to set right and keep going, and by the time the moon grew fat and full, Angrboða began to feel heat building between her thighs.
It was time to teach her little consort the benefit of patience.
That night she shook her head when he slid over her supine form. "No. Tonight you will lie under me."
Loki's impatience made him frown, but he obediently rolled to his back, his attention focused on her body and not her expression. Angrboða took advantage of that and straddled him, her knees on each side of his hips. He looked up at her, reached for her, but Angrboða thought a command and his hands flew back, pinned on either side of his head to the mattress.
"No," he growled, still distracted as she rubbed herself against him. "There is no need; I'm willing enough, my lady."
Angrboða sighed, and flared for a moment, the heat of her skin making him draw in a sharp breath. "Be quiet, little fool."
Under her, Loki gave a low growl, his expression petulant, but she ignored it, and slid her hands along his firm stomach, tracing her fingers there, her touch leaving faint red curlicues on his pale skin. "Tonight I am at the start of my heat, and if I am not careful you will suffer, princeling mine."
He looked up at her, his fine dark hair, glossy as a raven's wing all across her linen pillow, and Angrboða thought him beautiful. "Heat," he echoed, looking wary.
She laughed then, because Loki was after all, so young. "Yes. You must take me tonight in your true form, son of ice, and even then you will still feel the fire deep within me."
His expression remained troubled, but Angrboða slid down his body, still straddling it, until she was on his shins, her hands toying with his erection in slow caresses that made it stiffen quickly. Under her, his legs shifted, parting to give her more access, and he groaned when her fingers fondled him. "Heat," he murmured again, this time more approvingly.
Angrboða leaned down, bringing her lips close to his prick, and let her whisper carry. "Your true form," she reminded him solemnly.
She saw him hesitate, and knew why, knew how he still felt a sense of revulsion for his origins and appearance. Angrboða tossed her wild hair back and let herself shift, felt the soft curves of her body fade into sharp planes of glittering obsidian. Loki's gaze took her in, and she knew he appreciated what he saw because he sighed his amazement.
"Lady, you are beautiful."
"I am true to myself, and dangerous," Angrboða amended, quietly pleased he thought so. She had seen her true self in the mirror thus; darker than death, with glass-blue edges honed to blade thinness. Her eyes glowed, and the flames within them danced with fiery flirtatiousness. Smoke trailed in sensual ribbons around her.
Loki drew a breath and his form shimmered into the cold blue of his heritage, the stone of his body well-carved with muscle and the chiseled, mysterious runes that marked him as part of Laufey's line. And in her hands the thick pillar of his prick rose, cool and ridged as she stroked it.
This coupling was unlike any other they'd done before, and Angrboða found herself moved beyond the call of her womb. For hours they mated in sensual synchronicity, the slide of stone against stone slickened by steam and the molten lava deep within her. Every scrape, every thrust made her moan as the very ice of Loki met her heat.
Loki was affected too; he crooned her name, rasped endearments even as the carvings on his skin began to glow red and his breath chuffed in misty gusts. When Angrboða finally came, shuddering hard, her head tossed back as she howled to the sky he too, surged deep in a torrent of icy spurts that left him groaning.
"I am . . . filled," she told him in a voice thick with satisfaction. "Well-done, prince of frost. Now I must sleep, and let your seed plant itself deep."
She shifted off of him and curled up, heavy and slow now, ready for rest. When Loki moved to curl around her, Angrboða let him. She began to shift forms, but he whispered, "Don't. This . . . true you . . . is beautiful, my lady."
"Save the silver of that tongue for others, princeling," she murmured, but his words pleased her, and she kept her dark and gleaming form through the night as he wrapped his blue-stone body around hers.
-oo00oo-
Thunder and rain filled the morning, and the hall was dark except for the fireplace and the braziers that cast feeble light around them. Angrboða made the breakfast, having dismissed the badgers to take refuge in their own homes. Loki sat near the fire, barely dressed in a wolf-fur shift, his concentration on a small scrying globe in his hands. When she handed him a bowl of porridge, he barely looked up, but remembered to murmur his thanks.
"What holds your fascination, father of my brood?" Angrboða murmured lightly, although she had her suspicions.
"My brother," came the slightly surly reply. "This weather is his work, and I wish to know the cause of his ire."
"Perhaps he is tired of repairing what you have destroyed," she told him, earning a petulant glare. Unbothered, Angrboða added, "Do not look at me so for speaking the truth, son of stone."
"I see now why your observations are so sharp," Loki grumbled. "You whet them against everyone around you, my lady, and their pain keens your edge."
"I do not deny it," she countered, "but then again, most who make their way to my door are not as complex as you are. They come to me because they have needs and fears and desires, they wear them as plainly on their face as their own noses."
"And you live by them as well. I have seen your bargains, the exchange of wealth for what they need," Loki rose and came over to her, tossing the glass ball from hand to hand. "A consultation, a healing, a little bag of medicine, among other . . . barters."
There was a hint of jealousy in his tone, and Angrboða arched an eyebrow as she reached out and caught the scrying globe. When it landed on her fingers the ball turned into flock of bats who swooped around the hall and up towards the rafters in a black winged dance. Loki said nothing, but his expression now held acknowledgement that perhaps he had stepped too far.
"Listen to me well, Prince Loki Laufeyson of Asgard— we too, have a barter, and on it hangs the fate of the realms. In due time you will take a wife, and know now that she will not be me. I am no-one's bride or beloved in all the nine worlds. I am the bringer of grief, and that is what I shall always be."
He looked at her, chastised and slightly curious. "I beg forgiveness for my words. And yet I would know why you are as you are."
One of the hard questions. She had been expecting it, and yet there was still a moment of pained surprise that it would come here, at the breakfast table. Angrboða gripped her own bowl of porridge more tightly.
"I answer this question with a question of my own, shadow son. What have Odin, Frigga and Thor given you?"
She saw him start to speak, then stop to reconsider his words, sensing more to her query than the obvious answer. Loki followed her to the table and sat at her left hand side, toying with his breakfast for a few moments before clearing his throat and speaking.
"A home. A place in their family. An education. Privilege, I suppose."
"And what have you given them?" Angrboða asked.
He brought his head up, anger in his gaze, but she held it, and he relaxed by inches, still not understanding. Still waiting.
She sighed. "Love, you little fool. They loved you, all three of them, each in their own way. They love you still though you refuse to admit it. You suspect them, question their reasons and deny that your own heart holds them dear."
Loki tried to protest, but Angrboða hissed, and let herself shift form, allowing her face to change to that of a wolf, her teeth snapping her fangs at him. Unnerved, Loki started back, his porridge splattering to the floor where the boar piglet made a quick meal of it, grunting happily.
She shifted back, her face human again, and impassive. "I cannot love. I have never been loved nor loved another in all my long life, princeling. The closest I will ever come to it will be the care I give to our offspring so that they may fulfill their roles as the Norn have decreed. No visitor to my door or bed has claim on my heart."
Loki cocked his head, her words sinking in, and for a moment she saw a flash of fresh pain in his fine eyes. "Oh."
Angrboða sighed. "For all my edge, there is a blunt side too. Take comfort in the fact that out there is one who will love you. Today, you will learn to fight for your life."
"I've done it before," he boasted, his smile chilly.
An hour later they were out in the cold damp of the Iron Wood, standing on a hill rising through the dark trees. Loki wore a thick bear fur cape over his green leather and yet both his cheeks and nose were red. Angrboða watched him from a distance away, noting his perfectly balanced hunter's stance.
She strode out, her huge paws almost noiseless through the wet undergrowth, and when he saw her, Loki relaxed fractionally, his knife loose in his fist. "You make a fine bitch," he called to her, his tone slightly mocking as Angrboða circled around, her pale yellow gaze on him the entire time.
Now that he was off-guard, she charged, leaping up and knocking him backwards into the mud. Loki twisted, rolling away, his shock shifting to defensive anger as she anticipated his move and snapped at his face, barely missing his nose.
He thrust the knife at her, hopping into a crouch, his free hand coming up to block any further charge. Angrboða feinted left, then darted in, sinking her teeth into his shin, moving away before he gasped and tried to bring his knife back towards her.
The string of curses he flung into the chilly air did not impress her, nor did his divided attention as he tried to nurse his wound. She trotted away a few paces and sat, watching as Loki worked to staunch the blood trickling into his boot, his gaze hateful now.
"Try that again," came his taunt. "You overestimate yourself, my lady."
She turned and sat. Loki rose and grinned as he tossed his blade from hand to hand, advancing on her. Angrboða didn't move, and he was so focused on her that he missed the ghostly shadows of grey fur and green eyes that drifted out of the trees to surround him in a ring.
When he did see them, Loki paused, re-estimating his situation. "That's hardly fair now, is it? Six against one?"
Angrboða yawned, her fangs large against the red of her maw. For a moment she looked at him, and sensed another slight easing of tension.
She turned and trotted off as the first of her pack lunged for the prince.