Random Norse Bullshit

Chapter 7: How To Get Your Wall Built For Free: A Lifehack From Loki Laufeyson

Loki had been trying to enjoy watching one of the royal council's boring meetings in bird form, perched high on the topmost part of Odin's throne. Then Huginn and Muninn had decided they wanted to assert their dominance by taking the tallest perch for themselves, so now Loki was a (mildly scratched up) cat laying grumpily on the armrest.

"I keep warning you not to challenge them," Odin whispered warmly, too quiet to be heard by the rest of the room's occupants.

Loki briefly considered biting him for the amusement in his voice. Odin started brushing his fingers rhythmically through Loki's fur, and all thoughts of bloody revenge were forgotten in favor of loud purring.

"My Lord," one of the sycophants whose name Loki didn't bother knowing said, bowing low at the waist to Odin. Loki liked to pretend they were bowing to him too when they did that. "I'm afraid that the Dwarves are refusing to rebuild Asgard's outermost wall. They say they are tired of 'cleaning up our messes', and that we must prove we have not grown overly reliant on their work by fixing it without them."

"The dwarves and their tests," Odin muttered under his breath, sighing. Louder, he proclaimed, "Gather all the finest craftsmen and stoneworkers of Asgard and set them to work at once. I will not have our city's defenses compromised a day longer than they need be."

"Your Highness, there is one craftsman already offering his work. He is waiting to be permitted leave to meet with you, Sire."

Loki perked up, watching the man in front of the throne. He looked nervous, uncomfortable. There was something he wasn't saying. "Be on guard," Loki warned with the grumble of a cat, knowing Odin alone amongst the court could understand him. Odin nodded almost imperceptibly and ordered the mysterious craftsman let in.

The craftsman turned out to be a giant, far from Jotunheim on other business, who apparently had heard of their plight and came to offer his assistance. Loki felt uneasy. Jotuun always meant trouble — he should know, he was the most troublesome of them all.

"In one year's time, I guarantee that your wall will be finished by my hand," the Jotuun promised.

"It would take all the craftsmen in Asgard far longer to accomplish such a feat," Odin commented with an impressed tone, though Loki knew him well enough to know he was suspicious. "And what, my friend, would you ask in return of such a great deed?"

"Not much, Sire," the Jotuun promised, his tone mild and pleasant. Loki could feel his fur bristle, knowing there had to be a catch. "Merely the hand of Freyja in marriage, along with Sol and Mani as my servants." Ah, there it was.

The court exploded in outrage.

To claim a goddess as his wife, and the sun and moon themselves as his own? What foolish nonsense was this!

Loki leapt nimbly onto Odin's shoulder, now in the body of a ferret. "How much do you trust me?" he whispered in Odin's ear, a feral grin on his furry face.

"Far more than I should," Odin answered just as softly.

"Great. Then accept the deal." Before Odin could protest, he added, "But add a few conditions..."

Odin listened intently to Loki's plan. Nodding, he stood and shouted for silence. Turning his fierce half-gaze towards the craftsman, he spoke thus, "I will take your deal, fine sir, if you can do it in half the time you claim you can. You may not seek help from any soul, and if you are but an hour late you will receive no payment of any kind."

"Surely I may make use of my packhorse, at the very least, to help me haul the stones needed to build with?" the Jotuun pleaded.

Odin thought for a moment. "I see no harm in it. We have a deal."

The moment the Jotuun had left the room, the Æsir turned on their king.

"My Lord, how could you even think to–"

"I'll run away and take Mani with me if–"

"I am not going to marry him, Borson!"

And on and on the disbelieving screams went.

Cackling, Loki fell from Odin's shoulder to land on the ground in his preferred form. He rarely had amusement such as this. The looks on their faces!

"Be calm, my friends," Odin ordered. "It is on Loki's council that I have accepted the deal, for he has crafted a clever plan. There is none alive who could complete the task of repairing the great wall in a mere six months; the craftsman will fail, and we will have at least part of the work done for free, without strain to our own people."

"And if somehow he accomplishes this feat anyways?" Freyja asked angrily, though worry crept through. Odin had made a deal as the king of Asgard, after all, and they all knew he couldn't go back on it.

"He won't," Odin promised, sending a dark look Loki's way.

Loki huffed from where he lay on the floor. When had this become his fault?

Again, this was really not Loki's fault. How in the nine realms was he supposed to know that the guy had a giant, magical, fucking eight-legged monster of a horse to help him?!

Despite this, Loki was being blamed for convincing Odin to make the deal. Now the six months were almost up, the wall was almost complete, and Freyr was almost to the point of physically assaulting Odin himself on behalf of his sister. Or physically assaulting Loki.

Loki needed to fix things, and fast. Beyond the danger to his own person, there was also the fact that losing the sun and moon would be... problematic.

"I could just hit him really hard," Thor suggested, leaning on the railing of a balcony that overlooked the hard-working giant and his horse.

"The craftsman or the horse?" Loki asked from where he was perched on that same railing.

Thor thought for a moment. "Hmm... Yes."

"He'll just claim it counts as going back on our word," Loki dismissed after a moment's consideration. "Besides, where's the fun?"

"Not everything needs to be fun, Liesmith," Thor told him for the even-Loki-didn't-knowth time. He smirked. "And hitting things is fun."

"Brute," Loki said with a long-suffering sigh, shaking his head. He smiled fondly, despite himself. "Not everything needs be accompanied by such violence, Thunderer."

They lapsed into companiable if troubled silence, both watching as stone after stone was hauled and put in its place. A figurative ticking clock to disaster.

"Perhaps he will not complete it in time," Thor offered hopefully, after a while. They both knew that was unlikely; at the rate the craftsman was going, he would finish with time to spare. Thor growled. "If only that damned horse was not there. It is ten times as strong and five times as trained as any of our own horses." He snorted humourlessly. "Norns know mine would've wandered off by now."

Wandered off... Loki's eyes went wide as an idea occured to him. It was... a very, very bad idea. It was absolutely insane. There was a low chance he'd get caught, but it came with a low chance it would even work. And there was a high chance it would end incredibly poorly for him.

But Loki was bored and — despite himself — extremely worried, and this promised to be absolutely hilarious, so really, could he be blamed for jumping on it the moment he thought of it?

With a grin and a wild laugh, Loki leapt off the balcony, turning into a hawk halfway down and gliding towards the craftsman and his horse.

"Wait, Loki!" Thor called after him, deflating when he realized he was already too far away to hear him. He ran a large, beefy hand down his face. "Whatever you are planning, Father's brother, please let it be one of your more clever tricks," he pleaded to the air. The Silvertongue was brilliant, he knew, and nearly unstoppable when given time to think.

But the problem was that he was often far too bored to bother thinking for very long.

It took Loki a few tries to get the form right. Beyond the challenge of making himself desirable by horse standards, which he wasn't that well acquainted with, there was the matter of the legs. Sure, it was easy enough to pop a few extra limbs on himself, but getting them to actually work was a different story. Eventually, though, he managed to craft a body that could handle a respectable trot without tripping on her own hooves.

After that, all he had to do was produce the pheromones of a horse in heat (don't ask him why he already knew how to do that) and trot pass the craftsman's packhorse. The thing's ears stuck straight up and it snorted loudly before following him away from the wall and straight into a nearby wood.

All according to plan. Now Loki just had to keep the horse distracted for a few days without letting it actually catch up to him–

"Hello, fair maiden," the horse — the giant eight-legged monster that the Jotuun dared to call a horse — said coolly, his gaze trailing across Loki's body.

"Hello yourself, big guy," Loki responded, not showing how shocked he was. The horse could talk? It– he was a guy, not a beast. That...

That opened up some possibilities, actually. If Loki played his cards right, he could have far more fun with this than he initially planned.

"I am called Svaðilfari," the stallion continued, moving closer. "And you, pretty mare?"

"Silver," Loki responded easily, not moving away. "I'm afraid I am not truly a mare, though, kind sir."

"Oh? You look like one to me."

"I am blessed with the ability to change shapes," Loki answered, feigning embarrassment. "I saw yours, and I just couldn't resist trying on such an... interesting form." He made sure to stress his words suggestively, letting his eyes flick approving across the other. "If I had known you were a gentleman rather than, if you'll forgive my phrasing, a beast, well... I do so apologize for inadvertently tricking you so, good sir," he lied.

"Do not be sorry," Svaðilfari said softly, moving until he stood mere inches from Loki. "I must say, you are... Quite good at crafting shapes, if your words are true."

Loki ducked his head, as if shy. "You are too kind. I doubt my form is truly that pleasant, as this is my first time trying it on."

"It is pleasant enough to me." Svaðilfari chuckled. "Tell me, dear Silver, just how accurate is your form?"

Loki smiled, batting his eyes. "I'm afraid I wouldn't know. I wonder, would you perhaps be willing to... check and tell me how close I am to the real thing?"

"I would love to," Svaðilfari answered, closing the distance between them, "my pretty little false mare."

Loki sort of forgot that getting pregnant was a thing.

In his defense, he was a guy (more-or-less), why should he think of such things?

Svaðilfari turned out to indeed be a gentleman about the whole thing, helping take care of Loki while he dealt with an event he had no prior experience of in a form he was never supposed to wear this long. But the giant horse's kind didn't raise their own young, and he left before the child was even born, following at the heel of his Jotuun partner.

It took the craftsman a few months to actually find them in the woods. Apparently, he had attacked the palace when he had been denied payment upon missing the deadline, and had been run out by Thor. Well, Loki mused, at least the dear brute had gotten to have some fun of his own after all.

Giving birth alone was a terrifying and painful experience. But as Loki gazed upon his son's face, he knew it was worth it.

He had just wanted a bit of fun and to maybe be praised for helping out. Instead, he had gotten a clumsy little eight-legged foal that looked at the world with bright, wonder-filled eyes. A much better prize, he thought.

He waited until young Sleipnir, his slippery little child that couldn't go two minutes without tripping, stopped nursing to return to his preferred form. It distressed the child to watch his mother change so entirely, but he was the son of a trickster and adapted quickly enough.

It was over a year before Loki remembered that he had a home and people that were probably a tiny bit worried about him to return to.

"You know, sweetheart," Loki said, carrying his son gently in his arms, "I think it's about time you met the family."

Odin was worried about Loki. Not too worried, mind you, as this was hardly the first time his trickster had disappeared for a long time without warning. The halfling was prone to great distraction and obsession, always running off after some whim or other.

Still, Odin worried.

One day, Loki casually entered the throne room as if he had only been gone a few days, rather than nearly a year and a half. He looked up at Odin with a grin. "Miss me, Brother?"

"Greatly," Odin answered honestly, enjoying the brief look of surprise that crossed the other's face before being blocked by a mask of careless amusement once more. "Care to explain where you've been, Skywalker?"

Loki's grin grew impossibly, worryingly wider. "Maternity leave."

Before Odin could even process that, a small form peeked cautiously out from behind Loki.

It was a foal, lanky with youth but already showing signs that he would grow into a truly majestic steed. He was white with a golden mane and spots, and large green eyes.

Green eyes just as bright as Loki's. And eight thin little legs.

"Oh Loki," Odin muttered, burying his face in his hands, "tell me you didn't sleep with the craftsman's horse."

Loki merely cackled in response.