Jane could only presume it was for aesthetic reasons, not practicality, that Dvalin and Borghild had placed the tower of glass goblets in the ballroom. She had developed a compulsion for eyeballing it every time someone passed it with a liquored sway in their step. Not that the palace would suffer any financial difficulty if they lost one pile of nice glassware.
Thor was back with her after his spontaneous dance with Loki. As the celebrations continued around them with no sign of slowing, Thor told her about past Asgardian festivals he remembered. It reminded her of the nights spent on rooftops with nothing but a telescope and her notebook; a commentary unfolding as the otherworldly events transpired before her.
" – and they could devour a whole storechamber of food within the first hour of feasting. That may sound paltry, but most of the storechambers are greater than the banquet halls themselves."
"Yeah, I was going to comment how unimpressive a feat that sounded…" Jane craned her head back to absorb the sheer height of the ballroom ceiling.
"Volstagg and Thor were always responsible for one half of those storechambers while the rest of the palace ate the other." Loki added from behind Jane. His voice became a little reproachful. "Thor, you tell her all this as if you never caused the most mess of all."
Thor laughed. "It seems so long ago, Brother, I doubt I would do so again."
"And mess sounds more like your specialty – " Jane began to say to Loki over her shoulder.
"Thor caused the most mess and the second-most chaos, then, if you care to realise the difference," Loki interjected. "But I'm not here to argue about that – "
"You started it," Thor said.
" – I am just a messenger. Dvalin suggests you two, Darcy and I begin thanking the guests for their attendance before too many are too inebriated to remember what this reception is for. He said to mention to the visitors from other realms that it would be delightful to accommodate them again in future. Including your other bridesmaids from Earth, Jane, so I'm glad I lie well."
"Things didn't turn out so nicely with Leila?" Jane joked. Loki looked at her like she had earnestly proposed he perform a striptease dance in the middle of the room.
"Not particularly. I had a much nicer time dancing with your husband," Loki replied evenly. "Apart from that and dancing with Mother, however, I still must admit eluding more interaction with Leila was the more interesting part of tonight, if not the most pleasant."
"No offence," he added after a second's thought.
"None taken," she said, wryly. "Despite all the paperwork I endured the past few months, I didn't actually plan half this thing myself."
"What alterations would you introduce?" Thor wondered.
"Oh, well, there was nothing wrong with this reception," she said, quickly. "I doubt anything I might have planned would have gone so smoothly, or been up to the standards of nobles from at least six other worlds – "
"Jane, I too take no offence if the palace protocols are not precisely to your tastes," Thor broke in reassuringly, grinning. "How can they be, when you were raised somewhere so different? I only wondered."
Jane felt her shoulders relax. She did not even know they had been somewhat tensed before hearing that.
"Well, I guess you Asgardians aren't physically or mentally in need of any AA interventions like a human might be – "
"What is – ?"
"Er, Alcoholics Anonymous, it's sort of a human organisation for people who need help to quit drinking alcohol. Never mind. So, since I've never really experienced many celebrations like this, the best improvement I can come up with right now is just getting that giant tower of wineglasses out of here before someone knocks it over." She nodded towards it.
"My people can restrain themselves after quaffing a half dozen casks of our strongest spirits." Thor grinned. "If it falls, someone has made deliberate sport of it."
Loki smiled.
Thor wondered if Loki was cloaking himself in magic against all but Thor, or if the guests were so absorbed in their merriment that Loki was inartificially invisible.
A wisp of green light darted from Loki's fingertips. Thor would have missed it if he had not been watching his brother with a vague wariness. In the periphery of Thor's vision, the stack of goblets began swaying gently…
"For Hel's sake, Loki… "
After thanking a councilwoman from Nornheim for her attendance, Jane glanced at Thor questioningly.
When the crash hit everyone else's ears, Thor assumed they thought several chandeliers had fallen; hundreds of heads whipped up to inspect the high ceiling. The chandeliers glittered serenely above their heads, still revolving slowly like a dozen fragile suns.
The mountain of wineglasses no longer stood. Thor nearly could not summon the effort to be aggravated.
He muttered curses under his breath after excusing himself from Jane. As if Loki could hear him from across the chamber, Loki met Thor's glower with more fearless glee than Thor felt he warranted. Thor began weaving his way through the crowd towards him.
Loki was twirling something long and silvery between his slender fingers. He gave Thor another unashamed smile before tinking the fork against the nearest person's goblet, ignoring the bewilderment puckering the red-haired woman's forehead.
Similar confusion was creasing Thor's own brow. The guests were suddenly turning to beam at him, similarly tapping their glasses to create a storm of fine clinking.
Thor automatically turned to search for Jane, surprised to see her already walking towards him with an abashed smile. Thor had forgotten until then the glass-tapping was a signal for a kiss between the bride and groom. Another custom from somewhere in Midgard that Borghild and Dvalin regarded fitting for the occasion.
Thor's smile remained after they were done, temporarily forgetting why he had left Jane in the first place. Then he remembered Loki's mess of shattered crystal littering the floor.
Thor murmured to Jane, "Excuse me again, as I must strangulate my brother."
She let her head fall to one side comically. "I swear you're starting to spend more of our wedding reception with him than with me."
Thor scoffed. "Believe me, Jane, that is not my intention."
He huffed resignedly as he turned away again, spying Loki deftly manoeuvring himself away from Thor. Thor rolled his eyes.
"Loki."
He raised his voice above the guests, aiming his sternness at Loki like firing an arrow. Without turning at the sound of his name, Loki reached out to begin clinking his fork against another wineglass. It was clutched by a square-jawed young man, who froze with the chalice of burgundy liquid halfway to his lips as he stared at Loki in perplexity.
The squall of crystalline tinkling rose again. The guests beamed as Thor headed back to Jane, and as their lips re-met.
"Still need to catch your brother?" Jane asked, smiling drily.
"I am not intensely adverse to this new method of his, but he had better not suppose he can make us kiss every time I must admonish him." Thor grumbled.
He glanced over his shoulder; Loki smiled winningly at them from across the room. Jane just laughed. "Off you go. If you still can't reach him, I'll send Darcy and Erik since they're not supposed to kiss me when the glasses are tapped."
Thor pressed the back of her hand to his lips before he left.
He barely made it five feet in Loki's direction before his brother started pattering the fork against another goblet – Sif glared at Loki as he interrupted her drink. The unsuspecting guests followed suit, and Thor almost grumbled audibly as he returned to Jane.
"Perhaps I shall let him escape reproach on this occasion only." Thor muttered to her.
"Only? Are you getting sick of kissing me already?"
Jane softened her feigned outrage by adjusting Thor's stiff collar. He grinned. Over his shoulder, he saw Loki smiling expectantly. Thor just glowered at him.
Loki waited as Thor stalked over to him. Blatantly, between his hands he played with the wineglass he filched from the top of the stack before he had tipped it over. He let Thor clasp the back of his neck and haul him behind one of the shimmering draperies by their high table.
"Must you cause a mess every night, Brother?" Thor shook Loki with one hand as he spoke. "You are fortunate no one was injured by that."
"Then I am lucky every time one of you oafs smashes a tankard and yells for another?" It was more difficult to widen his eyes innocently when being manhandled by the neck.
"I refer to the mortals present tonight – "
"Do you really think my magic and I would let some glass shards hurt anyone and ruin your big evening?"
Thor was growing weary of Loki's rhetorical questions. Loki grinned and added quickly, "It was just for a bit of fun, Thor. You have lived with me for one thousand years, and yet decided to have a precarious tower of fragile glass in the same chamber. It's practically your own fault."
"Loki."
"Your bad choice, Thor."
"The placement of the goblets or granting you a wedding invitation?"
"Probably a bit of both, come to think of it."
"Borghild arranged to have them located there – "
"Bad choice of wedding planners too, then."
"Just give me that." Thor seized the goblet from Loki's hands.
He glared at him. Nonetheless, nothing would truly spoil the feeling that intensely gold sunlight was pouring through him like it had since that morning. Loki probably knew that. He just grinned until Thor almost did too.
"Do not push your luck, Brother." Thor tried to say it firmly before striding back to Jane.