For Loki.

So many sing saccharine songs to and of him. So many forget the blood on his lips and the venom that burns his face. They forget the thread and threats that closed his lips for a time, and the mockery that came with it. Lovers blind their eyes to his ferocity. I'm sure he laughs at them. He laughs at me on a regular basis.

Still, the Cunning One will smile his beguiling smile and put on a fair form to bewitch our eyes so may be he proves true their assertions even though they are incomplete. The fox that arrives in the late hour that is somewhere between shadow, illusion, and reality manages to slip off with that golden goose when we are trying to figure out just what and where he is. But, this does not give me cause to shutter my heart against him.

The Mischief Worker has brought plenty of chaos in his wake as he dances along. Perhaps his glad heart is celebrating the tumult or perhaps his burning wrath is spreading with a wildfire's unpredictability. I will not turn away from him. At times, I may find myself ready to throw something at the one who laughs at my angry frustration just before he tips his hands and drops something wonderful into my lap. I know that my vexation with that sudden shift in the wind brings him joy, so I will not begrudge him it.

Oh, how his passion consumes. He burns with it and at times I find myself filled with passing pyrophobia due to it. Ah, but how his lips can be so sweet. His words rip me open and pull the hidden things from my hands. A rough whisper or a harsh challenge, still he beguiles me. Just when I think I am lost, he takes me by the hand and leads me deeper into the madness. I have no need to follow the Will o' Wisp. Sky Treader has brought me along hidden paths to places not seen by even the Fair Folk.

And yet, he carries me when I have no strength to go forward myself. He breathes life into my lungs when all breath fails me. And he feeds me words that illuminate the darkness so that I may know myself and be whole.

So it is, that I love and am loved in return. Mayhaps I am upon a strange path but I do not walk alone, nor am I lost. He walks with me and points the way towards home. Sly Fox is always one who knows the way into and out of trouble, after all.