( i would swim but the river is so wide )

[silfr]

If all the realms were made in Ymir's image, then it would follow the the great mountains of Jotunheim were his shoulders. The rivers and streams, that of Aegir, that of Frigg and her Norn sisters, made up vein and artery. And the brightest of the realm's creatures, Thor of Odin's beget and Balder of Frigg's, would stand proud as his shining eyes.

These are the stories that the Vanir skalds sing at their great dining halls, voices rising in perfect sweet cacophany. Loki sits at his place of honor, his ears aching at the sound, but his hands clench tight where they rest in his lap. Balder, a son of prophecy not yet born, is afforded greater honor in Vanir greensight than Loki himself. Loki, secondborn son of Odin, he of silver tongue and golden wit! It has been made clear to him that the Vanir do not mean to offend: Freyja herself has gifted him with a dragonscale tunic of unfathomable value, and her daughters have each given him three dances, but still Loki feels the sting. He has negotiated well, upholding the ancient treaties that must be re-approved each half-millennium for posterity's sake, and he knows that the Allfather will be pleased, if not proud. That should be enough.

And yet few things are enough for Loki, nowadays, for each step Thor takes opens further the chasm between them. One, meant to rule, the other, meant to support. He would do it, gladly. He would rend the blackness of the sky asunder, gladly, if it would bring Asgard glory. Yet a second heart beats within him, as ripe and decaying as a corpse-flower, and Loki knows not how to quiet its rhythm.

When he flies through the stars past the Vanir star system into the familiar warmth of Asgard's shores, he wears his cloak with shoulders squared, with the dragonscales glittering in counterpoint yellow to the green of his eyes. He arrives in Gladsheim's throne room with a sweep of his finery, ready for accolades that he will fight to receive, if need be.

"—you will spend six weeks in Freyr-king's court, under his tutelage," comes the booming echo of Odin-Allfather's voice. Loki cannot help the instinctual desire to draw back at the sound of it, knowing from long experience that quiet composure is meant for the court alone; beneath it, a storm billows. Thor stands before the throne, his head bowed in uncharacteristic humility. Mjolnir's song, usually a drumbeat of white noise to Loki's seid-sensitive ear, can hardly be heard. "For mine has indeed served you ill. Return to your quarters, son of Asgard, and curb your anger in favor of self-reflection."

Loki stands agape in the shadows of the throne room, his aborted attempt at a grand entrance now far beyond his care. Thor — Thor, the eye of Ymir! — being sent to master-negotiator Freyr-king for tutelage, as if he is but an dull apprentice to be bartered. Not only that, but to be treated such in front of the court (a limited court, admittedly — only the council and a skeletal gathering of Einherjar populate the throne room now), is beyond imagining. Who is this, who has taken Odin's place? Who is this, who has taken the pride from Thor's strong shoulders?

And who is this, who stands in Loki's place, a war of cruel joy and crueler sympathy rising within him?

He reports his success under Odin's eye, caring little now for the recognition he had craved. Moments later, not yet divested of his dragonscales, he stands before Thor's quarters, a flick of his fingers unlatching the door for his entrance.

Comments

[silfr]

Thor, like an instrument, made to fit perfectly into the hand of his younger brother. He will never know that the trial he faced during Loki's absence was an idle machination, one never truly meant to bear fruit: a whisper in a counselor's ear, a passing suggestion to their father to give Thor tasks beyond offering the esteem of his presence in the halls of counsel. Loki had known Thor would falter, and he'd known too that Odin would see it as a failing in his own parenthood. Thor, no matter how great, no matter how beautiful, no matter how strong of arm and gentle of eye, is not yet ready for the throne. If no one will heed Loki's word, then only careful scheming will show them all what he already knows.

Still, it causes him little pleasure to see his brother caught in the storm of his own distemper. Has it not always been true that all have loved Thor best? All, including Loki himself?

He had not, after all, expected Odin to cast Thor out of Asgard, nor had he expected the reprimand to be delivered publicly.

Still, now all is past: Loki is a sparrow upon a bough, now, readied for the winter. Thor's arms raise him from the shadows, and the rise of his mood warms them both. Loki welcomes the kiss, open-mouthed, taking Thor's breath into his own lungs. When Thor moves to shift above him, Loki holds him fast, arms looped tightly about those great shoulders. "Oh! The stories that have been written of your famed impatience, my would-be king," he is smiling, feeding the murmured words into Thor's mouth. "And so I must ask — how many have you claimed since my departure?" says Loki, coquettish in his manner, his mouth a loose red curl. He is indulgence itself: his body splayed without modesty, his eyes dark and hooded. Jealousy is a faraway dream, mattering little in scant space between them. What need has Loki for such things, when he can feel the beat of Thor's heart matching its rhythm with his own? "Tell me — tell me how they all fell short of whom you truly craved."

[beworthy]

Because Loki holds him, anchors him down, Thor lets himself sink again so that the weight of him is upon his brother: a body which could crush him if Loki too were not immortal, and which threatens yet to smother him entirely beneath warmth and affectionate desire. His turgid cock, thickly swelled against the laces of his breeches, presses into Loki's bared stomach, and Thor's hips work slowly, gently against him, his thighs spreading and straddling over his brother's hips. His fingers anchor themselves within his brother's dark hair. Thor licks and cuddles and kisses, no fearsome would-be king or relentless warrior now but a bedmate eagerly seeking his lover's attentions.

"None," he answers, between presses of their mouths as sweet as bites of fruit, "none; who would I desire in your absence enough, brother?" He adds more candidly, "Sif and I were engaged, of a few evenings, but it was kisses only, and stroking: she has skilled hands." Perhaps he wants to provoke a bout of envy, hissing and displeased: to know that Loki longed for him too in lonely nights and crafted angry plots against those who might have dared shared Thor's bed in his absence. Yet Loki is splayed too warm, too smiling, it seems, to be roused to such displeasure; Thor sighs and kisses him again, again, his body full of a low simmering warmth of pleasure as he presses himself against the spread of Loki's body. "I will say, rather, how I worked myself to pleasure in this bed, imagining it was your hands and your mouth upon me: but that I fell asleep with craving still in me, and my dreams would be full of you, bringing little rest."

[treachery]

"Ah," says the Silvertongue, smiling still.

If he is envious, it is but an echo of its usual bellow. There are parts of his brother that none other may touch; even Sif, for all of her carefully-wrought similarities to Thor, has never seen him as Loki has, stripped of bravado and arrogance, shamed by his own faults. They are brothers, in the end. Here, in Loki's arms, Thor can put away his golden mantle, set duty aside, and, for a time, dress himself in desire alone.

(The thought of Thor lying in this very bed, only the swollen crown of his visible past his curled fist, stroking himself again and again to completion, Loki's name sweet upon his parted lips — the arch of his body when release snatches him up, the artless flush of his cheeks. His mouth, open and red, the blue-glass sheen of his eyes, unfocused, veiled by his lashes.

Or, perhaps, though Thor is loathe to admit enjoyment of an act into which Loki has coaxed him but sparingly—perhaps he had worked his fingers into himself, stuffed himself full to aching, and yearned even at his peak for a lighter touch.)

Loki's hand slides to the groove of Thor's hip; the other slides further, undoing the laces with quick-fingered skill. His own cock has risen and thickened, spurred on by the full-bodied press of Thor's body against his own. "Then you missed my hands and my mouth, and not the entirety of my person. Shall I take offense?"