#divinemischief

[icyxmischief]

“Mama,” Davie is quiet as he enters the study, brows furrowed and studying some papers, “there’s a painting program on a tall ship happening during the last week of summer, d’you think I might be able to go?” He looks up from the papers and offers them over. “I’ve got time before my lessons start and the program sounds very interesting, they’re also going to do some navigation and ocean survival lessons. It might be neat!”

Loki’s in the middle of experimenting with an ice reversal spell, holding a transparent  bauble that is slowly melting and suspended in the air as clear water, which in turn transmogrifies into illusive snakes.  

He glances up from his work with a welcoming little smirk, and continues to writhe his fingers while setting aside the book that is a magical treatise on the subject.  

    “Come here, love, let me see it.  Who is organizing the endeavor?”

He studies the papers, multitasking with expertise, and hums.  

    “I’ll speak on the telephone with the captain.  Only to ensure that your survival lessons are not too realistic too early, although I am quite in favor of you training in such matters. Shall we put it as a tentative yes?” 

    “And what has your father said?” 

He’s warmly amused; Balthazar is so damned soft-hearted, and it’s always mama who gets stuck with pounding the gavel, should there be any possibility of a “no.”  

[icyxmischief]

“Hi mama,” Davie greets softly as he comes in from school and drops his bag by the door. He kicks off his shoes and hangs his blazer responsibly, but he runs into the kitchen to wrap his arms around Loki’s big belly and kiss the curve of it gently. He looks up and sighs with all the weight of the world. “People can be so dumb,” the little angel says in explanation. “I’m so glad to be home finally.”

     “David?” 

Loki barely registers her son’s greeting, sweet and nurturing though it may be, when his quiet heartache is clear.  

The venom of a thousand black adders and the teeth of ten thousand she-wolves roil within her, prepared to mete harsh justice to the culprit.

    “Darling,” she begins, pressing his cheek against her belly, holding him near that he can’t evade her question.  “Tell me what’s the matter.  I’ll not act upon the knowledge without your permission.”  

[icyxmischief]

[Truth] (From Davie) If you could plant any flower in the garden, what flower would it be and how come?

     “ … oleanders. They are beautiful but poisonous.  Davie, love, what are you up to?”  

[icyxmischief]

“Happy Yule mama,” Davie chirps as he brings a breakfast tray into the bedroom. Mama and Thea are all wrapped in the new cloak and he giggles, “Is it gonna snow in here?” Balthazar, following with freshly spiced apple cider, chuckles at the sight. “Good morning beautiful ladies! We’ve brought you pancakes and apple cider, but the rest of the gifts are still beneath the tree. You both look sublime in such a lovely cloak— good choice for mama, Thea!” The little witch grins, pleased with herself.

Loki flicks her wrist with a sly grin and snow cascades from the ceiling, frosting the floor; yet it is show that is not cold, and vanishes after a few seconds without leaving watermarks.

      “Loveling, your wish is my command.”

She looks up from tidying Thea’s unruly dark curls, and opens the cloak for the others to join them.       “The beautiful ladies invite the handsome gentlemen into their sanctum sanctorum for aforementioned pancakes and cider,” she declares, with a purr of laughter in her voice.  

[icyxmischief]

“Mama,” Thea chirps, all sugar and spice. She carries a bag of emerald velvet as she clambers up onto the great fluffy bed, and within it is a dagger. It has a bejeweled hilt and sheath covered in serpents of emerald and jet which she had all but demanded papa get for her beloved mama as soon as she saw it. There is also a lovely new burgundy velvet cape that is heavy with furs for the cold winter, but it’s in a box she cannot carry while climbing. “Mama is Yule! Pressies! Mama wake up!”

Loki, ever slow to awaken, stretches and loops an arm around her witchling’s shoulders, and gives Thea’s forehead a kiss that somehow mingles tenderness and ferocity.  Each kiss from mama Loki is a vicious vow, a promise, of protection at all costs.  Still she smiles down at the girl like Thea is the cause for the sunrise.  

      “Yes, yes!  I must be mad to sleep in, aye?  Blessed Yule, sweetling,” she coos.  Her jade eyes are soft: the privilege of only her children.  

Five months along with the new addition, the veteran mother’s belly is plush and round, but not so large that it’s difficult to sit up and join the excitedly chattering child.  She does so with a wry smirk, brushing her mane of black hair behind an ear. 

     “What’s in here, love?  How prettily you’ve prepared it. What soft velvet this is, and mama’s favorite color.  How blessed I am today, to have a daughter who thinks so long and hard about what makes me happy.” 

She speaks all these words while quietly beaming, and opening the parcel.  And she gasps with a glee she needn’t feign as she draws the dagger.

She turns to Thea.

     “For protection only, my gentle heart, alright?” she clarifies, and kisses Thea’s forehead again, and also her rosy cheeks. And then she drapes the cloak around them both.  “Look at us, then!  Aren’t we queens, you and I?” 

[icyxmischief]

“Daddy,” Thea calls as she shoves the door to his study open. The little witchling cares nothing for spells or potions that might be interrupted, has no concept of the idea that daddy’s magics ever possibly being even remotely dangerous. She simply wants daddy and finds him, secure in the knowledge that he will be receptive and pleased to see her. “I make a pi’ture! Look!” She holds up the vibrantly scribbled drawing, triumphant and proud. “Is p’etty!”

“Thea,” Loki greets his witchling, retracting his proverbial claws with his cubs, as ever. He magicks the mouse he was in the process of transforming into a salmon into a large tank; as a result there’s a furry gilled and finned chimera happily bubbling about within.  The rest of the magic he waves away in an iridescent, dissipating cloud, for Thea is right: he is delighted. 

 He leans down to lift her into his lap, and when he does, he takes the colorful chaos from her hands and examines it, rotating it every way.  

“It is most beautiful, lamb, it reminds me of how magic feels.” A breath of laughter through his nose. “So. What is the best way to look at it, hm?” 

[icyxmischief]

@divinethief

Loki climbs into Balthazar’s lap, entitled as a cat with its favorite human.  He deposits a beautifully wrapped parcel, in the hues of gold and turquoise, with cream patterns on the paper, on his lover’s chest.  

“Twas made known to me, and not via you,” he purrs, feigning scorn, “that your birthday recently came to pass.  Have a token of my love and gratitude.  You have made a nest for me, which is safe and warm.” 

He pets back golden blond hair and kisses the angel known to mankind as Barachiel on the forehead. 

“Go on. Open it.” 

Within there lies a beautiful Scottish brooch, adorned with gold filigree and garnets in woven Animal Style knotwork, featuring bracing serpents.  It is as ancient as Balthazar’s vessel.  

[icyxmischief]

“Beloved,” Balthazar begins as he sautés onions and garlic with a Chardonnay, “do you think we might go for a visit to my vessel’s manor? We met there for lunch that time when our shepherd had finals, loads of sheep and lavender fields? It’s supposed to be warm this weekend,” he explains, “and Thea’s just big enough that she might like to splash about the wading pool at the river and make some new animal friends.”

Loki lifts his head from the book in which he’s been scribbling furiously fastidious notes; it’s a tome on advanced Midgardian herbology, one he pulled from the shelf in his ever-growing “Subsidiary Library” in Balthazar’s home, in order to examine his lover’s spice closet.  He’s secure in the knowledge that the angel will be unfazed by this dissection of his domestic interior.

“Mn?” he hums, and slips over, closing the book in the process.

“Oh-hoooo, now, doesn’t that smell delicious,” he croons, while his arms slide around Balthazar’s waist, rubbing expertly seductive circles on his belly and pectorals.  He rests his sharp chin on his shoulder. “M-hm. M-hm.  M-HM.  I see.  And whyever would I say no to such a pastoral outing?”