348Hi there. Thanks for clicking on my story.
I apologize for any linguistic mistakes - I'm not a native English speaker, so I ask you to bear with me.
You all know that, but still: I do not own anything that you recognize, be it characters or dialogue or storylines.
A Drop of Snow
My brother was always peculiar.
Granted, there were not many memories of him in our younger years, the cause for which was debatable, though. Our father had always claimed that the boys did not care to share their time with me. There was little of interest in a girl's world for them. My mother had always said that it was not appropriate. Knowing my parents, her version probably came closer to the truth.
Here is what it came down to: until my mother gave in to my request for magic lessons, only a handful of words had passed between Loki and I in my entire life.
I did not think much of Loki at the time. He was lanky, much more so than our brother, and I knew that father did not approve. No one approved, really. Asgard raised warriors, not weaklings. And Loki was nothing like an Asgardian - he was pale and dark-haired and slim. Not like Thor, with his sun-kissed skin and golden hair.
Loki fancied himself to be very smart, though, and as far as I could tell, he liked to remind everyone of this fact as often as he could. He played tricks on everyone around him, most often Thor, and he laughed hard when our brother fell for it. Which he did, every time. My courage never sufficed to even start talking to him, too great my fear that I would be the next victim of his ill-natured pranks.
Thor, on the other hand, was much more likeable. Every now and then, he would ask me to dance at the feasts and he would go around, introducing me to everyone that I normally did not get introduced to.
"Do you know my sister?" he would exclaim. "Have you met Eirlys?"
He was all big smiles and booming laughter and I loved him very much.
That notion, of course, was wide-spread across the realm, perhaps even across all the realms. People looked up to our family. They admired my father's wisdom and strength, my mother's kindness and beauty and oh, how they adored Thor. No doubt he would one day be as great a king as Odin was and as his father had been.
Personally, I sometimes wished that I had been born a boy, as well. Then I could have become a warrior as well, could have trained and been admired. It would not have mattered, then, that my hair was not quite as golden as Sif's and that my eyes were not quite as blue as Thor's - in fact, they were more grey than anything - and it would not have mattered that there were freckles on my nose.
As it was, I was doing embroidery, learnt nothing but dancing and painting and only sometimes, if my governess thought I had done exceedingly well, I was allowed to parade those skills at the next feast.
Perhaps that was the reason why, ever since my mother had displayed her magic skill in front of me for the first time, I had begged for her to teach it to me.
I begged and pleaded and cried when she refused me - there was nothing I had ever wanted more in my life. And after long, when my mother was finally sick of me clutching at her skirts, she agreed.
To say that I was overjoyed was an understatement. Unfortunately, though, my joy did not last long. Apparently Loki had had the same wish for quite some time as well and our mother thought it unfair to teach one and not the other. Most of all, she thought it impractical to teach us separately. I broke out in tears when I heard the news.
Loki seemed just as disappointed with the situation. He was not crying, at least, but then again, he was a boy and I was not sure if boys cried at all. He was pouting, though. Suffice it to say, our mother was not charmed by the attitude and she was not charmed by my tears, either.
"But mother," Loki argued. "You can't expect me to take lessons with a girl!"
"Surely," I said. "He'd be better off bashing his head in with the other boys."
He turned to me, green eyes sparkling with anger. "We're not bashing our heads in," he told me as if he knew a secret that I did not. "We're training for battle."
I attempted to make the angry sound the maid always made when someone ordered her to do something she did not want to do. It did not quite sound like it did with her. Indeed, it sounded a bit funny, and not in a good way, but now I had to stick with it.
"Anyone can do that," I announced, even though I knew it was not true.
He laughed at me, then. It made me so angry that my eyes watered up, which of course made him laugh even harder, which of course made me cry for good.
It was just so unfair that he had to be here, that he had to ruin it and in that moment, I did not want to learn magic any longer. Should Loki and our mother become happy with their magic lessons, I did not want to have any part in it.
Our mother had watched the scene unfold before her, but as I continued crying and my brother continued laughing, she stepped in. Needless to say, she was not amused.
"Now children," she admonished while she wiped my tears away with her handkerchief. "Pull yourself together. You two can learn together, or you won't learn at all."
Loki's eyes widened and he started sputtering at that. "But," he cried out again. "Mother!"
She silenced him with nothing but a silent look. His mouth snapped shot, but that did not stop him glaring at me. I was still sniffling with tears, but I did not want to get that same look from my mother and so I kept otherwise silent. Besides, it was already embarrassing enough that I had started crying in front of Loki and I did not want to make myself any more foolish.
In fact, I had to make up for my foolishness now. I did want to learn and I would prove to Loki that I could learn magic and that I could better him, too. He would never laugh at me again, then. He would not dare, or else I maybe would turn him into a frog or something like that.
We both soon had to find that learning magic was not quite as easy as we had imagined it. The first step, as our mother had explained, was finding the power within us before we could even begin to put it outside of our body. It did not make a lot of sense to me, but I would never have admitted it, not in front of my brother.
At least, he did not make any progress, either and he was getting impatient. He came to every lesson, but he usually stormed off halfway through or started screaming at our mother. I kept hoping that she would forbid him from learning, but she only ever reprimanded him and let him arrive again the next time.
To be honest, I got a little scared that I would never be able to do it. Perhaps there was no power in me, perhaps I was not special after all. But I was determined to at least last longer than Loki did. Maybe, if he gave up before I did, I could convince him that I could do it, even if it was not true.
I knew I would have to make it very convincing, though, because my brother was a good liar. He made up stories all the time and I could never tell if they had really happened or not. He would ask me if it was true or not and would laugh at me when I got it wrong. Which I usually did.
One time, he even called me stupid and I had burst into tears again. I did not think that I was stupid. It was the only time that our mother actually sent him away instead of him leaving. He was still allowed to return and I had promptly cried again when I had seen him. He had not laughed that time.
After a few months, even our mother seemed to get impatient. It was harder to tell´ and I only thought it because she was trying out new techniques. At first, I had thought that we might have made some progress and just did not notice, but that clearly was not the case.
Loki and I started arguing more and more. He would make jabs at me and I would try to hit back, but I never managed to really hurt him. At one point, when we were screaming at each other, our mother finally decided that she wanted us out of her rooms.
"Children, listen," she announced. "I want you to go and work together and you mustn't return until you both have found the power."
"But," Loki started, but he did not get far, as usual. Instead, it was me that spoke up this time.
"What if one of us doesn't have it?" I asked timidly.
My mother raised an eyebrow and then she shrugged. Clearly, my concerns did not matter to her. "I told you. Either you both learn or neither of you will."
Loki stormed off again, but this time with me on his heels. It took him five minutes until he realized that he was being followed an he was far from pleased when he did.
His demand for me to leave did not make me go away, though. I could not and I told him so - because mother had said that we should study together and so that was what we had to do. He threw a bit of a tantrum and I was shaking by the time he was done, but I did not move from my spot.
My brother eventually calmed down, but he was still glaring at me when he was breathing calmly again. "We're going to the library," he announced and his tone left no room for discussion.
I had never been to the library before.
When I had wanted to read something or I had been supposed to read something, a maid had been sent to retrieve it for me. I had never even considered the possibility to go here on my own.
It was an imposing room with a ceiling that stretched to the sky and shelves that seemed to be almost as high. It was gloomy, but between the shelves, it felt like a comfortable sort of darkness, like pulling your blanket up over your head and being protected from the evil monster under your bed.
Loki, though, seemed perfectly at ease and he seemed to come here often, if the warm smile of the librarian was anything to go by. The man did not ask after me, but I was not entirely sure that he had seen me to begin with. His fingers skimmed along the dusty shelves, his eyes fixed on the backs of the books with scary intensity.
He pulled out book after book and pressed them all into my arms until I was swaying and the staple was growing over my head. Then he grabbed two more, one for each of his hands, and ordered me to follow him.
We worked through the books for the whole day, and the day after and the day after. We had very little success. One book described what the power was supposed to feel like, but it did not say anything about how to find it within ourselves. Loki was soon growing angry again and he would start pacing around me while I read. He was also getting impatient with how slowly I read.
"This isn't working!" he finally screamed and I almost fell of the chair in fright.
"Maybe if we ask mother again," I whispered. "She'll help us."
He huffed in annoyance. "We're not going to go crawling back beneath our mother's skirts," he snapped. "Grow up a little."
My mouth fell open and I fought the tears threatening to spill again. Oh, I hated him and I wished by the Norns that he was not my brother and that I did not have to study with him. Indeed, I wanted to run away as fast as I could and hide away. In my room, or if need me, in my mother's skirts.
Loki watched me closely and suddenly started forward and grabbed the book from me. I let out a howl and rushed after it to gain it back. He laughed at me again, easily holding the book out of my reach and I clutched at his arm, trying to pull his arm down towards me.
He was still laughing when I felt it. It was nothing like the book had described, but there was never any doubt in my mind that I had found what we were looking for.
It was pulsing, a bit like a heartbeat. It was like an extra-being, living inside my brother's body alongside him. It was cold, but not bitingly so - it was more like a fresh breeze. And it was light. Not in the sense that it did not have any weight, but in the sense that it was bright. It was shining, like a candle lit in the dark to chase the nightmares away.
"You have it," I breathed. He tried to wrench his arm away, but I grabbed on even tighter. I did not want him to take the light away, I was much too curious about it. "Don't you feel it?" I asked, looking at him in wonder. "You have it!"
"What do I have?" he asked crossly.
"The magic," I said. He always claimed to be so smart, but he seemed a bit stupid right now. "I can feel it, why can't you feel it?"
His eyes widened at me. "What does it feel like?"
With every word I said to describe it, his eyes grew even larger. His hand pressed down on top of mine and I watched him concentrate. I could see it on his face when he found the beating. Loki looked mildly surprised, but he most of all looked very pleased with himself.
I did not think that he had any right to. After all, it had been me that found it in the first place.
Finally, my hand left his arm and I shook it a bit before holding it out to him again. "Now me," I said.
His eyes glinted evilly at that. "What will you give me if I find it for you?" he asked.
My mind started racing for something, anything he could want, before I realized that I did not have to give him anything. "If I don't find it, you can't learn," I said, trying my best to sound sure. "So do it."
Loki pulled a face, but he did not try to argue. I grinned at him, happy with my victory as he grabbed my arm. His fingers dug in deep and I bit my lip so he would not know he hurt me.
He closed his eyes and his eyebrows furrowed as he concentrated. I was suddenly afraid again. What if I did not have it? He would never let me forget that I did not have magic and he did. I wanted nothing more than to be as good as him.
My brother suddenly looked at me again, his lips spreading into a wide grin. "Found it," he said.
"Really?" I asked.
He raised an eyebrow at me. "Dear sister," he said. "Would I lie?"
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