The Art of Lore Prologue: All the Exalted Gods
Author: starhawk2005
Fandom: Marvel's Avengers
Date: Sept 2015
Pairing: Loki/ Jane (Lokane)
Rating: Adult (18+).
Summary: Sequel to the 'A Light in the Dark' series. Thanos is dead, and Loki prepares to live a peaceful life with Jane…but the universe, as so often is the case, has other plans for them.
Disclaimer: Marvel owns it all, except for the occasional OC.
A total and absolute sense of helplessness frays at Loki's already tightly-wound nerves.
How is it that he is back to experiencing this again, he wonders. It is all too familiar – and entirely unwelcome – to him thanks to The Other and Thanos, and what they had done to Jane.
With both of those accursed entities finally dead Loki had been convinced that Jane's life would never be seriously threatened, not from that day forward. That he would never be required to ever experience that level of sheer terror ever again, or to have to endure that sickening lurch in his stomach at the knowledge that she was in danger, and he unable to race to her aid.
But looking down at Jane's pale, frightened face, Loki now knows these beliefs to be mere fancies.
The warm light of an Asgardian day, entirely at odds with the coils of dread that squeeze around Loki's chest, slants through the windows of the healing rooms. The bars of honeyed brightness spill across the stone floor, as well as the foot of the bed Jane is lying on.
Her cold fingers wrap around his, tugging his attention back to his wife's face. "Loki," Jane says firmly, and he can tell she is making her best attempt to put on a brave face, "It's going to be OK. We've been through worse, right?"
He barks a harsh sound that doesn't even approach laughter. "You are as poor a liar as always, my Jane." Loki shakes his head, eyes straying back to the door of the room. Where, by blighted Yggdrasil, is Eir?
"Loki," Jane tries again, and while her tone would sound soothing to anyone else's ear, he can hear the strain underneath.
Though Loki knows it is entirely unfair of him, his anger crests and spills over, turning itself against her. "'Worse', you say?" he growls, glaring angrily down at her. "How so? The Other and Thanos, fiendish as they were, posed threats that were known to me. Their magics were a force that I could understand and take the measure of. That I could potentially counter with my own spell-craft. But this-" He motions to her body, shielded from his gaze at the moment by bedsheets and a fur throw.
Despite his harsh words Jane's expression does not change. She is still frightened but also still working for calm. As always, she seeks to understand, rather than to give in to her fears of the unknown.
As ever, she is his little warrior.
Loki shakes his head again, his voice now falling to a pained whisper. "The thrice-damned Convergence takes you from me, deposits you in some unknown corner of Yggdrasil – or perhaps into a Realm in an entirely different Worlds Tree, who can say? – and I could not find or reclaim you until it chose to release you. That was…difficult enough, but now-" His words end, his unspoken fears left dangling in the air between them.
He is a God and yet he cannot see. Something is within his mate, something that has managed to keep itself hidden from him ever since Jane stumbled through the random portal and was lost to him for long hours. Or perhaps it's lain within her even longer, he broods. One last gift from Thanos?
Either way, now this something is speeding through her veins like a poison and siphoning off her life energies. But despite his best efforts and all of his magic, his power, he can learn nothing of it.
If Loki tries to touch this mysterious force, to assess it, it rebuffs his spell as easily as a horse's tail swipes away a fly, spinning the threads of his magic away from itself and Jane in tangled skeins. He has not yet even attempted to draw it out from her; he is despairingly certain he knows what the outcome of that will be.
He is a God, a master of magic unparalleled, and it means entirely nothing here.
His sole recourse is to hope that the healers of Asgard, far more versed in curative magics than he (his one prior dramatic act to pull Jane from death's grasp aside), can glean what manner of power is living under Jane's skin, and find some safe means to rid her of it.
Loki's thoughts stutter to a halt as he glimpses movement at the door from the corner of his eye. One of Eir's fellow healers. At last.
The slender dark-haired woman glides into the room, hands clasped in front of her. Loki can't recall her name, and does not truly care to at this moment.
She pauses by the side of the bed, her head bowed. "My Prince, my Princess. Eir will be with us shortly. In the meantime, she bade me to tell you that she, and the other Elder healers, thus far can deduce little. Except that this foreign magic is powerful, like nothing they have ever encountered before-"
His control over his temper eroding quickly, Loki rages at her. "This is already known to us, foolish wench!"
The woman recoils slightly before she manages to regain her composure. Were he feeling more charitable he would give her credit her for that.
"It also appears that this power is defending the Princess from things it deems to be threats. Which includes the healers and their magic, apparently." The woman pauses as if she expects Loki to commiserate or express empathy, but he only glowers, still waiting for this personage to utter something useful.
It is Jane, as it often seems to be, who expresses the appropriate concern for her fellow entities. "Oh my God, did it hurt anyone?" Her eyes widen, guilt clouding them. Loki has observed her lose consciousness more than once after the unknown force has revealed itself; it is no wonder she cannot remember what transpired when the healers attempted to examine her.
Before Loki can hasten to insist to Jane that it is most certainly not her fault, the healer reassures her. "Minimally, my Lady. We are, after all, healers," the woman points out, smiling slightly. Then she turns her attention primarily to Loki. "This means that the Elders cannot employ their usual seeking-spells to discover the full nature of this force beyond a few obvious characteristics, such as its ability to change its nature from energy to solid to liquid, and back. Hence the lack of information we can provide at this point."
Useless, the lot of them, Loki snarls to himself. Aloud, he continues his diatribe. "Have you anything to tell me which I do not already know? If not, be off with you!"
"Loki!" The twin admonishments come to his ears. One from Jane on the bed, the other from Eir, who has just entered the room. She motions to the other healer, who scurries from the room just a little too quickly. Evidently Loki will make no new friends among the healers this day.
"Stay your impatience, Loki," the Elder healer instructs him. Eir is one of the few non-royals who has never been cowed by his outbursts. "We are not at an impasse yet; there remain some tomes in the Royal Library which we have yet to consult. But our seeking magics did manage to discover one thing, which I thought you would wish to know as soon as possible." She pauses, and Loki can read nothing from her face. Is it good news, or ill?
"Your wife is with child," Eir continues at last, a small smile surfacing on her thin lips. "Congratulations my prince, my princess."
Loki stares fixedly at Eir, cold filling his veins one by one.
Impossible.
"No," he gasps before he can stop himself. Then he takes hold of the welling rage inside him with both hands. "Leave us," he orders the healer. I do not want Eir as witness to this, this… his thoughts fail him.
"Loki-" Eir protests, anxiety furrowing her brow as she realizes this is not welcome news to him.
"LEAVE US!" he all but screams, and mercifully Eir backs hurriedly away and out of the room, though not before giving Loki a look which suggests she may go in search of his mother.
Loki seals the door behind Eir with his strongest spell, then paces agitatedly.
Jane is sitting up on the bed, her expression as stunned as he is sure his is.
"How could this happen?" he rasps, though the query is not directed at her. "That spell has never failed me before. My seed should never have quickened within you…" Plainly I must be cursed!
They have only just barely started to gain some sense of normalcy, of mastery over their own lives (or at least, Loki has), and now not only is Jane in the grip of some unknown force, but-
Loki's boot-heels grind on the floor as he comes to a halt at the furthest point in the room from the bed and its occupant. Yet another familiar sensation, this time of revulsion, births itself from his warring emotions.
What has he unwittingly planted in her womb? An abomination, a voice which sounds unpleasantly like Odin's whispers within his mind. Half human, and half monster.
No, Loki demurs, his jaw and fists clenching. Jane is reaching out towards him, speaking to him, but her words cannot penetrate the storm of loathing and dread in his heart.
He had fatuously believed that the present situation could not become more dire than it already was. Yes, certainly that was witless of him.
Now he stands as if paralyzed, staring unseeing and unhearing at his love. He feels as if the universe is tilting dizzily on its axis, preparing to throw him off screaming into the cold blackness between Yggdrasil's branches.
This is surely his punishment for daring for a handful of moments to allow himself to feel happiness, to believe that somehow his future might contain some small measure of joy.
Not only is Jane's life at risk, but something horrific – created by him – has taken root inside her.
And he, the self-proclaimed God, stands powerless.
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