Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter XII - Aila

***Hliðskjálf (pronounced "HLITH-skyahlf," with the "y" being a slide vowel like the "y" sound in "few") is a high vantage point from which Odin can see everything that happens in the cosmos.***

The thoughts and feeling vying for supremacy were manifold and varied in intensity. Uppermost in Aila's conscious, amidst the clamor and confusion of these equivocal sensibilities, was the awareness of two antithetical emotions: desire and fear. The latter was doubtless compounded by the ominous intimations evoked by his strange warning.

The vicissitude of passions were such that she knew not what to say in answer to him. Howbeit, no response had been required. Loki's thoughts were now, even as she watched him, inclining swiftly towards a more amorous predilection.

Before she thought to question his sudden movement, he had already positioned her effortlessly — with supernatural speed — so that she was now straddling his hips, each now searching the other's gaze for what might lie behind their veiled looks. Aila had no doubt as to what her countenance revealed. She could easily hear how her heart lurched violently in her chest, and had no doubt as to his perceiving it too. But whether it stemmed from alarm or ardor, she knew not; indubitably both. With a light touch to her furrowed brow, he released the tension there and smiled ruefully at her.

"I will not force you, Aila," said he grudgingly, resignation lacing his every word. "It is not too late for you."

"Do you want me to go?" She felt that he was both pushing her away and luring her in, as though he were two different entities instead of one.

"No!" Loki's lips compressed marginally, as he further pondered her question. "And yes."

"I would not wish to be anywhere but here; with you." She sighed her determination and realized, with dawning insight, that her declaration was absolutely true.

"But you...fear my touch?" He raised a single brow.

"I do not. I fear your caveat of earlier." His premonitory words yet rang tangibly between them. 'I gave you leave to run away; I warned you. Remember that...'

"Yes." He brushed a finger lightly across her cheek and down her neck.

"I would be foolish not to heed them." Uttered as they were by a god, no less.

"Yes."

"Tell me what will happen. Please, Loki."

"I have told you. I cannot know for sure, and I would not wish to deceive you of all people." His face was now wholly devoid of aught that might hint at what he was thinking or feeling.

The way he sat watching her, so like the god portrayed in the legends of old, unsettled her where she had been calmed by him before. His azure eyes flashed their unearthly, intent vigilance, his dark hair seeming to float eerily as it framed his marble-hewn features.

"I wonder that you are deemed so terrifying and distrusted by everyone. I cannot seem to correlate that which I have heard...with who you have revealed yourself to be." Although, one had merely to look at him to know why he was afeared.

"Aila," he murmured bitterly, "I have walked this earth, and others, for millennia; what being remains uncorrupted and irreproachable after so interminable an age? Even the Allfather's hands are imbrued with the blood of many. He is not loved, but feared."

"But Thor is loved, as is Balder and Frigg..." She might have continued listing the beloved Aesir, but his brows lowered sullenly.

"Yet someone must be hated and blamed for all the world's afflictions." He then relaxed his features once more. "And that blackguard must be me."