Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/3353021.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      F/F
  Fandom:
      Thor_(Movies), Thor_(Comics)
  Relationship:
      Amora/Loki_(Marvel)
  Character:
      Amora_(Marvel), Loki_(Marvel), Frigga_(Marvel), Lorelei_(Marvel),
      Karnilla_(Marvel)
  Additional Tags:
      Violence, Animal_Death, Fantasy_Racism, Underage_Sex, Age_Difference,
      Dubious_Consent, Teenagers, Bad_Parenting, Unhappy_Ending, Trans
      Character
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-02-14 Words: 15120
****** Smile Through a Heartfelt Lie ******
by filiabelialis
Summary
     Amora has taught Loki dangerous, illegal magics that they’ve
     practiced on each other, and jointly on other people; Amora is
     fucking her student and a child of the royal family.
     Thanks to Loki, Amora has something of a taste for all of this, now.
Notes
     Huge thanks to Aria for the beta, and to all of my friends for the
     encouragement. Title thanks to Natalia Kills' "Saturday Night."
     Warnings: Graphic description of violence and animal harm in one
     section (section 2), casual fantasy racism, slut shaming, underage
     sex and mentions of sex with a significant age gap, dubious consent
     (involving underage sex and the use of magic as an aphrodesiac),
     horrible teenagers, horrible parents, horrible mentors, and
     misgendering.
Asgard's younger prince has been apprenticed to Amora for several months
already when Amora realizes that she was underestimating Loki badly.
"You're lying," Amora says. They are alone in her chambers, as they have been
allowed to be since Amora satisfied the Queen as to her skills and decorum.
Amora doesn't turn her back on Loki, nor does she even stop looking at his
face. The illusion is beautifully done -- the changes are subtle, not masking
himself wholesale with another face, but using his own to create elements like
truth. He is very clever, if overly bold.
Loki, to her surprise, does not look angry. Instead he smiles, as though this
is the reaction he expects. "Prove me wrong, then," he says, and even his voice
lacks the harshness of his approaching manhood. She clearly has little to teach
him in the way of illusions. "Illusions are particularly susceptible to
disbelief, you say," Loki adds, as though reading the thought in her face. "You
are already looking for the trick. A touch will dispel it." He steps forward,
setting his shoulders back, and Amora can see budding breasts beneath his
tunic. She decides Loki is not clever, after all. It is reckless, childish, the
way Loki offers himself. Then again, he has already put on the guise of a woman
to get her into bed with him. Perhaps he has already crossed the worst
threshold.
She smiles, crossing her arms. "Fine. Take off that tunic." Loki's eyes widen,
as though he is actually a young maiden being asked to remove her shirt rather
than a young man who spends summers and sparring bouts with his chest bare.
"Don't be coy." Amora swallows her laugh, charmed despite herself at Loki's
thorough dedication to this performance. "I know there are ways for clothes to
conceal sex. You think you are the only young man to wear this disguise?"
Loki's eyes narrow, but the smile reappears as his hands fall to his buttons.
"Perhaps."
The tunic drops to the floor, and Amora steps forward again. A little shiver
passes through Loki at her proximity. He makes a beautiful girl, though thin.
Amora draws him near with a hand on his waist, and is surprised to feel the
curve she sees, the sharp dip inward from his hips. She doesn't know how he's
done it. Loki's mouth has fallen slightly open, his breathing a little deeper.
Amora slides her other hand up his stomach to his chest, where flesh from small
breasts pillows into the spaces between her fingers, warmth radiating up his
ribs underneath. No straps, no seams. His breast fits perfectly into her palm,
and warmth begins uncurling in Amora's belly, though she ignores it for the
moment. She closes the space between them, opening his mouth with hers and
drinking in his shaky breath. She flicks a nipple with her fingers, and Loki
twitches, though he cannot see what she is doing. He really feels it.
She pulls back to assess him, the flush down his neck and and his eyes on her,
watching her with anticipation. "You are truly doing this, aren't you?" Amora
murmurs, and amends, "Truly going to let me have you like this." She allows
herself a smirk, slow, halfway between enticement and warning. "I could ruin
you if I told."
"No one would believe you, if you spread it like a rumor." Loki's voice is
soft, still a bit shaky, but sure. "They'd believe you only if I boasted of
having you, and you told them what I was leaving out. It's all in how the story
is told, and it helps neither of us to start telling."
She's proud of him for knowing this, and so she rewards him with more kisses,
and touches, and more and more.
*
Years ago on Nornheim, while Amora was still a student under the Nornish
Queen's tutelage, Karnilla had said, "You are reticent to learn even when I am
there to crack a whip over your head. Save your excuses, and when you've
practiced enough to know this magic, you may show me." She turned away from
Amora, a dismissal.
Amora had responded by putting her fingertips into the little fountain in
Karnilla's private garden and boiling the water, boiling the delicate little
fish alive, watching their soft, colorful scales and white flesh peel away from
their bones, steaming.
Karnilla punished (or rewarded) her with twenty times more practice.
*
Amora makes Loki bring his tunic with him to the bedroom, rather than leaving a
trail of discarded garments from the parlor. She keeps few servants, but she is
being imprudent enough already.
Amora lays Loki out under her and climbs atop him; her hips roll of their own
accord against his as she kisses, sucks, caresses up and down the contours of
his slender body. She considers being gentle with Loki for less time than it
takes for the thought to fully coalesce in her mind. This form he has created
is wickedly good for her. He looks younger than she did at his age, pale and
willowy where she was already curvaceous. His legs go on forever, and she wraps
hers around them, skirt rucking up, rubbing her quim against the front of his
trousers. It’s difficult to stop kissing him, when the noises he keeps making
are so broken open.
She slides her hand down the front of Loki’s trousers and between his legs,
pulling a cry out of him so needy it brings a wave of heat washing through her
skin. She feels wiry curls, and unbearably soft folds, and wetness. She doesn’t
know what she expected to find.
“A-Amora,” Loki whines, actually stuttering, and Amora wiggles two fingers into
him greedily. He practically screams, legs falling readily open, which is well
and good but for the fact that he is still neglecting to remove his trousers.
Patience gone, Amora pulls her hand free and proceeds to pull the remainder of
Loki’s clothes off as quickly as possible. His fingers seek her out, but she
slides out of reach, further down between his legs. It’s not time for that yet.
She wants to watch him come undone, first.
She surveys Loki, spread out before her, with more than a little satisfaction.
Loki’s quim is as charming and flushed as the rest of him. Amora traces the
curve of the hood, the bright button of his clit, and down between more folds
as thick as jade leaves, dull red and shining wet. She buries her fingers in
them without thinking, with sudden need, feeling the beginnings of wild
delight. Gone is the quiet, polite student she has tutored in these last few
months, and in his place is someone who can do the best illusions, or
transformations, she has ever seen, approximating the loveliest warm needy girl
Amora has laid eyes or hands on. A sound brings her eyes back up to Loki’s
face—his lips red there too, and open, his eyes screwed shut and brows knitted
from the pleasure or her scrutiny. There is no doubt in her mind, though, that
he is enjoying this.
“Is this what you like, then?” she mocks, gently. “To have a pretty girl body
of your very own to play with?” When he doesn’t respond, she presses on, “You
want someone to touch all of those pretty curves and get their fingers up
inside you like I am—“
“Yes,” he gasps, and she twists her fingers, flicks them fast inside him. He
gives a tiny shriek before getting hold of himself. He’s perfect.
She keeps her pace until the lips of his quim are clenching tightly around her
fingers, until he bends almost double coming. Amora forces herself to wait, to
savor the moment; Loki is a lovely sight, dark hair fanning out on the pillow,
skin pink and sheaned with sweat, tremors going through him in little waves.
She pulls her dress off to fill the time.
When his breathing slows a little, she slides up his body, kissing him deeply,
bracketing his hips again with her legs. “When you think you can, Loki,” she
says, “I want you to do the same to me.”
To Loki’s credit, she feels fingers slide into her almost immediately.
She rides his hand while his other hand cups her hips, reaches up to play with
her breasts, slides down her stomach to stroke her clit and the insides of her
thighs. It feels as though he is touching her everywhere, clever, surprisingly
skilled, utterly wicked, and for the final minute before her orgasm hits, Amora
shuts her eyes and lets herself drown in sensation.
She collapses next to Loki when it’s over. He curls around her, and her
afterglow dispels at once into cold annoyance. “Oh Loki,” she says lightly,
lightly, keeping her temper in check. “This was going so well. You know it’s
not about love, don’t you?”
It can’t even be said that Loki misses a beat. “I know,” he returns, in the
same light measured tone, “forgive me; it’s simply very pleasant, to touch
you.”
Amora smiles, settled. “You’re forgiven. You must wake in an hour to complete
the lesson, do you understand?”
“Yes, Amora.”
They sleep.
*
Though pleasure may be Loki’s primary motive in sleeping with her, Amora does
not believe for a moment that it is the only one. Nor does this unduly concern
her—though she has made a point in her life of never sleeping with anyone she
does not desire, she cannot fault this as a method for Loki to advance himself
in his teacher’s favor. It’s not that risky a strategy, she supposes, for a
prince. She’s done less honorable things, herself.
Immediately after her expulsion from Karnilla’s tutelage, she was snapped up by
Karnilla’s most potent political opposition, those noble Nornish houses that
rankled under Karnilla’s despotic rule. Indeed, she arrived in her temporary
accommodation outside the royal estate to find two missives, marked with two
separate aristocratic seals, waiting with her pre-delivered baggage. She
dismissed loyalty to Karnilla, and the fact that she was almost certainly
playing pawn to affairs of state she knew nothing about, as potential
impediments to this opportunity—what had Karnilla expected, banishing her? That
afternoon, and again the next morning, she stood in audience in two of the
great lordly Holdings of Nornheim.
Stood being the operative word—she was placed, in both cases, before an array
of lords and advisors elevated on a dias. They sat; she stood. She was offered
no forms of refreshment, though it was no great hardship, as each interview
took less than an hour—being accustomed to Karnilla’s brand of bald-faced
brutality at this point, Amora assumed that these intimidating tactics were
merely traditional to Nornheim. They questioned her extensively on her skills,
and also on odd details of her interactions with Karnilla, and of life in her
palace. These moments were perhaps the most unsettling portions of the
interviews, though they became easier when she recalled that her parents had
been (and would be) no less probing when asking after her future prospects. She
schooled herself into the casual aloofness that had been invaluable at her
family’s dinner table, and focused on dispensing just enough information to
hint that she had much more.
It worked splendidly: by the day following the second interview, the Nornish
Holdings were already squabbling over her. It was fortunate, because by then
word of Amora’s falling out with Karnilla had made its way back to her mother.
“Amora,” her mother greeted her at the scrying pool. Her voice was gentle,
teasing, which was how she always masked her anger. “I know that I did not
raise two daughters who are willing to make impolitic messes of themselves.”
“The situation with Karnilla was proving more of a liability than an advantage,
at this point,” Amora said with a studied distracted air. “The rate of my
learning was at a standstill, and I was a glorified assistant. Her people also
hate her,” she picked up after a breath—not to seem rushed, but before her
mother could open her mouth. “The Noble Holdings are colluding to undercut
tribute from her kingdom, and successfully portraying her to the people as a
warlord from a more barbaric age.”
She could hear the forceful, repressed little exhale out her mother’s nose,
even with the echoey quality of the connection. “And these nobles, what can you
establish with them? Perhaps the public nature of your little…” She searched
for the word.
“The two greatest of the Holdings are already clamoring for my services,” Amora
spoke into the affected pause. She didn’t want to hear what dismissive word her
mother had for the debacle of the past few days. “I’m going to see what I can
do about working with both of them; I’d hate to pour all of my resources into
one vessel, again.” She engineered a little laugh. “Speaking of impolitic
messes, how is Lorelei?”
She did not do much teaching, during her time in Nornheim—sorcerers were
considered a separate class from the nobility, there, another reason for
tension between its ruler and its people. That career came later, and with it,
greater opportunities.
*
When Loki arrives at Amora’s rooms for study thereafter, he is a young girl
again. At first, Amora thinks it’s some kind of bizarre flirtation, an
invitation to sex on Amora’s terms again. But she knows Loki’s tells fairly
well, and Loki sitting as he is now, absorbed in note-taking out of one of
Amora’s books, has no intent toward seduction. Nor is this some ploy to shock
her—it would never work, and Loki well knows how annoyed it makes Amora to feel
wrong-footed. If anything, Loki seems content and relatively oblivious to
Amora’s curiosity. Amora doesn’t even know how to ask what she’s wondering.
“This form is very pretty on you,” is what she finally settles for. She reaches
out, tucks a lock of Loki’s hair behind his ear. He ducks his head, but she
catches a glimpse of a smile she hasn’t seen before—no confident grin.
Something shyer.
“Do you simply,” she overcomes her inexplicable hesitation, “like it?”
Loki meets her eyes, face calm and blank. “Do you?” he counters, lightly,
carefully. Loki is asking Amora something much bigger than Amora knows, and it
shows in Loki’s stillness, expectation so complete it makes Loki seem like an
empty vessel, waiting to be filled up with Amora’s answer.
Amora threads her hand into Loki’s dark hair, leans down, and kisses her soft,
barely-parted lips. She lingers there, warmly. “I believe I just said so,” she
answers when she pulls away, at length. “Are you finished with that book?”
“Very nearly,” says Loki, quickly getting back to work.
*
Despite Amora’s best efforts, a coup never occurs on Nornheim. The Holdings
underestimate Karnilla’s military acumen and her willingness to use her troops
against her own people. In the end, Amora faces no reprisals; the Nornish
nobility, grateful to Amora for her assistance and, she thinks, taking some
pity on her youth, send her back to Asgard with their blessings and excellent
references.
Being home is as frustrating as she imagined it would be. Here, she is a child
again—or at least, barely a woman. There are many sorceresses here, of advanced
years, greater station, and less provocative beauty. She is superfluous,
politically. As a further inconvenience, Nornish recommendations don’t get her
far; she is not the only Asgardian to look on Nornheim as an uncivilized
backwater. It may be one of the Nine, but then, so is Jotunheim.
She finally begins to make connections among the aristocracy as a teacher of
magic--ironically, when her last real teacher deemed her unfit to be even a
student. But she is intelligent, focused, and young enough that her charges
relate to her. She makes a name for herself among courtly families whose girls
show any promise handling seiðr.
It was never her intent to bring herself into the orbit of the royal family.
She reflects on this on those rare occasions that she is startled with racing
heart from whatever task is at hand, overwhelmed by the knowledge that she is
sleeping with the younger prince of Asgard and possible heir to the throne, an
adolescent child, and they will surely be caught. She reflects on it more often
when her family expresses their pleasure at her accomplishment (barely into
womanhood and in direct contact with the younger prince and the Allmother, a
model daughter), or when some covetous acquaintance petitions her with stories
of the part they had to play in engineering this chance for her, and laughs at
her fickle luck.
The news is brought to Amora unexpectedly—the Allmother had mentioned she was
seeking a new tutor for her younger son, and Amora’s name is repeated enough
with praise that Queen Frigga looks into Amora’s references. It seems she is
making inquiries now about Amora’s background, and would likely seek an
interview soon.
Duly seeking information of her own, what Amora finds is intimidating: Prince
Loki is apparently such a terror to his instructors that a number of them have
resigned from the royal appointment of teaching him. “He is…terribly
precocious,” says one of the more discreet former tutors she can reach. “I’d
even dare say he believed he knew more than I could teach him, and thus paid
little mind to the lessons.” One or two are more colorful in their invective;
Loki is “stubborn,” “intractable,” and “arrogant.” She is more intrigued than
fazed by any of it. She’s heard many of these words directed at herself. At
worst, Loki will be a smart brat of a common variety among nobility who
purportedly value education.
The interview comes. It is with the Allmother herself; Amora was expecting an
underling, but it seems the Queen likes to take a very personal hand in her
children’s upbringing. She meets Amora in a room open to a garden courtyard, on
the other side of a table with letters, tea, and a tray of small sweetbreads on
it. Amora feels simultaneously overdressed for the attitude of the encounter
and underdressed for the splendor of the setting, but puts that down to
excitement. She holds her head high, and tries to bring warmth into her smile.
Queen Frigga is surprisingly easy to speak with, which makes the experience
that much more surreal; she is regal without any trace of pettiness. It makes
sense—she is the Queen, uncontested, and Amora does not expect her to behave
like the people she knows. They come around to business slowly, with the
Allmother asking after members of Amora’s family like she knows them, and the
extent and quality of Amora’s work with the noble houses; she seems pleased
when Amora offers to pour the tea. She accepts a cup, and, it seems, Amora’s
qualifications.
“I was wondering, Amora,” she says when she is finished, holding Amora’s gaze,
“what expectations you had for this position?”
Here Amora must tread delicately, but she thinks she has some measure of
Frigga. “I understand that your son is exceptionally gifted with magic, and a
quick learner. I know from experience that these are unusual traits, in a
student, and ones to be treasured. I look forward to working with him.”
Frigga’s smile, still gentle, becomes sharper. It makes Amora feel on more
familiar ground. “You’ve spoken to some of the others who have taught Loki, I
see.”
“I thought it would be remiss of me to do no research into a position I was
interested in, your Majesty.”
“I agree,” Frigga says, clearly swallowing a laugh. “You’ve heard, then, that
Loki can prove a difficult pupil. What will you do, if he refuses to learn from
you?”
Annoyance flares into Amora’s chest. What sort of a question is this? Her good
judgment, soothing and collected as always, brings her voice forth without any
steel in it. “I think I would have to know Loki better to be able to answer
that question with confidence, my Queen.”
Far from being alarmed at her momentary loss of temper, Queen Frigga warms to
Amora again. After a few more questions, she stands, and offers her hand. Amora
takes it, and bows over it.
“I will contact you in two days with my decision,” she says, and smiles again,
full of kindness. Amora’s hand itches. “I’m glad I had the chance to meet you
today, Amora. It is hard for a mother, when she realizes she can’t teach her
children everything; but I think I should be happy to see what you have to
teach mine.”
*
“Powerful men,” said Amora’s mother, “love having a beautiful woman on their
arm, for the same reason wealthy women wear jewelry.” She looked at Amora and
Lorelei in turn, making sure she had their attention. “To showcase their
power.”
“Even father?” Lorelei asked, laughing like she always did.
“Especially your father.”
Remembering this, Amora does not know why her mother chose to tell her young
daughters something so bitter. Perhaps her parents were going through some
trouble, at the time. This memory stands brightly in her mind without context,
one of few times she remembers her mother imparting advice.
Amora is deeply grateful for her mother: she is driven, and cunning, and saw
fit to raise her daughters to embrace those traits. She succeeded with one of
them, at least—as Amora grew, she followed more and more of the discussions,
the plans her parents made together. Then she became included in them.
The gift for magic that Amora and Lorelei shared was nurtured, although—or
possibly because—it surpassed their mother’s understanding. It was tremendously
useful, magic. It could be used to enhance beauty or any number of other
illusions; it could charm nearly anyone to a state of amiability, even love (or
something like it); it could heal, too, but none of the women who taught Amora
ever showed much interest in healing magic, and Amora never cared enough to
broach the subject. And of course, when the sisters began to show proficiency
in more advanced arts—evocation and transfiguration, the raw bending of
matter—their mother fostered their education in whatever ways she could,
eventually sending Amora to Nornheim for the remainder of her childhood.
Amora knows her mother wishes her to be no man’s trinket. So she studies, and
she weaves her own schemes, and makes many friends, and learns how to do her
mother proud.
*
Loki is so much more interesting like this, Amora thinks. As a girl, Amora
means, though she is interesting in bed, too, which is where Amora presently
has her. Loki lets her do things that a good teacher shouldn’t be allowed and
that a worthy prince of Asgard definitely shouldn’t allow. She's a little
grateful that Loki is so hungry for her, because sometimes she will think,
distractedly, of the curve of Loki's breasts or hips, or how Loki's eyes shut
tight when she's close to coming--it's a good thing Loki wants this so much,
because it would be so vexing to have known what it was like to fuck Loki once
and be denied it after.
At the moment, Loki is spread out under Amora with Amora’s newest toy—an
artificial phallus Amora has strapped to her body to fuck like a man—sliding in
and out of her at Amora’s favorite, ruthlessly hard pace. She’s doing an
admirable job not screaming. More’s the pity, but Amora enjoys the way Loki
gets when she’s keeping quiet--seized with full-body shakes until Amora slows,
lets her catch her breath and open her eyes like she’s surfacing, only to shut
them tight again in a silent scream as Amora quickens. Amora kisses her one
more time, then shows mercy, grabbing Loki’s hips and pulling them hard against
hers, locking them together with Amora inside. Loki comes at once, as she
always does when Amora tries to get impossibly close that way.
Amora picks up the thought again later, after they’ve rested and cleaned
themselves up and Loki has been sent away. Loki is so much more interesting
like this, a girl Amora can play with on much more level terms than a boy who
would be used and discarded in exchange for the ways he would try to use and
discard Amora; not only as a bedmate, but in study and in conversation.
Truthfully, Amora wouldn’t have bothered talking much beyond lessons if Loki
had not chosen to show this side of herself.
As it is, Amora has more fun with Loki than she’d ever expected. Just last week
Loki made some remark about the obfuscating minutiae of runecasting that Amora
had frequently thought but never voiced, and certainly never voiced with that
particular delivery that had made Amora lose the course of her lesson laughing.
They’d distracted themselves for an hour after that gossiping: how comically
seriously their respective mothers take divination, what a nasty little beast
Fandral is and how does he charm even half the girls he says he has, he
probably makes half of them up—a scattering of topics, barely not speaking over
each other. Amora is glad that they never speak of Thor, harboring a small
crush even as she mounts Loki on a regular basis. Even though as Loki’s brother
he must be a source of endless frustration, Loki apparently has a tacit
understanding that he is not fair game.
Everyone else is. Three days ago Loki strode into Amora’s parlor with a tense,
regal air, placed her books neatly on the central table, and told Amora that
she wanted to learn an incantation to engender love. Or lust, either one.
“It’s highly advanced,” says Amora with her brows raised, truthfully. “I was
thinking to delve into that theory in a month or two, if you showed proficiency
with—well, three other topics you usually need to master first.”
“I would like to learn it as soon as possible,” says Loki, hands folded neatly
on the tabletop and back still perfectly straight. She offers no further
explanation. And why would she. She’s a prince. She’s Loki. She’s also arrived
angry, for reasons unknown.
“What are you planning to use it for?” Amora asks, intrigued.
Loki tries to summon a sly smile, marred by her obvious distress. A master
shapeshifter and illusionist, and Amora has yet to train her to control her
expression. “Ingolf seems to think his judgment as a lover is so unassailable
that he can critique anyone. He doesn’t know about us,” Loki adds before Amora
can become alarmed. “He seems to think I ‘couldn’t charm a frost giant,’ if his
words with Dagr are to be believed.”
Amora stares, not quite understanding. “Gracious, my dear, you’re truly worked
up over this.”
Loki rolls her eyes, but cracks a smile. “There was more. Including being of
the opinion that you could charm anyone you wanted, and would, including frost
giants, and that no one in their right mind would desire to keep you after.”
Amora is less miffed about the commentary than about the fact that she hadn’t
realized Ingolf thought particularly little of her. She’s generally got a
better estimate of the regard of others, and prides herself on this. “Well, it
seems we have quite a bit of ground to cover. I assume you have no plans
today?”
Loki’s face lights up with a nasty grin. “Just this one.”
Amora dredges up all knowledge of the spells her mother taught her years back,
and Loki learns with her usual acumen, and it goes off splendidly; Ingolf
alienates half his immediate comrades with his attentions before making
advances on a girl too young and too high in station to avoid repercussions.
The irony is not lost on Amora.
Perhaps it’s this realization, and the reckless pleasure and power Amora feels
in bending another’s desires, that prompt her next suggestion: they should
practice these spells, if Loki is to retain what she’s learned. “We can’t
simply enchant all who cross our path—the pattern will be noticed. Perhaps we
could perfect our form on each other.”
Loki fails to conceal her interest. “I already want you. How would you know it
worked?”
“There is more than just one kind of enchantment,” says Amora, falling easily
into the teacher’s cadence. “Some inspire amity, without any great desire, and
are useful for defusing tense situations. Objects carrying this kind of glamour
were outlawed on Asgard, but diplomats still use them in other realms where
they will go unnoticed. The kind we placed on Ingolf largely inspires
infatuation and a more general desire. These two would indeed be pointless to
practice on you, smitten with me as you already are.” She snickers at the face
Loki makes. “However, there are enchantments to incite more acute lust with or
without the accompanying infatuation. Those could increase your want to need in
a matter of moments,” She leans close, voice dropping to a murmur. “I could
even get you to beg, I’m sure.”
Loki’s eyes are wide and dark, even as she looks at Amora askance. “It would
have to be very good.”
“Or even weep.” Amora grins, tapping a finger against her chin in mock
consideration. “You’re very pretty when you’re desperate, did you know? I’m
looking forward to this very much.”
“What are you waiting for, if you’re not bluffing? You can gloat after you’ve
made me beg.” Loki juts out her chin and narrows her eyes, a combination Amora
recognizes as actual indignation. “Show me what you can do,” says Loki,
cuttingly, and Amora feels a little candle-flame of contrariness light in her
head as Loki slides hands over Amora’s hips, brings her lips up to Amora’s.
Amora pulls Loki’s face just far enough away to whisper the words of the spell
into her open mouth.
The resultant choking, then gasping, then deep, shaky breathing is glorious.
Loki buckles at the knees, and twitches wherever her slumped body meets
Amora’s, as though Amora is made of hot metal, before seeking more contact. Her
hands can’t seem to unclench from Amora’s dress. Amora gathers her up, cups her
face to inspect her dilated pupils, the brightness of color in her cheeks. Loki
is trembling, and leaning palpably into Amora’s hand, but besides panting, no
sound comes from her half-open mouth.
Good, Amora thinks. It would be unsatisfying to have proved the point so
easily.
“You’re such a sensitive little thing,” Amora purrs, relishing the way fury
springs back into Loki’s eyes. “But then, that’s half the fun.”
“Evidently not as much as you’d hoped.” Loki’s voice is all aplomb, even if she
looks a mess. “I wouldn’t call this need, yet.”
Amora laughs at her ridiculous stubbornness. She can truly empathize. “Really?
When did you become so practiced at self-denial? Unless perhaps you just like
it, in which case you can get on your knees and bury that composed tongue in my
quim until you’re ready to join in the fun.” She takes Loki’s soft moan as
assent, and pulls her over to the nearest chair, and down to the floor before
her as she sits. Amora pulls her skirts up and spreads her legs comfortably;
she catches Loki staring at Amora’s quim like a starving man at a banquet. She
probably can’t help it under that spell, poor girl, but the effect is comical.
Amora tilts Loki’s chin up to meet her eyes.
“Now,” she says genially, “I don’t want you speaking at all unless you’re ready
to beg, understand? We’re not wasting more time arguing.” Amora sits back,
surveys the scene, and settles with a smile. “Begin when you’re ready.”
From the moment Loki gets her mouth on Amora, she’s moaning as though Amora is
the one on the floor servicing her. She buries her face as though she’s trying
to smother herself; her movements take on a somnambulant quality, long, slow
strokes, probing deep and seeking and instinctive like something outside
consciousness; the only sounds she makes are throat-deep moans and heavy
breaths and wet, soft sounds. Amora finds herself almost hypnotized, as though
the quiet and the slow, thorough touches are opening up new corners of her
awareness. Her whole body feels raw and buzzing. She is unsure whether she has
lost the urgency to come, or has surpassed it with a deeper kind of need as she
rocks against Loki’s mouth, tangles fingers in her hair and drinks in the full-
body shudders Loki gives each time Amora scrapes her fingernails along Loki’s
scalp.
The need for more seems to build suddenly, her quim tightening. She rocks
faster, and Loki, responsive and lost and whimpering, picks up speed as well.
Her panting is coming faster and even harder, now, breathless gasps between
licking into Amora and sucking at her clit with a dizzying sort of focus. Amora
feels rubbed almost to overstimulation, aching, slick well down her thighs, and
nearly mad with desire for something more. She takes hold of Loki’s hair and
pulls her head back, away.
Loki cries out desperately. Though she is looking at Amora’s face, her eyes are
unfocused, wild. When Amora asks her if she will beg now, it seems to take a
moment to sink in. Then, looking frightened and surprised, as though betrayed
by her own actions, she shakes her head.
Amora giggles. “Thank the Norns for that,” she says, giddy. “I have an idea.
Lie on the floor.”
Loki complies, and Amora scrambles to get her knees on either side of Loki’s
face. “Can you do this?” she asks, and sinks down at the start of Loki’s nod.
What starts as a steady rocking loses all restraint quickly and Amora is
grinding down, pressing Loki into the floor. She’s going to kill her, to hurt
her like this or let her die or go mad from denial, and she can barely even
care because it’s everything to get her legs more open, to have Loki deeper.
“Get your fingers inside me,” she gasps, and then yes, she’s being filled and
it’s perfect and her whole body is clenching and coming until her vision goes
black.
Awareness returns to her on her back on the floor, Loki lying beside her. Amora
turns to look at her. There is something in Loki’s eyes that looks broken,
rattled apart by too much need. Amora pulls her close unthinkingly, kisses and
kisses and kisses and kisses her and strokes her hair and back and the slight
curves of her hips and legs and breasts and shoulders. She feels the urgency
become coherent again in the way Loki moves on her, rubbing her entire still-
clothed body against Amora, wetness soaking through her leggings and onto
Amora’s already slick thigh. Amora keeps kissing, keeps touching, slides one
hand inside Loki’s clothes and two fingers inside Loki’s quim, whispering
encouragement and praises. When Loki comes, she thrashes so hard Amora has to
wrap an arm around her waist to hold her still, and she screams at the top of
her lungs.
She does not once beg.
*
Amora lived in Karnilla’s palace for some years—not long, for an Asgardian, but
longer when one is young. She tries to remember when she spoke to Karnilla,
outside her lessons with her, and on what subjects. Sometimes they would
converse over dinner, during those rare times when Karnilla bothered to appear
for her courtiers. Those could not rightly be called conversations; everyone
around the Nornish Queen was so stilted and afraid that Karnilla simply laughed
outright at their stuttering, on occasion.
Sometimes Karnilla would task Amora with some minor magical problem to be
solved in her kingdom, combining learning with true work, and they did speak
with substance then. Not just about the magic, or about their mutual
connections, but about wider things: about the respective positions of
sorceresses on Asgard and Nornheim—simultaneously necessary and devalued as an
effeminate profession, the only real difference between realms being the
willingness of the highest classes to dabble in it—and about Karnilla’s
disaffection with Asgard. It was the first time Amora had heard about Asgard
from someone who wasn’t Asgardian. The level of rancor involved was
enlightening, if unsurprising. Like every other child of the generation
following the Jotun war, Amora had learned that the more violent races didn’t
always appreciate the Allfather’s authoritative rule, and Karnilla was one of
the most violent people Amora had ever met. Karnilla intimated on more than one
occasion that she desired to rule Nornheim independently of the Nine,
confirming Amora’s opinion that she was far too heavy-handed in her methods. It
was well and good for a dictator to think of utterly uprooting the balance of
power, Amora supposed, rather than playing within the rules as the lesser
nobility had to. She just couldn’t bring herself to think so highly of Karnilla
for it as Karnilla herself obviously did.
She can never quite understand, looking back, why Karnilla had been willing to
speak so freely of her dissent around Amora, an Asgardian. To say that Karnilla
underestimated her was not quite right—she spoke to Amora levelly then, rather
than in the impatient tone she used when she wanted something done promptly.
She spoke as though this were something she especially wanted Amora to hear and
heed.
It’s not as though Karnilla’s teachings completely lacked merit. Amora learned
more magic than she would ever realistically use, as a noble woman of Asgard,
but which had serendipitously become necessary for a career in teaching:
summoning, transfiguration, and battle magic. A disproportionate amount of
battle magic, Amora thought, since Karnilla had a slew of lower class mages
working in her army, and an apprentice was supposed to be a more sophisticated
tool. Karnilla was of the opinion that Amora should be “able to do everything
that they can do and do it better, and more,” though, so Amora learned to shoot
fire, cold, lightning, and pure force from her fingertips as well as more
subtle workings to inflict pain at a touch. These last were very like the
spells she had learned to induce pleasure, and so came easily; it garnered her
some rare, untarnished praise from Karnilla. Amora knew better than to feel
grateful to her instructor for deigning to see her potential, but it had still
felt like a victory.
New magic aside, even, Amora learned much. She soon discovered that Karnilla
had become the sole ruler of Nornheim through powerful ambition and relentless
drive, which she worked hard to instill in her student. She expected Amora to
have read and comprehended the small library she was given within a few years,
and put her on a practice regimen for forms and concentration as rigorous as
the martial training she assigned her soldiers—on one memorable occasion, she
even advised Amora to take up a sword and practice, if her arms were so weak
that doing spell forms tired them! Amora had never worked so hard in her life.
Retrospectively, it was good to learn how to push herself, even if most of what
she pushed was her stamina and her patience.
It’s very different with Loki; she is learning rapidly, through creative
application of magic, concepts studied out of order as often as not. This is
why Amora’s dwelling on it now, she supposes, when she hasn’t thought long on
it in the years between, on Nornheim or Asgard. But Amora remembers when
Karnilla also said, “Show me what you can do,” and Amora, powerful even in the
teeth of her anger, showed her.
It was a potent working—one to transmit the spirit of one living being to
another shell. It had been issued as a challenge by Karnilla, after the
incident with the fish. “Of course you could kill those little things,” she’d
smiled, looking almost baffled by Amora’s fierce insistence that this was proof
of her hard work and skill. “I’ve had you evoking heat for months; it would be
incredible if you couldn’t. I would be impressed if you could do anything with
a life besides ending it.”
The unspoken insult, including yours, was enough to drive Amora through four
weeks of little but research and experimentation. There was quite a lot to
teach herself in the way of this kind of magic—some of it was tied into healing
magic, on which Amora’s education was scarce, so she had to start from the very
basics. But she was diligent, and enraged, and a month later was standing
proudly over her workspace with the body of a formerly dead hunting falcon now
safely housing the soul of a very confused dog, and Karnilla looking on.
“This shouldn’t have worked,” were the first words she said, after a long
minute surveying the spellspace Amora had set up.
“And yet, it did,” said Amora with rising satisfaction. “Not all the components
were physical, you see. This method required a certain amount of intuitive
catalysis—the conviction that it would work plays a part in making it work.”
She had loved that touch, when she had thought it out—not only did it make for
more versatile capabilities of the spell, it was a perfect way to thumb one’s
nose at skeptics. What sorcerer didn’t enjoy that?
“Then the spell is useless to anyone without your overinflated sense of
confidence, it seems,” sighed Karnilla. “There are ways to do this with
mathematical precision, and more reliability.”
Amora didn’t realize that the heat and trembling rage were in her skin until
she already burst out, “By the Allfather, you are a miserable teacher.” It was
appalling, and incredibly foolish to indulge this crude impulse to insult her
benefactor, and she wouldn’t have gone on—but her head was buzzing with rage
and Karnilla was smiling and raising her brows in that way that was surprised
and deeply amused. Amora wanted to forgo magic entirely and just slap her.
“You’re unimaginative, petty, and care more about thinking you’re in the right
than about actually teaching.”
“As if I don’t have better things to do,” Karnilla began, shaking her head
wonderingly, “than teach an Asgardian brat who has never had to lift a finger
because she can always wave her breasts at some man until he does whatever she
wants. I’m doing you—and your wretched, conniving parents—a favor by spending
any time with you at all.”
“You would think of it so simply,” snapped Amora. “If you knew anything about
charming anyone your people wouldn’t hate you so much.” She felt dizzy with
adrenaline, though more because she spoke out to Karnilla, of all people, than
because she regretted a word of it. She meant the words with all her heart.
The shift in Karnilla’s face was subtle, but Amora could see it stung. Karnilla
drew back a little, seeming to collect herself. “You are ungrateful. But of
course, you are the age for it. I was the same way toward my mother, at your
age. You will look back on this and realize what a disorderly little bitch
you’re being now. Or you will continue as you are—but your failure to commit
yourself to learning is hardly my problem.” She turned away from Amora, for the
final time. “I will see to it that your things are packed and sent to a venue
of your choosing. You’ll leave tomorrow.”
She had nowhere to go; she was on a foreign world and her only ally was a hated
despot. She hadn’t started to care yet, because she could finally see that she
was better than a child struggling to please an unmovable mentor.
That was the end of that chapter of Amora’s life.
*
Going to all the way to Vanaheim isn’t strictly necessary to find components of
suitable quality for a sleeping elixir, but it is certainly the most
interesting option. The sights and sounds are refreshing, and the Vanir seem to
make a point of treating Asgardians with a disinterested sort of courtesy. Loki
dislikes the flavor of it, but Amora thinks it adds an air of exciting
anonymity to their journey—they can do what they like, if they aren’t being
catered to at every moment. Loki is female, and therefore unrecognizable
despite the differences from her male face being subtle; Amora is only notable
back home. They are just two of many rich, young Asgardian tourists sneaking
around the Nine for adventure.
Perhaps they are getting carried away with it, because they are behaving like a
couple of girls in love. Loki catches Amora’s hand to drag her to a stall,
pointing out a pattern her mother weaves that no Aesir woman does—the Queen is
of Vanaheim originally, Amora remembers—and then neither of them lets go. Amora
finds herself smiling and laughing, falling into the part without knowing why.
It’s easy; it’s fun. Loki is falling in too, indulging the young girl who has
never run through a marketplace with a friend. It makes Amora almost feel that
she has been greedy to keep Loki at books and in bed all the times she sees
her.
A young merchantman selling cheap jewelry calls them over, and they go. “You’re
both so beautiful!” he gushes, over-the-top; a sales pitch, not a come-on.
“It’s completely unacceptable that you don’t have some pretty jewelry.” He
fishes around his stall, and holds up brassy earrings toward Amora. “These make
a statement! Or perhaps something more elegant,” he continues when she laughs.
“Or for you, young lady?” He smiles more tenderly for Loki, whose laugh is a
little less haughty and a little more breathless. “A pendant? No, no, wait—“ he
procures a little silver ring, simple, with some kind of iridescent stone laid
in the band, and holds it out for her like a lover offering a token. After a
moment of delicate hesitation, she takes it, and pays, and thanks him.
They walk for some moments in comfortable silence before Amora asks Loki, “You
liked it when he flirted with you, didn’t you?”
“It’s the same way you act for noblemen at functions,” she responds, a cheerful
tone covering careful neutrality.
Amora takes her hand again. “I’m not jealous, my dear. Not when you’re clearly
staring at me all through court functions.” She grins, and tries to think of
how to begin. She already feels too much like her mother, all probing questions
and light, dangerous reassurances, but perhaps that’s inevitable for this kind
of talk. “You do understand that I act that way for men because it’s
terrifically useful? More than just being friendly with them, I mean. Men will
do very many things for you—all manner of brute work, even killing—if you give
them the slightest hope that you will sleep with them. You know what they
want—you must simply find the way to use it.”
Loki looks thoughtful, listening, until she posits, “Mother never has to.”
Amora remembers her mother saying Especially your father.
“That’s all very well, as she’s a queen,” says Amora testily. “But when you are
a woman, you can’t be the Prince.”
“I know,” says Loki, so clipped it makes Amora think she might have finally
gone too far.
The silence is more tangibly awkward, this time. Then Loki starts again,
softly. “It’s an amusing change sometimes, not being the Prince. Fewer people
flatter you. That merchant—even if he was flirting with me to sell something,
he chose flirtation as his method, when he could have simply been polite.”
It makes Amora feel strange, being reminded of how young Loki is, but it’s
better than fighting. Relieved, Amora interjects, “That’s what I’m getting at.
You needn’t feel…as though he has paid you some special heed just by showing
you attention.” Loki has gone still, looking as caught out as Amora
inexplicably feels. She gathers herself and rephrases, “Women like us needn’t
lower ourselves for men who only want one thing and say pretty words to get it;
you’re clever and talented and deserve much better.”
Despite including herself in the compliment, the effect is not much better;
Loki’s eyes are practically shining as she looks at Amora, a little smile
creeping unheeded onto her lips. Amora has no idea how this conversation has
been bungled so badly.
It’s only for the space of a blink, though—Loki grins, tosses her hair, and
says sardonically, “I think you might be the one person in the Nine Realms who
understands me.” She holds out an arm for Amora, and they are walking and
talking casually once again. Amora is grateful that Loki possesses the grace to
salvage that exchange. She tries to settle her heart.
*
She will see what other pupils she can take on. It will be less easy to
overinvest herself in Loki’s progress that way, and give her more outlets for
her intellectual energies. She will speak with her family, and see what other
connections she can forge.
When she visits again she finds her house in turmoil. Her parents are united in
opinion of the source of the grief: Lorelei has finally gotten them all into a
mess they can’t get out of easily. The way Amora’s mother tells it, Lorelei
sought a private appointment with the Jarl of Glitnir, claiming she had
information for his ears only. She then enchanted him into doing her bidding
and bringing her to his bed. It took only a few hours for those close to the
Jarl to grow suspicious of his erratic behavior and deduce the cause, so after
a mere half-day of wallowing in her stolen luxury, Lorelei was imprisoned by
warriors of the Jarl.
The story leaves Amora spluttering. Her mother’s face is a mixture of
recognition and sympathy—she probably reacted similarly upon receiving the
news. “I knew my sister was foolish and easily bored, but this is—“ Amora
fumbles for words for a few moments before her mother supplies, “Uniquely
idiotic.”
“Just so,” says Amora, breathless with disbelief. “What possessed her?” It’s
not as though the Jarl could provide Lorelei with anything her family couldn’t.
“You can ask her yourself,” says her mother, “when you go to plead her case
before the Allfather.”
What?! Amora nearly demands, before following her mother’s logic. It is
customary for the King to mediate disputes among his nobility, and Amora is the
member of her family with the most direct and favorable ties to the King. Amora
nods assent, and her mother smiles.
Lorelei has been moved from the custody of the Jarl’s men to that of the royal
family; because this is her first infraction, and because of her age and
status, she is under watch in a sparsely furnished room of the palace rather
than in the dungeons. It is a little less spacious and a little more bare than
Amora’s quarters, but otherwise there is little difference; Amora feels her
resentment build.
Lorelei greets her with a cocky smile. “Amora! It’s been much too long since
I’ve seen you, dear sister.” It’s unbelievable, but then, Lorelei always is.
Amora takes a deep breath. “What I don’t understand,” she says evenly, “is how
you possibly thought you could get away with it. Those spells are for a night
of fun with a stranger, or for the lowly and weak-minded, not for seducing a
Jarl and brazenly using him for the few hours it takes to be thrown in prison.”
“He was weak-minded,” snaps Lorelei. She recovers her smile. “And truthfully, I
couldn’t think of a way to get away with it either.”
Amora stares, dumbfounded. She feels she has lost the thread of this
conversation somewhere, or perhaps Lorelei thinks she’s implying something more
obviously than she is. Lorelei must see this in Amora’s face, because she
continues impatiently, “I accepted that I would be caught. I’d already gotten
what I wanted, and I decided to deal with the next part as it came. And really,
judging by what I’ve seen,” she glances around at the comfortable room, “it
doesn’t seem like the worst thing.”
“You destroyed your entire family’s reputation to sleep with a man.” Amora
hears her voice come out leaden.
“Games of station are your games, not mine,” says Lorelei with a sigh. “I have
other concerns. It’s hardly my fault that the court would hold all of you
accountable for my actions, anyway.”
“You stupid little girl,” hisses Amora. “The only way they wouldn’t is if we
publicly disowned you and let you bear the consequences of your actions
entirely alone, be that in the dungeons or on the streets. Were you prepared to
deal with that?”
Lorelei’s smile is entirely gone. Her eyes are a little wide, though she is
trying to look determined. “Yes,” she says, “I think I could be.”
Amora leaves her. She is a stupid child and Amora doesn’t have any more
patience for her false courage or her selfishness. As though she could possibly
be prepared to accept that utter rejection, worthless disaster though she might
be, much less carry on with no support—
“Lady Amora,” says the Allmother, not ten feet from her.
Amora drops to a knee hastily in greeting. “My Queen.” Was she thinking aloud
as she walked? “I apologize for my inattentiveness.”
“Please rise,” says Frigga. “I take it you spoke with your sister?”
Amora’s mouth feels dry. “Yes, Allmother,” she begins, and falters. Even if she
wanted to defend Lorelei, she would not know how.
“How is she?” asks Frigga gently, and Amora’s gaze nearly snaps up to Frigga’s
face in shock. “She was guarded around me, but I assume she might have spoken
more plainly to her sister.”
“She is—she is well, your Majesty.” Besides being completely unrepentant.
Still, Amora remembers her duty. “I don’t know what she said to you, but I’m
sorry for any lack of cooperation she has shown you.”
Frigga pauses, and Amora can feel the Queen looking at her as though trying to
think where to begin. “If you worry for her,” says Frigga, “I can assure you
that her punishment will be relatively lenient. The use of this kind of magic
is no trivial matter, and cannot be condoned in the least. But when a young
girl barely even a woman goes to bed with a person well into adulthood, it’s
not my instinct that she bears sole responsibility. There is more to be known,
about this.”
Amora feels sick to her stomach. She tries desperately not to think of Loki,
for fear that Frigga will see something of it in her face.
Frigga, looking at Amora with badly veiled pity, misinterprets her expression.
“We will discover the truth, for your sister’s sake. And for that I must ask--”
she quiets her voice slightly--“what are your parents’ opinions on this?”
“They condemn it, utterly,” Amora answers quickly. It’s the truth, and Amora
feels more than a little anger at the implication. As though Lorelei didn’t
have a mind of her own.
“I assume so. Did they have any hopes of Lorelei finding a sponsor, or mentor,
or a husband—something your sister could have wished to act on, however
unwisely?”
So it is the Allmother, rather than the Allfather, who will be mediating this
dispute. This is turning out to be unpleasant in altogether different ways than
Amora anticipated. “None that I knew of,” she is able to say with confidence.
“Our mother’s greatest hope for us is to foster our magic, before our
marriageability.”
Amora sees her mistake the moment she says it. Beneath her poise, Frigga is
beginning to look disturbed. “This kind of magic,” she says, “did your mother
teach it to you?” To you, Amora notices, not to Lorelei.
“No!” Amora blurts, reeling, trying to think of how to turn her very real
distress into the fabric of a viable defense. “My Queen, I’m sorry, I don’t
know where Lorelei learned these things, or who she’s been consorting with—she
was always jealous that she couldn’t cast like I can, always wanted to catch
up, but I never thought she would—“ She trails off, breath heaving a little.
The tremor she feels beneath her skin is too real, but it works. Frigga takes
Amora’s hands in her own.
“Enough, child,” she says, with supreme gentleness. “This is not your doing.
What you’ve told me today is of great help, to me and to your sister. Please
take the time you need to be with your family.”
“Yes, your Majesty.” She bends over Frigga’s hands, then goes as quickly as she
can.
She thinks she dealt with that well enough, and she will think of a way to
convey the exchange to her mother that omits how grievously she stumbled, but
the nearness of her mistakes—all of them—haunts her. What Lorelei did has been
played off as a childish and intensely selfish act, and an embarrassment for
which Amora’s family will still likely pay some collective price; what Amora
has done, if she were caught, is inexcusable. Her actions are clearly
calculated: she is older than Loki, and the better sorceress, and it is she who
has used enchantments on Loki, rather than the reverse. Furthermore, Loki is a
prince; the simplest explanation for what Amora has done is that she is taking
advantage of her position as a teacher to try for some measure of power in the
royal family.
What is she doing, really?
It’s not that she fears that Loki will spill their secret—she is incredibly
circumspect, and has nearly as much to lose as Amora does. The true source of
danger lies with perceptive outsiders—there is no way the Allmother hasn’t
noticed Loki’s frequent absences, or growing power. And if she is to be honest
with herself, they’ve already become reckless. Loki allowing herself to be a
woman with any witness is alone enough to lose Loki any claim to his station.
But she has made Amora complicit as well; Amora has taught Loki dangerous,
illegal magics that they’ve practiced on each other, and jointly on other
people; Amora is fucking her student and a child of the royal family.
Thanks to Loki, Amora has something of a taste for all of this, now.
*
She loves making Loki shake. She thinks it might be her favorite part of sex
with this girl.
It’s such a telling act: when Amora uses her best tricks Loki shakes like she
can’t figure out how to stop, but doesn’t pull away. Loki is too unrelentingly
aware of all her own vulnerabilities to not know how much power she gives Amora
over her. Perhaps she has not admitted to herself that continuing their
liaisons in the face of that amounts to a sort of trust. Amora wonders, on
occasion, how long Loki can deny this, when she has shared such a wealth of her
secrets with Amora. Her desire and talent for more sinister magic; her ruthless
and creative wit; her body (previously untouched, Amora is quite sure); her
womanhood; the list is as illicit as it is intimate, and the combination is a
thrilling one. There are many reasons Amora persists, despite her
worries—getting away with it is a reason of itself.
Being with Loki has been a learning experience for her, moreso than with any
previous student. She never knew before that she could find such an
incomparable rush of joy in touching things forbidden, much less a persistent
hunger for them. It is more than just Loki herself that she craves; it’s the
quiet wreckage she brings in her wake. She does not simply look at people as
pieces to be moved in a game of strategy, as is familiar to Amora. Loki does
not move her pawns to an end; she charms them, tricks them, and destroys them
for spite, or curiosity, or fun. Karnilla may have been a queen, and a cruel
one, but Amora didn’t learn about the casual exercise of power from her.
Now, she finds herself playing mental games with nearly everyone, Loki
included--Loki falls for very few of them, of course, but Amora treasures it
when she does. Amora has always taken satisfaction in knowing just how much or
how little a person likes her, but she’s expanded this knowledge into a kind of
hobby, seeing how thoroughly she can charm the people she privately
detests—sometimes even using this to ruin them. She never would have had the
confidence or the ambition to try this, but for seeing how well Loki manages
it. Loki, whether she likes it or not, is magnificent at giving the impression
of harmlessness—of studious duty, or youth, mischief rather than malice. Loki
does it less for the thrill of the act than of simply surviving life in Thor’s
shadow, Amora knows—better to let no further darkness show to those who would
already compare the two in Loki’s disfavor.
Amora supposes that this is one of the few advantages she has, on a Loki’s
higher station. She is allowed outlets for her own nastiness in ways that Loki
isn’t; she has more flexibility within what she can do without drawing
attention to herself. Having secured her parents’ satisfaction with her
position and progress, she is essentially given free reign of her life.
Thankfully, Loki is a clever girl, and finds ways to work within what small
margins of secrecy she has, and so together they can tear each other apart in
the ways each of them wants.
She pulls herself from these thoughts, refocusing on Loki, intent over
spellwork across the table. The glow of seidr lights up her face ethereally.
Amora leans forward, letting the neckline of her gown slip down, and Loki’s
eyes flick up to her for just a moment before she returns to her work, smirking
and breathing deep. “Loosen your wrists,” says Amora, “the way you do when I
pin them down.”
Loki’s whole body goes tense; then she does precisely what she is told. Amora
feels heat rushing to her cheeks far quicker than expected. She moves behind
Loki.
“I hope you know you are something of a treasure,” she murmurs into Loki’s ear.
This is one of the best games she plays, dropping these little compliments to
her student and feeling Loki move her whole back flush against Amora’s body.
“You say that to all your pretty students, I’m sure,” says Loki, a little
breathless. Amora laughs, and places a kiss under her ear, playing indulgence
to the hilt.
“No, my dear, just you.” This is her favorite game: whispering sweet nothings
and having Loki know exactly what she means by them. Any other girl Loki’s age
would have developed a foolish crush, by now—or more of one. Amora knows this
is somewhat callous, but Loki knows how to keep herself in check. She’s
perfect, and Amora gets her hands up Loki’s tunic as soon as she’s done with
the spell, part reward and part celebration.
Later, under the table and winded, Amora says, “There are moments when I’m
selfishly glad you have to keep your quim secreted away. I’d be loath to have
to split your time with anyone else.”
Loki laughs in the way that means she’s hurting, little. “No, my dear,” she
says sardonically, but then her voice turns soft. “Just you.”
Loki knows what she’s doing with that, and it’s a fair barb, given Amora’s, but
Amora feels like she’s stepped into empty air. She sits up. “Now, now,” she
says, pulling on her dress, “truce.”
“Did Karnilla ever do this with you?” Loki asks, cheerfully, and Amora nearly
falls over whipping her head to stare at her. Loki’s smiling too brightly,
elbow propped on the floor and chin in hand. “Drag your heart along behind her
like a leashed animal, I mean, as I’m fairly certain she never slept with you.
You just talk about her like she was a parent; when you talk about her you
sound like Thor does when he talks about Odin.”
The words that come out of Amora’s mouth next feel not entirely of her doing.
“If you are not dressed and out of this room in ten seconds, I will light your
hair on fire.”
Loki snatches her shed garments in a bundle, runs to the nearest mirror, and is
gone in the blink of an eye by the time Amora gets to seven.
Nevertheless, that’s Amora’s day ruined. She dresses, and paces, and restrains
herself from breaking any of her things. This is the problem she keeps coming
back to, with Loki—she is so caught up in the pleasures of Loki’s company that
she tends to forget the ways that her conception of this arrangement really is
too good to be true. Be it for the increasing risk of getting caught or Loki’s
wretched feelings--
Her words, too, could have had some kind of glamour in them, because they
remain invasive in Amora’s mind. When does she even speak of Karnilla? What
gave Loki these impressions? For all that the parallel is ridiculous, she can’t
help but dwell on the final argument she had with her former instructor, and
its similarities to this one—she lashed out just as Loki did, to similar
effect. She tries, reflexively, to reject the thought.
Oh come now, you haven’t resolved on anything so final as leaving Loki, she
thinks, even as her stomach lurches with uncertainty. She hasn’t, but she has
to admit, she’s been considering it for some time. Under the surface, her
unease has been growing. Loki, with her secrets, her station, and her sharp
perception, might be too much to manage indefinitely. She sits, for the first
time in the past...the past while, feeling as though some dreaded thing has
stopped chasing her. Her thoughts are stilling. Yes. She has been considering
this. The weight of it sinks from her chest to her stomach, and she feels a
little pang of disgust at the feeling, like she’s swallowed a stone.
But what to do about it? She has at last let herself think logically about the
matter, so now there’s nothing for it but to surrender it to her judgment. She
sits with it into the evening, while the magical lights of the palace build in
brightness. She turns over each option carefully.
Her decision is not made that day, or the next. In the end, she is ashamed to
admit—and so she doesn’t, when she looks back—the choice is not made by her.
She receives word that her efforts to seek other positions have borne out. A
highborn mage of Alfheim seeks her services as assistant, rather than an
instructor. It is an opportunity to further her own study that she could never
have anticipated, and cannot reasonably surpass, considering its rarity. She
must resign as Loki’s teacher, and leave Asgard.
*
When she meets with Frigga to explain the circumstances of her resignation, she
thinks for a single, fleeting moment that what she sees in the Queen’s face is
relief. Amora will never be sure of this, and after that, Frigga is all rueful
smiles and kind words. She thanks Amora for her service to the royal family,
and wishes her the very best in her continued career, and asks when Amora plans
her final departure.
Amora requests three more days; “And a greater portion of Loki’s time, for that
span, if at all possible—we have a few lessons I yet hope to conclude.” Frigga
grants her this. There is no effusive parting beyond that, and Amora feels
strangely vindicated, and calmer than she ever has in the Queen’s presence. It
is satisfying to achieve this closure.
Parting with Loki will be trickier. Loki will be upset with her; Amora has been
her best teacher yet, among other things. But, no one keeps any teacher
forever, Amora reminds herself, to tamp down the little swell of guilt in her
stomach. Loki is going to come of age very soon; it would be ridiculous for her
to keep clinging to Amora’s skirts.
Of course, since their last interlude, Amora can’t be certain that Loki will
listen to reason. She’s not even angry, anymore, so much as disappointed. She’s
tried to be clear with Loki about the nature of their relationship.
Still, she can’t leave without seeing Loki again, and she can’t leave without
clearing the air. She begins a note twice before simply writing “Please return
to my chambers today—I need to speak with you,” before signing it, sealing it,
and sending it off with a courier. She tries to think of the best way to break
the news.
It can’t be more than half an hour before Loki appears in front of the same
mirror she fled through the last time—a little overeager, Amora thinks, because
Loki is not usually one to plunge into an unpleasant task.
“You called?” Loki tries for a smirk as snide as before. Instead she looks
wary, and curious.
“I’m certain you know what this is about.” Better to let Loki start, to know
how to respond.
To her surprise, Loki looks even more uncomfortable. She looks at a spot to the
right of Amora’s face and says, “I may have overreacted.”
She’s embarrassed at her outburst earlier—by its content and by its fervency,
it was quite the admission. This has suddenly become easy. Amora feels foolish
that she let herself worry.
“I have some ideas of how you could make it up to me.” She smiles, satisfied
and genuine, no traps there. She beckons, and pulls Loki onto her lap the
moment she gets close enough. Amora takes a moment to run her hands around
Loki’s petite waist, up her narrow back. The time in which she has to touch
this body is now limited. She murmurs a few words and breathes life into the
spell; the layers that Loki is wearing begin to unwrap themselves from her
body. Amora is going to make the most of this time.
With her fingertips she traces the lines of Loki’s body as it is revealed to
her, slowly. She looks, long and thoroughly. Loki’s body is still full of
adolescent gangle; her breasts are small, her limbs long and slender, and her
collarbones make sharp shadows. Amora stopped seeing this as reminiscent of a
boy’s body some time ago, and cannot pinpoint quite what made the difference.
She bends close to kiss a line up Loki’s chest, and sees thin blue veins
branching and spiraling just beneath Loki’s skin, where it is so pale it
becomes translucent. Amora realizes they must become hidden when Loki flushes,
her skin becoming pink and opaque—as it is beginning to already.
Loki runs a hand through Amora’s hair, tucking it behind her ear; an
understated ploy to see Amora’s face, and what holds her attention. Amora
speaks more spell words, and heavy relaxation flows out of her hand at the
small of Loki’s back. Amora can feel the tension leaving Loki’s body.
“What is that—“ Loki begins, but Amora shushes her. “I just want you to enjoy
this a little longer, my dear. I want to take my time with you.” She leans in
again, and takes a bit of Loki’s skin into her mouth, sucking hard to make a
bright mark. She picks another patch when she’s done, going slow; she makes a
necklace of bruises-to-be around Loki’s shoulders, where they will be hidden by
her clothes. Loki’s breathing stays slow and even, but takes on a ragged edge,
growing deep; every exhale becomes a soft moan. Amora becomes very aware of how
warm Loki is between her legs, where she straddles Amora’s lap. She decides
she’s had enough of this part.
She ushers Loki off her lap and into the bedroom, shedding clothing as they go.
An idea has formed in her mind even before she tips Loki onto her back. She
pins Loki’s wrists to the headboard, and leaves them magically bound there.
Loki smiles—this is not the first time they’ve done this. She looks surprised
when Amora moves down to put her face between Loki’s legs. This is new. Amora
holds Loki’s hips to the bed and grins, taking in the sight and scent of Loki
spread out and on edge, clearly excited, clearly nervous. Then she closes her
lips over Loki’s clit.
She is familiar with Loki’s scent and taste, and of the feel of her quim at
every layer, but the intensity of drinking her in this way is unparalleled.
Amora feels foolish for not doing this more often. She leaves off her gentle
sucking to lap along the folds of Loki’s quim, moves one hand and spreads her
open with her fingers to reach deeper. Loki is so soft here, and it’s as though
that is the key to her softness in every respect—Amora gets her open like this
and can watch her go boneless, utterly pliant, a fluidity newly born into her
movement. Loki is cautious everywhere but here.
Amora leaves off spreading Loki open in favor of slipping her fingers inside.
She can never get enough of how it feels to be inside her—and never will. She
moves past the thought, curling her fingers and focusing on the way that makes
Loki try to buck off the bed, pinned by the tight grip of Amora’s other hand.
She’s yanking her wrists against Amora’s bonds and her hips against Amora’s
hands and Amora sees her stomach grow tight, her orgasm building steadily as it
gets into her head how trapped she is from every angle, at the mercy of Amora’s
fingers moving in and out of her and her lips still ducking down to tease and
suck every so often, just enough to pull little cries out of her throat and
bring her to a new level of urgency before leaving her there to feel Amora’s
fingers delving deeper and deeper and harder—
Amora feels Loki’s quim clip tight around her fingers and then suddenly she is
coming too, something like the shock wave that just hit Loki’s body washing
over her. It can’t have been an orgasm, she thinks, because it’s not enough--
she climbs up Loki’s body where she lays limp, heaving breath, and wraps her
legs around one thigh. She rides her until the whole bed has taken up the
reverberation of it, slamming against the wall. Loki has stopped fighting
against the restraints; she is limp, then spreading her legs wide, canting her
hips up to meet where Amora is rutting against her, then wrapping them tight
around Amora’s thigh and hip with wholly unselfconscious little peals of
urgency. Amora can’t tell what wetness is hers and what is Loki’s anymore, and
where her quim meets up against Loki’s leg and hair and oh, especially her own
quim sends jolts of unbelievable pleasure up Amora’s spine. Amora throws her
head back and grinds her hips for what feels like hours before she comes. When
she does, it feels like minutes more before she can drag enough air back into
her lungs. They are both making noises almost like sobs.
It is evening. They both lay without speaking until Amora is nearly asleep.
Then Loki sits up—the magic to her restraints finally gone—and says hoarsely,
“I’ve been away all day. I should go.”
Something like regret or guilt stops Amora’s breath for a moment. “Please
stay,” she says. “Just for the night. I can help you come up with an excuse, if
you need.”
Despite the growing dark, she can see the stillness in Loki’s face that means
she’s wary. Amora picks out her words carefully. “We both want you to stay the
night. I don’t see why you shouldn’t, as long as we can get away with it.”
Loki’s head tilts almost unconsciously to one side, caution becoming shock. It
is not Amora’s fault, what Loki takes from these words. “I can come up with an
excuse,” she says. She lays back down, and Amora reaches for her. They kiss
until they sleep.
Amora half-wakes sometime in the night, tight with wanting. She kisses into
Loki’s mouth and squeezes her breasts until Loki is awake with her and sliding
her fingers inside Amora, rolling on top of her. Amora drops off again soon
after.
The next morning, she is filthy and starving. Loki picks up her clothes and
hides away to draw a bath, while Amora sends a servant for food. Loki entered
through the mirror, and no one saw her arrive; whatever gossip follows Amora’s
night, it won’t draw Loki in. Amora catalogues all this as she has been picking
up loose ends for months, and feels strange, thinking that after tomorrow, she
won’t have to any more.
She brings the tray with her into the bathroom, where Loki is soaking, hair
slicked back and head resting on the side of the tub. After a moment’s thought,
she sets it aside, drops her robe to the floor, and steps into the water. The
tub is large, and it is not uncomfortable to sit down between Loki’s legs and
lean back into her chest. Loki’s hands come up to rest along Amora’s ribs.
Amora allows this. She tucks her head against Loki’s neck and closes her eyes.
The bath loses heat quickly, and they dress, eat, and talk. The air feels cool,
and Loki is full of gentle smiles alongside her usual wickedness, this
morning—her carriage has an uncharacteristic amount of contentment in it. A
particular curiosity born partly of indulgence strikes Amora, and she tells
Loki, “Wait here.” From her closet she retrieves a dress—too small for Amora
now, kept mostly out of sentiment—and holds it up before her. “You are always
in a tunic and trousers, so as not to be incriminating,” she says, “but this is
where you commit all your incriminating acts, isn’t it?”
Loki’s eyes have come alight. “All the best ones,” she says, holding out her
hand.
She retreats to try on the dress. Amora sends away the plate, tries not to
think. Loki calls her back into the bedroom.
She fills out the dress surprisingly well, Amora thinks. It’s amazing how much
more curvy Loki seems when wearing something tailored to show that. Her hair is
still quite short, for a girl—Loki tucks a strand behind her ear, and Amora
sees the ring from Vanaheim on her hand. Apparently she keeps it on her person.
“It truly suits you,” says Amora, with appreciation. Loki smiles, shifting her
weight minutely. “I’m really not just saying that,” Amora continues, coming up
to her, pulling her close. She feels Loki’s bare knees brush her own; they both
jump as though shocked at the touch. “I think you should make a habit of
wearing skirts,” she says, lifting the hem of Loki’s, sliding her hands up
Loki’s thighs, to the juncture of her hips. Nothing underneath. “I
should…perhaps let you wear that for a bit longer,” she says, a little
breathless. Loki laughs.
“Well, what do you do,” she says, stepping gently out of Amora’s reach, “when
someone wants to get his hands up your dress like that?”
“Oh, I lead him around just a bit like you’re doing,” says Amora. Struck with a
bit of inspiration, she follows Loki around the bed to the table and drawers
where she keeps her toys. “I let them catch me only for a moment,” she says,
crowding Loki up against the bed, taking her face in her hands and kissing her.
She stoops to pull the drawer open, and Loki slips away, moves back around the
bed. Amora pulls out the false phallus, the harness; she fits them together,
steps into them. Smoothes her skirt back down over the whole ensemble. “I let
them have me when I’m ready.”
Loki has been watching her, and watches her still as she comes around the bed
again, with a faint smile. She takes Amora’s hands and pulls her close. Loki
kisses her then like it is she who is deigning to grant Amora this favor, and
she who can revoke the right. Amora feels proud, and also weak in the knees.
Her hands on Loki’s waist are careful, reverent.
Soon Loki’s kisses are messy and open mouthed, and her legs are opening too,
parting over the firm cock under Amora’s skirt. She reaches down to palm it;
it’s far, far more immediately erotic than it should be. Amora breaks off the
kissing to turn Loki around, and pulls her hips back against Amora’s cock. She
puts her lips close to Loki’s ear. “May I try this?” Loki nods, panting, and
Amora bends her over, lifts both their skirts.
She teases Loki first, sliding the head of her cock up and down the lips of
Loki’s quim. Loki is already slick. Amora begins to dip in, very shallowly, and
plants a hand on Loki’s back to keep her from thrusting backwards. Loki chokes
down a frustrated noise, and Amora laughs, and hikes Loki’s skirt a little
higher around her hips. She’s beginning to understand the appeal of this
position. The view is magnificent.
She bends her body over Loki’s, speaking into her ear. “It’s so marvelous, to
be had like this,” she purrs, and starts to push slowly in. “You can do it
practically anywhere, and mostly clothed. It’s perfect for when you’re
desperate, and it’s just so delicious to get them up inside you, and they’re so
desperate too, to get you.” She’s thrusting steadily now, and can hear the wet
noises she makes with each in and out.
The sheets on either side of Loki’s head are balled in her fists, and
fluttering a little in front of her mouth with the force of her breath. “Tell
me more,” she pants at Amora, and moans when Amora picks up her pace.
“Gods, it’s so good to have someone in you so deep,” moans Amora. The flesh of
Loki’s arse ripples a little each time Amora comes up against it, and it’s
mesmerizing. Loki strains backward against Amora’s hand, and Amora lets her go,
in favor of gripping both her hips. Loki moans loudly in surprise, and Amora
lets go of restraint, pounding into her. “They mount you like an animal and
start fucking like one, they get so wild to stretch you open and spill inside
you—“
Loki screams a little, and her thighs start to shake in the way they do when
she’s coming. Amora can feel the tension and heat pooling inside her own quim,
and shoves Loki further onto the bed, fucks her harder, puts the whole weight
of her thrusts on top of her. She can feel Loki coming apart beneath her and
fucks her straight on through it, through the tired, spent little noises she
makes with each of Amora’s continued thrusts, and through the point that those
noises become urgent again, and Loki tries levering her hips up off the
mattress, backward to meet Amora’s momentum. Then Amora comes with astonishing
power, vaguely aware of Loki shivering and crying out with her. She rolls off,
onto her back. Loki stays right where she is.
Eventually, she does raise her head. “It’s something like noon,” she says to
Amora. “I well and truly need to go.”
“Yes, of course.” Amora swallows sudden nausea. “Please clean yourself up as
you need to; I need a moment.”
Amora pulls off the harness, cleans her toy, puts all back in order while Loki
is in the bath. She can’t think. She doesn’t know what to say. She has to tell
Loki, and yet, it’s impossible at this juncture. All she can think, over and
over, is this is the last time I will ever be with you.
Loki emerges, back in her own clothes. She pulls Amora into a kiss. “Thank you
for persuading me to stay,” she says when she pulls away again.
“I’m glad I did,” says Amora. Loki looks at her curiously.
“When should I come by again?” she asks, after a moment.
“I will let you know,” says Amora. She watches Loki’s back as she turns and
steps through the mirror.
Amora’s rooms are a mess. There are books, notes, and clothing covering half
the surfaces; even with the aid of magic, she will be hard pressed to pack it
all in a day and a half. She dives into the task. It keeps her busy late into
the night, and she drops off exhausted for only a few hours before starting
again in the early morning.
She knows she is avoiding the inevitable, and that she is compressing it down
to a rapidly vanishing margin. And yet, there is a part of her mind, growing in
clarity and volume, that tells her she has already avoided the worst. Her last
memories of Loki—and Loki’s last memories of her—will not be of screaming
recriminations. Though they had their unguarded moments, they never had a
chance to tear into each other with their very worst. Amora cannot think of any
deep relationship she has had where this is the case, and for all the
selfishness of the act, it is something she intends to keep.
Still. She can’t simply vanish. She fishes ink, pen, and paper out of her
things, and sits at her bare table.
My Dear Loki,
I am sorry to have to break this news to you in such a way, but I believe it is
for the best. I am leaving for Alfheim on a course of study this day, and I
wished our last days together to be happy ones.
Please be assured that my decision to move on in no way reflects on you—I could
ask for nothing more, in a student, a companion—
Or a lover, she nearly adds, and remembers that this letter could yet be read
by another besides Loki. This will be a draft, she decides, in which to write
out anything she might be tempted to say, before editing appropriately. She
finishes the sentence, and writes on.
You and I had more of an understanding than I have shared with any other
person. Amora recoils, but it’s a draft, just a draft, write on, so You are
clever, and beautiful, and not at all sweet, and your sense of humor is
excellent, and you are full of such powerful potential. I cannot think you will
come to rule when Thor is so universally beloved, and I cannot think you’ll
find a way to bend all to your will. And yet; I have a feeling you will find
ways to get anything that you want.
Please continue your studies. Please continue to frighten your peers and
destroy your enemies. Please grow into a woman who all men regard with awe.
Please think of me fondly.
Amora
She stares at it. It’s disgusting, but parts of it are salvageable. The first
passage is decent. The second passage has merit, up until she stopped filtering
herself. So much for a draft. She draws sharp, vengeful lines through most of
it, and continues below.
Please be assured that my decision to move on in no way reflects on you-- and
yet that isn’t true.
Though you have been an exemplary student and companion, I fear you have placed
too many expectations on our arrangement. There are many reasons—which you well
know—that this situation is not sustainable, the least of which being that no
one can be expected to mentor indefinitely. Furthermore, I know that our mutual
influence on each other has not always been suitably fitting to our station or
appropriate social function.
She thinks You and I are in many ways dangerous to each other, and puts
instead, I encourage you to continue your studies under the tutelage of a more
beneficial mentor.
Please forgive me my failings,
Amora
Not even she can be this cruel, Amora thinks, reading it over. It’s far too
terse, and too honest. The very point of this kind of parting was to not
recriminate, she reminds herself. She needs something between the two versions.
She begins again.
My Dear Loki,
I am sorry to have to break this news to you in such a way, but I believe it is
for the best. I am leaving for Alfheim on a course of study this day, and I
wished our last days together to be happy ones.
Please be assured that my decision to move on does not reflect on you so much
as on the present situation of your apprenticeship. Though you have been an
ideal student and friend—indeed, you are wonderfully talented and full of
powerful potential, and I have valued your company every day that I’ve had
it—there are many reasons that the present arrangement is not sustainable. I
won’t condescend to you by enumerating in detail what you already know.
Furthermore, I think that another could provide better tutelage to you, and
encourage you to continue your studies under a suitably beneficial mentor.
I leave you with my best wishes, and my fondest regard,
Amora
She reads it over again twice more. It’s not satisfactory by any means, but
it’s as good as it’s going to get. She sends for a family carriage to come
retrieve her things, rewrites the final letter on a new sheet, seals it, packs
the last of her things, and burns the practice paper.
Servants come to take her things out, and the room empties. She sits at the
table and watches her possessions disappear, leaving only the furnishings that
are not hers, the ashes in the hearth, and the letter on the table.
It all seems so neat. Really everything about this went off as neatly as could
be wished. She is pleased with that, and proud of her comportment in the
matter—for once, no bridges burned before she was ready. A sign of growth for
her, she thinks.
She leaves behind the last of the servants, striding through the familiar halls
of the palace and bidding it farewell with her head held high. If she continues
like this, she reflects as she enters the carriage, and arranges herself for
the journey, she’ll go very far in life.
Amora will get to have everything she puts her mind to wanting.
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