Re: Asgard: Loki/Thor
What question, what question? Loki's reaction was a flash of feral, bright teeth in a grin, and he would have smiled even wider if he had known his brother's train of thought. Friends. It had simply been a little tip of the hat to the long existence and acquaintance he held with these oldest of constancies. Loki had no friends, and he held iron solid, cold and bright, that he needed none. Not ever. Behind his resolve was bitter, acrid knowledge - none would have him. Not that it bothered him an inch.
Suddenly, Loki began to slow his horse. Here, deep into the wood, the world was green and dark. It smelled of loam, of low-lying fungus, of fertile green things growing from the dead.
There was birdsong in the distance, but nowhere near the opening they now approached. It was a natural arch, a hollow in the earth, beneath a hill covered in trees and velvet moss that crested up and beyond, toward the sun again. A faint smell of woodsmoke came from inside, though no light was visible. The tunnel turned to wet stone, and the passage bent downward only a few feet in, making it impossible to tell who might be beneath.
Loki dismounted his horse, rubbing a careful hand across its flank, tying it to a nearby tree stump. "Now I insist you be on your best behavior," he said. "They hardly ever take visitors, and I traded them something of value for the privilege of knowing where they might be for a few days more." He stepped toward the opening, glancing toward Thor. Had he caught on yet? He smiled. Would he catch on at all?
His feet crunched through dead wet leaves from an autumn long past, still moldering here underfoot. He ducked his head to step inside the opening, leading the way through. "There is no sign of Karnilla in Nornheim, so I could not say why they have left that place. But they move, now, remaining out of sight. I chanced upon them, really." A knife's edge grin. He was pleased with his find. "A stroke of luck."
Around the bend of wet stone, now lit with licks of orange from a fire. Around the bend, the stone widened, gaping into a subterranean chamber. A fire was crackling merrily, and three women sat around it, teasing out a tangled web of threads from beneath the dark cloaks that hid their heads.
One lifted her head. Her face was invisible beneath the hood, but there was a tremulous croaking sound like speech. Princes? I thought only one at a time, but here are princes, not only one!
The Norns all laughed, youthful voices and old, seemingly as one body.