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Thor gets his Words first.
It really shouldn’t surprise Loki. He’s been doing almost everything first these days. Besting Sif in the training grounds. Besting Volstagg in the taverns. He grows stronger by the day, and their father has never been so proud. He cannot catch Loki in his studies, though. That is one fact that has long been established. Thor is brilliant, of that there is no doubt, but he is ever changeable and fickle as a spring zephyr. Once he learns what he feels is enough of one subject, he moves on to the next with a spring in his step and full confidence that what he does not know, his brother will.
Their magic is near equal these days, but where Thor can call wind and rain and bring floods or drought with a change of mood, Loki goes deeper. He pesters his mother, his tutors, even occasionally his father, if he can lure him away from his councils and petitioners long enough for a decent conversation. Those days are rare and always amusing; they invariably end with the two shouting at each other, either from frustration or shared joy at teasing out a particularly difficult spell, and the courtiers can’t be blamed if they can no longer tell the difference between a row, a celebration, or some violent combination of the two. His mother says nothing when they come to her, surcoats smoking and wild grins on their faces; she merely sighs and sets about regrowing the All-Father’s eyebrows.
Thor stumbles into Loki’s rooms and slams the door behind him. Loki, long familiar with Thor’s dramatic entrances, merely flips a page in his book.
“I would speak with you, brother,” Thor says, and Loki sighs.
“Can it wait?” Loki returns, making a notation in the margin without looking up.
“But I have something to show you. It’s important.” He reaches for his heavy silver belt buckle, and Loki holds up a hand.
“Seen it,” he says firmly. “Wasn’t impressed then, likely won’t be now, so save yourself the trouble. Why don’t you ever do this to Fandral? Volstagg? Anyone else, really?”
He ducks as Thor’s trousers sail at his head; the massive buckle leaves a dent in the wall that Loki will have to mend when he gets a moment. The spell is almost too easy now, honed by two hundred years of practical application. He turns his glare back to the figure by the door, noticing that Thor, in his smallclothes and tunic, has struck a pose halfway between proud and embarrassed. A network of lines has gathered on the cords of muscle above his right knee. Loki looks closer.
Words.
“Oh,” he says, trying to inject some excitement into his tone as he set his book aside and approaches his brother. “Already?”
Thor scoffs. “Already. Sif’s had hers for ages, and Hogun’s bloomed decades ago.”
“Wouldn’t know,” Loki replies absently, crouching to poke at Thor’s knee. The Words are in a clear, firm writing and bunched into a square of skin. Loki smothers a grin when he finally teases out what they say.
-You call this a rescue?-
A half-snort of laughter escapes him, and he gives Thor an apologetic look as he stands. “Sorry,” he manages. “I’m sure it’s very-”
“Very heroic,” Thor agrees stoically, mirth dancing in his own eyes.
“Well then. Congratulations. I look forward to what you’ve got to say while the whole mess is apparently going to Hel.”
A few moments of chatter as Thor redresses and Loki fixes the wall, and then the door slams as Thor goes on with his day, content in the knowledge that he is finally and completely normal.
Loki’s happy for his brother, and it’s about time. He ignores his own skin, still smooth and unmarked, for as long as possible before heading off to bathe.
-----
She is a late bloomer. That’s what they all tell her, the kinder ones, at least. The others whisper it behind her back, or perhaps a little to the side, but always loud enough that she can hear. It isn’t enough that she is the third daughter and sixth child of a noble house and therefore practically useless. It isn’t enough that she could read almost before she could walk, or that she can grow anything, anywhere. Her skin is empty, a canvas waiting to be filled, and it has been for centuries.
Her father gave her a garden as soon as she could reach the planter boxes, and in her realm of vines and herbs, she is queen. Her skill is well-known throughout the surrounding estates, surpassing even her mother’s. Most of her family believe she will sprout Words alongside the plants she crushes for inks, or the ones that make tinctures for headaches.
She does not.
Five sisters married off, two brothers with children on the way, and still Briony works among her gardens, skin tanned from Asgard’s sun and bare of anything resembling a soul mark.
Her father comes to her garden one day, choosing his favorite spot on the bench between the bluebells and the willow tree. He stretches out gratefully in the shade and pats the seat next to him. She stands, wiping her hands on her trousers, and joins him.
“And how’s my favorite blossom today?” he asks, and she shrugs.
“Well enough, I suppose. I’ve boxed up the things you’ve asked for, if you’re ready to take them.”
“Not this time,” he replies kindly. “I was wondering if you would like to. It’s been a while since you’ve been to the palace; Jaer been asking after you. Wondering why I keep you locked up in the gardens all the time.”
“It would be good to see her,” she agrees, rubbing at the soil on her palms as she glances at the setting sun. “I’ll leave in the morning.”
Her arm begins to itch less than an hour down the road. She rubs it carefully through the fabric of her riding coat, pulled close against the morning chill. Briony removes the garment when she stops for lunch and a brief stretch, noting the strange, spreading pattern of deep red marks. It’s like nothing she’s seen before, and she wonders if she brushed against something she should not have in her weeding. She shrugs, packs away her coat and resumes traveling in the slowly warming day.
By the time she reaches the outskirts of the sprawling city, the marks have spread, spiraling around her left upper arm like a thorny vine. She smears unguent on the skin to help calm the itch that seems to wrap all the way down to her bones, then loosely bandages the area and pulls her sleeve down over it.
Jaer greets her at the door of her shop, the old woman’s eyes bright with glee. She envelops Briony into a hug, then drags her inside. The water is boiling, the tea is hot, and Briony smiles at the woman, setting down her bags of herbs and supplies and running her fingers lightly across her sleeve. The itch has settled down, but it is still not gone.
“What have you got there?” Jaer asks, but she is not looking at the saddlebags. Her pale green eyes are on the edge of the bandage peeking out from Briony’s clothing.
“Not sure,” replies the girl. “It started on the way over. Itched like mad, but it’s not so bad now. Can you look at it?”
“Of course. Sit.”
Jaer skillfully unwraps the strips of cloth, her movements belying every moment spent as a healer in the palace. She swipes the bandage across the wound, wiping off the remaining ointment, and drops the whole mess onto the floor next to Briony, probing gently at her upper arm.
She laughs suddenly, and Briony looks down at her skin.
Words. They’re Words.
She cannot see them all, twining around her bicep as they are, and she cranes her neck to try to read the ones on the back of her arm. Jaer takes pity on her, scribbling them onto a sheet of parchment and handing them to her, laughter and a strange, sweet pity in her face. Briony takes the sheet from her.
-You are an absolute disaster.-
Her stomach drops, and she desperately runs to the back room, where Jaer sleeps and where she knows there’s a mirror.
The Words look no better backward than they do forward, and they still say the same brutal thing. Her hand goes to her mouth, and Jaer comes up behind her, tossing the parchment into the fire and taking her face in her own gnarled fingers.
“I’ve seen worse,” she says. “Much worse. It could be anything. Let me look again.”
Numbly, Briony turns away from the mirror, allowing the old woman to inspect her arm. She makes a low, thoughtful sound.
“Wrong color, too,” she observes, and Briony wipes her eyes and sniffles.
“What?”
“Soulmarks on Asgard are green. Your Words aren’t. Means your intended is from somewhere else. I’m not sure where, though. I’ve never seen this color.”
Briony pulls her sleeve down roughly. “Then maybe there’s hope.”
“Hope?”
A sigh. “That I’ll never have to hear them.”
-----
Loki sits through yet another interminable feast, wondering when he’ll be able to get back to his books. He does his best to make polite conversation with the young woman next to him, making noises at the appropriate times and hoping that he doesn’t look as bored as he is. The itching starts midway into the second course, running down his side as though someone has tipped powdered nettles into his shirt. (Again.)
He tries to scratch it, bringing his arm close to his side every time he has to reach out for something, but to no avail. It grows worse through the fish course, then another fish course, and then Loki cannot remember what is next because his skin is on fire; he turns to Fandral with a hiss.
“This had better not be your fault.”
Fandral looks up from clumsily wrapping his fish in leaves, completely ignorant of the fact that the woman on his left remains quite unimpressed by his skill, and stares at Loki.
“Is what my fault?”
Loki narrows his eyes, desperately talking himself out of snatching the fork from beneath Fandral’s elbow and turning it on his own skin, then turns away and back to his would-be companion with a pasted-on smile. “So sorry, my dear. I’ve enjoyed our chat immensely, but I’m afraid something’s come up, and I fear I must take my leave.”
She is only slightly tipsy, but enough that she makes the inevitable joke and offer to help him take care of whatever it is. He smiles politely but firmly, takes her hand off his leg, and bolts as casually as possible for the doors.
Moments later, chamber doors locked, he stands sideways in front of the mirror, shirt off and staring at the Words that now tumble down his side. They stretch in a straight line from just below his left armpit to the arch of his hipbone, and he tilts his head to read them again.
-It can’t be you.-
There is a knock at the door, and his mother’s voice drifts through. “Are you all right, my dearest? Fandral said you left quickly and seemed ill.”
He is not sure if he wants to be ill or not; reading the Words a last time makes his stomach twist enough that it seems almost a good idea.
“Fine,” he lies, knowing full well that his mother will know he’s not. “I’m fine.”
-----
Thor takes his Mark very seriously, but it is still decades before he’s found the right maiden. The quest doesn’t go as planned; they rarely do, after all, but the moment they’re all trapped in the dead end of a dark hallway, all Hel clamoring after them by the sound of it, the fiery-haired girl wakes from her swoon, sums up in the situation in seconds and turns on Thor in a fury, slapping his face while shouting his Words. Lost in the heat of battle, he screams hers back (-They said there’d be a door, you impossible twit-), and then things descend to complete madness as Loki tries to magic a door through solid stone, Volstagg tries to block the creatures chasing them, and the others do their level best to keep Thor and his newfound Soulmate from consummating their relationship right then and there.
The first portal he drags from nowhere opens into a snowstorm; several pairs of ruby eyes look up in alarm from where figures gather around a small, pale blue fire. One throws a dagger in the second before Loki slams the gate shut again, and he feels a sudden agony in his leg. He shoves down the pain, wrenching open another gateway, this one to more familiar ground. They stumble into the groves of Alfheim, and Sif reaches forward to pull the knife still lodged in Loki’s thigh. She grunts and pulls her hand back rapidly; Loki can see smoke rising from it, and he looks down at the dagger, then at the burns on her fingers. She reaches for it again, and he stops her. She shakes her head angrily as she wraps her fingers with the edge of his surcoat.
“It’ll burn you,” she says, “from the inside. We have to get it out.”
He stares dumbly at his leg for a moment, feeling the blood trickle down the inside of his leathers. It hurts. It hurts like Hel, but it doesn’t burn. Loki reaches down, grasps the hilt of the knife, and pulls it free in one smooth motion. His wound forgotten for the moment, he and the warrior woman stare at the knife on his palm, and the skin around that is slowly turning a deep, rich blue. The color spreads rapidly across his hand and has reached his forearm before he drops the knife to the ground and kicks it away.
“Well,” Sif observes as the color begins to fade, “it would seem your magic allows you more than one trick.”
She turns away, bellowing for Thor to put his shirt back on and call the Bifrost. Loki clenches his hand for a long moment, other hand going to his leg to staunch the blood as best he can. He will send healing seidr into the wound as soon as possible, but at the moment, he is too rattled to do anything but stare as the blue fades into pale, smooth skin once more. A burst of gold to bind the edges of the gash, and then he joins the others awaiting the Bridge, knowing full well that what’s just happened has nothing to do with any magic he knows.
Heimdall has seen; Loki is sure of it, as both the All-Father and Frigga are there to greet Thor and his new companion. Frigga smiles and welcomes her with open arms; the All-Father nods slightly, but there is a smile on his face. Thor leads the girl (Thor will figure out her name sooner or later, Loki is almost sure) to a waiting horse, and the others trail behind. Sif is the last to follow, and as she passes the All-Father, Odin reaches out a hand. She bows her head briefly in respect; Loki’s father touches her forehead as though in greeting.
“Forget,” he says instead, and Loki’s brow knits a little as Sif’s face smooths out. “You will forget.”
A faint smile, and soon the shieldmaiden has joined the others on their trek back to the palace. Volstagg is already singing.
As the voices fade away, Odin turns to his younger son.
“Walk with us,” he says to Loki. “We have much to discuss.”
-----
A frost giant. A baby abandoned at the end of a long, brutal battle, left on an altar in an effort to forestall the inevitable end. A mother devastated at the loss of twins, a heavy price to pay for being the All-Father’s consort in a time of war. A hope for peace, though one that looked more fragile with each passing day. Laufey had been murdered by council, led by his only trueborn son, in retaliation for losing the Casket of Winters; any chance at brokering anything but a weakly-held truce had slipped away with him. Helblindi had declared himself king, systematically murdering any of Laufey’s bastards, even the rumored ones. He was thorough and vicious.
“We couldn’t even fathom giving you back,” Frigga says, her hands wrapped tightly around Loki’s. “It would have been sending you to your death, no matter how prettily packaged it may have been. Helblindi would have killed you, too. Probably still would, if he had the chance and the knowledge.”
He stares at her fingers, toying with one of her heavy rings as has been his habit since childhood. His voice is low. “Laufey’s bastard.”
“And our son.”
He smiles, shaking his head a little.
“I meant to tell you sooner,” Odin said, “but hopefully we were not too late?” He makes it a question, and Loki’s heart clenches a little.
“No,” he replies. “I don’t think so.” He stands. “I need… I need to think. Alone.” He bows stiffly to Odin, his hand still clenched in his mother’s, and the All-Father nods.
“I cannot know your heart, my son,” Frigga says, her hand smooth around Loki’s in the moment before she lets go at last. “I can only imagine what you must be feeling.”
He gives her a brief, too-bright smile. “That makes two of us,” he replies carefully, numbness spreading through him. His mind goes to the Words that march neatly down his ribs. “Though it does explain a few things.”
-----
Odd, but somehow unsurprising that, given his true parentage, his Words are ones of rejection. Of disbelief. He shoves down the thought, keeping the Words and their meaning in a small corner of his mind, and little by little, year by year, he learns at last to forget them.
-----
Briony has no idea who is in charge of organizing the manuscripts in the Great Library, but she finds herself absently wishing they’d never been born. She scuttles through the stacks, alternately crouching down and climbing rickety ladders to find the book Jaer has sent her after. A spate of fevers has struck some farms at the outer edges of the city, and she has been sent to the dusty herbarium to find a manuscript that Jaer remembers from her youth. The trouble is, the herbarium has been moved several times since Jaer has last visited the library, and the resultant mess is truly something to behold. Luckily, it is practically deserted; a single person sits at a desk that is thickly covered in paper and various bottles of ink. He’s been there since before Briony’s arrival, engrossed in his work, and she easily dismisses him as she searches the shelves for something she is growing more and more positive does not actually exist.
She drags the ladder down to the next stack, leaning it carefully against the shelves. Scrambling up the rungs silently and somewhat less than gracefully, she sends a silent prayer to whoever is listening that the man below and just behind her at the table will not choose this moment to look up from his work. She works her way up to the top shelf, fingers seeking purchase, and she pulls herself up to look at the dusty pile of manuscripts. Her eyes light on the edge of one, and she teases it from beneath the others, shoving aside another ratty stack of pages as she does so.
Not pages, she realizes suddenly, as a mass of feathers and claws and a beak comes exploding from the shredded pile of papers. Briony rears back sharply; she has been the first person here in ages, clearly, at least long enough for this bird to make itself quite the substantial nest, and she congratulates herself on her keen observation skills in the split second before the ladder topples backward.
Briony gives an undignified squawk on the way down, and there is a muffled curse as the man below her shoves himself out of the way. Ladder and healer smash to the table, sending ink bottles toppling and splattering rainbows of glittering droplets; she rolls to protect the book she still holds, sending herself off the other side of the desk in a shower of papers, quills, inkpots and feathers. She coughs in the dust cloud she’s dragged down with her, still curled around the precious manuscript and unwilling to see if she’s damaged it or whether Jaer’s necessary information is still legible.
She is vaguely aware of a pair of boots, then of leather-clad knees before her face. The man kneels next to her in the shambles, waving dust from the air as he coughs in the miasma of book dust, crushed herb samples and who knows what else, and she recognizes him at last.
Loki. Son of Odin. Brother to Thor. Prince of Asgard. On the off chance that anyone else is listening, since the first deity doesn’t seem to have done their job, she prays to have a hole open in the floor beneath her, or at least to be allowed to melt into pudding. Either seems acceptable at the moment.
His hands ghost across her arms and shoulders, looking for injuries, and he cannot seem to be able to decide whether to laugh or be concerned. He seems to have chosen the former; a gentle chuckle escapes him as he pulls a fluffy, green-stained feather from her hair.
“You,” he says, “are an absolute disaster.”
He is saying something else; she knows he is, but she cannot understand a word. She stares at him with her mouth open, the Words on her arm echoing in her ears after nearly a hundred years of waiting. He helps her to her feet, gently patting at the dusty, ink-dappled mess she’s become.
“It can’t be you,” she blurts out, cutting him off in what she assumes to be mid-sentence by the shocked look on his face, and she drops the book and claps her hands over her mouth, mortified at interrupting the Prince. Treason. It’s probably treason to talk over royalty, now that she thinks about it, and she’s almost grateful that she’ll be executed. It will save centuries of soul-crushing humiliation at the memory of this moment.
He pulls her hands none-too-gently from her mouth. His voice is low and curious. “What did you say?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, but it makes no sense,” she says in a rush. “They’re from another realm. She told me so. She told me. Don’t you understand? It can’t possibly be you. You’re a prince of Asgard. I’m not. I mean, obviously I’m not. I’m just here to find a book for my friend. You’re… I’m-”
Loki puts a finger to her lips with a grin. “-talking too much,” he finishes for her, “and Odin’s beard, have I got a story for you.”
Briony blinks, mind still awhirl. “A what?”
“Later,” he says, taking his hand away, and then she is in his arms with his lips on hers and nothing else matters in the least. She is complete; she is whole, the Words on her arm tingling with gentle warmth as his fingers brush across them at last.
They break apart for good long moments later, breath unsteady, and she hesitantly reaches up to brush her finger across his lower lip. It comes back with a smear of dark blue ink, and he laughs as he touches her lips, the same color smudging his own skin when he shows it to her.
“Truly a matched set,” he chuckles. “Well, no point in keeping it a secret. They’d find out soon enough anyway.” He kisses her again, more carefully this time, but the damage has been done. It’s indelible ink, she knows, and the marks will stay on both of them for days. She recognizes the feeling of the ink, having made enough of it herself, and this is one kind so stubborn even most seidr can’t remove it. She laughs at the thought; he seems to understand, and then they are standing in the middle of a maelstrom of dust and paper and drifting feathers, giggling like mad at this strange, perfect moment, until she stops with a gasp, remembering why she came in the first place. She drops to her knees, searching the mess.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, following her down. “Are you well?”
“Fevers.” she replies. “Farms. Jaer. Book. I forgot all about them; damn you and your perfect lips anyways.”
“Now why couldn’t those have been my Words?” he says petulantly in response, finding the book beneath his overturned chair. He studies the title page. “Ásgeir’s work?” he asks. “You’re joking, right?”
“She didn’t seem to be.”
“Ugh.” He tosses the manuscript to one side. “His methods have been outdated since before I could walk.” Loki holds up a hand to forestall her protest. “And don’t give me that old ways are still the best ways nonsense,” he says, climbing to his feet and pulling her up after him. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“The farms, of course,” he tells her. “We’ve got a job to do, and afterward, that healer of yours and I are going to have a very long chat.” He takes her hand, twining his fingers with her, and gives her a peck on the cheek, picking one last feather out of her braided hair as he does so.
“Well,” he admits after a moment, “perhaps not right after.”
Briony laughs, giving him a playful swat and raising a cloud of dust, and together they walk into the bright summer sun.