I was in my home, modest as it was, for I did not need anything ostentatious, and he had definitely not knocked.
I righted myself and spun upon the bench to face him. The guileful imp looked largely unchanged since last I’d seen him. The unbraided portion of his hair hiding half of his face was new, but I suspected I knew the reason he kept it in shadow.
I too might hide scars if I had them.
Not quite as tall as me if I were standing and far more slender in figure, Loki was a fine specimen of a Jotun. Fair. Downright beautiful with his flame-like hair, from an almost black at its roots to an immediate blood-red before slowly fading orange and eventually reaching flaxen ends. Pale-eyed and pale-skinned, he was very stark in appearance, perhaps more so to me because I always strove to blend with nature.
Loki did not blend anywhere but commanded attention from anyone within view of him. I did enjoy the embellishments on his garments forming snakes and wolves and the like, for he was all of the above, a force of nature like me, if a bit more enigmatic.
“Must you always drop in unannounced?” I asked.
“What would be the fun in announcing myself?” Loki hopped up onto the bench as delicately as having floated there, then spun on his toes and hopped down again to sit beside me. He knocked his shoulder into mine. “I’ve always heard you had an impressivehorn.”
I huffed, still holding the ram’s horn I had been polishing. While both Loki and I had slept with some of our fellow gods, we had never been with each other. I preferred lovers without ulterior motives, and one could never be sure with him. “Where is Oli then?”
The corner of Loki’s mouth twitched almost imperceptivity. “Why? Fancy another go?”
“No. But I thought he might be interested to know I did as he asked of me.”
“Did you? And what was that?”
“As if you’re unaware.”
“Why not? Who’s to say I know everything?”
“You, usually.” I returned my attention to the horn, debating attempting again with the piece. “Or perhaps it was a little bird who told me,” I teased, for I knew full well it was no ordinary bird who had perched on the railing of Skidbladnir while I had my way with Oli.
“Can’t get a little shapeshifting past the god of nature, eh?” Loki said with a surprisingly soft tone, almost thoughtful. He knocked his shoulder into mine again. “So what is this phallic marvel for?”
“It’s a drinking horn, clearly. It’s intended as a gift.”
“How sweet of you!” He snatched the horn from my hands. “But you needn’t repay me for Oli’s services. He was my gift to you!”
“Loki.” I was wary to try and take the horn back from him and worsen its fate, when he flung it into the air, caught it, only to fling it again, like half-hearted juggling. “If you damage that horn, so help me—”
“Honestly,helpingis what I do.” Upon catching the horn a third time, Loki held it steady and brushed his thumb over the scratch I had made with the glass. It didn’t glow or give any indication of magic being used, yet in the wake of Loki’s thumb, the scratch was gone, good as new, maybe even more smoothed than I had hoped for. “I can see you were using skill rather than magic to craft this, but cheating to correct an accident doesn’treallycount. Especially if I do it.”
Another unexpected fling of the horn made my breath catch, but it landed back into my hands as if guided by more magic to reach me safely. “Thank you.” Ihadbeen using skill alone, for a gift didn’t feel quite as much from the heart if not made with tender care and attention.
It was a fine black drinking horn, nearly pure obsidian in color.
Just like Ravnur’s hair.
Perhaps I gazed a little too long at it, for Loki began skipping about the room as if aimless and distracted. As if he was stalling for time but had no real reason for being here.
“Oli is on to our next slighted brethren, I assume?” I ventured, since he had yet to answer my original query. “Is he to visit all of us?”
Loki kept turned away from me, presumably inspecting one of my prized animal hides on the wall. “If I sent him to everyone I’dslighted, he’d be on his back until the next end of days. He is with Balder now.”
“Balder? In Hel?WithHel?”
“Such a dutiful daughter, mine. But really, she is sick of the golden god’s whining, so win-win.”
“Loki.” My tone called for his attention, but he still didn’t face me, skipping about instead to another item, my personal drinking horn, that I doubted he really cared about inspecting. “It was a kind gesture—odd, and something only you would think of—to send that young mortal to me, to however many of us he will be visiting, but what else is it about him? What do you want from all this?”
“I don’t want anything. Just paying my debts.” The next item of note Loki looked at was my sword in its sheath, poised on a pedestal to denote its preciousness to me. Loki reached out as if to give the sword a flick with his finger, but it gave a little quiver of warning, and he thought better of pestering it.
“Loki, seriously now, is there any—”
