spear of ice | Glowfic Constellation

purposeful_glory

Up she pops. Mine is in fact Grace too, because I was allowed to pick it when I killed my wyvern and I have a sense of humor. Thor is 'Your Mightiness' but it doesn't come up very much, we don't stand on formality. I am no particular singer, so you're aware.

Next to Cáno none of us are; we take joy in it anyway. And he starts singing. The acoustics are in fact fantastic.

purposeful_glory

When she picks up the thread she does her best to sing along.

In principle I have eidetic memory and have heard Macalaurë a thousand times and this is in my dreamscape, I should be able to reproduce the sound, he grumbles. Not that we aren't lovely and all. I can't think - maybe -

And then a child walks in, maybe three feet tall, with sharp grey eyes and hair elaborately braided and robes dragging on the floor in a way that looks less deliberate than Maitimo's current outfit, and the child looks up at Maitimo and says "Nelyo!" and then races into their arms, and situates himself quite pickily with a lot of fussing at Maitimo's clothing, and then sings, and now Maitimo can reproduce his brother's voice just fine.

purposeful_glory

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

He meets her eyes and tells the story in osanwë so as not to interrupt. I'd just realized I had no particular talent for engineering - I'm not bad at it, I'm diligent enough, but the spark of genius was wholly absent - and Amil was expecting the third, and Father'd just persuaded everyone to adopt the tengwar and was running on triple his considerable usual energy, and Macalaurë could sing like the choir of the Ainur. I was desperately jealous of him. And vice versa. I suppose that's how siblings are.

purposeful_glory

It's not how Thor and I are, but I don't think it's uncommon, either.

We grew out of it by the time he was forty. He still loved attention but by then I loved arranging him attention, and we were co-conspirators ever forth. I don't think I kept anything from him until the obvious, centuries later.

purposeful_glory

My eidetic memory, having an elegant but imperfect workaround for interdimensionality, isn't quite up to this standard, but if you want to watch Tiny Loki and Tiny Thor I can arrange that.

I would!!! Can you invite them here, or should we go to Asgard?

purposeful_glory

Oh, I can bring them here, but of course we're not telepathic...

In runs Thor, trial-sized but golden with incipient power, curls bobbing and cape whipping after her. She is chased by a skidding, tinier, skinnier Loki who hits the doorframe and goes plop. Thor spins on her heel and laughs.

"It's not funny," says tiny Loki.

"Yes it is!"

"What's so funny about it?"

"You just ran right into the door!"

"It couldn't hardly get out of my way!"

Thor laughs harder. Tiny Loki scowls and picks herself up and goes out and comes back tapping along with a scepter that is clearly decorative only as a cover for its real purpose.

Awwww. Do you suppose that's a side effect of being a frost giant magicked into Asgardian form?

purposeful_glory

I doubt it. It would be the only mistake Odin made, not one she liked much, and not an obvious feature of frost giants either.

Tiny Thor jogs away. The Tesseract appears on a pedestal and Loki and her scepter tap tap tap up to it. Poke. She falls right over, a mesmerized look on her face, tilts her head, reaches again - in storms Odin to seize her by the arm and haul her away.

Shoo, pedestal. In twirls a slightly taller Loki, feet falling where she wants them; and there's Thor again, bigger too, and Loki goes back to being clumsy, but less, and less, and Thor suggests that she needs to try harder, has she tried learning to dance yet -

"No, I haven't tried that," says Loki.

"Well, try it, you're a princess, you can't just fall over."

And with some creative license Loki dances her way into approximately the grace she now really commands and Thor beams, hugs her, flings her into the air and applauds in delight when Loki lands in a perfect roll and hops up to her feet.

She will not react badly to learning you're a frost giant.

purposeful_glory

You think?

Small Thor runs and gets practice swords and tosses Loki one and goes YAAAAAH and attacks. Loki mostly dodges, at first.

I'd bet my life on it. Can't tell you to bet yours.

purposeful_glory

Well. I can teleport now, so I don't have to; and I haven't much choice about whether to bet my sisterhood.

Swords become axes become hammers become spears become glaives; Loki gets surer of her footwork, pulls elaborate acrobatics to make up for Thor's more direct but nearly inescapable strength, they graduate to mixed weapons and Loki likes reach and Thor likes impact -

She's got a strictly more powerful signature weapon than mine. It is judgmental on unclear criteria and won't let most people lift it. Of course, when Thor goes and touches a dangerous magical artifact and it likes her she gets to keep it.

Thor runs out of the room, comes back taller again holding Mjolnir and looking extremely pleased with herself.

What does it do? Other than not be liftable?

purposeful_glory

Inertia. In general. She can call it to her hand at range, it doesn't bother to slow down when it hits things, she can fly by throwing it and neglecting to let go. It also does lightning, and the accompanying storms if she calls up enough of it. Lævateinn's more generally versatile and suits me very well stylistically and I can use it in practice while she daren't throw Mjolnir around at friends, though.

Thor illustrates these properties while Loki recites them.

...how? That's amazing. Don't show my father, unless you want him to waste a lot of time trying to replicate that...

purposeful_glory

I don't know! Lævateinn would be a laborious but fairly straightforward sorcery project - for me, it must have bedeviled whatever non-alphabet sorcerer pulled it off - but Mjolnir is at least slightly intelligent, I don't know what its deal is.

I think that your sister is very fond of you and will doublethink herself into continuing to be.

purposeful_glory

I hope you're right.

Thor flings Mjolnir out the door and doesn't let go. Whoosh.