Choices

Chapter 82
Thor's head was pounding. He couldn't figure it out. Mead never used to affect him like this before. Perhaps it was just with age, but it wasn't like he was old.
Something felt wrong. Just the day before he'd felt genuinely happy for his brother. His talk with Sif earlier that week had opened his mind a little. He couldn't understand how such hateful feelings could sneak up on him.
And the sickness after the night of drinking was horrendous. It was as though someone had boiled his stomach and yet he couldn't resist the smell of the fresh mead waiting for him in his room. He always ordered early mead from their storehouses to be sent to his room before any party. Perhaps, they had gone bad?
When Thor woke he barely acknowledged Sif lying beside him. He was too sick. He remembered her coming after him, calming him down, and forcing him to sleep. She must have stayed to make sure he didn't cause anymore trouble.
Thor had never felt so horrible. It was getting worse, the way he felt.
"Thor?" Sif asked cautiously coming over to him whilst he sat on the cold floor of his bathroom, a hand to his forehead.
"I don't know anymore." He replied shaking his head, his blond hair sticking to his sweaty face.
"Thor what's happening to you?" She asked. "You're so full of anger lately." She touched his golden head.
"Not always," he admitted. He'd been tip toeing around it for awhile. He had been angry at Cephera, irritated and frustrated that Loki's marriage had been one everyone seemed to want, but he hadn't meant to be so horrible about it all.
"Thor, are you okay?" She asked again, touching his face. Her face screwed up in confusion. "Do you often feel this way after drinking?" She made another face. She'd seen him drunk many times and she'd been there for the morning after, Thor could always hold his liquor.
"This past decade has been hard on me." He responded groaning in discomfort.
"Hmmm," she placed her lips together. "I'll be right back," she told him and left him to wait where he sat. He might have gotten up, but his head wouldn't allow it of him.
It was a while before she returned, with his Mother in tow. Thor felt ashamed to be seen this way by his mother. She knelt by him, forcing his face upward.
"Thor, how do you feel?" She asked him.
"Hung over," he replied grimly.
"Besides that, do you feel calm?" Confused he nodded. "Do you often feel sick, but calm after a night of drinking?"
"Not in my youth." He groaned again.
"You are still young." Frigga smiled softly, touching his face again "I want you to go to the healing rooms and get checked out." Thor frowned.
"They will laugh at my idiocy." He murmured not having the energy to argue or fight.
His mother ignored him and stood. "Grab all mead and ale from this room and bring it with you." She told Sif.
"What are you thinking mother?" Thor asked.
"Yes, what is going on?" Loki asked, just walking in to find them all there. "What's happening?"
"I think your brother is being poisoned." Frigga replied.
"Poisoned?" Everyone else said in unison.
"Yes, now hurry." She forced Thor to his feet, and guided Loki to help him along. Thor still felt as though he would puke any moment, and the movement was making his head spin.
(Loki)
"Well, any word?" Loki asked Sif. Extensive testing had been done all day regarding the mead and on Thor himself. He'd sobered up since that morning, but they had kept him in because something fishy was showing up.
"Yes, sort of." Sif rubbed her temple. "He wasn't being poisoned. Maybe you should ask your mother, she's in checking on Thor and she understands it more than me." Sif offered pointing the way.
Loki already knew the way, but thanked Sif anyway. He found his mother in with Thor, who was eating a very hearty meal, drowning it down with water instead of his usual cup of ale.
"What's the word?" Loki asked.
"I've been enchanted." Thor said between a mouthful of pork.
"Enchanted?" Loki was perplexed.
"I'll explain it. You finish eating," Frigga said gently and left Thor to eat.
"Why is everyone being so mysterious?" Loki raised a delicate brow at his mother.
"Someone enchanted all liquor found within Thor's room with a emotion spell." She told him.
"I've never heard of it." Loki shrugged.
"No, it's complex and requires very rare and expensive items to preform. It used on patients that shows signs of severe depression and lack of will to live." She frowned.
"What does it do?" He asked. It didn't sound like something that could hurt Thor.
"When mixed with the proper ingredient it helps the user aquire happier feelings, however, when mixed with the wrong kind it can cause the user to feed off his or her negative ones."
"So the way Thor has been acting, it's all because of this?" Loki was hopeful, perhaps too hopeful by the warning look on his mother's face.
"I would not give it the credit. Thor would have had to feel these emotions strongly before being effected by this enchantment. However, the length of time he'd been taking it without his knowledge and the fact he drinks at least a cup of mead on a daily basis could attribute to how harshly those negative emotions got pushed to their edge."
"So what we see is just a different side of Thor?" Frigga nodded.
"He was so happy to hear that all he'd been feeling was just from the enchantment, I didn't have the heart to correct him and tell him that the feelings are still correct just enhanced. It's possibly best he not know."
"But he'll always believe his idiocies are not of his own. He'll make it an excuse." Loki persisted. There were just some things his mother decided that he didn't agree with, this was one.
"I know..., maybe we will wait." She conceded. "Let him recover and then tell him." She decided. Loki nodded and looked over his shoulder toward Thor's room.
"Will he have any lasting effects?" Loki asked.
"None once it's worn off. It should only take a day, it already seems to have calmed."
Loki was bothered by this. Once again someone was playing with them, someone who knew of powerful things. Had they known Thor felt like this? Thor was clearly the target as all the tainted mead was in his room.
Loki was reminded of the mystery man who had captured him and used his body to create his children. That man had escaped and no one knew who he was, where he'd come from, but that meant that he was somewhere close. In the palace..., perhaps masquerading as a servant?
The thought chilled Loki to the bone, what else had this person been up to? What were their future plans? Loki hated to jump to conclusions, but who else could want to cause this sort of upset in Loki's life.
He needed to get back to his studies. He'd been slacking since him and Cephera had their children to watch over and teach. Loki had been spending more time than usual with Hela. She'd been doing exceptional work in her alchemy.
For a second Loki thought that perhaps Hela might have done this. She had proven to have a malicious nature when she wanted to. She would certainly enjoy watching Cephera get picked on by Thor. She had access to herbs, and who knows what else when she would sometimes disappear. She knew of Thor's distaste for them.
Loki didn't like the thought that his daughter might be the cause. He quickly pushed it from his mind.
"I hope Thor has a speedy recovery and I hope that whatever he's been feeling lately is nothing more than a shimmer of a thought when he's well," Loki said to his mother.
"Me as well." She nodded, touching Loki's arm and smiling.
***
"So Thor's out of the healing room?" Cephera asked. Loki nodded.
"Father has his best alchemists looking for a clue as to who has been enchanting Thor's liquor. The others storesrooms and bedrooms were checked, it was indeed just Thor." Loki stroked her hair, she was laying next to him, curled against his body as she often was after sex.
"I wonder what he'll be like now?" She pondered out loud.
"It's hard to say. My mother says he may just go back to being the same Thor he'd been before all these emotions were brought to the service so prominently. I was there when she told him the whole truth of it, he did look disappointed to hear that it wasn't all just the enchantment."
Loki had also thought about it all. There was no telling just how much of his anger was channeled from the liquor and how much was really Thor.
Odin ordered Thor to stay away from all liquor until they could sort it out. Frigga said that the liquor had been a smart place to put the enchantment because until Sif saw just how sick Thor was, no one would have known any better and would have just seen him as a drinken idiot.
"Who would do this?" It was the second time she'd asked, but it was more of a rhetorical questions that was bothering them all. Even though Thor didn't recieve any permanent harm it was still worrisome.
Loki couldn't contain it to himself, he'd told Cephera about his thoughts running to Hela, and even Cephera agreed she certainly had the means and the mind to do it. But she also pointed out that Hela didn't really care to pay anyone that much attention, to which Loki couldn't deny.
Hela used words to play with people's heads more so than actions. She didn't go out of her way to involve herself in anything. Loki knew Hela snuck out at night only because he'd seen her once and kept quiet about it. At the time she'd merely been testing a concoction on an animal outside the palace.
As far as Loki knew Hela had no interest in the mechanics of magic so doing a full enchantment didn't really seem like something she'd bother learning. That, and even Loki didn't know how to do it. He hadn't even heard of it.
"Only a day wed and there is no rest for our once peaceful minds," Loki said to her. Just last night they'd been at peace. They'd forgotten about the stranger for some time, but now there were more worries to be had and questions to be raised.
"We have a lifetime to find peace, until then this sort of stuff can keep us on our toes." She titled her head up and kissed his chin so that he would tilt his own head so that she could kiss his lips. He did so, relishing the feeling.
"Thor went on a rampage after he got out of the Healing rooms. He's threatening everyone with treason should he find out they had anything to do with his situation." Loki frowned.
"So he's being a hot head." Cephera smirked. "You can't blame him. I wouldn't be pleased either. It's not like it was a one time occurrence used as a trick, he'd been ingesting this for some time after we had the children." Loki couldn't argue there. He wouldn't be happy about it either.
"Tomorrow I help my mother try a locator spell for the herb used in the concoction. Because of its rarity she hopes that it won't be hard to find." Loki was a little skeptical it would work. Those kinds of spells were mostly used to locate people and you normally needed something belonging to them. That and the spell took a lot of focus, but his mother was willing to try it.
"Well get some rest, you'll need it." She told him sitting up and grabbing the blankets that were hanging off the bed. Loki allowed her to pull them up over them. He wrapped his arms around her as she got comfortable and inhaled the sweet scent of her hair before drifting to sleep.

Notes