A Gods Favor

Join Me for Dinner

Loki was walking down the corridor with Thor, having just left his fathers council discussion on the small envoy leaving in the morning to escort the Vanaheim courtiers to Asgard, when Fandral came around a corner.

"Ah, Thor," Fandral's voice cheerfully greeted the god of thunder before chilling a bit when he nodded to the trickster. "Loki, have either of you seen Ellie recently?"

"No," Loki clipped and kept walking but Thor stopped to answer.

"Yes, I saw her and Yrsa arrive back from the woods just before father's council."

Loki slowed his steps.

"Did she mention where she was going?" Fandral prodded.

"Her horse took a tumble in a rather slick mud patch and she came back filthy so I'd assume she'd be having a bath."

"Is she alright?" Loki and Fandral asked in unison and Thor eyed his brother with a strange look.

"Yes, she said she'd had to heal some scrapes on herself and an ankle on her horse but that she felt fine and would be down for supper."

Loki let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Very well," said Fandral. "I'll just catch her at supper then.

Elora sat down at her vanity with a plop as she tried to comb through her wet tangles swiftly. It had taken longer than expected to get all the mud from her hair and nails and now she was late and starving.

As she tugged at an extremely stubborn knot a knock came at her door. Groaning, she stood and crossed into her receiving room to open it.

"Good evening, Lady Elora." Loki's voice was soft and playful as he stood in her doorway holding a tray and Elora just stared at him dumbfounded. After an awkward moment he asked, "May I come in?"

"Oh, yes, of course." Elora stammered, stepping to the side to let the prince in; she didn't shut the door behind him, only stood and watched as he walked to the small table by the hearth and set down his tray.

Loki sat in one of the well worn chairs and looked back to Elora. "Will you be joining me or am I to eat alone as you attempt to stare holes through my person?"

"Apologies, Prince," She said, finally closing the door before walking slowly towards him. "I'm just not entirely sure what you're doing here."

"Well," he waved a hand and the cloches on the tray he'd brought in disappeared as he looked at her expectantly as if this was something they did all the time. "I thought you might like to practice your illusions a bit more over dinner, since our impromptu lesson was so short this morning."

So they ate and began to practice while Elora peppered Loki with questions about illusions and mind magic. How he juggled the motion of his own body in hiding against a duplicate and how many minds he could penetrate at once to execute presence manipulation and on and on.

"Why have you never asked my mother any of these questions?" He asked hours later as he dropped onto the settee and tossed his feet up.

In the center of the room, trying to maintain three duplicates and have them move independently, Elora's brow scrunched in concentration. "Because before this morning I didn't realize I had been going about illusion all wrong."

Squirming and trying to get comfortable around a lump in his seat he asked, "And how is it you've been doing it wrong all this time, that you didn't understand you had to have a focal point?"

Elora and all three of her duplicates faced him and each one took a turn speaking singular words to form a sentence. "Recall, Prince, when I came to Asgard I had already started learning magic." Her duplicates disappeared and she along with them before her un-embodied voice continued. "I must have been passable enough that the Queen didn't realize I was doing it wrong."