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An early autumn chill haunts the shores of Asgard. The mornings have been warm but the evenings, which creep upon you earlier and earlier, imply a dreary winter to come. The fire you lit when you arrived has fallen to cinder, and any residual warmth it may have provided is sucked out when the temple doors creak open.
Loki is a specter of his usual self, dragging his feet through the threshold with a hush. It takes great effort for him to climb the steps of the dais toward his wingback throne, where you have been wringing the pages of your textbooks all the evening. His armour is in tatters.
It’s well past midnight, and by all means you should be in bed in the disciples’ annex by now. Familiarity grants you some leeway, however, and Loki doesn’t bat an eye at the sight of you in his seat. He only slumps at your feet and lays his heavy head on your knee.
“Disciple,” he sighs. It’s barely slip of a word, three sharp syllables in the quiet. “It has been a long day.”
You work your fingers under his helmet and pull it off. His hair is boyishly askew, flattened on the sides in the shape of his chin guard. He looks so young like this, a shadow of your tempestuous, impish master. Slouched like this, with his breath hot and laboured against your hip, he seems more like a penitent devotee than a god.
Ever since the announcement of Thor’s coronation, Loki has been pulled away from his temple more and more often by his brother. The two of them conspire–to what end, you're not sure—and it’s beginning to take a visible toll on him.
His fingers knot in the fabric of your trousers, staining the white linen. “You weren’t in my bed.”
An unfortunate by-product of their late night adventures has been a sudden lack of time in your master’s schedule. More often than not, Loki is pulled away from his godly duties to attend to his brother, leaving you to manage the temple alone. As a result, you’ve retired to your room most evenings to find a note on your pillow. Meet me in the Small Palace, it always reads. Yours,
Loki never signs his name. He doesn’t have to.
“There wasn’t a note.”
“Will I be condemned to write you a note every day of my life? I thought they had become redundant.”
He tips his head up to glare at you, allowing you a better view of his face. Dark, old blood is flaking off his upper lip and cheek, left over from a blow to the face. The skin on his nose has split like an overripe peach, mottled by bruising and broken blood vessels, and his right eyelid has a sheen to it that implies it will be swollen shut tomorrow. “Your beautiful nose,” you lament.
He smiles despite the injury, pleased by your compliment. “It will heal.”
He must have turned around as soon as he returned home. You wonder if he called your name when he arrived; if he checked the study, or the drawing room, or his bedroom before he realized you weren't there. It sends a secret thrill up your spine to think that he would seek you out, even in such a sorry state as this. “Stand up. Let's get you out of this.”
Neither of Loki’s other two disciples know about his mysterious rendezvous with Thor. Loki has only confided in you in the quiet of his bedroom; something about the after-sex (and, increasingly, the before-sex, when he sits you up in his library and wolfs down his supper, long gone cold) makes him chatty.
He hisses when you pull his breastplate off, wrenching something injured. “Careful, lamb.”
“Sorry, master.”
He uses you as a support while he toes his boots off, then bends down to wrench his bloodied socks off. He's going to lose at least three of his toenails. “Fetch me a rag, will you?”
While you busy yourself with filling a basin with water, Loki unbuttons his shirt and removes it with a grunt. It reveals to you the extensive damage dealt to him tonight; his back is a patchwork of purple and black, occasionally broken up by angry red gouges. Some of them are deep enough to make you gag, flashing spots of yellow fat and tender sinew; you try to politely turn your cheek so he doesn’t see.
He plucks your cup off the table, half empty from an evening of idle sipping, and drains the remaining wine. When he hurls it, he does so with enough force to dent the copper rim.
“You should see a healer.”
Loki only sneers, gesturing for you to step closer. “Come here.”
Under different circumstances, you might have found him roguishly handsome, covered in muck as he is. Only he could make a broken nose into an accessory, or a split lip look kissable. But your anxiety wins out over any creeping attraction; it seems as though every spot of grime you clear away reveals another nearly-mortal wound.
He leans his cheek against yours, then moans in a way that makes heat pool between your hips. “Loki, please.”
“Just a kiss. Just a single, tiny, minuscule kiss. I’ve been on horseback all evening dreaming of your tongue.”
Loki swoops in to peck at you. He’s playing, or at least trying to; he pulls away every time his mouth connects with yours, hoping to entice you to follow him toward a proper snog. Playing keep away with his lips while you clean his fingernails. You follow him on instinct, returning his kiss with an equal passion. You've spent your evening worrying, and to feel his warmth on your skin is a tremendous relief.
He hisses when your nose bumps his, tender from the break. It's enough to sober you up and end the embrace. “Stop."
Loki whimpers, his eyes still shut tight. "I need you."
"We can't."
“Come sit on my lap, disciple.” He chases your mouth, just snagging your bottom lip with his own. When you continue to rebuke him, he tears the rag from your twisting fingers and tosses it elsewhere. “You reject me!”
Conscious of the scab forming in the centre of his lip, you briefly brush your mouth over his. When it becomes clear that this is all you intend to give him, Loki binds your wrists with a lasso of seidr and holds them hostage against his chest. “Insolent. I’ll do much worse things to your mouth than kiss it if you don’t smarten up.”
Warmth stirs in your chest at the way your master puppeteers your body. You could so easily tip your head to the side and let him ravage your neck. Could sit in his wingback and let him work through that aggression between your legs. But he’s so battered, so clearly exhausted…
“You wound me. I’ve seen the wrong end of many blades tonight but this hurts the most.”
“Loki, you really ought to rest…”
“I thought that you…” He trails off, scanning your face for an answer you don’t know how to give.
You tread carefully, unsure of what response might tip him over the edge. “Thought what, master?”
The lamplight catches his eyes in a mysterious way, giving the illusion that he’s about to cry. Loki blinks furiously. Once. Twice. He scrubs at his filthy hair and scowls. “I thought you liked my beautiful nose.”
Ah. The unsaid lingers on the air but neither one of you is brave enough to face that beast quite yet. Instead, you tilt your cheek and finally—finally—kiss him.
“I just need you. My skin is too tight. I itch all over.” Gods never beg, but your master presses his forehead to your neck and gets as close as one can. “Let me run this off. Let me in.”
Your resolve is crumbling. The healthiest thing to do would be to march him back to his room and put him to bed, though sleep will likely evade him as long as he’s like this. He has spent all evening chasing but his appetite for the hunt is not yet satiated.
There is a bruise leaking under his ribs. He should be under a healer’s needle and thread, not propositioning his young student.
“Run,” he pleads. "And I'll give chase."
So, you do.
(Loki would say it was a fair fight. He would tell you that he waited a full minute before he followed, counting the seconds precisely. One-one-thousand; two-one-thousand; three—
He is the king of liars for a reason.)
You eventually stumble into a clearing along the bank of the Ilfingr. The river is prone to floods in the spring, and the swell can grow so vicious that it uproots trees, leaving behind deep pockmarks in the grass. You have to be careful to pick around the holes and fallen stumps, off balance without your full range of motion.
You pause on the rocky shore to collect your breath. The sweet smell of fresh water and frost would almost be enough to calm your nerves if you didn’t feel the weight of Loki’s eyes on your back. You realized a few paces into the chase that he never gave you a destination, which means he never really intended for you to win. The game was only proposed to disorient you, and in that respect, your master has succeeded.
Just as soon as you’ve turned around to retrace your steps, Loki materializes in your path. He’s as undressed as he was when you left him, in his filthy trousers and nothing else.
You stumble backwards. You had hoped that the chase would tire him out, would fulfill whatever spell he's found himself under, but his expression implies disaster on the near horizon. He has his arms outstretched to invite you in but it might as well be an open mouth.
You make it roughly ten feet before a copy of Loki appears in your periphery, snatching you up by the waist. Your feet briefly leave the ground when the doppelganger scoops you up, laughing against the shell of your ear. He’s built of solid muscle and coming off the adrenaline of war; your attempted escape is barely a punchline.
The first Loki approaches with a tilted head, appraising the sight of you in his own arms. He hooks a finger under the seidr ropes that still bind your wrists together, grinning when they sizzle on contact. “Caught you.”
With one hand on your jaw, the doppelganger behind you maneuvers your face forward, holding it in place for Loki to consider. He traces your temple with his pointer finger; then your cheek; then the curve of your bottom lip. Your mouth parts with a soft pop, and the sound is enough to make him shudder before he forces you to kiss him back.
They work together to undress you, pawing at every inch of skin they can get exposed. There is a hand on your breast, and your backside, and another thumbing at the corner of your mouth. Your clothes end up scattered across the grass, opening up your sweat-damp skin to the bite of a frigid evening.
The doppelganger behind you works his hand between your thighs to cup your cunt, sliding one long finger inside of you to the knuckle. It’s enough to leave you gasping, toes curled in the grass. His motions are practiced, seeking out that soft spot inside of you that makes you whine so sweetly. Once he's found it, he works the pad of his finger up and down, minuscule little movements that make stars die and revive behind your eyes.
“Does that feel good, lamb?” You can’t be sure which of them spoke. You only know that their lips grow idolatrous as time drags on, turning your cheek back and forth to get their fill of kissing you.
Loki works his thumb between your legs to rub your clit. Their rhythms are mismatched, one fast and mean and the other probing, sliding in and out with slow strokes. It’s impressive; you’ve only ever been able to project a mirror of yourself to do the same thing as your real body. If you weren’t so scattered by pleasure, you would ask him how he does it.
“Master…” Kissing two people at once is like swimming fully-clothed. You only have so many seconds before another mouth replaces the first, meaning you have to be careful to time your breaths.
“Hmm?”
You whine, nuzzling the hand still holding your jaw. The clone is an almost perfect replica, except for the faint smell of wildfire that clings to his edges. Tangled in them as you are, you can't tell which of them smells like smoke; either could be your master.
“If only my enemies were as supplicant as you." A second finger slips inside of you, curling up toward your pelvis. It’s all your brain power to stay upright, clinging to one Loki’s shoulders while the other drapes himself across your back. There’s a nose against your nape, pressing an evil smirk into your skin. “I get you in my clutches and you roll over, belly up. Hardly even had to threaten violence.”
They both go to kiss you at the same time and collide, knocking your precarious house of cards to the ground. One Loki twists his body under yours at the last second, catching you on his belly, and the other ends up tangled in your legs.
The Loki under you laughs through a wince. "Eugh, my back."
"Are you alright?"
He catches your ankle when you try to stand. "I'm going to fuck you into the dirt, disciple. Don't think you've gotten off that easily."
"But you're---" The tendons in his arm go taut when he decides to demonstrate just what strength lies beneath his prickling skin. Loki wrestles you to the ground with one arm, seemingly without effort. For the struggle, he gives you a smack across the backside, then slides his fingers through your slit to press against your clit.
"But, but, but..." The doppelganger drags your cheek off the grass. It puts you at face-level with the obvious tenting in his slacks.
"Not fair," you pout.
Loki applies a bit more pressure as he continues to stroke your cunt. "You could always make up a double to keep him entertained."
Except Loki knows you can't, not like this. Not when your mind is fuzzy with an orgasm, when your body is tensed to explode.
"Master," you whine. Your legs thrash blindly, trying to get away from his brutal hand.
"Oh, pity."
The doppelganger releases your head to scoop you up by the armpits. He sets you down like you're a doll, a little plaything, and straddles your thighs. The other Loki leans over to kiss your cheek... And then dissolves to fireflies on the wind.
“You’re lucky you’re a disciple and not a warrior.”
The clearing snaps with a magnetic charge. He waits a heartbeat for your rebuttal, then two. When you don't fight back, he presses your wrists into the dirt a little harder. Mud squelches; you feel the dew that’s settled on the grass soak into your skin.
The night sky is the deepest shade of blue-black. It’s dark enough that Loki is barely a silhouette, lit very softly by the glowing ropes around your wrists, his features quiet and indistinct unless he’s up close. The occasional firefly lazes behind his head, attracted by the smell of magic in the air.
Your master is beautiful, even as blood pools under the skin around his eye. Classically so, with a sharp cut to his cheekbones, his hair the perfect middle ground between wet and dry so that it curls across his forehead. There’s still some boyish softness to him; he’s so young in Asgardian years, still naive and starry-eyed, yet he has lived three of your lifetimes already.
He takes the bonds holding your wrists together and scatters them to dust. “Do you know what I do to pretty things like you on the battlefield?”
You have an idea. On rare occasions, disciples are carted to the front lines to give the dying their last rites. The glimpses you've caught of Loki—helm shoved back, his hair a mess and his eyes razor-sharp—you sometimes wonder why he was gifted godhood over mischief and not misery.
“What do you do, master?”
“I cut them down.” His fingers draw a line down your sternum, featherlight in comparison to his cruel tone. “I put my sword through their bellies, and my knives in their eyes.”
He speaks with a fairytale-like conviction, his battle-rough voice rumbling in your ear. His touch is softer, still, as it brushes over your stomach. Down your thigh to the curve of your kneecap, the dip along the side of your calf. “...And then I come home to my devoted little disciple and bend her over my throne.”
His belt unthreads with a soft scrape, leather on metal. Anticipation makes you widen your legs for him.
There’s that familiar pinch when the blunt head lines up with your cunt. A slow push in, then back out. His hands spread your thighs a little farther, thumbs mean in the hollows of your hips, and then he’s pressing again. Filling you a bit more. Every movement punctuated by a groan, or a sigh, or a snarl. “You’ll take it, won't you?”
Loki seems mesmerized by the sight, watching where your body submits under his control. Without looking up, he raises your hand to his mouth, kissing each knuckle. Pinky, index, middle, pointer, thumb. Over and over. Rocking his hips. Kissing you.
“There we go,” he says once he’s finally worked his way to the hilt. “Sweet creature.”
You cling hopelessly to his bicep. “Master—”
He smells like sweat and grass. Your fingers catch on a mat in his hair when he rolls his hips; he’s grown it out long but it will have to be cut short in the morning.
“You refused me,” he pants.
“You’re hurt. You needed rest, Loki.” He doesn’t correct you tonight. Something about the sound of his name pleases him, even as he plays the villain.
"You didn't come to bed."
"I'm your servant."
His forehead shines with sweat, his cheeks flushed and blotchy. Every shove of his hips pulls a sound from between his gritted teeth, syllables elongated on a moan. Lamb--fuck, just like that.
One of his hands lifts your leg, urging you to hook it over his hip. It opens your body up for his taking, allows him to steer the movement however he pleases by restricting you from rocking back. And yet---he still does not speed up. He fucks with a headsman's precision, slow but heavy, dangling the relief of the guillotine above you, a wiry thread the only thing between you and the little death.
“Please.”
“My disciple. Oh, my devoted little disciple " He digs his broken nose into the side of your face in a way you're sure is painful. "You’re perfect. I want your heart. I’ll take it if I must. I'll eat it out of you.”
Sweat pools in the pit of your knee and slides in heavy, fat drops down your flushed skin. “Master—”
Each thrust bumps his cockhead against a soft spot deep inside you, something that feels like laughter and tears all at the same time. He grinds his pelvis against yours on each upstroke, intending to root himself under your skin. You can’t catch your breath. You’ll faint if you don’t inhale soon.
Loki hisses when your fingers dig into one of his wounds. Your hands come away slippery and wet.
“Sorry, darling.” You don’t mean to call him that, but your brain is so hot from stimulation that it’s the first endearment that comes to mind.
“Fuck,” he groans. “Say—say it again.”
“Darling.”
“Oh.” There will surely be imprints of your fingers on his back in the morning. “Darling—”
“Yes. Yes, that's it."
“—I need you.” Your legs are trembling around his waist, cramped with pleasure. “Oh, darling, I need you.”
“But do you—want me?”
“Yes.” You teeter on the edge of agony. “Yes, I want you. I want you.”
The sound he makes is awful in the most wonderful way. Guttural. The grass tears under his fingers.
Loki pours the last remnants of war into your mouth, kissing you hard enough to bruise. As if Death looms behind him, patient enough to wait out one last kiss before whisking him off to Valhalla. You’re helpless to do much else than kiss him back.
“Tell me,” he pleads against your chin. “Tell me that you—”
“Yes.”
“Because I…”
Whatever he meant to confess is muffled by your neck when he drops his head. His movements slow to a crawl while he catches his breath. When he finally does ease out of you, Loki lays his ear over your breast as if to listen to the sound of your heart racing. The last of his energy spent, all he can bear to do is hold you close. “I felt you praying. I always feel it.”
“I just worry about you when you’re away.”
“I know I’m difficult.”
“That’s alright, Loki. I don’t mind.” His hands tighten around your ribs. “Let’s get you back to the temple and finish cleaning these cuts.”
Loki shakes his head, still pillowed on your chest. “The Small Palace is closer. It has a warm bed. Clothing that doesn’t smell.”
“Mhmm. Your poor hair.”
“It’s absolutely wretched. A lost cause. They’ll have to shear me like a sheep.”
You can’t help but laugh at his vanity. It’s true, though; it will have to be cut much shorter than is currently fashionable. Loki will have trouble doing much more than slicking it back or leaving it natural.
“You’ll still be terribly handsome.”
“You think I’m handsome, darling?” The endearment kisses your skin in such a lovely way. Loki smiles when he sees you register the new nickname and immediately screw your face up in embarrassment. “Don’t worry. I think you’re handsome, too.”
“Really?”
His hands cross the raised hairs on your arms, making you shiver. “Are you cold?”
You nod, sheepish. “Yes. Aren’t you?”
By all accounts, he should be. Loki shines with sweat and is essentially naked, wearing only a thin pair of (unbuttoned) trousers and nothing else. He shoots himself a curious glance, then shakes his head.
You redress in silence. Loki collects your pants, then helps you step into them. His fingers lace the drawstrings into a neat bow, a pretty little detail for him to admire later. Then your tunic, and the light woolen winter layer you've taken to wearing as the temperature drops. They're all filthy and damp, offering little to defend from the cold, but it’s better than the alternative.
You reach into your memory and conjure up a cloak you vanished the night before, fastening it around your shoulders. Part of you preens when Loki runs a hand over it, hoping he’ll be pleased with how causally you managed to use your seidr. Instead, you’re subjected to the sound of his booming laugh.
“What?” Indignation rises in your chest. “What is so funny?”
Loki slides his hands under the cloak, hugging you. “Look at it.”
“It’s a perfectly respectable cloak. I conjured it all by myself.”
“Lamb, look at it.” He’s still laughing. “It’s mine.”
“What? No, it can’t be. You can’t conjure something someone else has put away.”
“Yes, because you stole it from me. It’s mine.”
You hold up one corner and examine the stitching. Sure enough, there are little whorls of embroidery along the edges in a craftsmanship much too fine for you to afford on your disciples’ salary. Your skin warms at the idea. “Oh.”
“Keep it.”
“But it’s yours.”
“Lamb.”
“It’s too nice. Everyone will recognize it as yours.”
“Let’s get inside, darling. I’m sure the servants have kept the hearth in my room lit all evening.” Loki gingerly leans his weight on your shoulder and finally allows you to help him. You follow his vague hand-waved directions until the terracotta roof of the Small Palace comes into view, nestled on the far banks of the Ilfingr right before it meets the delta.
“You have to keep it,” he continues. “So everyone recognizes you as mine.”
“They couldn’t tell by the uniform?”
He laughs (and laughs and laughs) in response. “I'll ransack the royal vaults until there is no question to whom you belong. But that is a problem for the morning. Come along, disciple. Let us get to bed.”
(Tucked behind a servant's exit, two maids watch while Loki flirts with you against his bedroom door. Brazen, leant on his shoulder in little more than a pair of trousers and a carelessly slung cloak. He preens when something he's said makes you giggle. You're both bizarrely filthy.
“It’s a bit romantic, don’t you think?”
“Please. Prince Loki chews through women like a fox in a chicken coop.”
But—his fingers linger in a peculiar way when he reaches out to rearrange your shirt collar, barely seeming to register that he’s doing it. He likes to keep you tidy. Likes to pet you like a prized house cat.
“I’m not convinced. I think he’s more like a dormouse.”
“Elsie! Don’t let anyone hear you say that. You could get in big trouble…”
Elsie tunes out the lecture in favour of admiring the two of you. Maybe it really is just naivety, but she thinks that the look in Prince Loki’s eye is one of love.)