Chapter IX: New Lessons

A/N: I'm back. This chapter is a longer one. Thanks go out to theicemenace for her beta work. And anyone else who was a sounding board, thank you. Enjoy the chapter. Ehehehe. SSD.

It was not as if she would say no to her son when he asked her something like this. And it would give Frigga the opportunity to train Hanna with the kind of sword she had seen the girl with in her vision.

"Of course. When would you like to have her start?"

"As early as possible."

"Tomorrow then." Frigga replied with a smile. Hanna was going to waking up a bit earlier than she was used to, but it would be better to train her during the early hours, so as to avoid curious eyes.

She wondered how Hanna would react to the early morning wakeup call.

###

The next morning…

Hanna woke up to a persistent knocking on the door to her room. The sun had not even risen! Groaning, she rubbed her eyes, got up and answered the door. It was a member of the Einherjar.

"What is it?" Hanna asked, suppressing a yawn.

"You are to report to the tiltyard within ten minutes. Do not be late."

This piqued Hanna's curiosity. None of her lessons had taken place down there, as Loki did not want her distracted by anything, much less the constant clanging of swords.

She got into a pair of black trousers, with a dark blue tunic shirt; they were in her family's colors. It made her feel closer to them.

Suspicious that there was some of Loki's mischief afoot, Hanna decided to bring her dagger along with her, for a small comfort, concealing it in her left boot.

###

Upon getting lost, (again, but she had never been anywhere near the tiltyard so that should earn her some kind of slack from Loki) Hanna finally found her way to the tiltyard. She was a few minutes late, and was not looking forward to the chastising she would get from Loki.

"You are late, young Hanna."

Slightly startled, she turned around and saw the queen in front of her. She had two wooden practice swords in her hands.

"I beg your pardon, your Majesty. I got lost." Hanna was eying the swords with curious eyes. They looked to be the length of hand and a half swords.

While she was eying them, Hanna became aware that one of them had been tossed at her. A few seconds too late, Hanna fumbled catching the sword, dropping it to the floor.

"Tomorrow, you are going to catch that on the first try."

Picking up the sword, Hanna quickly replied, "Yes, your Majesty."

Waving her hand, the queen said back, "Call me Frigga. We are going to be spending a lot of time together." Getting back to business, "Now let's get to work on your stance…"

That went on for the next few hours, going over some basic forms. Hanna had a feeling that she was going to have a lot of bruises before the day was through.

###

Hanna was moving rather gingerly as she made her way to her magic lessons after getting cleaned up. She now had some idea how her brother and cousins went about their training with their weapons of choice.

Slowly moving, Hanna sat down lightly on a bench and waited for Loki. She knew now where he had gotten some of his teaching methods, since Frigga had utilized similar ones for her training with a sword.

"How are you feeling this morning Hanna?" she heard Loki asked from behind her.

She could practically hear the smirk in his voice. Turning around as much as she could without too much pain, Hanna replied,

"I hurt in places that I did not know I had, Loki." Hanna had a tight smile on her face, as she started to get up and follow him. It was quite obvious that she was in pain and sore.

"Tomorrow you are going to be feeling even worse," Loki said with a grin. "Come on. Your day is not anywhere near being over."

Hanna barely suppressed a groan. Never had she looked forward so much to her afternoons spent reading in the library!

###

Sure enough, after the second day of training with the queen, Hanna in fact did feel worse. She could barely move to get cleaned up for the day.

The bath helped a bit with her sore muscles, so she would be able to move minimally, provided that her instructor would show her a small amount of kindness and not have her doing too much moving today.

The queen had noticed that her student was moving gingerly and had assured her that in time, she would get used to the activity.

Like the previous day, Hanna moved as slowly as she could tolerate. She needed to get to her lessons with Loki, so she would not run late.

###

Loki watched the girl edge her way in. Like the previous day, her pain was more than apparent. She had to be feeling horrible.

"Today you are going to try something different. Try to generate a fireball over your right hand," he commanded.

She seemed pleased that what she was doing would not involve too much moving around.

After a few moments, a few fireballs appeared. They were about the size of shooter marbles.

###

Hanna bit her tongue to suppress her disgust. After all that effort, only three fireballs that small?

She was fuming with herself so much, that she nearly missed Loki saying, "Come here."

Turning towards him, as quickly as she could stand, giving him a suspicious look the whole time.

"I am not going to hurt you, just get over here!" Loki commanded exasperatedly. Once she got there, he instructed, "Now lean into me."

Hanna gave him a disbelieving look. Did he think she was that stupid? And her traitorous mind liked that idea far too much!

"Trust me it works. Get on with it."

As Hanna did as she was instructed, her mind immediately began to wander. This felt really good!

"Oh no you don't! Do not even go down that path!" Hanna tried to instruct her mind to stay on task. It was easier said than done!

To keep her mind on task, Hanna recalled all the times Loki had annoyed her in the time that she'd known him, starting with tricking her into dancing with him by shape shifting into Ragnar. Immediately, her mind cleared of things she refused to think about.

"Well that worked." Hanna thought to herself as the fireballs over her right grew to the size of oranges with a small amount of effort and she did not feel drained at all!

###

Loki did not like being touched, with a few exceptions, herself included. Here he was actively inviting the touch of another. It made Frigga smile.

Hanna was certainly going to make life more interesting.

###

As the next couple of months flew by, Hanna did find herself getting more used to physical activity. No longer having trouble moving each day, Hanna was blocking the queen's hits more often than not. She had not landed many on Frigga.

Once she got to her room, Hanna looked up and a noise of pure happiness came from her mouth as she forgot that she needed to get cleaned up for her magic lessons, when she saw her brother for the first time in months.

After a few moments of hugging, Hanna asked, curiously,

"Ragnar what are you doing here?"

Looking at his sister, Ragnar asked with shock clearly in his tone, "Does a brother need a reason to see his favorite sister on her name day?"

Hanna covered her face with her left hand. She had a feeling that she had forgotten about something this morning, but could not remember what it was.

"How can you forget something like that?"

"I have been busy little brother. The time that I have spent here really has gone by quickly. Also, it has not really been on my mind." Hanna did give Ragnar a smile.

Smiling back at Hanna, Ragnar reached into the bag he had with him and took out a flat box, placed it on a table, and said, "Happy name day, Hanna."

"What is it?" Hanna asked.

"A gift from our father. All I know is that it is something that used to belong to our mother."

Hanna opened the small latch on the lid, and gasped slightly. It was the necklace: The necklace that was the focus of one of her memories of her mother.

It also held the dubious honor of being the necklace that she and Astrid had fought over at Yule.

"I did not tell him that you and Astrid fought over it at Yule. Then again, father always seems to know those kinds of things, even if we do not tell him about the events."

Hanna tried and failed to suppress a snort of laughter at that. It was all too true. She was tracing the sapphires and diamonds with the tip of her finger, completely focused.

Ragnar then noticed that there was a sword on her hip. Motioning to it, he asked, "Care to explain that?"

Hanna was prepared for the question, so she replied as matter of factly as she could, "I need to combine my magic with a weapon to compensate for my lesser physical strength."

"Understandable. Who is teaching you?" Ragnar was genuinely curious about that matter.

Hanna was making her way to the bathing part of her quarters, when she replied, "Queen Frigga is."

She did not need to turn around to know that her brother was surprised.

###

When she was done getting dressed, Hanna noticed that Ragnar was testing the heft of the hand and a half tourney sword.

"This is a bit lighter than what I am used to," he stated as he returned the sword to its scabbard.

"I am smaller and lighter than you," Hanna replied with a grin.

"Since it is your name day, perhaps you would be willing to skip your lessons?"

Turning around, disbelief clear in her tone, Hanna scoffed, "You must be joking. If I skipped a lesson, it would not end well for me. Perhaps you could come along and watch. Provided you can behave of course. I can tell that you do not like the idea of me being alone with him."

"Of course I can behave!" Ragnar declared.

Hanna looked at her brother for a moment, deciding whether it was worth it, to risk an altercation, physical or verbal between the two.

"I hope you can. Come along then." Hanna replied telepathically to her brother. "And do not mention that it is my name day!"

Holding his hands up in acquiescence, Ragnar replied, "As you wish."

###

Hanna was running slightly late for her lessons.

Of course as soon as he had finished that thought, Loki heard a familiar cadence of steps followed by an unfamiliar one. Hanna had brought someone along for her lessons. Looking up, Loki saw that her brother was apparently here for a visit.

Today would be fun. Ragnar would be particularly easy to get a rise out of by baiting him. But how to do that?

As he gave Hanna instructions of what to do, Loki saw that Ragnar was watching his every move in regards to where Hanna was. Hanna herself would be the perfect way to bait the younger man. But he would bide his time, waiting for the most opportune moment.

After about an hour or so, Loki found an opening to start on Ragnar.

"Stupid wench. I have shown her more than enough times, but she just does not grasp it. That's what I get for taking on an apprentice that isn't smart enough." Hanna was actually quite a competent apprentice. Then again, lying was part of his game.

Ragnar was tightening his fists on the railing in front of him. He was trying to keep his temper in check. It seemed that Loki knew the main way to get him ticked off.

"Ragnar, don't do this. Don't do anything stupid. Getting a rise out of you is what he wants!" Hanna hissed telepathically. But Ragnar was not listening to his sister. Doing his best to stay as calm as possible, Ragnar snarled,

"How dare you insult my sister, when you were the one who sought her out in the first place?"

Loki just had a calm smile on his face. He had pulled it off.

"I told you he was just trying to get a rise out of you." Hanna did not even turn around as she drawled that. "And you just gave him exactly what he wanted, am I not correct, your Highness?" Hanna had a saccharine smile (if one was not being picky) on her face.

"All part of the game, Hanna." Loki had a similarly toothy grin on his face. "Your brother is quite easy to bait."

Ragnar was visibly fuming. Hanna knew that her brother was intelligent and that her father was starting to teach him how to play the game of politics.

To save himself some face, Ragnar ground out, "All I was doing was defending my favorite sister. You cannot find fault with me doing that."

"And I appreciate it, little brother. But there are battles that I can fight on my own." Hanna had been walking up to where the men had been standing, to give her brother a hug.

Then to her complete surprise, Loki suggested, "You have the rest of the day free from your lessons to spend time with your brother."

Giving her instructor a suspicious look, Hanna said, "There is going to be a catch here, so just come out and say it."

"You will be spending tomorrow indoors to make up for losing today. Now get on." Loki left as he said that.

"Complicated, isn't he?" Ragnar asked his sister.

"You have no idea." Hanna muttered. "Come on. I'll show you one of my favorite places here."

###

"You cannot be serious. The library?" Ragnar whispered disbelievingly. Odin alone knew how much time she spent in there reading now.

"Little brother, you know how much I like to read," Hanna replied with a smile.

"When was the last time you read purely for pleasure and not for learning?" Ragnar asked back.

Hanna stopped for a moment before saying, "It's been a while. Loki has me reading so much."

Taking a deep breath Ragnar conceded, "Whatever he has been doing to teach you, it seems to be working. Your magic is obeying you now more often than not."

"One of the reasons that my magic was so often out of control when I used it, is that my emotions were charged up at the time. A key to using it properly is having my emotions under as much control as possible." Hanna said to her brother, remembering one of the first actual bits of instructions from Loki.

Shaking her thoughts back towards her brother, Hanna smiled saying, "Come on. I have other places I would like to show you and not a lot of time to do it."

She spent the rest of the day showing her brother around Asgard. As Ragnar got ready to leave, Hanna turned to him and said with a wide smile, "Tell father thank you for the necklace. And send him my love."

"I will dear sister. And I will try to come and see you again." Ragnar hugged Hanna and left.

She went to bed with a smile on her face.

A/N 2: So what did you guys think of Ragnar's visit? And of how Loki helped Hanna with her magic? I hope you enjoyed the update. I'm thinking of things to do for Loki's birthday/nameday. I am also open to suggestions. SSD