Written to: Let It Be - The Beatles, crosspost from AO3
Fuliginous: Murky and obscure, soot-coloured.
It is a great surprise to Thor when he comes into the nursery one sunny summer morning and finds a dark child in Modi's crib. He starts, looking at the sleeping peaceful features that look so much like his son - but most certainly cannot be. Where Modi is fair, this babe is dark, with dark lashes and dark eyebrows and soft silky dark hair that is free from all of Modi's wild curls.
The baby opens its eyes - and how green they are! like shimmering emeralds -, yawns, looks up at Thor and smacks its lips. Holds out its arms, asking to be held.
"Loki," Thor calls over his shoulder, unwilling to let the child out of his side lest it turn into a snarling beast and bite his head off in his inattention. "We may have a problem."
"What is it?" Loki asks, coming into the nursery with a little bowl of applesauce made from Idunn's orchard.
"Modi has...erm, been replaced. By a changeling. Or some such foul creature," Thor says, eyeing the dark child in his son's crib.
Loki peers into the crib, rolls his eyes, laughs as he picks up the thing.
"Do you not recognise your son?" Loki asks, snuggling the thing close to him, reveling in its little laughs. Thor looks closely, examines the child, finds reluctantly the curve of Modi's smile and the crinkles at the corners of Modi's eyes.
"Is that really him?" Thor asks, still unsure. "He has your colouring."
"Well, he is my son, too," Loki says, teasing gently as he tickles the child - Modi - under his chin. Modi giggles, the same squeal of laughter Thor is so familiar with.
"He looks as though he has rolled his hair about in cinders," Thor says, smiling hesitantly at the bundle Loki holds in his arms.
Modi throws an arm out, almost upending the bowl of applesauce, and shouts, "Pa," at Thor. Thor smiles then, fully, at Modi's first articulate word, and presses a kiss to Modi's dark hair.