Abashed the Devil Stood

Her first lesson started early the next morning. Not sure what to expect since her admission the day before, Fiona nervously approached the large study that Odin had reserved for their practice. The door was open, so she walked right in.

Loki was waiting for her, though he was currently engrossed in a thick, dusty tome at the far edge of the room. Expecting another long period of cold silence she went to sit in a nearby armchair to wait, but Loki's voice stopped her.

"This lesson will be conducted standing," he called without looking at her. "Get comfortable on your feet."

She frowned lightly but reluctantly returned to a standing position, struggling momentarily with the dress Embla had forced on her. When his gaze finally stretched from the book to her waiting frame, he shot her a haughty smirk. She drew herself up to her full height, bristling defensively.

"It's clear," he said finally, "that you lack discipline and control. I think I can see why."

He sent the book whizzing back to its shelf with a flick of his fingers, drawing Fiona's eyes toward his hands. He'd donned the gloves again, and she had to approve of the practicality of that particular decision. She had absolutely zero desire to repeat the accidental mind swap of the day before. She didn't know exactly how that little eccentricity worked, but she didn't feel it was smart exploring the possibilities with a deranged demi-god; too much risk of becoming just one more skeleton in his psychotic, homicidal head closet.

She had to note, as his hands fell back to his sides, that though the leather of the gloves was thick and dark, his fingers still looked longer and more lithe than a man's should. She looked up and realized he was watching her watch him. He seemed to enjoy the attention and shot a smirk at her as he lazily moved closer.

She had the impression of a cat stalking its soon-to-be prey, but she refused to take a step back. He stopped so close that she could see her own face in his gleaming chest plate, and she got the feeling that he was pointedly invading her space. Her hunch only intensified when she lifted her chin and caught his arrogant smirk. She shot him a nasty glare to mask how uncomfortable she felt with his sudden proximity and tried to focus on something else, like the fact that he seemed have a scar just above his upper lip or how his eyes suddenly looked an almost icy blue rather than their usual shade of emerald... He circled around her.

"To start with, your posture is horrible."

He smacked her smartly on the back with a gloved hand, and she shot fully upright with a gasp. She snarled, "What was that for?"

"Your magic cannot flow if your body is not aligned in the proper form. Now, shoulders back!"

He rapped her again on the arm nearest him, making her snap into the position he wanted. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.

"Stop that!" she hissed, but he simply circled around her with a distinctly predatory gleam in his eye, and aimed another smack, this time at her midriff.

She was ready this time, and his hand passed through her body as though she were a ghost. She smirked widely up at his suddenly scowling face as he pulled his hand back.

"I'd say my magic's flowing just fine."

He growled angrily. "Today's lesson," he snapped, "will be about deflecting an attack. Not simply avoiding it," he said with contempt. She eyed him defiantly, but he chose to ignore her as he continued. "Deflecting a spell expends less energy, and will keep your magic under control. There's no need to waste energy on flashy theatrics."

"I'm not being flashy," she snarled.

He raised one contemptuous eyebrow. Then without a word, he conjured a handful of spelled knives and sent them hurtling toward her. Instantly, she flickered to a translucent state, glaring murderously at him as the knives passed right through her and disappeared just before they collided with the wood behind her.

His lips curled up into a triumphant grin. "Flashy."

"Says the guy wearing a solid gold chest plate," she shot back.

His grin turned malicious and a single knife appeared, floating in the air at his side. "Again!" he hissed.

The blade flew at her and she let it phase through her.

"Again!" he shouted, sending another knife at her. It passed through her easily. "Stop avoiding and deflect!" he ordered angrily.

He sent another blade spinning perilously toward her, but this time she simply stepped aside, letting it streak past her in a silver blur.

"Sloppy," she purred with a humorless smile.

"I said, deflect!" he hissed, sending another deadly spell her way.

She ducked as the spell shot overhead, and came up breathing hard. "I'm trying!" she said hotly. "But killing me isn't going to teach me anything!"

"Fine then," he said coolly, dismissing the new wave of magic he'd been preparing. "We're done. But don't blame me when you find you can't handle all that power on your own. Although it might be difficult to blame anyone when the entire cosmos is obliterated."

Patches of color appeared high on her cheeks and her mouth twisted into an angry slash. He returned her fiery gaze with his own, his breathing somehow ragged with exertion and fury... and a bit of something else that he couldn't quite identify. They stood, glaring at each other in thick silence, when her voice suddenly broke it.

"Fine... Again."

"What?" he asked, disbelieving his own ears.

"I said do it again. Until I get it right."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. The girl was clearly ready for a fight; her hands were balled into fists and her eyebrows drawn low and heavy. And yet, she was reaching past her anger and his goading, willing herself to comply with him. He scoffed, unwilling to give her any semblance of apology or acquiescence on his part, but he decided to change his approach all the same.

"This time," he intoned, "do not think about dodging or escaping. Accept that you are the target and focus on the spell itself. Think about how to mislead or redirect the magic so that it focuses on someone or somewhere else."

She nodded stiffly, her jaw set as she stood ready to face Loki's spell.

This time there were no gleaming knives. Instead, the spell left his outstretched hand, nearly invisible until it was almost upon her. Then a large net exploded into existence a foot or so from its target, enveloping her immediately and coiling tighter and tighter around her. She struggled to get free, but the magic seemed to respond to her every movement, pulling closer around her. She let out a gasp as the cords of the net dug into her skin, and she bit back a shriek of pain when they seared hot against her flesh.

"Loki!" He was surprised to hear his own name fall from her lips. "Call it off!" she gasped.

His mouth curved up in a cruel grin. "I can't," he said idly.

"Can't or won't?" she bit out furiously.

He shrugged. "I might reconsider if you beg for it."

She nearly screamed in frustration and pain, as the white-hot strands of the net dug tighter into her flesh. She could see wisps of steam and smoke rising as the net branded into her skin and clothes.

"Or you can do as you were told and deflect the spell."

"I'm trying!" She grunted. "But it won't-"

And then she was gone. The magical net closed in on itself and withered into ash, evaporating before it hit the floor.

Loki blinked in the suddenly silent room, staring at the spot where she had been standing.

Only moments later she reappeared, sopping wet and sputtering as a puddle formed on the carpet below her.

"S-sorry," she said through chattering teeth. "I c-couldn't redirect it so I j-just thought about getting away and - Oh, hold on!"

She squeezed her eyes shut and conjured a blast of hot air that Loki could feel from across the room. Her clothes were instantly dry.

"There," she said in a satisfied voice, as she crossed the room and passed a somewhat stunned-looking Loki. "As I was saying. Thought about getting away and putting out the fire, and poof! There I was in the middle of a lake. And since I wasn't much in the mood for drowning, I came back and - Oh, damnit!"

She had just caught sight of herself in a looking glass and immediately began bemoaning the state of her hair, which was tangled and frizzy from the quick succession of hot and cold as well as singed off in certain places.

He watched her in wary fascination, his face only betraying a fraction of the overwhelming shock he was actually feeling.

The girl had actually teleported, and had displaced matter to achieve it when she hadn't even known where she was going. A qualified mage couldn't do it. Gods, he couldn't do it. And earlier she had changed her own mass... It was one thing to create a corporeal doppelgänger or transmute the mass of another object, but changing one's own composition was tricky at best. But she had done it as easily as breathing. And yet, she somehow couldn't perform a simple deflection.

He studied the girl - who was now gingerly testing the light marks burnt onto her cheek - with renewed interest. Who was she? How had this magic come to her, and how could her control over it be so... backwards?

She suddenly whirled around to face him, a chunk of heavily singed hair locked in her fingers and her expression murderous.

"This is your fault," she hissed.

Loki had the surprising urge to back away, but ignored it. He had faced worse, he reminded himself. Though, to be fair, he'd never seen a woman so... volatile.

"Had you done as you were told, it would not be an issue." He meant to sound nonchalant, but his voice was almost contrite. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Though I think I may have some idea as to why you cannot grasp the finer details of spellwork." That seemed subtly disdainful enough, he thought.

But she seemed to casually brush off the insult.

"Oh, you conveniently know what the problem is all of a sudden?" She snapped. "What stopped you from figuring it out before throwing your burning death net at me?"

"Teleportation is one of the more... difficult areas of magical study," he said carefully, trying not to evince any kind of appreciation for her feat, yet still inexplicably trying to assuage her sudden anger. "To bend space to your will and yet not be able to perform a novice deflection is unheard of -" She scowled at the hint of mockery in his voice. "-which tells me you have no control over the magnitude of your spellwork."

"No shit," Fiona growled impatiently. "Isn't that the whole point of these little get-togethers?"

Loki only just managed to curb his impatience and said, "The point is to give you enough control to spare your precious home planet from destruction. While you talk of control in broad, sweeping terms, I'm speaking specifically of the amount of magic you use to weave a spell. Am I correct in assuming you had no inkling that you could limit the amount of magic consumed in a single spell?" He questioned haughtily.

She stared at him stonily, finally murmuring a begrudged, "Yes."

He didn't bother to mask the gloating triumph in his grin.

"Then we'll postpone this lesson until you manage to wrap your mind around a more basic tutorial."

Fiona had to grit her teeth at his condescending tone. "Fine," she bit out. "What exactly am I supposed to do in the meantime?"

He stepped forward with a mockingly polite smile, a light sheen of perspiration the only sign of their previous quarrel.

"You must interact directly with the source of your power," he explained, "and to do so you must clear your mind. That will prove exceedingly simple for you, I should think." He smirked.

She shot him a look, but let her eyes drift closed. Loki silently sneered at that small act of trust and considered how easy it would be to just step forward and slit her throat.

"Now what?" she said, breaking through his dark imaginings.

"Now reach out and feel for it, then allow yourself to see your power."

She was silent for a while, but he could tell by her increasingly frustrated expression that she was struggling. He smirked.

"I don't understand why it's not working. I've done it before." She opened her eyes to look over at him accusingly. "You were there," she said, and he tried not to visibly shudder at the memory. "How did I do it then?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "It is always there. It simply requires a relaxed state of mind to access."

"Relaxed," she muttered. "How is anyone supposed to relax when you're flinging knives all over the place?" Then something dawned on her, and she turned to face him fully. "Maybe if-"

Without warning, she reached forward and brushed her outstretched fingers against his forehead. In his shock at her brazenness, Loki froze and he felt the familiar jolt surge through him as her fingertips made contact with his skin.

The yawning canyon of magic appeared before him once again, and Fiona let out a cry of triumph which quickly turned into a shriek as Loki's fingers closed tightly around hers.

"Never touch me without my permission!" he spat, pulling her hand away from his face.

Fiona tried to yank her hand back from his with a look on her face that said she was more than ready for a fight. But she suddenly stopped.

"You're right," she said, clearly reigning in her anger. "I should have asked. I'm sorry."

He blinked in open disbelief. She'd actually apologized to him. With no prompting on his part. And she sounded sincere, no less. His iron grip on her fingers loosened enough for her slip her hand gingerly from his.

Loki's confusion grew when she looked him over questioningly and said, "How do you feel?"

"Fine. Why should it matter?"

She looked relieved. "Because I tethered you to your physical body and wanted to make sure I didn't overdo it."

"You- what?!"

He squinted down at himself, letting his mind shift until he could see the faint glowing outline of magic encircling his waist. Make that outlines. There were several spells wrapped snugly around his frame. Upon closer inspection, he could feel the different magic imbued in each one. The thick blue one cancelled out the magnetism of the girl's magic, the purple prevented any slippages or accidents that would cause him to fall into the canyon, the red kept his mental self from wandering too far from reach of his physical form, and so on for each of the spells... They were all incredibly strong, and he understood immediately why she had been concerned. At this level, they carried out their protective duties perfectly, but if she had overdone it he could have easily been smothered under the pressure of her magic.

He fingered a thin cord that glowed a bright, cheerful gold.

"That's a safety," she explained. "If you want to go back to your physical body, just give that a tug."

"I know what it is," he said curtly. She frowned, but he pulled his intent gaze away from the intricate web of fibers and looked up at her with frank amazement. "How is it you can easily produce... this, and yet you cannot even access your own magic without assistance?"

She shrugged noncommittally. "I guess that's why you're here." He snorted derisively, but she ignored it. "Speaking of which, what's next?"

He paused, considering. He let the magic settle around him, letting himself become used to the feeling of being inside her mind once again. He smiled ruefully to himself as he realized that his magical bonds would not allow his mind to delve any further into hers than this shared mind-space, but he could still sense her emotions. In fact, the air was so charged with her anxious excitement that each breath felt like a thick, electric crackle in his lungs. He took a few deep breaths before he spoke.

"The next step would be to visualize your magic as a sort of well. But I'm unsure whether you will be able to apply this principle to your own magic."

"Because there's so much more of it?"

"Because you are slow and easily distracted."

She shot him a glare, but managed to force a modicum of civility into her voice. "So, a well, then. How do I get it out?"

He gave her a small smirk of superior indulgence. "You're learning," he said with mocking approval. "Almost no impertinence. But you still have quite a ways to go." Teeth clenched, she bit the inside of her cheek to hold back her retort, and his smirk widened. "Once you have visualized your power, you can think of casting a spell as reaching into the well and pulling out magic as you would water. But if you pull too little, your spell will be incomplete. And if you grasp too much or too quickly, you run the risk of spilling or even tipping over the well," he said pointedly.

Fiona's eyes widened in comprehension. "So then how do you know how much magic to use without taking too much?"

"That much comes from experience and," - he eyed her haughtily - "discipline." She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him, and he continued. "What few but the most skilled mages know is that there is a way to control your consumption. If you continue with the analogy of the well, is it not more efficient to retrieve water with a bucket than with your hands? Similarly, you may create a vessel to limit and control the amount of magic being used."

"A vessel," Fiona repeated. "So... like this?"

She squinted briefly, made a complicated gesture with her left hand, and the object began to take shape right in front of him. He watched in stunned, unblinking silence until the magic had finished its course, and a perfectly formed vessel sat in front of him.

He cleared his throat loudly and said, in a somewhat shaky voice, "Yes, that... will suffice." He opened his mouth as if to say something else, thought better of it and closed it again. It was a while before he continued, "It is also prudent to fill each vessel with a portion of your magic, so that it is readily available to retrieve."

Fiona nodded approvingly. "That makes sense," she agreed. "So then..." Another easy movement and the newly-made vessel began to fill itself from the bottom up with magic. She looked up at him. "Should I make more?"

His eyes narrowed. "More generally provides greater convenience, yes, but creating too many runs the risk of overextending your-"

But another vessel bloomed into being beside the first, and he could only look on with astonishment as she began the production of several more.

At that point, Loki had to admit to himself, albeit grudgingly, that her level of power far exceeded his own. He had achieved mastery of vessel creation long ago. Maintaining the second and third, however, had taken decades longer. And only with centuries beyond that, and the research of several sages and magical masters at his disposal, had he mustered enough power to afford the creation of a fourth and final vessel.

And yet here she was, well into the creation of her eighth or so and with no signs of tiring. He marveled at the ease with which she began to dissect and organize the magic at her fingertips and was somewhat queasy at the realization that she had not made even a visible dent in the roiling mass of power in the canyon below. He needed to sit down.

Since all of this was essentially happening in their shared mind-space, all he had to do was think it and there was a small cushioned seat nearby. He slumped into it. Fiona seemed completely oblivious to Loki's discomfort. She was too focused on the task at hand to see him sink into the chair...

Or even when his interested gaze suddenly snapped back to watch her with sudden, mischievous delight.

Quietly, he targeted one of the vessels nearest him that sat out of her view, and sent the delicate tendrils of a spell to mingle with her magic. The spell's design allowed it to mesh seamlessly with the vessel's creation and would allow him access to that particular chunk of power without her ever knowing. He grinned widely.

But then, he felt the spell shift and change. He could see the aura of his own magic and watched in fascinated consternation as Fiona's magic surrounded the offending spell and began to absorb it, changing the composition of Loki's spell until there was no sign at all that his magic had ever intruded upon hers. He stared at the completed vessel with wide eyes, wordlessly attempting to redact magic that simply wasn't there anymore.

"You'll have to try harder than that."

He turned angrily in his seat to face her, a bitter retort at the ready. But when he saw her smirking wickedly over her shoulder at him and took a moment to test the air for her emotional state, he realized that she was teasing him. He hastily schooled his features into amused hauteur.

"If it had been so easy, I would have graded your abilities as 'deplorable' rather than simply 'poor.'"

To his frustration, the jab seemed to have little effect, and she merely raised an eyebrow in smug amusement before engrossing herself in her task once again.

"Alright," she said triumphantly a short while later. "I think that should be enough for today."

'Enough' seemed to be the understatement of the century, Loki mused as he perused the vast quantities of pre-packaged magical power within a few steps' distance... And he couldn't even touch it. He tried - several times in fact - to probe a possible opening or seed a few more of his parasitic spells without Fiona knowing, but everything he did seemed to dissolve into the greater mass of her magic or bounce right off. Worse still, she seemed to sense his failed attempts and that maddening smirk of hers grew all the wider.

Thankfully, she remained silent until Loki dissolved the illusion, and she returned to her physical body with a gasp, stumbling backward with the force of her return. Even Loki seemed somewhat jarred by their re-entrance and was perturbed to see the low angle of evening sun streaming through a nearby window.

"That will be enough for today," he said, and he felt some measure of satisfaction that he did not sound as shaken as he felt. Fiona seemed about ready to protest, her eyes still shining with triumph and excitement, but he put up a hand to silence her. "We have already backtracked enough for this day. I will think on it and find some way to simplify our next lesson to fit your limited comprehension on the morrow."

Fiona's mouth snapped angrily shut. "Pleasure working with you, too," she muttered as she stalked out the door.

Loki waited until the door had slammed shut behind her to open them again and shout a quick command to his guards flanking the doorway. Without waiting for their approval, Loki magically sped himself down the corridors to his cell and promptly flung himself, armor and all, into the comfort of his feather bed.

"Gods, grant me strength," he groaned, realizing for the first time how much the day's events had worn him down.

If all of her lessons were going to be as taxing as this, he thought as he sank immediately into an uneasy sleep, maybe he should have reconsidered their bargain.