Floriography // A Loki Fanfiction

Chapter One: Mentha

Many mortals worshiped the Asgardians as true deities, it was of the age where humanity was still within their own cradle of ignorance. The ice giants had recently been repelled from causing the death of the planet and their great-great-grandparents had passed down the harrowing and inspiring tales to their children. How could these pathetic mortal creatures not worship them?

Of course, Thor, his dear brother, had made a grand show of it. Having not even fought in the battle himself he awed them with displays of great might and shows of crackling lightning. It was like watching children be amazed at cheap parlor tricks. Speaking of. He looked down to his hand, turned it palm facing outward then back palm side up. A slender dagger had been summoned to his palm. He kept doing the same motion making it disappear and reappear. Loki was bored waiting for his brother to finish his flirting with the woman of Midgard.

Their language was strange, rooted in an ancient manner that left much to decipher though they had begun to take on Asgardian terms over the last few decades and he was no stranger to what gossiping looked like. Three women passed by the longhouse he had been standing at the doorway of. Loki chose to look like one of them while he was here with Thor, unlike his brother he disliked the attention all the time. So, they were none the wiser than to speak within his earshot.

"Stelpan, hún er komin aftur í skóginn." One of them huffed to another.

"Syngja?" The word for singing.

A nod was given, "Kjánaskapur," oh yes he was very much aware of this word, he often called Thor this one and it was a fun little secret so long as his brother remained unaware it meant foolishness, "hún ætti að vera að vinna." The one speaking made a gesture as if pulling weeds then looked up to him, "Hvað ertu að gera hér?"

He knew what that last line meant too, it was time for him to go as he'd not be able to reply without sounding suspicious. He gave the three of them a smile before pushing off the doorframe to walk in the opposite direction down the dirt road. He had to think about what was said to understand, though it was a good mental exercise and distraction rather than waiting bored to death for his brother. Stelpan was a girl or young woman and skóginn sounded much like skógur the word for forest. He was intelligent enough to put the rest of it together. A young woman was shirking her chores to go sing in the forest and they were upset about it.

He chuckled. What simple concerns. It was not the first time he had heard these women gossip about a young girl running off to the woods now that he thought about it. Loki supposed it was somewhat strange as the women on Midgard worked tirelessly without an ounce of the same technology that they had on Asgard, all while their husbands and brothers were off finding glory for his father in some tribal kind of display. A single lady shirking her chores if often enough could starve a family. He was curious to pay a visit to the troublemaker. Mischief being his favorite pastime.

As he crossed the threshold from the village into the woodlands his form shifted and changed, he felt the magic on him fade. His own features felt more comfortable as he traversed the dense forest. It was peaceful, he hated to admit anything on Midgard was nice, the soft chirping of the birds and the occasional shake of a bush from a skittering forest creature broke the faint whispers of the breeze among the leaves. The sun was still high in the sky yet it barely found the forest floor between the lush tops of the trees. He was following a sort of trail but could not tell if it was made by a deer or a human. It was by chance that when he turned his head to look up at the sun something else caught his eye, a flash of crème cloth from the tree line.

He went to inspect and a smile came to his lips. He found the troublemaker it seemed; a young woman sat in a small clearing with a full basket of herbs. He thought that was perhaps what one of the three women had motioned to – foraging herbs rather than pulling weeds. Her back was to him and what he had seen was a flutter of her long skirts as another light breeze came past.