#There's something Very about Sif getting blood - his own or anyone's really - on his cloak :0

[sysig]

An eye for a life, unquestionably worth it (Patreon)

[mentalmimosa]

take me with you

Prompt: im here to poison the king and ive already laced the drink im gonna be giving him so i might as well enjoy the night and youre really cute and were flirting quite a bit and wait no you cant be the kings poison tester. 

Note: No rape/non-con actually occurs in this story, but it's strongly implied that this has happened to both of our main characters. Please be duly warned.

The mission, truth be told, was a simple one: slip into the party unseen, coat the king’s goblet in wormwood, and find a spot from which to watch the ensuing carnage.

Well, that last bit may have been Loki’s own addition to the plan; so be it. If they were the one risking their life, then they should damn well get a say on the actual tick tock of the evening, that was their feeling on it.

If they’d asked permission to carry out this last bit--to linger in the rafters while it all went to hell in the hall--their fellow conspirators (Stark, the Spider, and all the rest) would have pummeled their ears with a resounding no and made noises about how Loki was perhaps too personally invested in this task and perhaps we should send someone else and Loki would be damned if they’d let anyone’s hand other than theirs be the one that slayed the king. No, this task was theirs by birthright: the soul-cries of those the Asgardians had dragged from Loki’s homeworld, led by this pig of a king, made it so, and no last-minute wariness of a few Earthers would change that. So Loki had bided their tongue and made their own plans and nodded convivally at their comrades in the firelight.

“Rest assured,” they’d said as they tucked the vial of wormwood in their cloak. “When I return to you, friends, the deed will be done.”

What their comrades had not known was that beneath their cloak, Loki wore a high, fine dress as any wellborn in the king’s court might. It was a gown they had made themselves from the last of the shimmerglass they’d carried away the night they’d escape from the palace, and it seemed only fitting to Loki that they return not in rags but in splendor; their plan was not to keep to the shadows, but to dazzle all those they encountered with light.

This too they kept to themselves.

What Loki had not said to their compatriots, saw no reason to say, was that they knew the way the palace worked far better than the others could. The others could only imagine, make learned guesses based on brief, sneaky forays into the outer rings or on dubious intelligence reports from those few, terrified refugees who happened to stumble across their path. They themselves had done this, in the first days after they had found the defiants, but never once, even in the initial shock of sudden freedom had Loki divulged the depth of their knowledge or at what price it had come. They had been in the palace for more than half their life, been in the king’s kitchen and in the king’s bed--none of these things by their choice--and they were not then nor were they now ready to discuss what had befallen them with anyone. Their comrades knew Loki had been in the palace and knew the layout well; that was enough.

So Loki, by their own choice, had not snuck in through the tunnel beneath the the back gate; nor had they wrapped themselves in reflections and eased in hidden amongst the jubilant crowds. No, Loki had walked in a jewel, their head held high and their hair the color of midnight, the shimmerglass folds of their dress singing out every curve of their body, hinting at every soft fold. They had spent fifteen years in the palace trying desperately not to be noticed; now, after seven years beyond its walls and with the king’s death held close to their body, they desired more than almost anything to be seen.

And oh, ho. How they were.

Not by the king himself, of course; he favored fucking the powerless and the weak. But some of his ministers approached them almost as soon as they entered the Grand Hall: a beast of a man called Bor whose hands Loki had not forgotten and a savage in the guise of a lady, called Sif.

It amused Loki, deep down, that the bully leering at their bosom had once beaten them with a stick when the king’s soup was drawn insufficiently thick. Sif’s attentions--her hand on Loki’s elbow, a secret smile meant to beguile--were also almost surreal, for Sif had, when Loki was skinny and small, taken great delight in hauling them from the slaves’ sleeping quarters up the long, long halls to the king. Loki remembered, as Sif purred perfume in their ear, how Sif had held them like a sack of logs, without a care as to if their head struck a wall so hard Loki cried out, so that when they had arrived at the king’s apartments, then, the brute had slapped them for their tears and Sif had laughed and bolted the door and that had been the kindest moment of the night, the awful, tearing hours still to come.

“My dear,” Sif murmured, her dark curls running silver and brushing the lines of Loki’s neck, “there is a better feast to be had than even the one you see here.”

“Are there, lady?”

“There are.” Sif’s mouth found her cheek. “If you would led me lead you, guddommelig, it would be my great pleasure to show you.”

For a moment, Loki was tempted; surely they would be able to steal a knife and make short and bloody work of this tyrant, too. But no, they thought, painting their smile more demure--when the king fell, there would be time enough for that.

“Perhaps,” they said softly, matching Sif’s tone, “I may dine with you later this evening, ma’am. There are niceties that I have promised my father I would attend to first.” They turned their face and smiled, made their eyes all glittering heat. “May I look for you after my duties are completed, my lady?”

Sif’s fingers found the small of Loki’s back and squeezed. “I insist that you do.”

It took a large cup of wine for Loki to slough off the shudder of that touch. Even the thought of a blade in Sif’s neck, the sweet shower of vile blood, could not wholly erase it. So Loki drank and she smiled and took a turn about the room and reached for another cup.

“Oh,” the boy on the other end of the tray said, “no, ma’am, I’m sorry. You can’t have that.”

Loki looked at him, affronted. “Why is that?”

The boy--not a boy so much as a young, blushing man--deftly plucked the cup from Loki’s hand. “This, ah. This is meant for the king.”

“Is it,” Loki said. There was flurry in their heart, the wings of it beating mad at their breasts. “Well. Forgive me for my forwardness, then, in reaching out and simply taking. I should have asked you first.”

The man looked down, his shoulders bent, and it struck Loki suddenly, terribly, that this lovely creature was as they had been: a slave. He was dressed more finely than Loki had ever been, but then, he was human, not Jotun, and the king had always had a special place in his dark heart for the creatures of the Earth. And, the whisper of the man’s garments said as Loki looked closer, he was a rarified creature indeed: a sengeslave, chained not just to the palace but, at the king’s whim, to his bed.

“Oh, my darling,” Loki heard themselves say, their hand on the Earther’s broad shoulder.

The man looked startled. “Wh-what, my lady?”

Loki blinked, brought themselves back to the party, the present. “I have delayed you terribly, haven’t I? I don’t want your lord to be angry with you, when the error was all mine and not yours.”

“No, ma’am, no. Don’t trouble yourself. The king has not called for this yet--I’m, er, I’m merely anticipating his whim.” The man smiled and ah, gods, he was lovely. Blond, blue-eyed, and broad-shouldered, like the king, but there the likeness stopped. Where the king’s face was scarred by cruelty, the slave’s was, somehow, still soft. Where the king’s gaze was hard and cold, even in the throes of his passion, the slave’s was sharp, yes, but undeniably kind--an odd mixture, Loki thought, for a man forced to live his life shackled in shame. The sengeslaves , in Loki’s time, had always been the most beautiful and the most broken; once in the king’s grip, theirs were usually short and terrible lives.

And yet this man stood tall, his handsome body unmarred even as he bared it to the hall, unashamed.

Loki had an idea, suddenly. A reckless one. A perfect one. They could hear the hum of their people’s fury in their ears.

“My dear,” they said, “may I trouble you for a moment?” They smiled and raised their hand to touch the human’s cheek. “Since I have delayed you once, may I do so further? I promise not to keep you too long.”

The man’s eyes settled in hers and there was a darkening there, a murmur of something, that served only to feed their idea. “As you wish, lady.”

Loki led the Earther, their hand still on his arm: an entitled guest of the king’s eager to sample his goods. This was the role they played--still a jewel, still the center of many an eye; a bit cheeky, the other guests may have thought, chuckling, but still very much within a guest’s rights on a night such as this. Later, Loki knew, when the wine casks had given way to moon-liquor, taking such liberties with the slaves and with each other would be, much to the king’s delight, strongly encouraged. For now, though, they looked merely like a guest overeager to claim this right.

There was a slim door in the wall; behind it, a corridor, one that felt cool after the heat of the party.

When they were alone, Loki said: “Set down your tray, darling.”

He did so, his eyes never leaving Loki’s face.

“What’s your name, Earther? Has he allowed you one?”

Steel in his voice, fervor. “Steven. That’s my name. It’s not his to take.”

They reached for him, smoothed a palm up his chest. “I didn’t say that it was. I happen to be a big believer in the importance of names. They tell stories about us, don’t they? Stories that our ancestors may have started, but that we get to tell ourselves.” They turned their eyes up and smiled at him. “Don’t you think?”

“Lady, I--”

“How long have you been here, Steven? On Asgard.” They flicked the slim gold chain that held on his modesty. “In the palace. Stuck in the king’s bed.”

Steven blushed, a remarkable spread of red that spilled over his body. “Two years on Asgard. A year in the palace. A few--a few weeks in, ah...in the king’s bed.”

No wonder he looked untouched, Loki thought, for in truth, he was; another few months and his flesh would not be so smooth, nor his spirit so fierce. The king had a way with these things. “Do you like it here?”

“I, er--”

Loki took their hands away and folded them behind their back. “Would you believe me if I said I asked this as a friend?”

He laughed, an unpleasant sound. “You understand why that would be difficult, lady.”

“Loki. My name is Loki.”

“Loki, then. Surely you must understand that it’s hard for me to believe you.”

“Would you believe me, then, if I told you that was once a slave here, for this king? That he forced himself on the land of my people and yanked many of us up from the roots so that we might rot in Asgard, in his service, used up and ground up and spit out.”

Steven tilted his head. “Words are easily spoken, ma’am.”

“I agree.” Loki’s blood was in their throat. This was madness, surely, speaking to a slave so plain? “There is something I might show you to give my words weight. May I?”

A neutral nod, a pursing of plush lips. He knew what Loki spoke of; there was no doubt of that. “If you wish.”

Loki met his eyes--the deepest blue, the color of Loki’s trueskin, of their home--and it was easy, then, to lift their hands to their halter and bid the shimmerglass to unclasp and let the fabric fall from their breasts, a warm wave they caught at their waist.

“Here,” they said, finding Steven’s hand, guiding, pressing his fingers to the soft place beneath their breast. “Do you feel the king’s mark, darling?”

Four letters, carved in fire: not so large as to mar their beauty, but cut in too terrible to overlook or forget. Loki felt Steven’s fingertips trace them one at a time, watched his face as his touch spelled it out: T H O R .

“He did this to you himself.” It was not a question.

"You will wear my name, my truename, the name no one may speak.” The words were ash in Loki’s mouth, fouler than dust. “This is what he said to me as he carved. As I screamed. Did he say the same to you?"

With his free hand, Steven plucked one of theirs and drew it beneath his modesty; parted his thighs and set their fingers just inside one, where the skin was softest and damp. There, four letters like Loki's own, though these felt larger, cut more raggedly: T H O R.

There was a weight in Steven’s face as Loki drew their hand back, a sorrow, and Loki felt as if they might weep. No one had ever looked upon her thus; how could they? They’d never spoken of it to another soul who’d understood.

Steven said, hoarsely: “But you got away from him. You escaped.”

“Yes.” Steven's hand was still on their breast, stroking now, soothing. It felt less like an attempt to arouse than something very, very sweet.

“Then why in the Nine Realms have you come back?”

Loki touched his arm, squeezed it. “Because he must die and I want to be the one who sees to it. Will you help me?”

The question hung in the air for a long, long time. Steven studied their face, that steel again; Loki could see his mind turning. “You came here to do this alone?”

“I did.”

“Dear god! To slay a dragon with your bare hands?”

“Something like that.”

“How long were you here before you got out?”

Loki closed their eyes. “Fifteen years.”

“Fifteen--! My god, Loki.”

There was water on Loki’s face now, tears they did not want to shed. Not here. Not yet. They drew a shaken breath. “Will you help me?”

They felt Steven’s knuckles on their cheek. He’d drawn them close; his chest caught each of their peaks. “Yes, I will. God, I have to! But I have one condition.”

“What’s that?”

They opened their eyes to see the sky blazing back. “When you leave this place tonight, take me with you.”

They reached up and smoothed back Steven’s hair and found that they were shaking--not from fear or desire, but from the simple, long-lost pleasure of being seen. They had shared the same horrors, known similar terrors, albeit years apart, and there was part of Loki that ached to speak of it at last, all that had been done to them, all they had suffered: it was time at last, they though, tracing the straw-colored strands, for a different kind of bloodletting of sorts.

“Once it’s certain he’s dead,” they said, “we shall fly away, Steven, you and me. You'll be free of all this, darling. I shall let no one ever harm you again."

His lips twitched. "You will protect me, lady?"

Loki gave brief thought to their comrades, of the reaction when they arrived back at camp with a dead king on the one hand and a stranger on the other; another mouth to feed, Stark would grumble. But he would acquiesce, surely, for it was he who'd pulled the children into their fold: first the Spider, then the little girl, and both in time had proved their worth. This man, Steven, as strong of body and spirit as he was, would be an asset to the cause, especially if he aided Loki tonight. They would make the others see that. They would. And if need be, Loki would make them.

They touched his face, his cheek hot against their palm. Did he always burn like this, Loki wondered, dazzled, as a pale, blooming fire? "I promise," Loki said. "I will."

Steven tipped his face towards theirs and brushed their lips together, a seal. “And I," he said softly, "will do the same for you, lady. I swear it."