The Queen of Jotunheim

Chapter 17: The Winter Ball

Chapter 17:
Will you dance with me at
The Winter Ball

Loki was trying to remember when he last felt this happy, and he could honestly not come up with a reliable answer.

Yes, there had been very lovely times with his mom, snuggled under a blanket against a frost-covered glass pane as they read a book together. Yes, there had been those rare moments where his father would have praised him for something he did, making him feel 12 feet tall! Yes, there had been times with his brother that he would always cherish in his heart.

But nothing could compare to how he felt now.

He sat up against a tree in his favorite spot in the garden, which was his little secret, a hiding place no one else knew about, reading one of his favorite books out loud, sharing the magical world from inside the pages, while the fingers of his free hand laid on the soft blanket he sat on, almost close enough to touch the hand of the lovely woman by his side.

Nix was leaning against the tree too, sitting with a warm smile beside him as she looked at the book he was reading, her eyes following the words on the page as he read, as she listened contently to his voice.

It turned out the Queen of Jotunheim was as much a book fan as Loki was, and they had spent almost all of their free time together simply finding a good place to sit and read by themself, or read to each other, sharing their favorite stories, theories, and other knowledge hidden inside their books.

As Loki read the last line and closed the book, he looked up at her with eyes of wonder and a waiting smile, eager to hear her thoughts. She looked back at him, her eyes warm and her smile bright. "I can see why that one is your favorite," Nix said, chuckling that lovely sound like bells that made Loki's ears tingly with delight, "I think it's one of my favorites now too!"

"I'm glad you like it," Loki said honestly, putting the book carefully back in his bag and securing it. Nix had now been here for a couple of months, well, technically she had been coming and going for a couple of months, along with the other Diplomats.

They all had stuff to attend to at their home from time to time, and so the meetings were sometimes halted to give people a chance to get their realms sorted before returning to the Yggdrasil table as they now called it.

Loki had missed whenever Nix went away but had been spending the time with the other Jotuns who stayed behind. He and Rime had been exchanging magical tips, along with the other Jotunn magicians and sometimes the Asgardian ones too, including his beaming mother.

He and Ebon have spent a lot of time in the library, looking over documents and history books and comparing them to those of Jotunheim. Some Asgardians- and even Vanir schoolers joined in on that, making Loki beam with happiness from seeing the different realms work together and share knowledge.

He also went to the training hall with the Jotuns. That interaction had been rather tense when some Asgardian warriors came in to train too, that is until Fandral joined and called the Asgardian warriors chickens for being scared of training with the Jotunn warriors, and soon everyone was engaging in a friendly brawl. Even some Dwarfs joined in on the fun.

And of course, when Nix returned the Jotuns threw her a 'Welcome back' feast, every single time without fail, and Loki and Fandral were invited too, dining with friends and engaging in conversation and just overall having a good time. Somehow Volstagg had been invited too one day, and he and a Jotunn named Bjornfrost seemed to engage in a competition to see who could eat the most.

It had all in all been the best time of Loki's life.

"So," Loki said, turning back toward Nix with an excited smile, "what book should-" but then he paused, watching Nix as she was looking up with a rather wondrous look in her eyes, stretching out her hand toward the sky and caught a single snowflake fluttering down.