A cold hand grabs your wrist as you swing it, yanking your body forward as sweet caresses of mint and honeyed breath fondle your cheeks. Your heart flutters and your cheeks grow warm.
"Always sweep the leg, darling. They'll be expecting the punch."
"Loki," you breathe out. But you manage nothing else before Loki's lips are on yours.
He holds you gently, running his fingers down your cheek as he pulls you in by your waist.
"I've missed you, kærasta," he mumbles against your lips with a smile.
For several long minutes, Loki kisses you deeply and slowly. There's no urgency in his movements, as if you both have all the time in the world to reacquaint yourselves with one another.
Once your breath grows short, and your mind begins to clear you break the kiss and open your eyes to stare into his emerald gaze. How you have missed those devilish eyes.
"Are you well, my love?" asks Loki as his thumb drifts lazily over your bottom lip.
"I'm better," you answer.
Loki smiles, and wraps his arms around you once more, pulling you into his chest. In the quiet, early morning hours he simply holds you in the great hall. You rest your head on his chest re-familiarizing yourself with his heartbeat as Loki runs his fingers through your hair - his silent way of saying you matter to him.
"Why are you here, Lo? Is there a lead? Where's our son?"' you ask quietly, never wanting the moment to end, but desperate to understand what's happening.
"Hush, love. I can feel the weariness in your body. You haven't been sleeping well. Why?" Loki counters.
You let out a tired sigh and lean further into him. You aren't sure how he knows, but he's right.
"I guess I was just missing you," you mutter quietly. "It was quiet here without you."
Loki laughs quietly, deeply within his chest as he presses light kisses to the top of your head.
"My love, you know that even when we are apart you are a constant fixture in my mind. Not a moment goes by that I do not think of you. Not a moment goes by that I can't think of you. The Goddesses have fated it such. You are never without me."
Your heart leaps and your stomach feels like it's been dropped out a window at Loki's words. You know he's speaking the truth, because you feel the same.
It's an overwhelming and powerful love you feel for Loki. Not just lust or attraction, but an all-consuming and desperate need to protect, support, provide, and comfort the man before you. Even at the expense of your own health and happiness.
And when you're apart? Well, it's like...like a string that's been snipped in two, a painful space between their frayed edges.
"So tell me, love, what does my mother have you working on besides projections?" Loki says, gently pulling from your embrace.
"I'll tell you after you answer my questions first," you answer.
Loki cocks one brow as a playful smirk crosses his features. There are not many who dare speak back to the Prince of Asgard. But you've never had a problem doing so.
"Listen, Lo, it's not that I'm not glad to see you," you say. "I am. But why are you here? And where's Anthony?"
"I'm here because Thor summoned me in the early hours of the dawn saying my mother had to return to the palace, and that she wouldn't be returning for some time. He informed me that you needed me here to continue your training."
"What?" you ask. "But I spoke to Frigga, and she said she would be back by midday?"
"Apparently things have changed."
"Is there news of Amora?"
"Thor did not know."
"Hmm," you hum, crossing your arms and beginning to pace.
As much as you have enjoyed the routine ass-kickings that Frigga has been giving you the past three weeks, you are getting impatient. You find yourself hoping that this sudden change in the every day course of action is some indication that progress is being made.
"And our son?" you ask.
"In Midgard. I assumed you would not want him here."
"You're right," you say. "Although I miss him."
"And he misses his mother," Loki responds, walking up to you and taking your hands, stopping your pacing. Gently, he opens the palm of your left hand and brings it to his lips, placing a lingering kiss within. That always calms you down.
"How did it go?" you ask, as Loki places your open palm on the side of his own face, covering it with his hand as your thumb makes gentle brushing circles on his cheek.
"Your meaning, darling?" inquires Loki as he smiles into your eyes.
"With the family, Lo. How did it go on your own?"
Loki gives you what is perhaps the largest eye roll you've ever seen, but rather than pulling away from your touch, which is his normal defensive habit, he leans further into it.
"Everyone is alive."
"Loki," you laugh. "I need more details than that."
"The scientist remains his normal color."
"Aaaand?"
Loki sighs before kissing the tip of your nose and responding. "I discovered the Widow and I share a fondness for warm beverages, and the Captain is quite skilled at a Midgardian game of logic known as chess."
You can't help the smile that plasters your face.
"You spent time with them?" you ask happily, jaw dropping slightly and brows arching in surprise.
Loki scoffs. "I would not call it 'spending time' with them, darling. But it is quite difficult to go an entire month without base interaction between those you are forced to live with, no matter how I may have tried."
"And Tony?"
"Your father figure remains as vain and self-serving as always."
"Loki...," you say with a warning tone.
"But he was sated to see I carried this with me." With his free hand, Loki pulls his black metal band from the inside pocket of his robes. You grin and peck his cheek.
"And the Lady Virginia, I found, does indeed spend occasional afternoons in the library. I will say I enjoy her silent company."
You pull your hand from Loki's face and grab him by the lapels, pressing your lips to his in a gentle, yet firm display of love and appreciation.
"Thank you for getting along with them," you whisper.
"Did you assume I would not?" Loki answers back in a teasing tone. You simply give him a knowing glance.
"Now, my witchling, what has my mother tasked you with this afternoon?" Loki says, pressing one last kiss to your lips before snatching the list you had left laying on the small table in the middle of the room.
"I'm made a lot of progress, Lo," you say proudly.
"Oh?" he says, inspecting the list. "Shall we evaluate?"
"Bring it on," you answer.
Loki turns to look at you, a challenge in his stare.
"Very well, witchling. Let us start with defensive magic before moving to offensive magic. Summon for me your screen."
You grin, knowing your defensive screen is one of your stronger bits of seidr. Not even Frigga had managed to penetrate it.
Loki teleports to the other side of the great hall as you conjure your icy blue shield.
"Are you ready, darling?"
"It's not much of an attack if you tell me it's coming, Lo," you answer.
"That's my Valkyrie," he answers, before unleashing an unbelievable torrent of magical attacks.
You lower and widen your stance as the first of several bursts of green seidr hit your screen. Leaning into the forcefield you've created, you keep up your concentration as each of Loki's attacks is deflected, never so much as cracking the shield you've raised.
After several long minutes of relentless bolts and bursts, you find yourself breathing heavily, but not yet breaking a sweat.
"Well done, witchling," Loki says in praise. "And how about your deflection?"
Lowering your shield, you nod and take a few deep breathes before getting back in your stance. Summoning your seidr to your fingertips, you get ready as Loki creates a large emerald-green sphere and hurls it at you. Focused on it, you reach out and catch it in your hands only for a moment before redirecting it so that it explodes against the wall of the great hall.
Loki does this several more times, eventually sending two or three at a time your way. You manage to deflect nearly all of them, except for one sneaky orb he had sent hidden behind another. You had dodged that one.
"There is still room for improvement, but you have grown considerably. Your control is impressive," Loki says. "Now for the real test. Break through my defensive screen, darling."
You nod as Loki conjures his own force field in a beautiful, glowing green. You breathe in deeply through your mouth, and control your exhale through your nose as you feel your seidr course through your arms and shoulders.
All at once, you fire several large and powerful spheres, orbs, and bolts of dangerous seidr at Loki's shield. You can tell you've surprised him with your strength, as his screen flickers for only a moment before he reinforces it with stronger seidr.
"Well done, Valkyrie! Keep going!" he shouts.
Letting out a grunt of effort, you continue to summon your magic as you toss ray after ray of magic at Loki, whose defensive shield absorbs them all.
You continue to barrage Loki's defensive shield until you break a sweat. Finding your strength failing, you let out a final yell, summoning your remaining seidr to cast one final attack.
As it hits, you hear what sounds like glass shattering on ivory. Chest heaving, you look up at Loki whose stunned gaze flits from you to his screen. Although still solidly in tact, a thin crack runs down the middle. Something he had not been able to do to your own screen.
"Well would you look at that," you sing, looking up at Loki with your best innocent eyes.
Loki's gaze narrows hungrily as a dark grin spreads across his face. Vanishing his broken screen, he teleports directly in front of you and pulls you into a deep and hungry kiss, his hand running down your back.
"Nearly perfect, darling," he growls on your lips. "I'm impressed. My mother has taught you well."
"That's not all I've learned," you say, pushing away from Loki's kiss excitedly, much to his chagrin. "Watch this!"
Holding out your empty, open palm and focusing for a moment, you conjure a brilliantly crafted dagger. Long and sturdy with inlaid quartz and moonstone in the handles.
"My, my, witchling," Loki says, releasing his grip on you, genuinely surprised by the quality of the weapon. "You have improved your conjuration considerably," Loki says, taking the dagger from your hand and admiring it.
"I was supposed to start healing magic this week. But I guess I'll have to wait," you say, disappointed. You have been drawn to the concept of healing magic, and had been excited to get started with Frigga.
"Worry not, my love. I can teach you what I know."
"Which, I hear, isn't really all that much," you tease.
"You wound me, my lady," says Loki, feigning offense.
You merely shrug before placing a peck on his cheek. Loki grins and reaches once more for the list on the table.
"Let's see...hand to hand combat, weapons handling...you are already familiar with those areas. So I suppose the final piece of advanced magic, outside of healing, that my mother had hoped to teach you was astral projection," Loki muses. "The woman must know projection is inherent to the caster, not the seidr."
"What does that mean?" you ask.
Loki thinks for a moment before responding.
"Projection is unlike other forms of magic, my witchling," Loki answers thoughtfully. "The energy required to project comes what is known as the orkustöðvar of the caster. Although the Aesir share the same seidr, there are some forms of magic that are unique to the caster. Projection is one of these types of unique seidr, executable only by those who have the orkustöðvar to support it."
"Okay...well, can I learn how to get the right orka-whatever?" you ask.
Loki laughs.
"Yes, but it takes decades of dedicated practice, focus, and self-reflection for those not inherently born with the orkustöðvar they require. I fear we do not have the time."
"But you don't know for sure that I can't do it yet. Maybe I just need to practice?"
"Ever the optimist, my love," Loki jeers, circling you until he's immediately behind you, chest pressed against your beck. "Let us practice."
You shiver at his breath on your neck, but focus on the instructions Frigga had left for you. Unlike using your seidr when fighting, projection magic needs to flow from the chest to your lungs, rather than your stomach. Then out through the arms and fingertips.
You close your eyes and try again to create a copy of yourself. For a moment you see that same blue shimmer that you've already seen a million times this morning. But in an instant it's gone.
"See?" you cry out to Loki. "That's what keeps happening."
"You're losing focus, kærasta," says Loki in your ear. "You must...how did the Captain put it? 'Keep your eye on the ball', my love."
You groan in annoyance. Technically he was saying it right, but you have no idea what that means in this context.
"I don't get it, Lo."
"Watch me, darling," he says, stepping away and circling to your front.
You watch as Loki steps from his own body, then does so again, then again, until there are six Loki's standing before you. They all begin to circle you, but you keep your eye on the real Loki, until they begin to weave between each other and circle you. Eventually, you can't tell which one is the real one.
"Picture your seidr flowing from your fingertips like water," says a Loki to your side.
"Then stay focused, watching in your mind and picturing it spilling to the ground," says another Loki ahead of you.
"As it hits the ground, it fills a mold, creating a copy of you," says a third Loki from directly beside you.
"And once it fills that mold," says a voice that leaves behind ribbons of cool breath on your neck. "You will stand before yourself."
All six Loki's begin advancing on you, and you feel your heartbeat quicken as the breath on your neck disappears and you lose track of the real Loki once more.
"I...I still don't understand," you say, swallowing nervously as each Loki eyes you up and down with the same hungry stare.
You jump slightly as a Loki from slightly behind you to your right answers.
"Perhaps this is a skill you need not obtain," he says.
"At least not right now," says another from your left.
You gasp as an arm snakes around your waist.
"Besides," a whisper in your ear makes you shiver. "I have something else on my list I'd like to get to."
You feel the buzzing warmth of Loki's seidr cover your body, and in a flash of green the great hall and the audience of Loki's disappears.