After Loki's lost bet with Thor, D.B. Cooper causes chaos on Midgard, and a war with Vanaheim rises in the East, so Odin proposes a wager of his own to his youngest son:
An arranged marriage, one for the public. If the terms of the deal are honored...
Warnings: Panic Attacks, mentions of rape (just the word), mentions of abuse, mentions of rough sex
Summary: Loki decides to do some research on Fae culture... and listen in on Adora after the feast. The next day, Adora struggles through her wedding dress fitting. Loki isn't much help.
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Loki hadn't slept, instead sitting awake for most of the night staring at the ceiling. His night with Adora troubled him, and his realization that his father had played him for a fool angered him beyond belief.
She was a sensitive creature, something that he had never noticed before the five-hundred year war. Loki's memories of Adora were of her bouncing around and dancing in the Great Hall, flirting her way through seas of dignitaries and just generally being a happy person. The Adora he met last night had been a far cry from that, instead a ball of nerves terrified of stepping out of line.
What happened over the last five hundred years to quiet such a beaming smile? Even more important, why did he care? Loki tried to tell himself that it would only aid his knowledge in understanding Adora's motives, and Alfheim's, but in truth he knew it was because he did not wish to add to her suffering.
Loki could be an arsehole, sometimes a dick, but he was not cruel. This woman was to be by his side for the next twenty years, and the thought of being a source of misery for someone so close to him bothered him greatly. The critical look in her eye when he confessed his lack of knowledge of her people replayed in his mind over and over until he had to get up and make his way to the libraries in the catacombs.
Alfheim was a beautiful place, he remembered that much. It was filled with flora and fauna, mysterious animals, and treacherous landscapes. There were giant plants with mouths that looked like flowers, but would eat you if you stepped on their leaves, others that produced the sweetest perfumes and oils. Unicorns littered the countryside, the silk their manes produced creating most of the fabrics in the realm.
His mother possessed two giant cats from the land, Bygul and Trjegul she called them, and he'd seen them pull her chariot into battle on more than one occasion. They were fantastic tabby beasts Thor had given her long ago, and Loki had always loved them dearly.
The stars glittered much like the fairy lights in his tunnels, and his mother told him and Thor once as children on a visit that they had been a gift from the Fae of old, to illuminate the dark purple sky and guide the way of weary travelers.
But be careful, loves, she told them quietly in their carriage as they approached the palace for the first time. Sometimes the lights trick you, take you to places you never wanted to go, but fate wants you to be nonetheless.
Sitting in the candlelight, he read stories of Moon Elves fluttering about, glowing with Firefly Wine as they raised their bioluminescent flora, of the Ice Elves living in the harsh frozen tundra at the edge of Alfheim's borders and raising their large Polar Bears, of the Cat Elves riding their winged cats into battle from Nornheim. His eyebrows raised in interest as he read of the triple-jointed Pleasure Elves who served as concubines and lovers among the peoples of the realm, but they were all just stories, fairytales written by Asgardian scholars.
