▸ Column · Asgard, a warriors' feast hall — a bluff about a court skald exposed by a loremaster
LOKI replies.
The letter
At a feast thrown by the warriors my intended fights beside, I let slip — to sound like a woman of learning, which I am not — that I'd "always found the skald Bragi's verses rather overpraised." Across the long table sat a loremaster of the court who had spent forty winters studying precisely those verses. Rather than fall silent and let it die, I pressed on, muttering about "the riddle-songs feeling borrowed," each line of which she calmly unpicked before eight of his shield-companions. I then tried to claim I'd confused Bragi with "some other Bragi," which deceived no one, and I fled to fetch a horn of mead and never returned to the bench. He has not asked me to a single gathering in three weeks. I cannot tell whether I owe him a proper apology or whether I must first become an entirely different person before we speak of it.
Loki replies
Oh, my dear, you have walked into the one hall where I keep all my own portraits. I am the god of stories — I can tell a true one from a lie at forty paces — and what you told that table was not a story. It was a costume. I know the cut of it intimately, because I wore versions of it for centuries, performing the well-read prince, the unbothered second son, anything rather than be caught simply not enough as I was.
Here is the part you've got backwards. You doubled down not from arrogance but from terror — admitting "I lied to seem cleverer" felt more dangerous than being dismantled. I recognize that fear. It built me a palace I live in alone.
So I will not give you what you came for. You want my blessing to "become an entirely different person" — to forge a better mask. Darling, that is the one move I refuse you, because it is the exact trick that cost me everyone. A finer disguise only ensures that whoever loves you loves the disguise.
The apology is small and survivable. Go to him and say the unglamorous thing: I pretended, and I'm embarrassed, and I'd rather you knew the real article. Risk being known. It's the only game I never learned to play.
— Loki
Thor weighs in
Brother, for once, nearly right — and still you circle the wrong figure. You scold her bluff; you say nothing of the man who has answered three weeks of small mortification with three weeks of silence. That is not a partner weighing his heart. That is a sulk worn as a verdict, leaving her to wonder alone whether she must be remade to deserve a seat at his table. Good soul: you owe a plain word for the boast, no more. But a man who courts you should be able to say "that stung me" to your face, not punish you with absence. Ask him to speak. Then measure whether he can.
— Thor
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