Author's notes: Ack, sorry for missing the past couple of weeks! Finals combined with a long-awaited visit from a dear friend (oh, you know who you are, love) didn't leave much time for writing. On the plus side, this should mean a lot of updates in just a short window of time! How cool is that?
Boating. I've been waiting to make some kind of joke about boating.
lxxxxi.
"What are you chuckling about now?"
Thor hadn't been expecting the inquiry, so the look he returned to Loki as he turned back around in the hallway was somewhat bewildered. A moment later he had processed the question, and was smiling again. "Oh, I was just having a thought."
"Norns forbid," Loki said dryly, folding his arms and tilting his head slightly. His wardrobe today was less layered than usual, since the palace was heated during winter. Thor caught movement at the lower end of his field of vision, and watched as the cat sat down on the polished floor beside Loki's feet, a disinterested look on his whiskery face.
"What of?" Loki and the cat both asked. Thor wondered at the looks they gave each other; lightly exasperated on Loki's part, vaguely amused on the cat's.
Thor didn't answer right away, but his smile broadened a little further. Though he naturally wouldn't be able to know, he had a strong suspicion that Loki and the cat had just spoken in chorus. "It's only…" The Asgardian trailed off for a moment, uncertain how to say it. "You and your cat are rarely at it anymore. I can't remember the last time you tried to kill him. It seems that the two of you are finally getting along, brother!"
Loki turned and promptly kicked the cat into the far wall. Thor jumped, startled by his younger sibling's abrupt and rather violent action. The cat gave Loki an indignant look from where it was embedded in the fractured golden wall. "I wasn't even snarking that time!" he protested.
Loki smironked. "I was striking preemptively."
Thor sighed as he realized what his brother was doing. No matter what else might occur, Loki and his cat would always have a unique and rather disturbing relationship. "Yet I wonder," Thor mused, and now the pair looked to him. "If you're no longer bent on his destruction—what will you do?"
Loki and the cat blinked at each other. Considering they were members of two separate species, their expressions were remarkably similar. "Huh," said the cat.
lxxxxii.
"What kind of hobbies do people have, anyway?" the cat wondered. He was sprawled out on his back by the hearth, paying no mind to the roaring fire he was lying much too close to. He kept his paws dangling lazily in midair. "Knitting, crochet?"
"I always have wanted to try my hand at scarves," Loki recalled. He rolled a conjured ball of silk threads between his hands, flames reflecting off the residual magic. The sorcerer paused, a thoughtful frown appearing. "However, you don't have any hands."
"Not usually, no." The cat flopped over onto his side, closing his eyes in preparation for a nap. "I suppose we'll have to think of something else."
lxxxxiii.
Loki staggered through the hall, sopping wet with claw marks across his face and showing through the shredded folds of his clothing. A wide-eyed and very angry cat was clinging to the front of his vest. Thor and the Warriors Three gaped as they walked past, and Loki stopped to give his older brother a stare that bordered on homicidal.
"Boating is out," the prince growled.
"So many eels in your bed tonight, Frost Midget," the cat said vengefully. "So many."
"Oh, I know, I know," Loki muttered as he stalked away. "Eels."
Fandral stared after them for a moment, as did Thor and the other members of the Warriors Three. The younger Asgardian turned a horrified look back to them. "Loki asked to borrow my boat earlier…"
Volstagg patted his shoulder consolingly.
lxxxxiv.
Loki had grown quite enamored with the art of cartography. It was a useful thing to know as well, considering how much he travelled—or at least, how much he used to travel before nearly destroying Jotunheim and technically getting placed under permanent house arrest. Loki was never very good at remembering the whole house arrest thing.
The cat, following its predator's nature, was more inclined towards hunting. Due to their differing hobbies, Loki often found mice, squirrels, and other dead little creatures left on his maps for him to find. He retaliated by transforming the cat's bed into a tub filled to the brim with hot, soapy water. While the cat was taking a nap in said bed.
They stood glaring at each other one day, Loki with a squirrel in his hand and the cat with a sparking eel hanging from his teeth. "This will not do," the cat said at last.
Loki agreed, slowly putting the squirrel down as the cat released the eel from his jaws. "We need to find a medium."
lxxxxv.
The cat was not enthusiastic about the idea of riding horseback. He preferred to move about on his own four feet, except when he claimed Loki as his perch. Loki ignored his protests and used a gesture to lift him up from the ground, grabbing the displeased feline by the scruff of the neck and placing him in the small space on the saddle he had created for him. The cat's claws dug in apprehensively, and the horse's ears twitched back in his direction.
"Forvitni can sense fear, you now," Loki remarked. He patted the stallion's neck, and he whickered happily. It really had been too long since he had taken Forvitni out for a ride. Something about trying to murder an unwanted pet was really time-absorbing.
"Yes, I know that it can smell it or whatever!" the cat snapped. "Now let's hurry up and botch this so we can try something else." His ears were flat against his head, an unusually apprehensive attitude from the creature. "Where are we going, anyway?"
"Nowhere," Loki answered simply. He grinned and tapped the heels of his boots into the horse's sides, and Forvitni galloped forward with an enthusiastic neigh. The cat yowled vicious murder into Loki's mind, but the Trickster only laughed.
They passed beyond the outer gates of both the palace and the city and journeyed up towards the western mountains. Forvitni eased from a gallop to a trot and finally settled on a walk, once they were well away from cities and towns. Loki sniffed the air, crisp with the cold and lacking smoke from family fires. He always had liked coming out here.
The cat slowly relaxed, easing up from his tense position. His ears swiveled about more now, whiskers pricking forward curiously. "This isn't so bad," he admitted.
"It's nice to travel without a destination in mind once in a while."
"Yes." The cat seemed to smile, hopping up onto Loki's shoulder and looking all around. "I'm inclined to agree."