Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/3410843.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/F
  Fandom:
      Marvel_616, Loki:_Agent_of_Asgard, The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness_-_Ursula_K.
      Le_Guin
  Relationship:
      Loki_(Agent_of_Asgard)/Verity_Willis
  Character:
      Loki_(Agent_of_Asgard), Verity_Willis, Sigyn_(Marvel), Thor_(Marvel)
  Additional Tags:
      Plot_What_Plot/Porn_Without_Plot, First_Time, Dubious_Consent, Fuck_Or
      Die, Sex_Pollen
  Series:
      Part 2 of So_close_that_your_eyes_close_as_I_fall_asleep
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-02-22 Words: 1952
****** Stars of Diamonds ******
by Aeolian
Summary
     Verity helps Loki through her first kemmer.
Notes
     I just wanted genderqueer!Loki on Verity action. And everything about
     Loki pretty much already makes em Gethenian, so this is set in the
     world of Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness.
     In Coming of Age in Karhide, both Sov and Sether seemed to have their
     first kemmer when they were 14, so that's the age I'm imagining Loki
     is here. Verity might be a year or two older.
See the end of the work for more notes
Loki would only know what happened later. At the time, all e knew was yanking
open the library door and running face-first into a chest as solid as if it
were carved out of hemmer wood. Huge beefy hands came up to steady em, and oh,
the heat. Oh, the musty, masculine smell. Loki couldn't help but snuggle
closer, wanting more of that delicious scent.
A deep chuckle, and a finger tilted Loki's face up to look at a stranger,
craggy but crinkle-eyed, his lower face covered with--was that hair? Loki
brought a hand up to feel the man's jaw, coarser than the hair on eir own head,
but far softer than hemmer needles. This must be one of the Ekumen diplomats
summoned to court. Loki chanced a peek at the alien through eir lashes.
"Are you lost, youngling?" boomed the stranger, catching Loki's wandering hand
with his own.
Loki opened eir mouth to answer, but could only gasp instead. E swayed on eir
feet, room going out of focus, belly burning, and oh, how eir nipples ached.
Everything after that was a blur of sound and movement, voices distorted like
they were shouting underwater, invasive hands pulling her here and there,
tugging at her clothes despite her feeble attempts to push them away, the awful
ache everywhere burning her alive, and through it all, Verity's voice in her
ear, murmuring, "The nurse is taking your pulse now. That's the sastrumy. The
physician's going to inject you with something to try to bring your temperature
down. That's it. You're being so brave."
Exhausted, terrified, Loki fell into dreamless sleep.
===============================================================================
 It was dark when Loki awoke, fire still coursing through her veins. It was
Getheny Nimmer--Midwinter Night--the coldest day and longest night of the year.
Normally, Loki would be holding grace in an itchy ceremonial hieb with mother
and the few servants they had, heads bowed in silence while the Indwellers
droned the Midwinter Chant, blessing Heath Jotunn for the year to come. Or,
perhaps more likely, holding vigil outside the bedchamber of her future
kemmering, Sigyn, heir of the Perunter throne, fading away on eir deathbed
before Loki had even seen eir face. It was suddenly too cold, too bleak in the
moonless dark, and Loki tried to sit up, ready to call out for her mother, for
Verity.
The movement pulled the sheets tangled between her legs, and Loki gasped and
arched her back, rubbing her thighs together. It was too much, it was not
enough, and Loki couldn't stop writhing, trying to find relief.
The bed dipped, but Loki could barely see whose shape crawled above her on the
bed. A warm, wet mouth pillowed her nipple, long hair tickling her skin, and a
hand stroked along her sex. It was like drinking chilled tea during Midsummer,
this shuddering pleasure that rocked her like a poleboat on a long journey down
the River Esagel during the Thaw. It drained the desperation from her limbs,
leaving them as weak as a newborn sube.
She carded the long hair back from the person's hair, and was rewarded with the
sight of Verity face, eyes and lips glittering as brightly as the stars
hovering outside her window.
"Thank you," Loki sighed to her friend, before drifting off again to gentle
sleep.
===============================================================================
 It was daylight when Loki awoke again, and she stretched languidly, but
something felt off. Pulling the sheets aside, she looked down to see her chest
had swollen into small pert breasts. Loki cupped them experimentally, and
gasped. They fit perfectly into her hands, and when she squeezed, a thrill of
pleasure shivered down her spine. Licking a few fingers, she tried stroking a
nipple the way Verity had licked them last night. The warm, damp pressure made
her toes curl, and she groaned, shifting her hips to find relief. Her sex felt
wet. Still circling her nipple with wet fingers, she snaked her other hand down
her belly, into the wet folds of her sex. She experimented with running them
between the double sets of labia, dipping them into her vagina, before
gathering up the moisture to play with her clitopenis. It was no longer big
enough to stroke, shrunken down to a small, flat nub, but she could still rub
quick circles around them, in time with the hand stroking her nipple.
This was how Verity found her, rocking desperately against her hand, with her
other hand clenched in her hair, teetering right on the edge of orgasm but
unable to tip over.
"What is this?" gasped Loki, as Verity gathered her in her arms, "An alien
disease?"
Verity didn't answer, sucking the slick off Loki's cramping fingers. She eased
the other hand out of Loki's hair before saying, "No, dummy. You're in kemmer."
Endless poems and plays had been written about kemmer, when Loki's people,
normally sexless, kemmered as either male or female for one week each month.
Loki had read one book that explained that one's sex during kemmer was
determined by smell and touch of another person in kemmer. If you inhaled a
male's pheromones during thorhamen--that period just before kemmer, you would
kemmer as female. If you brushed against a female during that time, you would
spend the next week as male. Loki's first kemmer, not due for months yet, must
have been triggered early by the Asgardian alien. But whatever the origins, the
books seemed to agree that kemmer was a week of gentle love and magical
understanding.
"The books are such liars," Loki groaned into Verity's neck, to her amused
snort, "Is this what it's like all the time for you?"
"You get used to it," said Verity, shifting them so that one thigh was settled
between Loki's legs, "Having someone to ease you through it helps too."
Verity gently pulled Loki's hips towards her, dragging Loki's clitopenis
against Verity's thigh. The friction was too much, and Loki threw back her head
to moan. Fingers quickly pressed against her lips, and as Loki blinked in
surprise, Verity slipped three fingers in her mouth.
"We can't let them hear us," Verity said apologetically.
Loki's eyes widened. Keeping kemmer, as most Gethenians understood it, meant
sharing with one's kemmering one's home, one's kemmers, one's life. To royalty
and the Noble Hearths, keeping kemmer had political implications as well--the
vows of kemmer were what propagated the bloodline, from mother to wombchild.
The vows of kemmering between Loki and Sigyn had always been understood as one
of political convenience, not love, but to break them still carried harsh
penalties.
Sigyn was too sick to help Loki through her first kemmer, but Verity's help,
apparently, must remain unseen and unheard, a polite fiction for everyone
involved.
Loki suckled Verity's fingers in apology, and she relaxed. Guiding Loki's hands
to her shoulders, Verity again dragged Loki's hips against her thigh. Catching
on, Loki began to rock against Verity's thigh, tonguing the fingers in her
mouth. Verity shifted her to find the perfect angle, and suddenly Loki couldn't
stop if she tried, hips twitching desperately, sex gliding against the Verity's
firm quadriceps, whimpering around Verity's fingers. This orgasm hit her like a
landboat, ripping the pleasure from her marrows as she shuddered through the
aftershocks. Verity kissed the tears from her eyes, and pushed her gently back
towards the bed.
"No," said Loki, grasping the ties of Verity's kirtle, "Please, please let me.
I'll make it so good--"
It was Verity's turn to freeze. The Kingdom of Perunter, once thought of as
backwards, had become a force to be feared after Skadi the Victorious ascended
the throne some twenty years ago and spread the kingdom like a glacier across
the continent. Fearing for their confederacy, the Noble Hearths of Sith had
offered up one of their children as tribute, if only Skadi would spare them.
The deal was struck, but when the Hearths heard of the terms Perunter had
decreed, all had backed out, except Hearth Jotunn.
Hearth Jotunn, the oldest of the Noble Hearths, and once its greatest; whose
once-shining golden curtains now hung tattered and drab; which was selling the
Jotunn lineage for Perunter gold.
Because the terms of the vow was that Loki would never have children of her
own. And to ensure that the terms would be kept, the Perunter had sent Verity,
a halfdead to the House of Jotunn, a rare throwback in Gethen's evolutionary
history. Verity was comely enough to look at, but through some fault of genes,
had come into her first kemmer...and never left. She would be in a state of
kemmer all her adult life, never to experience sommer, the clear-minded time
between kemmers--half dead to the world.
Verity's very presence in the Hearth was intended as an insult to the Jotunns,
the suggestion that they would try to cheat the vow and bear children of their
own. But the halls of Hearth Jotunn had long been empty, and the two lonely
children had become friends instead, always in one another's company, but even
so, ones who would keep a proprietary distance.
Half-deads were not to be touched.
"Please," begged Loki, "I don't care about Sigyn. I only want you."
Verity studied her face, hope and despair dancing in her own eyes. "You're only
saying that because of kemmer."
"I'll say it again in sommer," said Loki, kissing down her neck, "I'll say it
under the moon and the sun. You're the only one for me. Please."
She tugged on the drawstring of Verity's kirtle and it came loose. Verity
helped her to pull it over her head, and shove her camisole off too, clothes
tossed haphazardly on the floor. Her uncovered arms were decorated with flowers
and gods in green and blue. Loki traced the constellations of blue stars down
her ribs and Verity's stomach jumped.
"They're for protection," explained Verity.
Loki kissed her, hands framing her face, warm and wet and full of promise,
adding her own protection as well. She drew back to look at Verity's sun-gold
eyes, her plush mouth, her milky white skin. Verity's breasts were larger than
Loki's own, her narrow waist flaring sharply into wide, voluptuous hips.
Loki lowered her mouth to Verity's breast, kissing around the areola before
wrapping her mouth around the nipple. She exhaled slowly and Verity smothered a
moan against the back of her hand. Loki tried licking, and sucking, and
nibbling, and found that Verity liked it best when Loki rubbed the flat of her
tongue against her nipple, her hand working the other nipple to a point. She
ghosted fingertips up Verity's thigh, and her legs fell to either side. Verity
was surprisingly wet, slick running down her thighs. Loki dragged three fingers
through it, and licked experimentally. It was salty, musky and entirely
feminine. The taste wasn't bad, but what was better was the way Verity groaned
helplessly, her teeth in her own wrist. It didn't take long after that, Loki
palming her sex firmly while Verity rocked against her, whispering all of her
secrets into Verity's ear.
"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Loki was whispering when
Verity pulled her wrist away from her lips, two half-moon dents marring her
skin.
"You're such a liar," she gasped and came, arching right off the bed. Loki bit
into Verity's collarbone, trying to inject all of the truths unsaid into her
skin, her blood. Her hand worked Verity through her shuddering orgasm, before
she pushed Loki's hand away with shaking hands.
"Tell me if I'm lying," said Loki, once Verity's breathing evened out.
Verity looked straight into Loki's eyes, so she took a deep breath and said, "I
love you."
End Notes
     Title comes from Alexandre Dumas's Marguerite de Valois:
     "When the princess's eye thus met that of the young duke, a cloud
     seemed to overspread that lovely brow, around which stars of diamonds
     formed a tremulous circlet, and some agitating thought might be
     divined in her restless and impatient manner."
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