9

Loki/Odin went to order the preparations for the celebration feast and to start the palace thralls on cleaning and setting up the drinking hall. Amora, wearing only a straight and opaque chemise, busied herself with her personal thralls as her personal dress-maker was taking her measurements as she stood on a fur covered block of wood. Another female thrall showed her various reams of off-white cloth and Amora chose one that reflected a pearlized green as an image of the type of wedding dress that Amora wanted slowly spun around in the air just centimeters off the floor. The image dress was trimmed with gold thread embroidered dragons around the sleeves, neck, and hemline and round gold circles around the body of the image dress.

She urged her thralls to work fast as she was to be wed to the King and they had three days to finish it. Amora wanted it to be the most perfect, the most beautiful wedding dress ever seen in Asgard. It had to make all women jealous of her (especially the Lady Sif but Amora didn't say that part out loud but the thought of it did bring a smile to her face).

The wife of Loki Laufeyson, the thought pleased her, as well as intrigued her, as she never in her life thought that Loki would ever come to love her. She hadn't been entirely asleep when Karnilla asked him if he was in love with her and she had heard his answer. In all the trysts she'd had with him over the ages during the anniversary of their capture, and all the gifts of white stags she'd given him he'd never once said that he loved her or even hinted at it. Then HE had been the one to ask her father for her hand in marriage. HE desired a son from her. HE wanted to make her Queen. Perhaps he was in love with her for all these years but simply didn't recognize it as such. He was always the loner, always aloof, always the quiet one, always the ignored one (by everybody but her). Perhaps she had always been in love with Loki as well. Husband after husband, lover after lover she never returned to any of them but Loki was the one constant in her life, the one she always came back to. He was the first boy she kissed, and made love to (perhaps the late Queen Frigga had been right they were destined to be together).

"We have all your measurements Milady" the dress-maker informed her and with a wave of Amora's left hand the image dress exploded into its individual pieces and floated to the long dinner table where the thralls began laying pattern paper over them and began marking and cutting them to Amora's specifications. "We will have it finished by tonight for your fitting, before you prepare to retire and it will be ready for your wedding day."

"Good" Amora smiled. "A fortunate day it was for me when I purchased you Agata, as you have never failed to please me."

"Thank you my Lady" the thrall bowed her head "Will my lady require anything more from me tonight?"

"No, finish quickly and I will reward all of you generously" Amora stepped down from the fur covered block and headed back to her and Loki's bedroom to dress for the dinner meal.

Loki/Odin watched as thralls scurried about scrubbing the walls, tables and the floor to ready the feasting hall for the celebration of the dead. He smiled ever so slightly as he knew his presence made the thralls work faster than they normally would, after all who would wish to incur the wrath of the King? He'd walked through the kitchens earlier and the thralls there were also working diligently to get everything prepared for the feast to be held in less than three days. Loki/Odin turned and to the head thrall said that he was well pleased with how fast the work was progressing and that he expected things to be finished on time. Loki/Odin received assurance that all would be ready from the thrall and the King turned to exit the hall. Before he took dinner in his chambers with Amora there was one more place he wanted to go.

Odin collapsed and nearly passed out from the loss of life energy that Loki stole from him. His one good eye was watery and everything was blurry as he heard Loki exclaim ecstatically as his son absorbed all the drained power into his being.

"In just three days, I will marry Amora and proclaim her to be my Queen. In nine months my son, conceived in your bed, will be born and I will have no further use for you, you bastard" Loki panted with a sneer on his face. Loki turned to leave the dungeon cell then stopped to face Odin, "Out of curiosity, just how WERE you going to put me on the throne of Jotunheim since Laufey rejected me as his son and was going to murder me in Ymir's temple? Were you going to even wait till Laufey was dead, staging a coup de tau and put me there by force?"

"How many Einherjar legions was it going to take to make me their King? How many legions were you going to LEAVE in Jotunheim to make sure your puppet grandson stayed on the throne while YOU ruled Jotunheim through me?" Loki growled at the old man. "I was right that day in the weapon's vault wasn't I? I was nothing more than a stolen relic locked away until YOU had use for me. When WERE you going to tell me the truth about myself, was it the moment you placed me on that frozen rock and reveal to all that I was Laufey's son while YOU crowned me KING?"

Odin was silent during Loki's tirade for what could he say? As much as he would have liked to deny everything Loki said, he knew he couldn't. He had thought to make Loki King of Jotunheim, with shared blood bring about a shared peace, but he found he couldn't part with his adopted son. Only three others (besides himself and Frigga) knew that Loki had been born on Jotunheim, Tyr, Balder, and Uller and the three of them swore themselves to secrecy about Loki's heritage. To protect Loki from all those who'd lost loved ones to the skirmishes and to the last great battle with the Jotuns and would have taken their revenge against him, as Laufey's son, even though he'd been only a babe at that time.

When Loki heard no answer from his stepfather he turned back into Odin and exited the cell as Odin wept as he lay on the floor of his captivity.

As he walked into his antechamber and saw a group of female thralls busy cutting cloth and sewing pieces together on the long dining table he realized that Amora was busy getting her wedding dress prepared. He walked past the female servants to his bed chambers where Amora was waiting for him with a hot meal (roasted pig) and wine on a small table with two chairs.

Closing the doors to his bed chamber Loki/Odin smiled at her as he walked to the table while shifting to his true form to take Amora's head in his hands and pulling it to his own kissed her lips then touched his forehead to hers. "Soon you will be my Queen, my wife, and mother of my son" Loki smiled broadly at her, "and we will rule together becoming the greatest Monarchs in Asgard's history."

"Did you mean it when you said you couldn't bear the thought of losing me?" she questioned him while staring into his hazel eyes.

He looked away from her until she gently took hold of his chin with her right hand and moved his gaze back to her, "You were going into hysterics when you saw me unconscious in the water weren't you?"

"No sense in denying it" he sighed. "Yes, I was. I was afraid that, even though I was there I wouldn't be able to save you. You do recall that I wasn't told of mother's death until after her funeral was over."

"Yes, who do you think sent the Einherjar to tell you?" Amora slipped her hand behind his ear and stroked his long hair to hold the back of his head. "Thor wanted to tell you, to have you attend, but Odin forbade it. He said since you'd never see your mother again in life you'd not see her in death either."

"You risked Odin's wrath to tell me?"

"You risked your life to help me escape from Karnilla when she came to kill us both so what worse could Odin do to me?" Amora smiled lovingly at him. "Now let us eat. My cook worked hard to make this dinner perfect for us and it would be a shame to let it go to waste."

Loki kissed her softly and then pulling her chair from the table for her to sit. "You're right it would be a shame to waste such talent."

Amora sat down and he pushed her chair in while bending down to kiss her neck "As I said earlier, I chose my future Queen wisely.