If Its Worth Saving Me
Show me what it's like
To be the last one standing,
And teach me wrong from right,
I'll show you what I can be.
Say it for me, say it to me
And I'll leave this life behind me
Say it if it's worth saving me.
Nickelback
Exiled again; this time by choice. Living a shadow of a life. Hiding, if I am to be completely honest – I so rarely am. "You're a talented liar, always were", my brother was fond of reminding me. I have almost forgotten the difference between right and wrong. Almost.
Food. Food is a preoccupation and hunger my constant companion. Food cannot be conjured from thin air. Nor a warm blanket, nor shelter from the rain. Fine leather armour, a golden ceremonial helm, a thick cloak of the finest forest-green wool – all tricks of the light and not really there, left forever on the realm I once called home. All I have is a rough-spun shirt, my trousers, my boots, and my shattered mind.
Food, though. I could conjure a feast so real you could almost taste it... until you dared to touch, and it would melt between your fingers. A smile, however. And a suggestion planted in a weak mind, or a kind heart, and I may eat, and stay warm and dry. I try not to do this more often than absolutely necessary, though.
These humans, as tiny as ants... their lives are all they have, and their lives are precious to them in ways I had not even begun to imagine or understand. I understand now, or at least I am beginning to. My brother was right. Ha. How strange to even think those words, to commit them to paper. My brother was right and my father a hypocrite; and they were neither my brother nor my father after all.
But perhaps it is wrong to recall this story in such a manner: I this, and my that. Such arrogance I have learned to leave behind. Although it is my story... perhaps some distance.
From a distance, the tall figure appeared short. Diminished, somehow. Hunched against the cold: black curls a woolly, unkempt nimbus around his head as the wind sought new ways to drive it into a tangled mess, the figure trudged through the snow, his hands shoved deep inside the pockets of the trench-coat he'd appropriated.
Stolen seemed like such a harsh word. The corpse had no need of it any longer. But Loki did.
A bundle of black rags caught his eye and he slowed... stopped. Not a bundle of rags after all... another dead bum, frozen and forgotten? Was that a cloak? Loki looked closer. The blood was fresh, seeping warmly but freezing along the edges and matting together the...
"Feathers," Loki breathed. He reached out and touched the glossy feathers, well away from the blood, and the creature moaned. "Not dead, then," he murmured, grasping the wing gently and lifting it away from the body. "You will freeze soon enough, though," he went on. He sighed. Grimaced. Rolled his eyes. And finally removed his coat, wrapping the half-frozen creature gently and lifting it into his arms. "Now really," he said to the empty sky. "For what purpose would you send me one of these?"
# # #
The owner of the hotel kept a set of apartments above the bar for himself, and rooms out back for the faithfully drunk and constantly faithful members of his patronage. Simple rooms with a bed to pass out on and easy-to-clean floors (the price of a room for the night – cleaning up after oneself the next morning). And a sink in the corner useful for everything from drawing a drink of water, to washing one's face, to puking one's guts out.
Loki strode into the front bar of the hotel bearing his bundle and nodded towards the back rooms.
"What've you got there?" The owner asked. Loki ignored the question.
"Boil a gallon of wine and fetch me clean linens," he ordered as he shouldered his way into one of the little rooms. "And I shall require a quantity of gluehwein..." he looked up and sighed tiredly at the blank look on the hotel owner's face. "John," he said. "Please do concentrate... boiled wine, a gallon. Linens. Gluehwein. Am I making myself clear?"
"Not really..."
"Tiny human minds, how do you get around in them?" Loki muttered. "Take a gallon of wine, bring it to the boil in a pot over a fire and bring it to me with clean linens..."
"Linens?"
"Bandages, torn clothing, tea towels, I do not care just so long as they are clean," Loki told him.
"And boiled wine?"
"And boiled wine, and a quantity of gluehwein, if you please..."
"Glue-wine?"
"Oh, for the love of Odin," Loki covered his eyes for a moment. When he looked back up at the hotel owner, he was smiling widely and his chameleon eyes were bright green. "John," he said silkily. "In addition to the boiled wine, and quite apart from it, gently warm a quantity of good quality dark red wine to just above blood temperature – test it on your lip if you're unsure. While you're warming this good quality dark red wine, add three cinnamon sticks, three slices of fresh orange, three slices of fresh lemon and eight whole cloves... do you have sugar?"
"Sugar? Yes..." John said dreamily. His eyes were not quite focussed.
"Add a handful of sugar as well. Bring it to me when it is ready, but boil that other wine first! Am I making myself clear now?!"
"Yes," said John, turning to slap a saucepan onto the stove. A second saucepan followed it. "Boiled wine. Clean linens. Glue-wine."
"Finally," Loki breathed, turning on his heel and disappearing inside the little room. He knelt beside the bed and peeled back the coat, cursing softly in Norwegian when he saw the blood stain spreading across the soft tan suede. "Ruined," he muttered. "Well, let me have a look at you, then."
He spread the coat wide and the creature within began shivering. At least it is still alive, thought Loki, raking the thin, filthy body with his eyes. She, he amended to himself. She is still alive. Running water into the sink, he soaked one of the tea-towels he'd snatched from the kitchen on his way through and knelt beside the bed again. Gently, carefully, he swept the hair aside... hair as black as mine... and began cleaning the face. Bruises marred the cheeks but did little to conceal the ethereal beauty of the fallen creature.
Rinsing the tea-towel many times, Loki worked down the body, cleaning off the mud and wincing in sympathy at every bruise he uncovered, every moan of pain he elicited from the semi-conscious form. He avoided the torn and broken wings. He would need the wine and linens for that. She would need the gluehwein.
"When did he start banishing your kind?" Loki murmured as he worked. "For that matter, when were your kind ever clothed in black? Is that why they banished you? The black wings? The hair?" He touched his own hair and smiled thinly. "I have always looked different, too."
With the skin as clean as an amateur nurse was ever going to achieve with a tea-towel and cold tap-water, Loki attempted to comb his fingers through her matted hair. Unlike his own, it was as smooth and glossy as her feathers – or should have been. At least it was not curly and should be easy to set to rights.
The door opened. "Set it down on the floor," Loki told John, taking the clean tea-towels.
"It's a... it's a..."
"Naked woman, nothing more," soothed Loki, reaching out to touch the man's mind gently. "She needs a warm blanket and perhaps a robe of some sort to clothe her in? A... A..." he searched for the correct term.
"Nightgown?" John suggested.
"For now, a nightgown will suffice," Loki agreed. "The gluehwein?"
"Right here," John set down the other saucepan and handed Loki a mug. Loki scooped out a cupful of the brew and tested the temperature. "How're you gonna get that into her?" John asked.
Loki smiled. "Carefully," he said.
When the hotel owner left to chase up a lady's nightgown, Loki turned to his patient, cupping one hand to the nape of her neck and holding the mug to her lips. She choked and shuddered as the mulled wine ran down her chin and neck to stain the mattress beneath her, then her throat began to work as she swallowed. Probably the first sustenance this body has seen in a long time, thought Loki.
He lowered her head again and sopped up the worst of the sticky mess with the damp tea-towel, giving the body time to absorb the alcohol and spices. If she was too far weakened from her injuries and the cold, the shock of the next part would kill her. But if he didn't try, the filthiness of this realm would infect the wounds she'd sustained and she would die just as surely, if more slowly.
Loki washed his hands thoroughly with water and tested the boiled wine. It was hot enough to be almost scalding, but no longer a danger of doing more damage than good. It was almost time.
Loki perched on the edge of the bed and watched the shallow rise and fall of the creature's small breast. "I do not know your name," he told her. "If I did, I would ask your forgiveness for what I'm about to do and tell you the reason I do it..." he trailed off and smiled to himself. "A pretty young maiden once told me her reasons for acting as she did: 'I got red in my ledger. I'd like to wipe it out.' I laughed at her and told her that no amount of good deeds could wipe away the red that was dripping... gushing... from her ledger. I fear I now find myself in the same boat as the good Agent Natasha Romanoff – not such a mewling quim after all as it turned out. I drown in the blood I have shed, and no amount of good deeds may redeem me. However..." he turned and scooped a cupful of boiled wine and held it up like a sacrifice. "Dark and fallen angel. My name is Loki Laufeyson of Asgard. I beg your forgiveness for what I am about to do. I have red in my ledger. I would wash it clean."
Pinning the creature's shoulder to the bed with one knee and grasping the wing firmly with his right hand, Loki braced himself and poured the scalding red wine into the still-oozing wound with his much steadier left hand. The creature's eyes flew open as she threw back her head and howled and it was all Loki could do to hang on as she clawed at him with her broken finger-nails and bucked to rid herself of the creature who was inflicted such pain.
It was a measure of how weak she really was that she was unable to unseat him. Holding on like grim death, Loki had a moment to register that her eyes were as black as her hair and wings and wondered dimly just how long he'd hold up against a full-strength angel and not one who had so obviously been brutally beatenand cast down. He suspected not even his brother would be a match for this one.
Intent on his task, Loki poured more wine into the wound until it ran clean. Still pinning the creature down, he soaked a tea-towel in boiled wine, wrung it out and packed the wound, binding it with the bandages John had also found. He was aware of the hotel owner banging on the door and yelling about the noise.
He was also aware that the noise, such that it was, had stopped.
The creature... the angel, for that was what she was... stared at him with enormous black eyes, her lips peeled back in a feral snarl as she watched Loki bind her wounded wing. But she was no longer fighting him. He regarded her solemnly for a moment.
"I need to check your other wing," he told her eventually. "If it is wounded, I will need to repeat the process."
The angel narrowed her eyes at him and spoke rapidly, and while he recognised the Enochian language, he wasn't familiar enough with it to discern whether she was telling him to "go ahead, but be gentle" or "try it and I shall tear your throat out". Loki elected to err on the side of valour and go for broke. He shifted his weight to her other shoulder and pulled the wing away from her body. The angel hissed in pain but Loki could see no wound or blood, just dull feathers which needed grooming and smelled dusty. The angel spoke again but whether she was telling him "I just sprained that one" or "touch me again and you're dead", Loki was unsure. Either way it seemed prudent (not to mention polite) to remove himself from her person and allow her to cover herself and make herself comfortable.
Loki unlocked the door and accepted blankets and what he was certain was described as a 'granny nighty' on this realm, reassuring the hotel owner with a smile and a soothing thought, then handed another cup of gluhwein – now barely lukewarm – to the angel. She accepted it with good grace and even made a jape of blowing across the surface, a twinkle in her black eyes.
"No, it's mostly cold, I agree," said Loki. "Much better piping hot but I was uncertain whether it would cure or kill you."
The angel smiled and sipped the mulled wine. She watched Loki, never taking her eyes from him. After a time she set the cup aside and shifted her weight, wincing in pain.
"Let me help you..."
"No."
Loki blinked. It was the first word she had spoken he had clearly understood. At least he thought he had. "No? You do not want my help? You are still very weak..."
She shook her head vehemently. "Red," she told him, waving her hand in a sharp, cutting gesture. "Red... gone."
"Red gone?" Loki repeated. "You think..." he laughed and she glared at him. "I clean your wounds and that is enough to wash the red from my ledger? I think not. You have far to go before you will be well enough to fly away back to... whether you came from."
"No back."
"No, I thought not."
The angel glared at him for a moment longer, then seemed to sag in exhaustion. Between Loki's drastic cure and attempting to argue with him in an unfamiliar language, her meagre reserves were drained.
"Please," said Loki, moving towards her. "Let me help." She held still as he drew the blanket up over her shoulders. He smiled as he tucked her in. "My name is Loki..."
"Lau-fee-sun," she finished for him, her eyelids drooping.
"You heard that." It was a statement, not a question.
The angel nodded. A slender arm snaked out of the blanket and she tapped her chest. "Umiel", she whispered, and closed her eyes.
"Umiel," Loki echoed softly. "Welcome to Midgard. We hope you enjoy your stay."