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“Some say he is naught but a cold, crackling breeze whispering among the firs. Others say he is an old man in a sledge, with bright eyes and cold hands. Others say he is like a warrior in his prime, but robed all in white, with weapons of ice. No one knows.” -Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale
"Blood Moon" by Midnott.
***
Living in the forests of the far north, death by winter elements had always been a possibility for Thor: the winter-king came for the souls of many residing in such unforgiving climes. What he hadn't anticipated was being offered as a sacrifice to the frost-demon, beaten and arms tied and left for dead by his fellow villagers. He forced himself to wiggle from the cobbled together pallet they'd dragged him into the woods on, and over to a hollow under a tree, out of the biting wind. The effort stabbed agony at every point of his body, welts and cuts, broken ribs and, worst of all, the badly broken leg he had to drag behind him. His path left a streak of red in the snow.
His doom had been sealed when a local noble's son attempted to force himself on Thor's sister. They had fought viciously, the man being near as large as Thor, but when Thor knocked him to the ground with a powerful blow, his head struck a stone. The man began to seize, and a few hours later he was dead. The mob caught Thor not far from the village as he attempted to escape, terrified and full of guilt, and beat him until he bruised or bled over every inch of his flesh, then left him in his current situation, to die.
The sun slipped below the horizon, and with it, the temperature dropped further. Thor couldn't have said why he even bothered to move; it was only his base animal instincts that denied the inevitable. He wondered, as his battered body shuddered with agony and cold, if the winter-king was real, or just a story. There were old tales of families leaving a virgin maiden out in the snow for him, that he would keep her for a time as his mortal bride and return her with riches of gold and jewels. Or, if she was unworthy, take the maiden's soul and leave her frozen body behind.
The method of Thor's disposal was, of course, a mockery of this tale; he was neither maiden nor virgin, nor still a blushing youth. His murderers were too cruel or cowardly to simply cut his throat, and thought it a convenient way to make a sacrifice in plea for a mild winter. He knew they had taken the new Christian ways, and likely as not didn't believe in the winter-king, not truly. Thor might not have, either, except he had always had a witchy way about him: he could see the spirits that lived in creek and copse, in the oven of the home and among the horses of the stables, when others could not. There were always whispers that his mother had been a witch.
Somewhere along his mental wanderings, Thor realized he could no longer feel the cold biting his limbs or chilling his core, and knew death closed in. Yet the pains of his injuries still tormented him in his final moments.
"Please come for me quick, winter-king," He murmured into the gloaming.
In the stillness under the tree a cold breath whispered against Thor's cheek in reply, “Are you quite warm?"
Thor's eyes snapped open. A pale blue face loomed, sharp as a hawk's, with ruby jewels for eyes and curved horns, rough in texture like an old tree's bark. It was a face so beautiful Thor's heart ached to look upon it.
"Yes, I am, thank you," Thor replied, for he did feel warm, and knew it meant death claimed him at last.
A frigid wind whipped up around them, shaking whorls of snow from the branches above their heads, and the frost-demon said, "And now? Still warm?"
The world faded into a smear of gray and white and blue. Thor forced words out through his shaking lips. "Please, death-god, I do not fear you. Take me quick, for my body pains me."
The frost-demon smiled at that, all sharp teeth, and closed the distance between them. He planted a kiss on Thor's forehead, so cold it burned like fire, and Thor knew no more.
***
He dreamed of pain, heady and searing, that lit a fire in his belly. He dreamed of cool, clever fingers on his skin. He dreamed of the friendly brown eyes of his favorite horses, of his mother's clear voice singing to him as she bounced him on her knee, and awoke in a bed softer than any he had ever known.
Thor’s eyes opened to a soft blue painted ceiling—or maybe it was a sky—and he wondered if he'd landed in the Christian idea of heaven, which was absurd, being he'd never taken the Christian god, and had just yesterday committed murder, to boot. When he surveyed his surroundings, his head spun and his stomach churned, for what he looked upon appeared to him as a copse of snow laden trees and clear sky, and at the same time the wooden walls and blue painted roof of a cabin. Just the same, his bed was fluffy with soft white blankets, or was a drift of fresh snow that dampened his skin as it melted against him.
Thor shut his eyes and tried to calm his breath, willing the madness of those doubled images to right itself. What kind of strange afterlife had he stumbled into? He ran his hands over his own stomach and chest and found them warm and solid and still tender with bruises under the simple long shirt he now wore. If he'd lost his body, why would it still hurt? He could make no sense of it, and with eyes kept closed, the face of the frost-demon refused to leave his mind's-eye, more vivid than the verdant fields of midsummer had been in his mortal life.
He opened them, and the frost-demon was there in truth, sitting near the hearth in a chair-that-was-not-a-chair, before a simple wooden table that was and was not there, watching Thor with his chin on his steepled hands. He appeared both ancient and young as an adolescent boy, with his thin, beardless face, jutting horns, and haunting red on red eyes.
For a moment Thor was solidly inside a cabin, staring at the winter-king, blue toned skin muted by the warm glow of the roaring fire behind him. Then he sat up in the bed-that-was-not-a-bed, and the image stuttered again, doubling into a snow laden wood.
“Am I inside or outside?” Thor asked, holding his bile down. Not ideal first words to his rescuer.
“Both. You can see both truths at once because your witch’s blood has instilled you with second-sight. Tell me, are you able to see the spirits of the grove, the meadow, and the lake?” The frost-demon’s voice was smooth, like the hush of falling snow, as ageless in sound as he was in looks.
Thor nodded, hardly trusting himself to not retch if he opened his mouth. "Is any of it real?"
“Both are real simultaneously. Focus on the image of the cabin. Hold it in your mind as the reality you wish embodied.”
He did, taking long breaths through his nose as he concentrated on how badly he would prefer to be warm and alive and not merely the mental remnants of a corpse left frozen in the woods. The room solidified, firm angles where walls met floor, the frame of his blanket laden bed, the small table with two chairs the frost-demon sat at before the hearth. He felt the heat of the fire, and smelled its smoke.
“Are you hungry?” The winter-king asked.
He reached beside the hearth and pulled into view a fine silver tray laden with salted meats, cheese, and fresh fruit, which he set before the opposite chair. Fresh fruit in midwinter? Thor’s stomach growled so loudly the frost-demon heard it, his dark brows raising into an amused arch. Embarrassed but desperate in his hunger, Thor pushed off the bed and onto his feet. He nearly collapsed, the recently broken leg shooting a spike of pain straight through his body and to the bottom of his skull. He braced a hand against the nearest wall for support, and was surprised it held despite the ghost of tree branches visible through it. He crept toward the table one shuffling step at a time.
“Careful. You slept long but your wounds haven’t yet healed completely,” The winter-king said.
Thor grunted in response as he sank into the chair, but the dreams of cool fingers and sharp pain flashed into his mind unbidden. He glanced up to find the frost-demon watching him, eyes intent, and all at once Thor was sure it had not entirely been a dream. A self-conscious flush heated him. He felt naked in the shirt where he hadn’t before, and shifted in his chair, tucking the trailing ends between his thighs. When had the eyes of a man on his body ever made him bashful? Could this smooth faced creature be called a man?
The winter-king held a jeweled goblet in one hand, and took a sip from it, the corners of his mouth bent in a smile as if he dared Thor to break their locked gaze. The smell of the rich food pulled Thor’s attention away at last, and he tucked in, though he stole furtive glances at the winter-king from under his lashes as he gulped down his meal. The frost-demon wore a diaphanous green robe that hung from his bare ice blue shoulders, the translucent fabric doing little to hide the contours of his wiry chest. Beads glinted in the raven tresses of his hair, where it cascaded around his horns and down his back. Thor caught himself wondering what the strange whorl patterns on his skin would feel like under his fingers, or the bark-like texture of his horns.
All the while the winter-king watched him eat with blood-bright eyes, tapping the rings on his long fingers against the edge of his goblet with an arrhythmic tink-tink-tink.
He is far too lovely to go by the name of demon, or death-god, said an old, treacherous voice in Thor's mind. He stuffed the thought down.
“Do you have a name? Or are you just winter-king?” Thor blurted out when their silent tension became too much to bear.
"Loki. And yours?"
"Thor."
"Bringer of thunder. A lofty name."
Thor ignored this, setting the remains of his meal aside. "Are you going to kill me, Loki? Or am I already dead?"
The frost-demon cocked his head to the side, a sharp, bird-like movement. "That depends. And no." He smiled.
Thor was about to push his line of questioning further, when a white mare appeared in the gaps between the fir trees. Or rather, pushed straight through the illusion of the cabin's wall, and came to halt with her muzzle next to the winter-king—Loki’s—ear. The effect made Thor's head throb, but the mare turned her pointed ears toward him in a friendly hello, as if she had expected him.
"Hello," Thor said.
She leaned over Loki’s shoulder and brought her pink nose close to Thor’s face, scenting him with big huffs that flared her nostrils. He stroked the soft fur of her forehead, and her ears and eyes told him I am pleased you are well.
Thor nodded, grateful.
“You can speak to horses,” The winter-king said, a statement, not a question.
“In a way, yes. They’ve always been my dearest companions, and I served as the local noble’s stable master before…” Thor trailed off, caught in bitter memory of the son’s cruelty and his own near demise. He would never see his sister again.
Loki’s crimson gaze had gone thoughtful, and for a moment he went still, as hard and inhuman as the frozen surface of a lake. He reanimated all at once, and gesturing to the mare said, “That was a nasty state they left you in, and she insisted we rescue you.”
"Thank you, ma'am, thank you," Thor whispered against her snout.
After a pause Loki continued, “There are things we must attend to. Rest and eat, and do not leave this copse, for if you do, you may not be able to relocate it.”
Thor startled when the winter-king rose; he was tall, nearly as tall as Thor perhaps, not the petite, youth-like waif Thor had taken him for seated. Loki grabbed handfuls of the mare’s mane and swung himself upon her before he’d even left the cabin completely, unrestrained as he was by the limits of its magical walls. The mare bobbed her head at Thor in farewell, he waved in return, and they were gone. He was alone, trapped in a half-real cabin located he knew not where, at the mercy of a mercurial frost-demon. Trapped, but alive.
He ate a few more pieces of fruit, savoring the summertime brightness of it in case it was the last he tasted, then crawled back into the snowdrift bed to sleep.
***
Thor did try to wander a bit, after he woke, ate, and started feeling restless and stiff thanks to so many hours in bed. The winter-king was nowhere to be seen. He found warm clothes that fit him lying atop a trunk at the foot of the bed, along with fine boots, and thus outfitted, limped from the copse-cabin and into the bright, cold winter day. He only made it a few steps before his leg buckled and he sank down to sit in the snow. There was nothing left to do but look around as he rested, and learn what he could of his location from his surroundings.
It was immediately clear that something about the place was off. Everything was too perfect, too silent as if not a single animal stirred, the very essence of midwinter distilled, like he was in a place that never thawed–perhaps he was.
After a while Thor grew cold and returned to the surreal cabin. His body still ached, so he slept in more dream spiked fits, filled with violence and regret and those cold hands. At one point he woke to find more food left for him, but still he was alone. The next day he made it a few steps further, and more the one after, until his leg no longer failed him and the pains left from his near fatal beating were all but memory. Yet as the fatigue and pain receded, and he was left alone in that strange, deathly silent wood, his dark thoughts only grew, and began to consume him. He was haunted at every turn by all he had lost.
Why had the winter-king avoided him for days, leaving only food and supplies? Fully mobile, Thor whittled the hours away pacing laps around the copse, trying to escape his own mind, yet the same few memories kept repeating: his sister's tear stained face and disheveled dress. The feel of his knuckles impacting the face of the man who had meant to harm her, and the crunch that sounded when the man fell head first into a rock. The faces of the angry mob as they dragged him from his horse, shouting for justice. Cool blue fingers on his skin, followed by a pain so intense it seared his blood.
Murderer, murderer, murderer, the word dogged his every step. Was he truly still alive now, and why? He had taken a man's life, and the guilt felt no less for not being his intention—he had intended some harm. Why, after all that, had the death-god saved him, brought him here? And why had he dreamed not once but twice of the frost-demon's searing touch? He'd awoken free of his bloody clothes, cleaned, the winter-king had touched him, undressed him…
Thor walked as if he could outrun his shame and confusion, until exhaustion and the pain in his mostly healed leg made it impossible to continue. He was about to return to the cabin when he caught a flicker of blue out of the corner of his eye. He turned and Loki was there at last, lovely and wild against a backdrop of snow laden evergreens, still as death in the winter's early waning light. Only his black hair moved, tugged by the breeze to tangle around his rough horns. Thor wondered where the kind mare was, but knew somehow she was as at home out in the winter forest as the frost-demon was.
Loki blinked into motion and approached, and once shoulder to shoulder, they returned to the cabin in silence. Loki had donned a coat of thick, pure white fur over his insubstantial leggings and robe, but once they stood on the hard floor of the cabin, Thor realized that the winter-king wore no shoes.
He removed his boots, set them by the hearth, and rounded on Loki, wound tight with the questions that had plagued him since he had awoken alone after their first meeting. "Where have you been these last days? Why haven't I seen you?"
Loki raised his brows. "I've been occupied elsewhere. Being the winter-king can be quite demanding."
“But why bring me here at all?”
“You called to me as you bled out on my snows.”
“But I called to you as death-god, to end my suffering. I’ve taken a man’s life! Why feed and clothe and keep me as you have? Am I some sort of pet??” Thor realized he was shouting, his chest heaving in anger and frustration.
A maddening little smirk tugged the corners of Loki’s mouth, his only reaction to the outburst. “Because I can.”
Thor reigned in his temper with great effort. “Fine. But I must ask again—do you plan on claiming my life?”
“Eventually.”
The non-answer landed like a slap. Thor felt the tension as it squeezed his vocal cords, giving his voice a chiseled edge. “ Why do you play games with me??” He balled his hands into fists at his side.
The winter-king glanced at Thor’s clenched fists, then back up, his brows raised high enough to fold his pale blue forehead into a collection of lines. All at once Thor felt silly, and full of shame; what was he going to do, threaten death himself? This was no mere man to be argued with, but an old and powerful god. Thor was completely at his mercy, with nothing to trade for his life, which he was now surer than ever he desperately wanted to keep. How ironic, that after days stewing in his own guilt and shame over taking another's life, he was more attached to his own.
After pushing away such nagging thoughts for days, he called to mind the tales of the winter-king he knew, the ones where he spared, and only spared, young maidens left for him as brides. Those were said to return laden with riches, but they were all brave, blushing virgins. None he took to his bed in the tales were ever men, but would the tales dare to tell of such things even if they had happened? Until now he hadn't allowed himself to think of the possibility; for a man to touch another was taboo—not that it had stopped Thor in his youth.
Thor took a deep breath, steeling himself, and removed the thick coat he wore, hanging it over the back of a chair. He was no virgin, he had nothing like that to offer Loki except in one sense, and not one he was sure the frost-demon would accept. He shuddered at the thought, maybe anticipation, maybe fear. If murder had already damned him in the eyes of the Christian god, what difference would one more trespass make? Thor untied his belt and untucked his shirt. Loki watched him, only the crackling of the fire filling the silence between them, tilting his head one way, then the other, like a curious wild animal.
Thor unlaced his breeches and pushed them down, pulling them and his stockings free one leg at a time, leaving himself yet again clad in nothing but the long shirt he woke in. He knew he was comely enough; maidens and stable boys alike had always been taken with his powerful build and golden hair. Thor pulled the shirt up and off over his head, his hands trembling. Cold air rushed over his skin, prickling it to gooseflesh. He resisted the urge to cover his most tender parts: the point now was to show what he had to offer, not hide. Loki's eyes shifted over him, dancing with firelight.
Thor straightened to his full height before speaking, the sound of his own pulse rushing in his ears. "I know the tales. I have nothing to offer you, Loki winter-king, except myself. A man has never taken me."
He wasn't at his best, recently beaten, thinned down and weak; he could only hope his meager flesh was enough.
"A man," Loki replied, stepping closer.
Thor furrowed his brow. "No man, woman, god, or demon. Not…like that."
"Like that," Loki repeated, lips spreading into a smirk.
Hot shame pooled in Thor at the amusement in that smile—he was offering himself like a common whore and being mocked for it. He fought the urge to rush the frost-demon and slap the smile from his face. He closed his eyes. Loki was so slight, surely Thor could crush him with his bare hands…cool fingers brushed along his ribs, leaving a fresh wave of gooseflesh in their path. He fought down a groan. The fingers traced a line upon his arm, then across his chest. Thor opened his eyes, and found that Loki was tracing the new, bone white scars he’d woken up with after his incident, his cuts miraculously healed overnight. He remembered the blood-searing touch.
“That first night, did you heal me in my sleep?” Thor asked, his voice reduced to a whisper by the quiet tension between them.
Loki had stepped so close while his eyes were shut that his horns nearly touched Thor’s forehead.“Yes.”
“How?”
“Mending flesh is one of my gifts.”
“A strange gift for a death-god.”
Loki shrugged, and traced a scar down the ridges of Thor’s stomach, the sensation curling his belly with a need so intense he felt nauseous. He shoved his traitorous desire down, he would not have the winter-king know his twisted weakness. His body would be an offering, nothing more.
Next Loki smoothed his hand down the blonde hair falling over Thor’s shoulder, curled a lock around one ice blue finger, then tipped his chin up to look Thor in the eyes. It was a struggle for Thor to meet that crimson stare so close, so his eyes flicked between the intricate patterned skin, the bark-like horns. It was hardly better, everything about the winter-king was alien and beautiful. He smelled like a dawn frost and fresh pine.
Loki breathed in long through his nose. “You are midsummer in the flesh; you are golden like it, you smell like it. Surely you belong to my sister, the summer-queen, and are lost.”
Thor opened his mouth to speak but no words came out, lost as he was in the red on red of Loki’s eyes, lighter at the corners, darker at the irises, near black in the center. A lick of sensation struck him and he realized too late his cock had stiffened, and was brushing against Loki's hip. The winter-king smiled and leaned into it.
His breath was cool on Thor's face as he spoke. "The thought of it excites you."
Thor froze, wanting to shake his head in negation, no, no.
"I accept your offer."
Fear lanced Thor's gut, blending with the need stewing there, and making him lightheaded. He couldn't speak, but nodded. If this was the cost of his survival, he would see it through.
"Onto your side, on the bed," Loki said, taking him by the arm and leading him to the edge of it.
Thor breathed through his rising panic as he lowered down onto his side. He heard the rustle of clothing being shed behind him. His frantic mind couldn't hold the vision of the cabin in place, and it half faded to trees, the soft bed turning to snow around him. Calm, calm, he told himself. Even if the winter-king takes you roughly, the pain will be nothing compared to what you experienced at the hands of the mob. Think of how you dragged your twisted leg through the snow and lived to tell of it, be brave.
Thor shut his eyes against the doubled image of the copse and cabin, and forced himself to relax.
It started with the cool, tracing fingers again, this time along his back. Then Loki slipped into the bed behind him, slotting their bodies into alignment from shoulder to knee. The feeling of Loki's cold, bare skin against his was overwhelming; Thor could feel Loki’s hardness pressed against the cleft of his ass, and fought another wave of panic. Something about it felt right, natural, and that terrified him.
Loki’s chilly fingers roved over Thor’s chest, brushing through hair and over his nipples, then down over his hip bones, lower still to scratch in the nest of curls at the base of his cock. Despite his fear he was losing the battle against his building desire, and when Loki’s hand ghosted light over his straining hardness, the frost-demon hummed. He danced his fingers over the length a few times, then pulled them away, Thor nearly helpless to stop himself from chasing the sensation with his hips. Fingers returned, the opposite hand, cold and now slick, and Loki canted his hips away before stroking between Thor’s stacked legs.
Thor gritted his teeth. The winter-king saved your life, he repeated in his own head , and he has not been cruel. The deeper, treacherous voice whispered, and he is very beautiful.
The darkness behind Thor’s eyelids had become too much to bear, so he was looking out at the half wall obscured trees when Loki’s slickened finger first penetrated him. It went in so easily, with so little pain, that it felt anticlimactic. Loki pressed it further in, his knuckles notably thicker as they passed his rim, and then withdrew slowly, and repeated. Thor scrunched his face, taken aback by how odd it felt, so uncomfortably like relieving himself as the finger retreated.
Before he had time to fully process it, Loki added a second. The intensity of it more than doubled, rippling out across Thor’s skin, the stretch and the slight burn of it. He tried to keep his breath in check, to disconnect from his body’s reaction, but Loki pressed his face into the nape of his neck and set his lips there, his rough horns brushing and catching in Thor's hair. Loki pushed the two fingers in until his hand bottomed out, and began to pump them in a steady rhythm.
“You smell ripe with mortal vitality," The frost-demon murmured. "You are the get of a witch, and there is power in your blood. When it soaked my snow it called to me,” Loki breathed into the spill of Thor’s hair, taking in deep, lusty breaths.
Thor’s pulse hammered in his ears. He worried his lip at Loki’s words, confused by his body’s reaction. The slide of Loki’s fingers hurt, but didn’t; felt wrong, and terribly right at once. It was just so much. Then Loki slid his roving free hand over Thor’s hip and took hold of his cock, and Thor’s world unraveled. The slick grip of the hand connected like a lightning bolt to the one moving within him, and vice versa, a feedback loop of sensation melting him from the inside out. Thor bit down on his lip to kill a helpless sound rising in his throat, and tasted blood. The feeling of fullness inside him increased—another digit? Loki’s fingers were touching something inside him, and it was as soupy and heady as it was sharp. Spots swam in his vision.
“That’s it,” Loki cooed behind him in his unearthly, snowfall voice. “You’re doing well, almost there.”
“Almost where?” Thor mumbled, near out of his mind but fighting it, fighting it. This was nothing more than a payment, a transaction. He was the winter-king’s bride, he should feel brought low by this, not…not.
Loki’s hands withdrew, and he shuddered at the loss of it, the sudden emptiness, his hands furrowing in the soft quilt atop the bed, furrowing in a drift of fresh snow.
“So strong for me, rich with magic,” Loki said, and Thor wanted to ask what, what that meant, when there was a nudge against his entrance, and then a terrible, bullying tightness as he was stretched to his limits on the frost-demon’s cock, setting every nerve in his body alight with the shock of it. He keened into the stillness of the winter night. Tears pricked his eyes and his breath came in ragged pants, and for the first time since he lay himself down for the taking, he twisted his neck to look back at the creature that took him.
Loki’s expression was oddly soft and he smoothed back Thor’s wild hair. “Let go,” He said.
“What?” Thor gasped.
Loki began to move, and Thor was so, very full, the burn of it battling with the now inescapable drag against that place inside him, the one that melted him from the core with each thrust. Loki wove his hand into Thor’s hair in a gentle grip and pulled their bodies tighter together, moving his hips in earnest.
Fucked. For the first time in his life, he was being fucked. His heart thumped like a bird in a cage trying to break free.
The pressure building inside Thor knotted with his rising panic. He was being taken so easily and it felt natural, it felt…No. It had been one thing to let other stable hands pleasure him with their mouths, or strangers in the drunken dark behind a tavern, but to be claimed like this, skewered and taken so effortlessly? Because it was easy now, the wet slide of each thrust, tugging his rim, burning, pressing, filling him deep. The pressure was too intense, Thor couldn’t take much more, he would burst.
“Let go,” Loki said again, bending Thor’s leg up so he could be taken even deeper, stealing his breath. Thor reached down and pressed his fingers to his rim, felt where the frost-demon’s cock moved within him, entering and retreating over and over, and whimpered, his blood roiling. He stared into the inhuman face leaning over his shoulder as he took it all; it was just so much, he couldn’t, no, no, no…
“Thor, let. Go,” Loki repeated, his breath labored. A purple flush had colored the frost-demon's cheeks. He wrapped his long, cool fingers around Thor’s cock once more.
The combined sensation overtook Thor again, a jolt to his brain, his lungs, he couldn’t breathe, if he breathed the tidal wave of it would overtake him; he would drown. He braced but it only tightened him around Loki’s cock, and they both groaned from it. Surely it would be over soon. What weakness inside him, he mustn’t give in, he mustn’t…
“The mores of men can’t touch us here,” Loki whispered in his ear, yet the words also sounded inside Thor's head, nudging a secret part of him he denied. “Let go.”
The breath burst from Thor’s throat, the words finding their mark in the darkest corners of his soul, where he'd buried how much he'd always longed for this, craved it. Air filled his lungs at last. It felt good, it felt so, very good, a sweet treason of the body. The shame and fear and guilt receded, and the wave engulfed and obliterated it, a searing pleasure like he’d never experienced, erupting from his very center. It escaped on a sob, and each grinding press of Loki deep within him intensified and prolonged it until another sob followed, and another, and another. The cries of Loki's pleasure mingled with his own, a chorus in the back of his whited-out consciousness.
When Thor’s mind resurfaced he was laying on his back in a warm, fire lit cabin, and chilly, soothing fingers were wiping tears from his cheeks. He took stock of his body: he was sore between his legs, but more so sore in his heart, as if Loki had plunged a knife there and removed something rotten and heavy. He took a few ragged breaths and searched the winter-king’s face; he could no longer find anything there to fear.
Thor shifted up so his back rested against the headboard, and felt a slick dampness between his legs, Loki's seed dripping out of him, his own marking the quilt in damp streaks. He touched the mess leaking from his puffy, sensitive rim and stared in a quiet, contemplative sort of unreality at how it clung to his fingers—left inside him by the death-god of old, the winter-king. He waited for the shame at being thus claimed to rise in him, but if there was any left it felt distant.
Loki rose from the bed, silent and graceful as a cat, and went to the hearth to wet a cloth with warm water from the kettle. Thor watched him, the endless length of his lithe limbs, patterned from head to toe with those odd, raised ridges, that like all of Loki, Thor had yet to touch. And oh, he wanted to, Loki's ethereal beauty tugged him in like swift current.
As Loki climbed back in beside him, Thor noted with a start he appeared to have no stones behind his soft, resting cock, just a peek of rounded flesh to each side. Were they forever inside his body, safe from the cold like a boy's?
Thor lost the train of thought as Loki began to wipe him down with focused deliberation, his red eyed intent. When Thor hissed at the chafe of the cloth against his tender hole, Loki glanced up and caught his eyes.The frost-demon's brow furrowed.
"You're still bleeding." He reached up with a clean corner of the towel to wipe at Thor's chin and bitten lip.
The gesture felt intimate, and something twisted in Thor's chest.
"I'll heal it," Loki continued, and setting the towel aside, pressed two fingers to Thor's bloodied lip. Thor recognized the searing, star bright pain immediately from his foggy dreams, and just the same it fizzed in his blood and went straight to his groin. A broken little moan escaped him. Loki's expressive black brows changed course and raised at the sound.
"Do that again," Thor breathed.
Loki laughed, and it was the sound of icicles chiming in the branches of trees. "I can't, there's nothing to heal."
Thor dug his nails into the meat of his own breast and tore the skin. "Now there is."
Loki looked incredulous. "Humans usually consider my healing touch a necessary agony to be endured," He said, but he put his fingers to the wound and the exquisite pain struck once more, leaving a fresh, white scar in its wake.
Thor's chest was heaving, his body alight with renewed lust, this time not held back by the yoke of shame. He looked into Loki's face and found the same there, the frost-demon's eyes dark with it. "Wound me and heal me, please." He was begging; he didn't care.
Loki held his gaze as he leaned over and sank his small, pointy teeth into Thor's bicep until the skin broke. He touched the place with his cold, burning fingers and Thor cried out.
"So much meat to taste," Loki said with a laugh, his voice husky and wicked, and he did so again, and again.
Finally, Thor let himself touch. He ran his fingertips over the ridges of Loki's shoulders and back as he roamed over Thor's body in search of new places to bite. Thor buried his hands in Loki's silky raven hair and felt his horns from base to tip, which made Loki shudder—how interesting. He gripped Loki's willowy arms tight and felt the sinewy muscle shift under his big hands. He called out the winter-king's name with each bite.
Thor yelped when his trance was broken by Loki gripping him under his knees and dragging him flat onto his back like he weighed nothing, suddenly aware the frost-demon could have overpowered him at any point, regardless of his size.
"Now that you're ready again, I have a different need, and emptiness to be filled," Loki said, clutching Thor's stiff cock at the base.
He swung his leg over Thor's hip and lowered himself, and with Loki's cock erect, Thor saw at last what was behind it, not stones tucked against his body, but the lips of a cunt. The realization hit him the same moment the slick grip of Loki's body did, and he groaned.
"You see how patient I've been, how wet," Loki murmured.
"I thought you were a man," Thor blurted out; a stupid thing to say, and his face heated from it.
Loki laughed, stirring his hips. "You would see me that way, because that is what you wanted to see. Others see me as a woman, some both and neither, which is the truth of it. I am not human, dear mortal, do you think your strictures can define me?"
Thor shook his head emphatically, watching rapt as Loki raised to his knees and lowered down once more.
The fire had already been stoked high in Thor by Loki's healing touch, and the feeling of being deep in Loki drove him mad. Thor brought his knees up for purchase and thrust up into the tight grip of his body, and Loki's mouth fell open in a sigh at the motion. He had Thor's blood on his teeth. Thor gripped his narrow hips with both hands, and used the leverage to meet his own thrusts more forcefully, punching moans from him. Loki tipped forward, onto his hands on Thor's chest, digging his fingers into the fur there.
Loki's face twisted and pinched with pleasure, and his skin had flushed a lovely shade of lavender. This, this was territory Thor did not feel hopelessly out of his depth in, quite the opposite, when the winter-king looked and sounded so needy, so helpless with lust, his dark hair forming a curtain around them both. It felt like mutually beneficial revenge.
Thor lifted Loki straight up and off his cock, and he shrieked in surprise. Thor laughed at the sound, and twisted him around to drop him onto his belly on the bed. Loki shifted his knees under himself, raising his buttocks in invitation and oh, the beauty of it, the curve of his pale blue back, the small furl of his ass above his dripping, welcoming cunt. Thor sank into him straight away, and Loki keened.
"Is this what you've needed, mmm, winter-king?" Thor said, thrusting deep with all the strength he could manage with an aching leg. "Do you coax your young brides to ride you like this? And mope when they will not?"
Loki whimpered in response and reached back with one hand, rubbing and pressing at his other hole.
"Ah!" Thor tisked and slapped his hand away, and then laughed: he had slapped away the death-god's hand, and so casually while taking him. Thor stopped his chuckle with his own thumb, sucking it and spitting onto it, then pushed it into the tight grip of Loki's ass. Loki cried out and came, tightening around Thor, and Thor was glad his need was tempered enough by his earlier release to hang on. Loki shuddered through it, and Thor had no sooner wondered what other ways the frost-demon might be like a woman more than a man, when Loki began to rock back onto his cock, seeking more with a plaintive mewl.
Thor draped himself over Loki's back, alternating the trusts of his hips and thumb. "You'd like another peak?"
Loki nodded. Thor regained his thumb, and freed his arm to brace under Loki's chest, finding a nipple to flick and pinch. Loki was like a woman and that way, too, he whined and writhed at each pinch, and rocked between points of contact at his chest and cunt. He begged for more. Thor gave it to him, resting his weight on Loki's back and wrapping his opposite hand around Loki's left horn like a handle, arching his long neck back, slamming Loki's slender body onto his cock over, and over. Loki held nothing back, wailing into the dark, for the cabin once more became a forest, and his cries of bliss filled the night as it filled Thor's ears.
Loki's second crest seized his body harder still, and his pleasure soaked the hair of Thor's groin and dripped down both their thighs. Thor's healing leg spiked with pain as he relaxed and shifted, so when Loki continued to whine and wriggle on his cock, seeking yet more, Thor flipped the winter-king onto his back and brought him a final climax with hands and mouth, sucking his sensitive and half hard cock as he filled him with his fingers.
Thor fell forward on one hand beside Loki's head after, and found his own completion in a few rough strokes of his fist, spilling across Loki's flushed stomach and chest with a sigh.
He had the presence of mind to pick up the forgotten cloth and wipe his mess free, but when he looked into Loki's face as he cleaned, he saw such pleasure-drunk vulnerability, such tenderness, that Thor let the cloth fall from his hand, bent low, and kissed him. It felt like more of a sacrilege than anything else they'd done, a step of familiarity too far to kiss a god of old; he went to pull away, but Loki drew him back. They tasted each other for an endless stretch, licking, sucking, nipping in turn, until Thor wasn't sure if he was awake, or dreaming.
***
The next day Thor awoke to Loki's mare sticking her head into the cabin once more. Since she had no respect for the integrity of its false walls, her neck bent down from above the headboard as she blew warm huffs of air into his face, and mussed his already tangled hair by mouthing at it with her big equine lips.
Loki was dressed in his gauzy tunic and leggings once more, and held a bowl of steaming porridge out to Thor. "Eat this and then dress, we'll go out to walk the forest, and you'll ride."
Breakfast finished, Thor bundled up in a new set of even finer clothes than he'd previously found waiting for him, curious if this was, indeed, the beginning of the riches it was said the winter-king bestowed on his mortal wives. Loki donned his coat of pure white fur once more, but when they set out among the trees, his narrow blue feet were as bare as ever in the snow. They wandered deep into the woods, talking and smiling, Thor on the mare's back and Loki's hand twisted up in her mane, both bashful, both full of joy.
When they returned Thor stripped without hesitation and lay back on the bed, his knees tipped wide, offering himself. "I would feel you inside me once more," He whispered, and Loki crawled into the space Thor had made for him between his legs.
Loki fucked him tenderly, gently, and then fervently, their foreheads pressed together. And when Thor reached down to feel where Loki's body penetrated his own, it was with lust and reverence, and when they each came, it was with the other's name on their lips.
***
Thor understood time didn't pass the usual way at the cabin in the heart of winter–the days bled together and the season never seemed to change as what must have been weeks passed by. His best gauge for the length of his stay was the growing collection of bone white scars peppering his body: nail scars, tooth scars, a record of the times he'd begged for Loki's burning touch in the heat of passion.
Once his leg was strong enough, they set out on foot together to hunt, Thor carrying the finest bow and hunting knife he'd ever laid eyes on, both carved with intricate patterns on their wooden parts. Loki carried no weapon, but when Thor felled a target, deer or hare, he rushed forward to end the animal's suffering with the touch of his fingers. Thus Thor saw how his lover carried both healing and death in his cold, slender hands.
Loki brought Thor gift after gift, warm boots, rich foods, strong drink they grew silly on together, a brooch and a bright ribbon to tie back his hair. Thor laughed and knew beyond all reason he'd become a winter-wife in truth, or something like it, a husband perhaps. His heart was entirely taken captive by the frost-demon; he was in love.
They were entwined and catching their breath, Thor dewed with sweat that clung to his body hair and Loki as smooth and dry as ever, when the winter-king broke his heart.
"Summer approaches in your world, and I must return you to it," Loki said into his neck, as if he hid from the words himself.
Thor stiffened. "There's nothing for me there, and my heart is yours, I would stay. If you must go for a while, I'll wait here for you."
Loki propped himself up onto his elbows and looked Thor in the eyes, blue and red meeting. "Your place is in the mortal world; you cannot stay here forever."
No amount of pleading with words or body would sway the frost-demon, day after day, although Thor put his all into it. He tried one last tactic. "You can't take me back there, those who hate me will finish the job of ending my life."
"I know, that's why when we exit my woods you'll be in a different village, far away, where you can make a new life for yourself. Find yourself a mortal bride, or a man to love in secret, or both."
Loki's words filled Thor with anguish and rage. "I would have no one else! Why didn't you kill me when you first found me, then, instead of accepting my body as payment for my life?"
Loki's face crumpled into a wistful, sad expression. "I never intended to take your life. You simply made me an offer I was too weak to refuse. I am sorry for it, yet I cannot regret it."
Tears sprang to Thor's eyes, and he cried out his pain and anger into the crook of Loki's shoulder.
***
The night before Thor's departure they did not sleep, and the sounds of their forlorn, desperate passion shook snow from the trees until the sun rose.
Thor dressed slowly, pleasantly sore but sick at heart to his very core. Loki had left on an errand, and when he returned, he was leading a sorrel stallion as well as his mare. He was the most beautiful horse Thor had ever seen, large enough to bear even Thor's weight with ease, and his joyful, alert ears offered an enthusiastic greeting.
"A companion for you, so you will not make the journey alone, and with him you can seed a great stable and prosper," Loki said.
The stallion huffed and stamped his feet at this, saying in the horse way, many mares? For me?
Thor laughed, and found that while he was sure nothing could fully ease his iron-heavy heart, somehow Loki's thoughtful gift of a new companion had, if only a bit. The pair rode slowly away from the cabin side by side, the saddlebags on Thor's steed overflowing with enough gold and jewels to make him a rich man. Loki never said where the fine things he brought came from, and Thor never asked.
The further away they got, the thinner the snow became—it went from near their stirrups, to half that height, to little at all, until at last Thor saw the tender shoots of new plants pushing through the smallest dusting of frost. Birds sang and rabbits darted past. He stripped off his heavy fur coat and folded it across the saddle; the air felt warm, and was rich with the scents of early spring. Despite his sadness Thor couldn't help but feel buoyed by the beauty of it, but when he looked over at his love, his heart sank once more. Loki looked wary and diminished, out of place and lacking the ephemeral glow of his powers.
The winter-king brought his mare to a halt, and Thor drew his stallion close beside him. "We are well over the cusp of spring, and this is not my place. Continue east and in a few hours’ time, you'll find a thriving village—"
Loki's voice broke on the last word, and Thor's heart rent in two with it. Tears beaded at the corners of the frost-demon's eyes, and when they fell, they fell swiftly, being perfect drops of ice. Thor reached across the gap between them and drew Loki into a kiss, and he attempted to distill every bit of his longing and love into that simple press of lips.
When he pulled back two more drops of ice rested at the corners of Loki's eyes, and he brushed them free. "Are you sure I cannot stay with you?"
Loki shook his head. "You are a mortal man, and deserve a chance at a human life."
Thor swallowed against the knot in his throat, wanting to say but I don’t desire one, and knowing it to be futile. "Will I see you again?"
Loki offered him a broken smile, and said, "All mortal men meet me, eventually."
Thor at last understood Loki's half answer from the night he first offered himself; everyone, in the end, finds their path crosses the death-god's.
When Loki turned to go, he seemed to disappear into the air in a matter of steps, leaving Thor alone with his stamping, warm stallion, and his tears. But as they journeyed toward the village, Thor could have sworn a snow-white bird flitted among the trees, shadowing them.
***
Thor sold enough gold and gems to build a modest but warm house in his new village , and a handsome barn, by the time summer and autumn passed and winter came back around. He’d spent gold on a few good tempered, well-built mares as well, and by the time the first frost hit they were fattening with the foals they would birth the next summer. In the depths of midwinter, when the snow was so high a space must be dug out from the door, he longed so fiercely to wander deep into the woods in search of Loki he felt it as a pain in his breast. Instead he hunted, and spent long hours in the company of his horses, and broke bread with his neighbors. Eventually spring came again.
The foals were lovely and strong when they came, and within a few years Thor was known to breed the finest horses in the region, ever expanding his barn to house more mares and the colts of his sorrel stallion that he kept. If word spread that he was a bit odd, that he spoke directly to his horses, seeking their opinions of a buyer before making a sale, people laughed it off, or said he must be a witch’s son who understood the tongues of animals and the old gods. He had become integral to the village, a wealthy tradesman whose prosperity lifted the means of all, and many a father came by with a daughter ripe to marry.
As the years ground on Thor became more and more restless with only the companionship of his horses and neighbors, and began to consider the offers of marriage–taking a man in secret, in the dark of a night of drinking slacked his lust, but his bed remained cold the next day, and his heart empty. Many of the young women on offer were the daughters of other wealthy merchants, or local lords, well-spoken and educated, with fine manners. Thor felt rough beside them, with his calloused hands and countless mottled scars, and the nervous way they spoke to him gave him the haunted feeling they would approach a wedding night with him the way he had first gone to Loki’s bed, trembling with dread, and he couldn’t bear the thought.
Eventually one young woman caught his eye. She was slight, with bright eyes and long, dark hair like Loki’s. Her mind was clever beyond any human Thor had met, and she was very beautiful. She did not shy away from him, but talked with eagerness about astronomy and philosophy, the tomes of which she’d read in Latin on her visits to monasteries. Her enthusiasm distracted him away from the hollow place in his chest, and he contemplated for many weeks if he should finally accept his fate and marry. Could he hope for a better match?
But no, that was the rub: she was too intelligent, too kind, too wise and beautiful to be wasted on a man who was fated to have only half of his heart to share. For each winter Thor was still haunted by endless dreams of the winter-king, and wandered deep into the woods, tempted to lay down in the deep snow and wait–for either Loki or death, because they were one in the same, were they not? A great darkness hung over him. He kissed her hands and sent her away on a windy fall day, knowing now for certain he would never love again, and there was only one way forward.
***
On the day of the first frost of autumn, Thor began to make his arrangements. He shut up his house against the coming snows, and consulted with his most trusted men on how to best care for the horses over the winter. He went to the bath house and scrubbed himself pink, missing no nook or cranny of his body, then donned his very best hunting clothes. He packed his saddle bags with food and his warmest fur coat. When all was done, he saddled his stallion, wished his men farewell for the season, and spurred his horse into a gentle walk. Far into the woods they wandered, until the sun was low and Thor felt he’d come to the right place, and he dismounted by a massive old oak, its gnarled trunk surrounded by high roots.
He dropped to his knees in the thick leaf litter and pulled his tunic off over his head. Wielding the fine hunting knife the winter-king had gifted him, he leaned forward and drew a cut across the flesh above his heart, so that fresh blood fell in drips onto the ice-glittering mulch, for the blood of a witch’s get holds great power, he was told.
That day, and the first frost of every year that followed, he traced those same steps. A new scar was cut for a new year until they littered his chest like tally marks, each healed by searing fingers, and the horse he rode to the oak tree was the foal of his stallion’s foal. Each time he would call into the swaying trees, "Winter-king, death-god, Loki, the summer has passed and your lover misses you."
Year after year a bitter wind would rise on the heels of his words, and in its howling the breath of a voice growing nearer. What it said was always the same, so that by the time Thor's hair was shorn short and streaked with gray, and creases lined his eyes, he could mouth along with the frost-demon’s every word fondly, each one etched upon his soul: "My love, my hunter, my horseman, you are even more beautiful than last year."