fairy-changeling:

It was early in the morning when the two parties met at the border between Jotunheim and Asgard. The sun was just beginning to rise and the snow sparkled under it’s weak beams. There was a beautiful harshness to the scene, something that would be captured later in paintings and sketches. 

Thor came with his attendants, with an entourage of servants. They came on horse back, each and every one of them. There was even a scribe there, hastily recording this historic moment for future sagas and to report back to the King. 

Thor’s betrothed arrived escorted by soldiers. 

Between the towering figures of his guards, he looked even smaller and younger than Thor knew him to be. 

Thor smiled at him.

Loki scowled back. 

Thor wondered how he would feel if he was in Loki’s place, if he was the one being made to leave his homeland. Loki was only fourteen, a child really, although Thor was not much older than him at seventeen. It was cruel to put so much on their shoulders, to require them to unite their Kingdoms and bring a stop to an unwinnable war. 

Thor had only seen Loki once before, when their betrothal was announced. Loki had bared his fangs at him then. He did it again now. 

It would have been frightening on a full-grown Jotun. 

On Loki it was oddly endearing. 

He reminded Thor of a kitten trying to defend itself. Loki postured, attempting to intimidate him, but he did not have the bulk or the ferocity to pull it off. Thor suspected that was the reason they had been betrothed to each other. Loki was a Jotun runt. No Asgardian would find him fearsome. 

Loki took a step towards the boundary, but a large hand clamped down on his shoulder, stopping him.

One of his guards spoke in a low voice, his words lost to Thor.

Loki’s eyes widened and the color drained from his face. He shook his head, but the guard’s grip only tightened, fingers digging in. 

“What’s happening?” Thor asked quietly, turning his head to direct his question to Sif. 

She stood beside him, her face stoic. 

Thor was supposed to accept Loki here at the border and escort him back to Asgard. That was what Thor knew. Loki was coming to live with them, to stay in Asgard until he came of age, then he and Thor would marry. That was the plan as Thor understood it, but looking at Sif’s face, he realized that there was something of this plan he had not been told.

“Prince Loki is leaving all of Jotunheim behind,” she said, keeping her eyes trained on the horizon. 

Thor looked back at Loki in confusion. The meaning behind Sif’s words dawned on him as he saw Loki resignedly removing his clothing, his movements slow and his fingers trembling. 

Loki was to cross over the border naked, to come to Thor in subjugation. 

Thor felt bile rise in his throat. He could not imagine being in Loki’s place, could not imagine having all these people watching his humiliation, having one of them recording it for the ages. Thor knew it would have been his own father who requested this, who would have insisted on humbling the Jotun Prince. 

Loki couldn’t come to Thor as an equal. Odin had seen to that. He had ensured that with this one action he stripped Loki of his standing. This would be the story people would tell of the day Prince Loki crossed the border to Asgard.

Thor found himself shaking. 

Furious, unthinking, he reached for the clasp of his cloak. 

“Thor!” Sif hissed at him, but he didn’t listen. 

It was freezing and Thor’s shaking now had more to do with the cold than rage, but he undressed, leaving Sif with his clothes and walked across the border to join Loki’s side.

Loki looked up at him with wide eyes, taking in all of him. Thor hoped he approved of what he saw. 

“I would not ask my future husband to do anything I would not do myself,” he said, offering his hand to Loki.

He pointedly did not look at Loki’s own nude form. He kept his eyes trained on Loki’s face. 

Shyly, Loki placed his hand in Thor’s.

They crossed the border together, hand in hand, naked and smiling; Thor a beaming smile that threatening to out do the weak morning sun, Loki a smaller, softer smile, but one that Thor still noted all the same. 

When they reached the Asgardian side, Thor took his cloak from Sif and throw it around Loki’s shoulders, hiding him from the assembly. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his voice low and pitched for Loki alone to hear.  

Loki tugged the cloak tight around him, watching Thor with his large, dark eyes. There were no bared teeth now, no sneers. He seemed awed and Thor found himself warmed despite the chill of the snow under his feet.

**

Odin berated Thor until the windows rattled and the ground shook, but Thor did not care.

He knew his father had wanted to make Loki a symbol, to show the other realms that Asgard had gained mastery over the proud Jotuns, but Thor was not interesting in playing his father’s games.

He was the one who Loki would be married to and he would not have Loki made to feel like a conquered prize. 

Their marriage would be a partnership, not a battlefield.