The Last Days of Magic and Glory Chapter #3
In this chapter, Thor, Sif, the warriors three, and the horse accompany the troops on the traditional seasonal hunt.
Chapter 3: The Autumn Hunt
Thor rose with the dawn and walked back to the stables at the horse’s side, picking berries from the side of the path and pausing to let the horse eat sweet flowers when they came upon them. When they returned to the stables, Thor gifted the horse an apple and made his way to the palace in order to hold court. Thor had just enough time to change into his ceremonial armor before he took his seat beside his mother at the council table. She shot him a worried look, but they were soon too involved in the monotonous minutiae of politics for her to ask where he had spent the night.
After the council, there was lunch, with Royal Audience following. His mother would handle the audiences today while Thor observed, but tomorrow she said that he would be making the decisions. Thor fidgeted nervously, barely touching his lunch. Luckily, Volstagg had come to court today and was happy to eat what Thor couldn’t finish.
“You’re coming with us on the hunt next week, are you not?” Volstagg asked, an arm casually thrown over Thor’s shoulders. Thor and Loki almost always accompanied the warriors on the seasonal hunt. It was a bonding experience for the troops when they were not at war and for the past few hundred years, Odin had remained in the palace and sent his sons in his stead. Thor still remembered how, as boys, their father had taught them how to use a bow and arrow and a net trap. He would send them out each day with different units of the men so that all of the warriors would be charmed by the young princes and by the trust the Allfather placed in them to mentor his sons for a day. Thor remembered returning to the great bonfire that marked the center of their huge camp and curling up with Loki while the men drank and told wild tales of valor and victory. Thor had hung on every word of glories past, while Loki had struggled to read by firelight. Thor had always shivered and crowded next to his brother, but despite his tiny frame, Loki seemed not to feel the cold, stroking Thor’s hair absently and ignoring the drunken boisterousness of the men.
For the first time, Thor was unsure if he should go along on the hunt. He had duties of the throne now, as Odin had. But Odin had also gone on the hunt with his men before his princlings were old enough to do so by themselves and without Loki here, Thor knew the men would be disappointed that no Odinson accompanied them.
What troubled him most, however, was that he did not know if the horse would enjoy a hunt. She seemed more the type for an aimless ride than the plodding pace of moving through the forest with an army of men. But, Thor was hardly going to tell Volstagg that he needed to consult his horse before he went on a hunt with him. “I want to go,” he replied, “but it’s best to make sure I’m not needed here before I agree.”
Volstagg nodded. “It is difficult without your brother here.” Not all of Thor’s warrior friends got along with Loki. Sif, in particular, merely tolerated him because he was a prince and Thor’s brother. But Volstagg genuinely liked Loki and the two often went hunting together without the rest. Of course it didn’t hurt that Loki was probably one of the best hunters in the realm and Volstagg had one of the greatest appetites. “You might have a chance of catching the most this year. Though Hogun will not make it easy.”
Thor laughed along with his friend. Hunting took patience and an understanding of the subtle workings of nature that Thor just did not possess. He was never sure if Loki actually used magic to aid his traps or if the skills he’d learned from magic just made him more aware of the natural world. Thor only managed to up his scores by catching beast-like animals that needed to be subdued by strength. He would catch four or five bears and a handful of smaller animals in a week-long hunt, while Loki would snare hundreds and only subdue a bear if he felt like it.
“Do you think he’ll come back?” Volstagg asked without bothering to mention of whom he spoke. He seemed worried.
“I’m sure he will.” Thor decided not to tell Volstagg how Loki’s spirit had been ever-present on his journey. He did not need to be teased by Sif and Fandral when they found out.
***
The horse nudged Thor enthusiastically when he asked her about the hunt, so after gaining permission from Frigga, they rode out with the men.
“That is a huge horse,” Fandral said when Thor met them at the Bifrost.
“She’s beautiful,” Sif said, touching the horse with a reverent awe that reminded them all suddenly that Sif was a girl. Fandral blushed and Thor laughed.
“She is a beauty.”
“Where did you get her?” Hogun asked. “I would like a horse such as this.”
“I’m sorry, my friend, but I found her while wandering the wood in search of my brother.”
Hogun looked disappointed, but mounted his chestnut steed without complaint. Heimdall had already transported most of the men over and the royal party was all that remained.
Thor patted the horse as if to brace her for the chaos they were sure to encounter on the other side.
Sure enough, the revelry had already begun when they arrived and Thor had to slam Mjolnir to the ground in order to gain the men’s attention.
“I know things have been quiet in the realm these past years. With no wars pressing the kingdom, you have grown restless. But, my father says that a great king does not seek out war, only patiently prepares for it should it come.”
The men nodded their heads, knowing full well that along with glory, war also brought bloodshed and tears and great losses.
“I know that the absence of Prince Loki, infuriating trickster that he is, also makes the Kingdom uneasy. I, for one, am happy not to wake up with my hair colored green of to have to check my wine flask to make sure that the wine has not transformed into snakes, but such pranks have kept me distracted from restlessness.”
The horse shifted agitatedly under Thor, but he did not dismount. “So, for this hunt, I ask only that you enjoy yourselves and that you enjoy this peace that we have been gifted. Feel the calm as you stalk these woods and rejoice in the messages you can hear from the universe in its silence.”
The men clapped uncertainty. They were not used to hearing such sentiments from Thor, who usually spoke of war and glory. Yes, he could be sentimental, even maudlin, at times, but Thor’s energy was usually boisterous, not contemplative, like the majority of the men he commanded.
“What I mean to say, brothers,” Thor added in his usual enthusiastic shout, “is let this be a great hunt! And let the best man win!” He thrust his hammer into the sky for a celebratory spark of lightning and then they were off with a battle cry.
Once the great mass of riders reached the huge meadow in which they intended to make camp, they dropped their tents and other overnight gear before splitting into the small groups they normally used for fighting. One member from each small unit stayed behind to set up the camp. This year, it was Sif’s turn. Thor did not envy her the task of organizing the entire camp and setting up the tally board.
Thor admitted that he was a little lost this year without Loki to direct them to a fertile part of the woods. But he took the lead. The horse turned her head to fix him with her pointed stare. And when Thor did not direct her, he felt the intention swelling in her movements as she led them to a secluded clearing near a rushing waterfall. Thor was grateful that none of his friends noticed that he was letting his horse make the decisions for him. Especially not when the horse seemed to nudge him, pointing subtly at various hollows and copses where she clearly intended for him to lay a trap.
Thor reminded himself that she was not any horse, but a magical horse, probably a gift from his brother.
After traps had been laid in several areas that the horse led them to, they went off in search of bigger game. Thor and Sif, who was the team’s best tracker after Loki, would normally split off right away in search of a beast without setting any trap, but this time, Thor let the horse lead him to the mouth of a cave where undoubtedly one of the huge beasts known to this world dwelled. There were bones scattered outside of it and the air crackled with a strange energy.
“What kind of game is on this planet again?” Fandral asked.
Volstagg rolled his eyes. “You really are useless, are you not?”
Thor kept his mouth shut. Normally Loki would research the game of the particular world chosen for the hunt and would relay the information to Thor. This time Thor hadn’t bothered.
“It’s Thor’s favorite,” Volstagg joked, elbowing Thor in the ribs.
Thor had no idea what that meant. He didn’t have a favorite game animal. Maybe a bear? He let Volstagg shove him towards the cave mouth.
“But what’s in there?” Fandral whined.
Thor saw a flash of green scales flying towards him before he heard Hogun respond. “A serpent.”
Of course, Thor’s “favorite” as in the animals Thor despised above all others. There was something equally mesmerizing and terrifying about snakes, especially giant ones that lived in caves. Thor smashed the serpent with his hammer, hard enough that he should have flattened its midsection, but its skin just shimmered, its powerful muscles contracting to repel the blow.
“Oh, these are tricky!” Volstagg laughed, launching himself at another snake that had slithered out of the cave. Of course they would live in nests. Thor was having that kind of day.
The serpent hissed angrily, coiling itself swiftly around Thor’s waist. He could feel the plates of his armor grinding together, squeezing his internal organs uncomfortably. But more hits with the hammer did nothing to dissuade the huge snake. It only squeezed harder.
Thor was a god and not in particular danger of dying from this discomfort. But it did beg the question of how he was actually going to get the serpent off.
The horse whinnied, kicking up off its hind legs. Thor was afraid that it would run, but instead it knocked Thor and the serpent over and stepped on the snake’s head with a sickening crunch. Though the snake’s body went limp around him, it still took Thor a while to unravel himself. Luckily, the warriors three had observed the horse’s maneuver and were easily dispensing their snakes at their weak points. In fact, Fandral, with his sword, had been much more effective at fighting the beast.
“They tense their muscles,” Hogun observed, “making heavy blows ineffective.” And the head was the only part that didn’t have the thick ring of muscle.
Thor grabbed Sif’s double blade, which she’d lent to him in case of emergency, and soon the whole nest was dispatched.
“I heard they taste like chicken,” Volstagg remarked. They would have to return to camp straight away because even with the horses used only for transport, they would have trouble carrying so much meat back. Thor tried not to think of how Loki would have just magicked it all into a pocket of space-time, letting them ride back casually.
But when Thor tried to load up the horse with their spoils, she tossed her head and moved away. He frowned, but the horse was light on her feet, staying just a step ahead of him.
“Fine,” Thor grumbled. “I’ll carry it myself.”
“What, so now you take orders from a horse?” Volstagg teased.
“It’s not just any horse.”
“What, is it a magic horse?” Fandral asked. “You’re starting to sound like Loki.”
“Sometimes Loki is right.” In fact, Loki was more often right than Thor and Fandral combined. As much time as they spent fighting each other, Thor knew that it would probably be wise to follow Loki, at least when he was being serious. The problem with Loki was that he was so skilled at lying that it was near impossible to tell when he was being serious and when his ultimate goal was mere mischief.
“Let’s head back,” Hogun urged. “It is going to take us a long time on foot.”
***
It did take them a long time to return to camp. By the time they arrived, the sun had set and Sif already had the great bonfire and all the small cooking fires started. She seemed more annoyed than worried at their tardiness and proclaimed that because they were all covered in snake guts and it was too cold to bathe in the nearby stream, she would be taking one of their tents for herself and the smelly boys would have to share the other.
They were the only group that had found and killed snakes, which according to Sif, were a luxury food and difficult to kill, thus giving them a huge lead on the hunt tally. Thor ordered that their kill be shared, even though many of the men had already eaten and they stayed up late drinking mead and telling stories around the great bonfire.
It all made Thor miss his brother more. Loki would always embellish the stories with little shows of magic - either casting images of the battle into the smoke of the fire or adding pyrotechnics and sound effects to them. He would also always have a good prank for the first night of the camp. One hunt he had magicked all of the men’s beards into a giant throw rug that he put it in the opulent, magically expanded tent that he would only share with Thor. Another year, he had changed everyone’s hunting gear to look like Sif’s and she got to smile at how they struggled to hold a bow and arrow with a protruding breastplate in the way.
Once Thor was good and drunk and on his way to maudlin, he excused himself from the party, the warriors three swiftly rising with him.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“We are going to spar to see who sleeps with you in the tent,” Volstagg explained.
In their state of inebriation, Thor wondered how such a thing would turn out.
“You three take it.” Thor had spent the last season sleeping under the stars with the horse, after all, and he found the idea more comfortable than squishing in with two of his drunken, smelly warriors.
“Won’t you be cold?” Fandral asked.
Surprisingly, Thor had never once been cold on his journey, even when they camped on snowy mountain peaks. Maybe it was the horse’s body heat or maybe some of the elemental magic it seemed to wield.
“I’ll be fine. Enjoy yourselves, for tomorrow we hunt again.”
They all smiled, patting each other on the back when saying good night. Thor smiled too, but there was something cloying about their presence - as though in those brief moons he had so wed himself to solitude that now he felt like a traitor abandoning it.
The horse was waiting for him just outside the firelight. She hadn’t followed the other horses into the nearby field of sweetgrass to pasture for the night. Thor patted the familiar neck and fed her an apple he had carried here just for her.
“Thank you for today,” he said. “Without my brother, I would have been lost about what to do. And thank you for saving me from the snake.”
The horse snorted, but nuzzled Thor nonetheless. He pulled himself onto her back and they walked away from the light of the fire towards a small copse of trees where they lay down for the night.
“This is my first hunt without him,” Thor replied. If they missed hunts it had always been together. Loki had never wandered off alone for this long before.
The horse seemed to understand, because she nibbled a little at his hair affectionately. Thor wrapped an arm around her, feeling his brother’s presence close.
The next morning, Thor couldn’t help but grin when they returned to camp. A horde of small annoying birds had descended upon them at dawn, picking at everything with their sharp beaks and defecating everywhere. Sif looked particularly harassed, with her hair a tangled mess from where the birds had tried to nest. Eventually they had figured that loud noises scared the birds away and thus a few of the men had taken to banging pots and pans in a deafening cacophony.
Thor grinned. This was exactly a prank, for it could have been of nature, but it was the familiar chaos of the second day of the hunt after Loki had been making mischief.
“Good thing we slept apart,” Thor told the horse, swearing that he saw a twinkle in her eye.
Next Chapter: Unwanted Speculation
Chapter 3: The Autumn Hunt
Thor rose with the dawn and walked back to the stables at the horse’s side, picking berries from the side of the path and pausing to let the horse eat sweet flowers when they came upon them. When they returned to the stables, Thor gifted the horse an apple and made his way to the palace in order to hold court. Thor had just enough time to change into his ceremonial armor before he took his seat beside his mother at the council table. She shot him a worried look, but they were soon too involved in the monotonous minutiae of politics for her to ask where he had spent the night.
After the council, there was lunch, with Royal Audience following. His mother would handle the audiences today while Thor observed, but tomorrow she said that he would be making the decisions. Thor fidgeted nervously, barely touching his lunch. Luckily, Volstagg had come to court today and was happy to eat what Thor couldn’t finish.
“You’re coming with us on the hunt next week, are you not?” Volstagg asked, an arm casually thrown over Thor’s shoulders. Thor and Loki almost always accompanied the warriors on the seasonal hunt. It was a bonding experience for the troops when they were not at war and for the past few hundred years, Odin had remained in the palace and sent his sons in his stead. Thor still remembered how, as boys, their father had taught them how to use a bow and arrow and a net trap. He would send them out each day with different units of the men so that all of the warriors would be charmed by the young princes and by the trust the Allfather placed in them to mentor his sons for a day. Thor remembered returning to the great bonfire that marked the center of their huge camp and curling up with Loki while the men drank and told wild tales of valor and victory. Thor had hung on every word of glories past, while Loki had struggled to read by firelight. Thor had always shivered and crowded next to his brother, but despite his tiny frame, Loki seemed not to feel the cold, stroking Thor’s hair absently and ignoring the drunken boisterousness of the men.
For the first time, Thor was unsure if he should go along on the hunt. He had duties of the throne now, as Odin had. But Odin had also gone on the hunt with his men before his princlings were old enough to do so by themselves and without Loki here, Thor knew the men would be disappointed that no Odinson accompanied them.
What troubled him most, however, was that he did not know if the horse would enjoy a hunt. She seemed more the type for an aimless ride than the plodding pace of moving through the forest with an army of men. But, Thor was hardly going to tell Volstagg that he needed to consult his horse before he went on a hunt with him. “I want to go,” he replied, “but it’s best to make sure I’m not needed here before I agree.”
Volstagg nodded. “It is difficult without your brother here.” Not all of Thor’s warrior friends got along with Loki. Sif, in particular, merely tolerated him because he was a prince and Thor’s brother. But Volstagg genuinely liked Loki and the two often went hunting together without the rest. Of course it didn’t hurt that Loki was probably one of the best hunters in the realm and Volstagg had one of the greatest appetites. “You might have a chance of catching the most this year. Though Hogun will not make it easy.”
Thor laughed along with his friend. Hunting took patience and an understanding of the subtle workings of nature that Thor just did not possess. He was never sure if Loki actually used magic to aid his traps or if the skills he’d learned from magic just made him more aware of the natural world. Thor only managed to up his scores by catching beast-like animals that needed to be subdued by strength. He would catch four or five bears and a handful of smaller animals in a week-long hunt, while Loki would snare hundreds and only subdue a bear if he felt like it.
“Do you think he’ll come back?” Volstagg asked without bothering to mention of whom he spoke. He seemed worried.
“I’m sure he will.” Thor decided not to tell Volstagg how Loki’s spirit had been ever-present on his journey. He did not need to be teased by Sif and Fandral when they found out.
***
The horse nudged Thor enthusiastically when he asked her about the hunt, so after gaining permission from Frigga, they rode out with the men.
“That is a huge horse,” Fandral said when Thor met them at the Bifrost.
“She’s beautiful,” Sif said, touching the horse with a reverent awe that reminded them all suddenly that Sif was a girl. Fandral blushed and Thor laughed.
“She is a beauty.”
“Where did you get her?” Hogun asked. “I would like a horse such as this.”
“I’m sorry, my friend, but I found her while wandering the wood in search of my brother.”
Hogun looked disappointed, but mounted his chestnut steed without complaint. Heimdall had already transported most of the men over and the royal party was all that remained.
Thor patted the horse as if to brace her for the chaos they were sure to encounter on the other side.
Sure enough, the revelry had already begun when they arrived and Thor had to slam Mjolnir to the ground in order to gain the men’s attention.
“I know things have been quiet in the realm these past years. With no wars pressing the kingdom, you have grown restless. But, my father says that a great king does not seek out war, only patiently prepares for it should it come.”
The men nodded their heads, knowing full well that along with glory, war also brought bloodshed and tears and great losses.
“I know that the absence of Prince Loki, infuriating trickster that he is, also makes the Kingdom uneasy. I, for one, am happy not to wake up with my hair colored green of to have to check my wine flask to make sure that the wine has not transformed into snakes, but such pranks have kept me distracted from restlessness.”
The horse shifted agitatedly under Thor, but he did not dismount. “So, for this hunt, I ask only that you enjoy yourselves and that you enjoy this peace that we have been gifted. Feel the calm as you stalk these woods and rejoice in the messages you can hear from the universe in its silence.”
The men clapped uncertainty. They were not used to hearing such sentiments from Thor, who usually spoke of war and glory. Yes, he could be sentimental, even maudlin, at times, but Thor’s energy was usually boisterous, not contemplative, like the majority of the men he commanded.
“What I mean to say, brothers,” Thor added in his usual enthusiastic shout, “is let this be a great hunt! And let the best man win!” He thrust his hammer into the sky for a celebratory spark of lightning and then they were off with a battle cry.
Once the great mass of riders reached the huge meadow in which they intended to make camp, they dropped their tents and other overnight gear before splitting into the small groups they normally used for fighting. One member from each small unit stayed behind to set up the camp. This year, it was Sif’s turn. Thor did not envy her the task of organizing the entire camp and setting up the tally board.
Thor admitted that he was a little lost this year without Loki to direct them to a fertile part of the woods. But he took the lead. The horse turned her head to fix him with her pointed stare. And when Thor did not direct her, he felt the intention swelling in her movements as she led them to a secluded clearing near a rushing waterfall. Thor was grateful that none of his friends noticed that he was letting his horse make the decisions for him. Especially not when the horse seemed to nudge him, pointing subtly at various hollows and copses where she clearly intended for him to lay a trap.
Thor reminded himself that she was not any horse, but a magical horse, probably a gift from his brother.
After traps had been laid in several areas that the horse led them to, they went off in search of bigger game. Thor and Sif, who was the team’s best tracker after Loki, would normally split off right away in search of a beast without setting any trap, but this time, Thor let the horse lead him to the mouth of a cave where undoubtedly one of the huge beasts known to this world dwelled. There were bones scattered outside of it and the air crackled with a strange energy.
“What kind of game is on this planet again?” Fandral asked.
Volstagg rolled his eyes. “You really are useless, are you not?”
Thor kept his mouth shut. Normally Loki would research the game of the particular world chosen for the hunt and would relay the information to Thor. This time Thor hadn’t bothered.
“It’s Thor’s favorite,” Volstagg joked, elbowing Thor in the ribs.
Thor had no idea what that meant. He didn’t have a favorite game animal. Maybe a bear? He let Volstagg shove him towards the cave mouth.
“But what’s in there?” Fandral whined.
Thor saw a flash of green scales flying towards him before he heard Hogun respond. “A serpent.”
Of course, Thor’s “favorite” as in the animals Thor despised above all others. There was something equally mesmerizing and terrifying about snakes, especially giant ones that lived in caves. Thor smashed the serpent with his hammer, hard enough that he should have flattened its midsection, but its skin just shimmered, its powerful muscles contracting to repel the blow.
“Oh, these are tricky!” Volstagg laughed, launching himself at another snake that had slithered out of the cave. Of course they would live in nests. Thor was having that kind of day.
The serpent hissed angrily, coiling itself swiftly around Thor’s waist. He could feel the plates of his armor grinding together, squeezing his internal organs uncomfortably. But more hits with the hammer did nothing to dissuade the huge snake. It only squeezed harder.
Thor was a god and not in particular danger of dying from this discomfort. But it did beg the question of how he was actually going to get the serpent off.
The horse whinnied, kicking up off its hind legs. Thor was afraid that it would run, but instead it knocked Thor and the serpent over and stepped on the snake’s head with a sickening crunch. Though the snake’s body went limp around him, it still took Thor a while to unravel himself. Luckily, the warriors three had observed the horse’s maneuver and were easily dispensing their snakes at their weak points. In fact, Fandral, with his sword, had been much more effective at fighting the beast.
“They tense their muscles,” Hogun observed, “making heavy blows ineffective.” And the head was the only part that didn’t have the thick ring of muscle.
Thor grabbed Sif’s double blade, which she’d lent to him in case of emergency, and soon the whole nest was dispatched.
“I heard they taste like chicken,” Volstagg remarked. They would have to return to camp straight away because even with the horses used only for transport, they would have trouble carrying so much meat back. Thor tried not to think of how Loki would have just magicked it all into a pocket of space-time, letting them ride back casually.
But when Thor tried to load up the horse with their spoils, she tossed her head and moved away. He frowned, but the horse was light on her feet, staying just a step ahead of him.
“Fine,” Thor grumbled. “I’ll carry it myself.”
“What, so now you take orders from a horse?” Volstagg teased.
“It’s not just any horse.”
“What, is it a magic horse?” Fandral asked. “You’re starting to sound like Loki.”
“Sometimes Loki is right.” In fact, Loki was more often right than Thor and Fandral combined. As much time as they spent fighting each other, Thor knew that it would probably be wise to follow Loki, at least when he was being serious. The problem with Loki was that he was so skilled at lying that it was near impossible to tell when he was being serious and when his ultimate goal was mere mischief.
“Let’s head back,” Hogun urged. “It is going to take us a long time on foot.”
***
It did take them a long time to return to camp. By the time they arrived, the sun had set and Sif already had the great bonfire and all the small cooking fires started. She seemed more annoyed than worried at their tardiness and proclaimed that because they were all covered in snake guts and it was too cold to bathe in the nearby stream, she would be taking one of their tents for herself and the smelly boys would have to share the other.
They were the only group that had found and killed snakes, which according to Sif, were a luxury food and difficult to kill, thus giving them a huge lead on the hunt tally. Thor ordered that their kill be shared, even though many of the men had already eaten and they stayed up late drinking mead and telling stories around the great bonfire.
It all made Thor miss his brother more. Loki would always embellish the stories with little shows of magic - either casting images of the battle into the smoke of the fire or adding pyrotechnics and sound effects to them. He would also always have a good prank for the first night of the camp. One hunt he had magicked all of the men’s beards into a giant throw rug that he put it in the opulent, magically expanded tent that he would only share with Thor. Another year, he had changed everyone’s hunting gear to look like Sif’s and she got to smile at how they struggled to hold a bow and arrow with a protruding breastplate in the way.
Once Thor was good and drunk and on his way to maudlin, he excused himself from the party, the warriors three swiftly rising with him.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“We are going to spar to see who sleeps with you in the tent,” Volstagg explained.
In their state of inebriation, Thor wondered how such a thing would turn out.
“You three take it.” Thor had spent the last season sleeping under the stars with the horse, after all, and he found the idea more comfortable than squishing in with two of his drunken, smelly warriors.
“Won’t you be cold?” Fandral asked.
Surprisingly, Thor had never once been cold on his journey, even when they camped on snowy mountain peaks. Maybe it was the horse’s body heat or maybe some of the elemental magic it seemed to wield.
“I’ll be fine. Enjoy yourselves, for tomorrow we hunt again.”
They all smiled, patting each other on the back when saying good night. Thor smiled too, but there was something cloying about their presence - as though in those brief moons he had so wed himself to solitude that now he felt like a traitor abandoning it.
The horse was waiting for him just outside the firelight. She hadn’t followed the other horses into the nearby field of sweetgrass to pasture for the night. Thor patted the familiar neck and fed her an apple he had carried here just for her.
“Thank you for today,” he said. “Without my brother, I would have been lost about what to do. And thank you for saving me from the snake.”
The horse snorted, but nuzzled Thor nonetheless. He pulled himself onto her back and they walked away from the light of the fire towards a small copse of trees where they lay down for the night.
“This is my first hunt without him,” Thor replied. If they missed hunts it had always been together. Loki had never wandered off alone for this long before.
The horse seemed to understand, because she nibbled a little at his hair affectionately. Thor wrapped an arm around her, feeling his brother’s presence close.
The next morning, Thor couldn’t help but grin when they returned to camp. A horde of small annoying birds had descended upon them at dawn, picking at everything with their sharp beaks and defecating everywhere. Sif looked particularly harassed, with her hair a tangled mess from where the birds had tried to nest. Eventually they had figured that loud noises scared the birds away and thus a few of the men had taken to banging pots and pans in a deafening cacophony.
Thor grinned. This was exactly a prank, for it could have been of nature, but it was the familiar chaos of the second day of the hunt after Loki had been making mischief.
“Good thing we slept apart,” Thor told the horse, swearing that he saw a twinkle in her eye.
Next Chapter: Unwanted Speculation