fel dreams

 

But some of what he loves about the future is how easy knowledge is to come by, even though that means sometimes he learns things he doesn’t like.

 

He won’t get Loki a diamond because there’s a lot he doesn’t like about how they’re gotten, or the trade that goes on around them, but there’s apart of him–a traditional part, Steve Rogers before waking up in the future, a Steve who didn’t know those things–that registers a formal, tight-voiced complaint that he’s giving up how it used to be done.

 

It has been raining for nearly a week now, and Sigyn watches it and she wonders a little.

 

Mostly, she mourns, and for that she is grateful for the rain even if it means that someone she feels little sympathy for mourns as well.

 

Indeed, much of Asgard mourns; he may not have always been well-liked, may have sometimes had a jest gone too far, but he was Asgard’s odd prince.

 

She mourns privately, for all the public space where it alright to. She knows what rare privilege it was to be allowed into his confidences; he was not a lover, at least not physically, and yet his loss aches as much as that, perhaps more.

 

(It is safe to admit, alone, that he was one of her rare friends as much as she was one of his.)

 

They say Prince Thor has been changed, drawn in and reflective as few have ever seen him. The rain at least lends some credence to that, though Sigyn is not sure how much she believes it.

 

She hopes so; the cost was certainly high enough.

 

(Too high, she thinks, sitting on a balcony where she’d passed more than one evening in her beloved’s company, sweet wine on their lips and sweeter laughter in the air.)

 

Five Loki thinks. Five is also prime, so perhaps he needs have more faith in Tony.

 

“Yes,” Loki lies, because he does not know if he’s okay. His fingers trip over Tony’s chest, count the wrinkles of his shirt, hands shaking.

 

Bruce might push at that; Bruce would certainly not believe it (and why should he, Bruce who recognizes demons all too well, who is a demon, and it grates, the thought, there, that Bruce knows something is wrong.

 

“What happened last night?” Tony asks, and his voice isn’t careful, it’s insistent, demanding, grounding.

 

“A bad dream,” he says, and that is truth, of a sort, because it was that.

 

(need to count, one-two-three, one-two-three, three three three, blood and bone, blood and bone, he killed her, she’s dying, his fault his fault his fault–)

 

“Hey,” Tony says and Loki closes his eyes–

 

pity that didn’t last longer, pity indeed, but there’s more to do, oh yes yes yes, four left, who next?

 

–and opens them again, aching build-up pressure in the back of his head.

 

“Let’s go out,” Loki says instead of I’m going mad.

 

Underneath the lights, it’s hot and bright, and sweat drips down the knobs of her spine. Too bright, too hot, and it’s blinding, so that she cannot see out into the darkness and what lies there.

 

If her eyes adjust, she will see them, hundreds of faces upturned and waiting, ears open.

 

It never gets any easier, she thinks. This is like a breath, held, and it makes the air tremble.

 

You wonder idly what truth it is she seeks this time; you have had hundreds of truths taken from you, idle questions that make you wonder what the Aesir even know of the Vanir, if anything.

 

(Is it true there is tar in your wine, is it true some women go bare-chested, is it true there are sea serpents large enough to make Jormungandr seem small, is it true is it true is it true and you smile the curve of a smile that here means nothing.)

 

“Is what true?” you ask politely, quietly, so as not to draw attention from the queen’s conversation.

 

(You have learned it is often best to hold your silences at these afternoon gatherings; it lessens how many A lady in Asgard’s you collect.)

 

“That your uncle bedded your mother?”

 

You should ask her to repeat the question, you should say Pardon, but the thought of saying pardon when you have been asked if your uncle Njord slept with your mother is nearly as offensive as the question itself.

 

“Is it true,” you say snidely, unkind and loud enough that all may hear, “that your husband brings his hounds to bed? No? Oh, beg pardon, Svala, it is only what I have heard at court.”

 

Svala flushes bright, and you see anger her eyes, but you smile sweetly at her as you stand.

 

“Pardon, Majesty,” you say to the queen, “but I have an appointment I forgot about elsewhere.”

 

(It is a thin lie, but you do not care. To suggest such–they forget, again and again and again, your uncle and mother are not Olympians, are not of that twisted branch, and you will not coddle their forgetfulness. Let them say you are not lady-like. If a lady of Asgard dares ask such, then it is even less the type of woman you would be.)

 

“Of course,” the queen says, graceful as always, and she gives your curtsy a nod before you leave.

 

(Svala will not be at these gatherings in the future, and no one dares ask such Is it true questions again, but you know it is in their minds. It is a comfort, at least, that the queen has put an end to it.)

 

In truth, you do not have anywhere to go except back to your rooms, and you cannot stomach the thought of being trapped there; you wander away from the gardens until you end up at the pastures by the stables. They remind you a little of home, with tall grasses and wildflowers.

 

There is no one here, no one to see you pull the shawl tight to your shoulders for warmth, no one to see you when you sit beneath a twisted old tree. The land here is flat and you can see all the way back to the palace. You stare at it for a while, your thoughts idle, and suddenly all you can think is how you miss home, miss the feel and smell of the sea, miss the sight of wave-beaten rocks. There are no gulls here despite their not-ocean, no salt in the air to sting your eyes and lay flavour on your tongue. The landscape has trees–pine and oak and hundreds you have no name for–not the scraggly and twisted olive trees that dot the craggy peaks of home, and here, where no one can see, for the first time since you arrived weeks ago, you pull your knees close and weep for what you needed to leave behind.

 

(Peace is hard-won, you think, and you should not mourn for what you have given. It is better than blood and death, and at least you yet live.)

 

(It does not ease how your heart aches.)

 

Something snuffles your hair and you start, looking up through tears. The something prances back, a horse, and you rub your eyes, sure your vision too blurred, and instead see that your eyes do not deceive you. He does have eight legs.

 

You laugh, weak and knowing it sounds near hysterical.

 

The horse eyes you warily, but when you do not do anything else, he shoves his nose back in your lap.

 

“I do not have anything,” you tell the stallion as he snuffs, reaching to scratch behind his ears. He seems near disappointed, or as disappointed as a horse may be, rolling his eyes at you. 

 

“Do not look at me that way, I did not know I would be meeting a horse today, let alone one with eight legs. Is there nothing normal about this place?”

 

(Perhaps it is ridiculous to talk as if he understands you, but a horse, at least, will have no way to demand a thousand truths from you, nor remind you that it is impolite to show your temper.)

 

The horse huffs, stirring you hair, before losing interest. He does not go far though.

 

(Perhaps he is as puzzled by you as you by him; you certainly do not resemble any Aesir here.)

 

The next day, instead of an afternoon with the queen, you go to the pastures and their faint echo of home, and when the strange horse begins to follow behind you, you offer him sugar and apples snuck away from your morning meal, stroke his soft nose, and talk to him as you wish you could talk to anyone here.

 

(Sometimes, you think he must understand you; it is in his reactions, snuffs and whinnies and nudges, eye rolls and headbutts, but surely not. He is only a horse, though one of many extra limbs and of a size that you’ve never seen in a horse, and you only want for someone who might understand and sympathize. Wishful thinking, you think, and nothing more.)

 

He was tall and lithe, skin pale and hair dark, and when he glanced up at Steve, Steve had never fallen quite so hard.

 

He was drinking tea under the willow trees, a book supported in his lap, and he quirked an eyebrow at Steve full of amused curiosity, and Steve tried not to tumble on his tongue. He ducked his head down, and Steve went on his way because he was meant to be at the beach life-guarding already.

 

Steve passed him near every day for two weeks, and he was always sipping tea and reading. Steve always drank the sight of him in, and Steve tried to be discrete about it, he did, but he’d always glance up at Steve and a smile would quirk his lips and Steve would need to hurry on his way; so instead of watching him Steve would remember him the rest of the afternoon, draw sketches at night in the corners of papers for college, and wonder what his name was.

 

“Do you ever intend to ever say hello?” he said one afternoon, voice lazy in the high heat, and Steve blushed scarlet to the roots of his hair.

 

“Hello,” Steve said and stopped. “You wanna get sodas?” he asked and then nearly kicked himself.

 

“I might consider it,” he said, and he smiled, cat-wide and amused, “but you’ll have to buy.”

 

“Okay,” Steve said and stopped again.

 

“Will you ask my name?”

 

“I’m Steve,” Steve said, “what’s yours?” and Steve offered a hand to help him stand. His hand was smooth, long-fingered and graceful like Steve’s never were without a pencil, and Steve tried not to watch how the muscles in his arm flowed beneath the skin as he pulled himself up.

 

“Loki,” Loki said, and he smiled, eyes sparkling mischievous, and Steve thought he might do anything for that smile.

 

“It’s something for your dad.”

 

Vali eyes the bag. No wonder he doesn’t let Blane do any of the colour design for their projects.

 

“What for?”

 

“Oh. You know. Not killing me.”

 

“That doesn’t mean he won’t,” Vali points out, his face straight, and smiles when Blane snorts.

 

“Oh, I know. I just appreciate him not killing me this time.”

 

Vali sighs, taking the bag and leaning into Blane’s shoulder. (He likes how Blane feels, the weight of him, the strength and certainty of his emotions just beneath the surface, and wonders how he stayed blind for so long to what lies between them. He supposes it’s for the best, really.)

 

“Fine, I’ll give it to him. But I’m putting it in a different bag. What is it, anyway?”

 

“Something he’ll like,” Blane says, closed off and neutral. Vali blinks at him, then eyes the bag. He supposes he won’t pry; if Blane doesn’t want to explain what on earth he found that Father will like, then no need to pry.

 

“Right. Well then. Pizza?”

 

“Sure,” Blane says, leaning his head in and rubbing his nose along the shell of Vali’s ear.

 

He pauses as he walks in, but he cannot place what it is immediately. His eyes roam over the bookcase and then the desk. Everything is still alphabetical, the papers are still lined up exactly an inch from the corner. The laptop is off and closed, the chair two inches from fully flush to the desk’s edge.

 

Not the desk then.

 

He walks into his room, setting his bookbag down exactly an inch from the wall and half a foot from the door. Already it feels like his skin is itching, an his hand twitches.

 

Something is off, and he has no idea what it is.

 

“Thomas?” his mother calls hours later, “it’s dinner.”

 

He freezes, in the middle of remaking the bed for the fourth time, trying to smooth the sheets, trying to get a sense of right back.

 

(You’ve heard tales of Arachne and her challenge to the gods, and you scoff at that. The Greeks, you think, are barbaric and they give your kind a bad name with their ways. No wonder Asgard thinks Vanaheim full of backwater farmers and fishermen and forget the quiet might that has forced them to stalemate generations ago, when the tales the mortals speak of are nothing but the pettiness of that clan. The Olympians and their Olympus; you are glad, not for the first time, you were given to your uncle’s care when your father’s boat foundered, not your aunt’s.)

 

You hear that your future mother-in-law weaves, and that is a comfort, one of the only one’s you have taken besides your pick between the brothers.

 

(But you are proud and you do not complain, though you will be taken from hills and rocks and rough seas and set on stable ground amid the too-cold stars. Peace, you know, is hard-won and ever changing, and it is not in you to mourn what cannot be changed.)

 

You finish winding the thread on the shuttle–green and vibrant as the hillsides of the home you are leaving soon, and begin to weave.

 

(Your only concession to Asgard’s chill that you will feel every day, this himation done in hues of your future husband.)

 

It’s harmless anyway, just a saucer of milk and heel of bread.

 

He hears them, but it doesn’t matter.

 

Steve, don’t you think you’re getting a little old for that?

 

You spoil him, Martha. 

 

He sets his jaw a little. It’s not a matter of age–he’s eight, and maybe eight isn’t so old, but it doesn’t mean he’s wrong. He knows he’s not.

 

Don’t mind. He’s a sweet lad, just a bit of an odd duck. Likes his fancy.

 

It’s not right, it’s not. What’s the Church gonna think?

 

Steve’s near fifteen and he doesn’t ignore it now. He twists the bit of green-blue cloth around his fingers, habit he’s done since six that has left the fabric no more worn. It looks as new as when he first received it; even the frayed edges the same. There’s a gilt and gold embroidered snowflake at one end, and he rubs his thumb over it.

 

I’m leaving, he tells his mother, late in the night. There’s not much a fifteen year old can save, but he’s saved what he’s got, earned it as much as any.

 

She frowns at him, but she’s seen it coming for as long as him.

 

Take care. Don’t eat or drink from their tables, don’t lie, and remember–a promise is a promise only when thrice spoke, she says, and she kisses his forehead.

 

Steve the sidhe near purrs in the dark of the wood, eyes glimmering the blue-green of a frozen lake, and even in the night Steve can see where the ribbon belongs, the torn edge of cloak that matches the cloth he has tucked in his pocket.

 

It’s not false worship, Steve thinks, if you know it to be truth. There’s a difference between faith and knowledge.