Title: Six on a String
Pairings: Past Angrboda/Loki mentioned
Warnings: Fluff, crack, silliness, trolling.

A/N: No chapter of Rise from Ash this week, I'm afraid. Work is swamping me with overtime. Instead, have a little fluffy nothing fic I wrote for Bottan's birthday.

When the second prince returned from his adventures in the wilds of Alfheim, a small crowd had gathered to see his triumphal entrance. Prince Loki was not, perhaps, so popular with the people as his older brother Thor, who was always greeted with much cheering and adulation; yet a goodly portion of the court had discovered from long experience that Prince Loki's journeys were always a lot more interesting, in the way that watching a bloody battlefield rout could be interesting.

So far it seemed like the current occasion would not disappoint. The herald trumpets sounded as the great golden doors swung open, and a sinister figure in black and green strode in.

He wore a helmet fashioned out of the skull of some fearsome, gigantic beast; two long, wicked horns flanked the staring eye sockets with a third jutting up from the tip of the nose. The back of the skull swept into an elongated fringe, framing Loki's dark hair like a hood. Under the gruesome visage, the gleam in his eyes and his little, satisfied smile were almost as unnerving to look at as the trophy of the great beast he'd obviously slain.

Thor stepped forward to welcome his brother, and the two princes exchanged a half-hug and shoulder clasp. "Welcome back, Brother," Thor boomed exuberantly. "I cannot wait to hear the tales of your travel! Your battle with this beast must have been mighty indeed. I wish I had been there to see it!"

"Oh, it's just as well you didn't come," Loki said with a careless flick of his fingers. Up close, it was easier to see the other spoils of his hunt; a necklace of razor-sharp fangs strung on a wire, and a new leather jacket of overlapping iridiscent green scales. "You would have quite spoiled my methods. You have no subtlety at all, you know."

Thor only laughed, taking no offense at his brother's casual insults. "But your way misses half the fun! Truly, though, you must tell -"

A piercing cheeping sound interrupted him, and Thor looked around for a moment in confusion before his gaze fell to the floor. There he met a sight that made his blue eyes widen, for trailing along on the polished tiles at his brother's heels was a string of four - no, five - no, six - tiny creatures.

The critters were a red color mottled with thin lines of gold, their skin of a leathery texture bearing the same scale pattern as Loki's jacket, but of a different hue. They balanced on two bent-back legs, a long thick tail sticking out stiffly behind them as their heads bobbed up and down on long necks. Their forelegs were tipped by tiny, but still wickedly sharp sets of claws.

"Brother," Thor hissed, grabbing Loki's arm and jerking him forward out of the way. "Take care!"

Loki stumbled forward a pace, and the critters immediately ran forward to crowd again at his heels. The magician shot his brother a look of displease. "Thor, what do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

Thor continued to stare. The critters followed his brother's every move as though attached to him by strings; when he stopped, they stood still, and when he walked, they ran to keep up, heads and tails bobbing up and down with their effort to keep page. "What are those things?" he got out with an effort.

Loki raised an eyebrow, sparing him a look of pity. "They're hatchlings, Thor; don't tell me you're frightened of a mere handful of babes?"

"Hatchlings?" Thor choked; they certainly looked nothing like the young hawks or chickens that populated the stable each Asgardian spring. Well - perhaps there was some resemblence in the general conformation. And the gait. But they certainly were not birds, lacking feathers or even down. "But - why are they here? Why are they following you like that?"

Loki laughed. "Why, Thor, isn't it obvious?" he said, smiling. He turned to stroll away, the half-dozen tiny critters hot on his heels. "I'm their mother."

Over the next few months, the court grew used to seeing the small flock of strange lizards tagging at Loki's heels, emitting tiny peeping sounds as they pattered along. For the most part he ignored them, seeming oblivious to the mutters and stares he collected as rumors spread like wildfire. It was well known that the second prince had strange magic, and could shift his shape into that of other races, or even beasts - he'd done it before. Even more outrageous were the rumors that he himself could - and had - born children in that other form. It seemed preposterous, and yet - he had called himself their mother! What other explanation could there be?

Certainly it did not help to assuage the rumors any, the way Loki attended to the hatchlings as though they were his own babes. He carelessly commandeered food from the kitchens for the tiny lizards; at first a semiliquid mixture of milk and eggs, then later on as their baby teeth grew, tender meat soaked in raw eggs. He led them down to a small pond in the courtyard and sat up to his navel in the water, assiduously giving each of the hatchlings a thorough washing as they squalled their displeasure at the cold water. He even brought them onto the training grounds, taking over a corner of it to let the tiny, vicious reptiles practice their pouncing on squirrels and molehills.

As the hatchlings grew bigger and bolder, the chaos increased accordingly. Small, shiny objects left unattended started to go missing - the raptors seemed voraciously attracted to them and would grab anything left within range (and their range was astounding.) Far from discouraging them or training better habits into them, Loki indulged their thefts, even going so far as to weave tiny hats and harnesses for the hatchlings to wear their spoils proudly.

At last Thor could stand it no longer, and worked up the nerve to confront Loki. He found his brother in his quarters - seated on a low cushion and surrounded by the six increasingly-glittering hatchlings as he read them verses of epic poetry.

"Loki," Thor said, unable to keep the akwardness from his voice. "I must ask - that is, I need to know - these hatchlings of yours -"

"What about them, Thor?" Loki asked, sounding profoundly unimpressed.

Thor hemmed and hawwed, before at last taking the bull by the horns. "Loki, you are not - truly their mother, are you?" he said anxiously. "You haven't been - you said you were in Alfheim, brother, but surely you did not go to see that witch again -"

"To what witch do you refer, Thor?" Loki said, his green eyes glinting dangerously despite the pleasant tone of his voice. "Surely you don't mean Angrboda, the parent of your esteemed niece Hela, who rules the dead, now do you? Surely you could have nothing but the greatest of respect for the one who was almost your sister-in-law?"

Thor choked at the thought of the Witch of the Iron Woods being in any way related to him, even though he knew perfectly well that neither she nor Loki had ever had the slightest intention of consummating such a union. "Well, I just -" he forged on desperately. "I worry for you, Brother. You know I do. Hela's loss was so hard on you - I would hate to see you go through that again."

Loki snorted and folded the book closed, setting it aside long enough to look at Thor more fully. "Enough of your sentimental drivel, Thor. You are jumping to a ridiculous conclusion, as usual. The young of this species have very malleable minds. When they first emerge from their shells, they imprint upon whatever living being is nearest as their 'mother,' regardless of minor considerations such as gender or even species. I happened to be nearby when they hatched, so they imprinted on me. That is all."

Thor felt a surge of inexpressable relief surge through him. "Oh," he said foolishly. "That is - well, that is good to hear, Brother. For a moment I was afraid that, well, that you truly had changed your shape and - well!"

Loki smirked at him as he picked his book back up, surrounded on all sides by cheeping red-and-yellow lizards. "Oh, Thor," he said. "Whoever said that I didn't?"

And with that he went back to reading poetry, and ignored Thor entirely.

Despite living with his brother for centuries, Thor had never been able to tell when his brother was lying. But, Thor reasoned it out, if Loki had turned himself into a - a dragon-creature, such as the ones whose mighty skull he had harvested, then the hatchlings wouldn't have imprinted on him in his real form. Right? And besides, he wore the skin of one of the lizard-creatures; he would not have taken a kill from such a creature if he had - become friendly with it. Right? It made much more sense to assume that Loki had hunted and slain the beast, then noticed the unhatched eggs nearby and taken pity on them. His brother could be like that, strange and tempermental, cruel one moment and kind the next. Thor had long since given up trying to understand him.

Orphans or not, fosterlings or not, the hatchlings continued to grow. They had taken on a long, sleek appearance from head to pointed tail now, their round button eyes narrowing into something more cunning. They were knee-high to a man now, and yet astonishingly capable of using their powerful hind legs and clever talons to scale any obstacle.

Worst of all, they would now wander sometimes on their own, no longer following Loki obediently as though trailed upon a string (although they always returned to his side in an instant if anyone shouted at them or tried to reclaim a stolen treasure.) One time, one of the hunting hounds took an exception to one of the hatchlings, and made to savage it. The lizard struck out with powerful, taloned back legs that left the hound howling as it tried to flee, only for the baby to pursue it with savage glee. After that, all of the hounds (and most of the Aesir) took to avoiding them whenever possible.

Thor couldn't help but notice, however, that the hatchling's skin was no longer the smooth-scaled hide that it was when they'd been brought home. They seemed to be sprouting - as best Thor could describe it - spines, which started at the crown of their heads and extended down over their back and arms, giving them almost a furry appearance.

One day, nearly eight months after Loki had returned from Alfheim, Thor woke to a great clamor in the courtyard. He hurried out only to stare in disbelief at the sight that awaited him:

The hatchlings, now each grown almost as high as his hip, had sprouted feathers. The 'spines' that covered them now unraveled into fluffy feathers, and the comically short forelegs tipped in razor-sharp talons now trailed long, sturdy-looking flight pinions. The hatchlings hissed and bugled in delight as they hopped and flapped around the courtyard, the leaps of their powerful back legs sending them into the air where they soared briefly before touching down.

Loki stood watching them all with his arms folded over his chest, looking stoic and unimpressed. Thor could not help but notice, with a certain horrified fascination, that there was absolutely no resemblence now between the hide of his trophy kill and the appearance of the babies.

As Thor watched, the short flights grew longer and longer, until all of the hatchlings - now the size of large eagles, and with teeth and talons capable of gutting a lamb - had taken to the air. They circled once about Loki's heads, calling racously, before winging off into the sky.

As they dwindled into the horizon, Loki's stoic demeanor cracked; before Thor knew what was happening, he had an armful of sobbing brother dripping tears into his shoulder. "Oh, Thor," he wailed. "It's always so sad when the young ones grow up and leave you!"

Thor stood paralyzed for a moment, helpless as for what to do, before he reached out to awkwardly pat Loki's back. "There, there," he said uncertainly. "There, um... there."

It wasn't exactly a tale of a glorious victory against giants, nor a citadel felled in siege. But that, the watching Aesir concluded, was why it was always worth paying attention to the second prince's journeys.

~the end.