“I do,” he agreed, looking pleased.
Her expression turned smug suddenly. “Never have I ever pulled an all-nighter.”
Loken and Ian looked at each other, shrugged, and drank.
They played until four consecutive turns dissolved into stories, at which point they gave up on the game in favor of talking. Ian told them about the current project he was funding and working on (finding a way to mimic the sensation of touch for prosthetics). Loken, at their insistence, described his life on Earth before ALPHA.
“I’m sorry!” Danika was cackling. “Just the mental image of you learning to use the toaster! You! Who can argue physics with Penny!”
Disgruntled by the teasing, Loken pushed her, and she toppled over, giggling.
By the end of the night, Ian was draped across the bed, drunkenly strumming a guitar and singing while Loken braided Danika’s hair in a distinctly Rellaerian fashion.
When he was done, Danika cuddled into him and yawned. “Just gonna take a powernap. Wake me in ten.”
Loken made a noncommittal sound, closed his eyes, and drifted off to the melody of the guitar.
On Christmas Eve, Loken awoke early to start working on gifts for Danika, Nora, and Ian. Unfortunately, he wouldn't have the time to make everyone else theirs before Christmas day. Enchanting a meaningful item for each of them would take weeks of trial and error, and he hoped they would understand despite the break from tradition.
Danika’s gift would have two parts, and for the first, he led her outside with a blindfold after lunch.
“Can I look yet?” she asked, hands held out in front of her.
“Not yet.”
Then, without further ado, he shifted into a reindeer. Though he looked nothing like Rudolph did in the movie, he knew he'd gotten the species right. Caribou were reindeer according to the internet. Luckily, despite the amount of magic he'd expended earlier in the day, the form held without issue.
It took a moment to get his bearings, but once he did, he walked forward slowly. His hooves crunched in the fresh snow, and he nosed Danika’s outstretched hands.
She jerked back, tore off the blindfold, and gasped. “Loken?” she squeaked. “You're so cute!” Then, realization dawned. “You...you remembered.” With a cry born of grief not yet faded, she wrapped her arms around his neck in an anguished hug.
He stood still, letting her take the comfort she sought, until she stepped back and took a deep breath. Hoping he hadn’t upset her too much, he attempted to present her with his back by lying down. Hopefully she would get the message.
“You...want me to ride you?”
He made a sound that hopefully sounded encouraging.
“Woah, now. If Loken wasn't currently a deer, I'd ask to watch.”
Loken pinned his ears back at Ian’s voice and turned to watch the inventor approach. He deliberately hadn't invited him, hoping to avoid the teasing remarks about his rather fatuous idea.
“Ah, hell. Who am I kidding? I'll watch anyway,” Ian said, leaning against a tree.
Loken rolled his eyes, wondering if it was worrying how indifferent he’d already grown to Ian’s innuendos.
Danika climbed onto his back, unaware of his thoughts, and threaded her hands in the fur atop his shoulders. “This is so awesome.”
Her excitement was invigorating, so he ignored Ian’s stare and took her on a walk around the estate, head held high. He wasn’t oblivious to the little robot that surveyed them from above, but he recognized it. Ian, it seemed, was not willing to take chances with their safety.
To be taken care of, to be seen as worthy of protection...a part of him longed for it as much as his pride rebelled at the idea.
In the end, he didn't protest the security and focused on Danika, prancing around the estate like she was a queen and he was her royal mount.
“That was probably one of the most adorable things I've ever seen,” Ian told them as they walked towards the front door, Loken having resumed his Evoir form. “And, better yet, it gave me an idea for a new nickname! Prancer.”
Danika groaned at the heavens.
Loken narrowed his eyes. “Don't call me that.”
“Okay, Rudolph,” Ian said with a grin.
Wordlessly surrendering the insurmountable battle, Loken turned and headed to his suite. Everyone was due to arrive at seven, and that gave him mere hours to finish his work. He was drained by the time he finished at 7:31 PM, but he wrapped the gifts (as Danika insisted was traditional; it seemed wasteful, but she didn’t enjoy that adjective) and headed to the common floor. Everyone had arrived, and there was a long moment where he simply stood in the elevator, holding the gifts while debating if he should just slip back to his room.
“There he is!”
Too late.
Ian swept up to him, took the gifts from his arms, and replaced them with a glass of indistinguishable liquor. Well, Loken assumed it was liquor since Ian was drinking a glass of it as well. He sniffed it and entered the fray.
Raaum and Eloy were in the kitchen, which was strange. He didn't know Raaum enjoyed cooking, but she seemed more relaxed than he'd ever seen her.
“You live here. How did you manage to be late to the party in your own home?” Nora teased him as he took a seat at the table.
Home.
The reiteration of such an obvious fact shouldn't have been so staggering, but something snapped into place in his mind, not quite painful but profound.
Home.
He sipped his drink and tried to ignore the contradictory warmth and anxiety that fought for domination in his chest. His eyes wandered towards where Ian was adding gifts to the pile under the tree.
“Dinner and then presents,” Ian declared as he returned to the table.
Everyone seemed content with that.
Loken looked up as Patrick tentatively took a seat beside him.
“Hey. How’ve you been?”
Small talk? Oh, Loken wasn't having that. There was far too much to ask. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”
Patrick frowned. “I wouldn't say that. I just don't know you as well as the others do.”
“Odd considering you’ve compromised your relationship with ALPHA for me.”
The look Patrick gave him was steadfast. “We all did, but it was the right thing to do.”
“Right, wrong.” Loken waved his hands, as if the concepts were meaningless. “The world isn’t black and white.”
“Yeah, hence why I can recognize a good order from a bad one. If ALPHA can’t handle—”
“Your uncompromising moral stance?” Ian ventured.
Patrick shot him a look and restarted. “Maybe they’ll take a long, hard look at themselves if they stop and wonder why so many of their own are standing against them.”
They were risking too much. Danika’s internship, Raaum and Eloy’s livelihoods, Patrick's home… Guilt born anew, Loken searched for a way to express his gratitude when all he really wanted to do was call them fools. They'd sacrificed for him, and what could he possibly give them in return?
(Nothing. You've nothing to offer.)
No. No, that wasn’t true. He knew it wasn’t true, even as the voice in the back of his head tried to convince him otherwise. He might no longer be the son of General Urien of Rellaeria, Scion of the House of Leodegan, but he was still maedirmaster, worldwalker, trickskin. He had unquantifiable knowledge, had traversed the hidden pathways between worlds at regular intervals, and had mingled among the people of a dozen planets.
“No more talk of ALPHA,” Ian said. “Let's eat and drink. Excessively. Some more excessively than others.”
Eloy and Danika raised their glasses and cheered, Nora and Raaum snorted in stereo, and Jeremy and Patrick shared disapproving looks.
They took their time eating, enjoying the turkey and plethora of side dishes, and all too soon they were gathered around the tree. Danika had procured him a spot in the middle of the couch, insisting he be at her side for his first gift exchange.
Ian handed out the presents from him first, and Loken gave him a blank look when he unwrapped two sets of reindeer themed pajamas—one men’s and one women’s.
“When did you even have time to buy these?” Loken grumbled to hide the odd warmth in his chest.
Ian just smirked.
Danika squealed beside him. “The complete set of The Legend of Korra!” Then, she turned to see what Loken had gotten and paused. “Huh. Should we be insulted that he got us stuff children would be happy with…?”
“Hoping for sexy lingerie?” Ian asked, picking up two smaller boxes. He handed them to Danika and Loken in turn with a smirk. “Hope I marked them right or this is going to be embarrassing.”
Giving Ian a suspicious look, Loken opened it to find a necklace. A golden pendant with the Rellaerian runic symbol of ‘forever’ etched into the metal. It was as elegant as it was simple.
Danika gasped, and he looked to see that he’d gotten her one too—though hers was on a bracelet.
Ian didn’t let them dwell on what it meant, and before Loken could bring himself to care about what the others had gotten, they moved on. The group seemed to accept that he didn’t have gifts to give them all, but they surprised him by presenting him with one from each of them. Eloy and Raaum had collaborated to get him top quality daggers.
“Sorry that we couldn’t get yours back for you,” Eloy said
Loken said nothing of his determination to liberate them. He merely thanked them and rolled his eyes when Danika casually took the box from him.
“I’ll just hold onto these,” she said before handing him a gift from her.
It was a box of books, including the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe, To Kill a Mockingbird, Oliver Twist, Macbeth, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Nora presented him with a container of what was obviously homemade baked goods: peppermint pretzels, various fudges, and Santa-shaped cookies. The card inside was signed from Darby, Sora, and Mrs. Naira, wishing him a speedy recovery and a ‘Merry Christmas.’ It was difficult to conceal how touching that was, but he managed and made a mental note to thank them.
Jeremy, surprisingly, had gotten him an ebook reader, and Patrick had clearly coordinated with him because he handed Loken a gift card to accompany it.
“Sorry it’s so impersonal,” Patrick said. “I hate giving gift cards but—”
“It’s perfect. Thank you.” And truly Loken meant it, in awe of their generosity. Each gift, no matter its value, meant more to him than he could describe.
Without giving him a chance to protest, Nora, Danika, and Ian retrieved their presents from him, and he watched apprehensively as they opened them. For Nora and Danika, he made matching necklaces with charms that looked like little galaxies stuffed into tiny, glass spheres.
“It’s gorgeous,” Nora said, in awe.
“If someone in your presence has malicious intent towards you, it’ll heat up,” Loken explained, pleased that they liked their gifts.
For Ian, he’d made a simple band out of a sample of tekryx, Vasku’s most prized metal, that he’d been keeping in his voidspace. It had a blue sheen to it that gave it a unique look.
He felt the spelltraps snap into place the moment they slipped their gifts on. Unlike enchantments, they would take active power to maintain, but it was no more than a buzz in the back of his mind. Were they in danger, he would know. While it was true that three people were harder to protect than one, he hadn’t been able to choose between them: his foster sister (in heart), his first friend, and a man who had used his seemingly unlimited resources for Loken’s benefit...without taking in return.
“Why do I get the feeling that this isn’t a marriage proposal?” Ian joked, but his piercing eyes betrayed his suspicion that there was something Loken wasn’t saying.
Loken ignored him and said, “This is tekryx. Feel free to study it as you wish.”
Ian’s eyes lit with interest. “An alien metal? Aw, Princess, you know me so well!”
Pleased by their reactions, he turned to Danika and held out his palm. He’d been planning the spell for quite some time, but he was drained from a day of crafting. It took a moment, but green and purple swirled in his palm, a manifestation of his maedir. Then, it condensed, and an ave with feathers of purple, blue, and green sat in his palm. Red-orange colored its rump, and royal blue marked its throat. Though it looked like a cormorant of Earth, it had the brightness of a hummingbird and was small enough to fit in his palm.
With a tilt of its head, it considered Danika...who squealed in joy and launched herself at Loken, hugging him tight.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you Zree or Smaug back,” he murmured into her ear, accepting the hug. If he’d tried, they weren’t likely to be the same creatures he’d once created, and he figured that would devastate her more.
“It’s okay,” she replied and then pulled back. “I think I’ll name him…”
“Her.”
“Her...Blu.”
The silence was broken by Patrick who said, “You can make birds?”
Loken decided he rather liked Christmas.
Epilogue
“So, what are we going to do?” Candace Enlow prompted as soon as they were alone in a conference room on the ALPHA compound. She set her briefcase on the table, took out the necessary documents, and organized them in front of her.
“Not call Jim names,” Ian said.
“Not stab anyone,” Loken added, staring at the door as if he could see the guards on the other side of it.
She eyed them behind her glasses, unamused, and returned to her papers. Candace was a no-nonsense woman, but Ian didn’t employ her because of her humor. She was ruthless and relentless for her clients.
Loken had met her for the first time the day after Christmas. She’d stopped by to go over the contract with them and explained their options. In the end, Loken had agreed to her arranging for a meeting with ALPHA, to take place January 5th. That gave him time to let Jeremy fix his jaw (to his chagrin, he’d had more than one panic attack leading up to the surgery) and time to let it heal.
Talking had been impossibly painful for the first few days after, so he’d communicated with ASL and accepted intravenous painkillers with little fuss. Having to recover from surgery while he was still recovering from his captivity had been exhausting. Thus, he spent the majority of his time lounging. He’d read, watched things with Danika, and slept on the couch in Ian’s workshop.
Loken had never been very good at doing nothing, but he’d allowed himself to enjoy the peaceful respite.
And now the vacation was over.
Despite Ian’s optimism, Loken knew this meeting wasn’t likely to end in their favor.
Agent Callum, Agent Raaum (whom Loken had expected), and a man presumed to be Jim Dylan entered the room moments later. Jim Dylan had the same demeanor Candace did, stern and professional, and it only took Loken a moment to see what about him inspired confidence in his people. It wasn’t his cool composure but that he was clearly the type of man who led from the frontlines. The scars blemishing his face (above his eye and over the bridge of his nose) proved that.
Loken had come to understand that, as head of ALPHA, he was referred to as the director. So, when Loken offered his hand in greeting, he said, “A pleasure, Director Dylan.” Meticulously polite. He was not new to diplomacy, and everything from his suit to his smile was crafted specifically for this day. Although he’d come to understand that the lawyer was meant to speak for him, he also had a part to play.
They all took their seats. Except Raaum, of course. She stood behind Jim and to the right, a silent sentry.
“Tell me why I shouldn't have you all arrested,” Jim demanded.
Loken fought the urge to call for a dagger. After a lengthy debate with Danika, Nora, and Ian, they'd agreed letting him walk into ALPHA unarmed was not a good idea. In the end, he resisted the urge to lash out because he recognized he was being baited.
You want to uncage t
he monster, do you?
He bit off the thought before it could continue. During their last session, Harvey had made Loken promise to stop referring to himself as a monster.
As if that would change the truth.
“Let's not waste each other’s time with threats we don't intend to follow through with,” Candace said briskly. “We’ve come to negotiate a new contract, so let's get to it.”
Loken was pleased to note Jim’s eye twitch in irritation, but he said, “Agent Locke will give us a full report on what happened from the moment he left Agent Raaum’s side on April 19th. Afterwards, he will submit to a psych evaluation and resume active duty if and when he’s able.”
“Mister Locke has agreed to the debriefing and will agree to see a psychologist that all parties can agree upon—"
They'd discussed this, and Candace seemed convinced she could get them to agree to Harvey Partridge being that psychologist.
“—But you will not be privy to the information discussed, under any circumstance. Which brings us to point three: my client will not, in the foreseeable future, be returning to active duty.”
Jim did not look pleased. “Your client is an extraterrestrial. You think having him loose is safe? His existence challenges many beliefs, many religions. Have you considered the mayhem such a revelation could cause?”
The idea of mass mayhem amused Loken, but he knew causing it would not earn him any favors. “With all due respect, director, I've managed to blend in this long,” he said with his most charismatic smile.
Jim eyed him with distrust before looking back at Candace. “Here’s his options. One, a year off active duty with the required psychological evaluation and sequential visits, if he moves back to the compound. Option two, three months off active duty, but he can remain where he is. If he does, he has to report to ALPHA once a week to check in. If he fails to show, the agreement is void, and we will stop at nothing to apprehend him.”
“That's a load of bullshit,” Ian said, outraged.
Loken had expected ALPHA to behave this way, so he wasn't overly surprised. Despite Ian’s protests, he said, “If I may have a moment to consider...?”
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