“I wish I'd known this look appealed to you earlier” Bragi said. He kept his tone very cool. Since he had relinquished the spoon, he now had one hand to do with as he pleased. Kings had become corrupted for less power than that. Bragi just had to decide what to do with it. He reached over and laced his fingers in between hers, and squeezed her hand. Now they were even. “This morning I could have just left the shaving cream on.” If she kept grinning at him like that, the ice cream would become soup before either one of them got to it.....Worth it.
The Swedish heiress hadn't struck him as very abrasive, but she had been rather hard to please. Bragi imagined that was pretty common with heiresses, but he decided to overlook it when it came to her. He'd met her sister. She'd had to put up with a lot of abrasion herself. But it was silly about the bluejays. If she would only give them a chance, Bragi was sure she would find them delightful. They were wonderful birds. “An aquarium” Bragi decided. “You can't get farther from birds than that. Plus they can be incredibly romantic. Aquariums. Especially in the tunnels. I'll have to take you for a picnic there after closing one of these days. As a trial run for the clockmaker of course.”
Bragi's jaw dropped in mock horror. She'd....She'd just....! It was one thing to put it there, but an entire other thing to take it back. On top of it, she'd made that face, and now Bragi was grinning at her too much to retaliate. He just shook his head at her. Shame, woman. Shame. It would have been more effective if Bragi weren't still smiling. “Of course it will be perfect” Bragi said, “You are the best plotting mastermind and cook in all the nine worlds. And we are very good at improvising when we need to. Even with the dove incident the librarian told me he had a very good time. Mostly.” He didn't know how well it would work out at that point, but Bragi had no reason not to be optimistic. They'd already done well with one meeting, and Idun hadn't even been to that, and she made things better.
Bragi wrinkled his nose. “The Long Friendship road?” he asked incredulously. “Who would be crazy enough to try something like that? That sort of thing is reserved as a last resort for only the most hopeless of cases.” Bragi paused. He met Idun's eyes, and smiled. “Though I have heard that under the right circumstances, it can yield very positive results.”