Written to: Mother Knows Best - Tangled (Disney OST), crosspost from AO3
Raconteur: A talented storyteller.
Loki has a habit of telling his children bedtime stories that will ease them quickly into dreams; Thor, unfortunately, is not particularly adept at this area of parenting. Which is why, when Loki asks him if he could kindly put Modi and Jörmungandr to bed, Thor swallows uneasily and arms himself with a vast number of children's storybooks.
Modi looks up at him from his bassinet, his eyes crinkled in a smile that quickly disappears the instant he realises that it is not his mama come to tell him exciting adventures of princesses and knights and dragons, and in fact it is only his woefully ill-equipped papa, armed with boring, mundane stories about silly girls who had no business eating porridge that belonged to someone else. Jörmungandr eyes Thor beadily - though Thor wasn't sure if this was just something unique to him, the baby serpent had Loki's default way of looking at everyone in a condescending manner - and flicks his tongue at him, as if to shoo him away.
Thor sits down heavily next to Modi's cradle, sighs as he opens the first book, and begins to read while Loki bathes in the next room. Thor tries, really, truly he does, to emulate all the voices, makes a big show of displaying the colourful pictures inside the book to both Modi and Jory, but his small audience is clearly unamused by the story of Goldilocks, and so Thor decides to switch to Little Red Riding Hood instead.
Modi obviously didn't much enjoy that story either, though Loki had assured Thor it was Modi's favourite tale and would have him out like a light. The tiny baby decides he has had about enough of this mediocre storytelling right around the part where Little Red stops to pick flowers for her grandmother (and Jory privately thought that the little girl was rather simple, much like the blonde buffoon telling the story) and begins to wail. Thor sighs, rubs his temples as he hears the sounds of sloshing water from the next room stop altogether. Loki didn't much like having his baths interrupted, and surely Thor would not be hearing the end of it.
Loki pads into the nursery, a towel wrapped around his body and another around his hair, looks at Thor disapprovingly. Upon catching a glimpse of his mama, Modi reaches out to him with tiny hands, the smile readily appearing on his face again. Jory hisses in content, not that anyone could actually tell, and coils himself around a pillow, settling his head down and waiting for the real storytelling to begin.
"The children are not amused by me," Thor begins to explain, and Loki just rolls his eyes with a little smile as he leans over and closes the book on Thor's lap.
"Of course they aren't," Loki says, and Thor finds himself more interested in the slender black curl of hair that has managed to escape Loki's towel turban and wriggle its way across his cheek. "How can they be amused by only words such as these and pictures such as those? You must show them."
Thor watches as Loki begins to paint vivid pictures in the air with sparks of seidr that flash across Modi's cheeks and brow with soft reds and greens, listens as Loki's silvered voice winds through the air and makes the meadows of his images come to life, blowing the grass and flowers around Little Red's ankles as she bends down to pick them for her grandmother.
He finds himself dozing off as Loki tells them the story of Sleeping Beauty and how she slept for a hundred years, and by the time Loki turns to look at him, a satisfied grin on his face, he finds Thor with his head pillowed on his hand, sleeping in the armchair as soundly as Modi and Jory are. He shoots Thor a look of disbelief and amusement before quietly blowing out the candles and tiptoeing out of the nursery to finish his bath.
Thor wakes up the next morning with a horrid crick in his neck and Jory wrapped firmly around his wrist, biting at his fingers. Upon shaking him gently off, Jory gives him a look, as if to question why the big blonde hunk of meat cannot make pictures in the air like his mama can, before giving a little huff and slithering away.