To The Victor

- I -

Loki had to bite back his laugh as he watched his brother rampage around the tent throwing nothing short of a tantrum. He understood Thor's frustration well enough; this war had raged for nigh of 400 years and he was utterly bored with it. But their enemy had proven far more resilient than they originally anticipated and instead of accepting a swift and absolute defeat at the hands of the Aesir, the Vanir fought well and died bravely. Loki could only imagine the ballads that would be sung of this war when it was over, though he was quite sure they would be twice as long and just as tedious.

He shook his head away from his brother's raging, back to the strategy table in front of him. With the most recent prison camp liberated, that added roughly one thousand more soldiers to the enemy forces in addition to the prisoners from the two previous camps that had been freed – likely over 3,000 soldiers returned to enemy ranks. The next battle was looming closer, and if they didn't have a new battle plan, Loki truly wasn't sure how they would win.

Picking up the small, golden figurine that was meant to represent his brother (tiny hammer and all), Loki placed it at the head of the army. He would need to be in front of course, Thor's enthusiasm for battle and confidence in victory would be a great morale boost for the men. He picked up Volstagg's figurine, contemplating - perhaps the Warriors Three and Sif could each take a small battalion and –

"ARGH!"

The table suddenly flipped from underneath Loki as Thor threw it across the tent. With a raised brow Loki pursed his lips as it began to rain papers and small golden men, and the table came to stop just short of rolling out of the tent.

"By all means, I wasn't using that," he commented dryly.

But Thor hadn't heard him, he was already halfway out of the tent and after an annoyed sigh Loki was right on his brother's heels. They wove their way through the well-organized military camp, and with Thor in such a temper their fellow compatriots quickly and efficiently removed themselves from the brothers' path. Loki knew exactly where they were headed though he had thought that Thor would at least give his friends some time to heal before handing them their backsides.

"Will someone kindly explain to me how we have lost yet another prison camp!?" Thor demanded as he stormed into the healing tent.

Upon hearing their princes enter, the healers immediately bowed and left in a flurry leaving Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral with nothing and no one to defend them from Thor's anger. And quite frankly, Loki was rather surprised at the state of the Warriors Three. They looked rough, worn and tired with blood dried on their faces and clotted in their hair; their armor bearing new scuffs and scratches. The three of them had been sent specifically by Thor to guard the prison camp because he believed there would be little to nothing that could overcome all three of his friends. But looking at them now, Loki saw that not only that they been overcome, but they had been given a right thrashing.

He tried not to enjoy it overmuch.

"I was just asking them the same thing," the Lady Sif said, arms crossed as she observed them.

Hogun was the first to speak, hanging his head and Loki wasn't sure he heard him correctly when the stoic warrior replied, "The Dread Wolf."

Loki couldn't help rolling his eyes. The Dread Wolf - the latest specter to haunt the Asgardian army. They'd heard the whispers from men returning from battle of a monstrous wolf that stalked through the chaos of a battlefield, its fur matted with the blood of the soldiers it had killed, blood dripping from its powerful jaws. It could take down five men by itself and one swipe of its massive paws was enough to knock a fully armored soldier off his feet. The most recent addition to the story that Loki had heard was that the Dread Wolf was an omen of Hel and swallowed the souls of its victims so that they may never pass to Valhalla.

Whether the Dread Wolf was real or not was of no consequence. It was a well-constructed story that was doing its job with unsettling accuracy – terrifying the Asgardian soldiers. And when the war was over, the soldiers would take the tale of the Dread Wolf home to their families and use it to scare their children into obedience.

"Valhalla!" Thor exclaimed. "Now you believe that story?"

Fandral looked up and there was real fear clouding his eyes. "We saw it Thor, fought it. Does this look like a story to you?"

Then Fandral leaned forward to grasp the hem of his torn pant leg, carefully pulling it up around his knee. It was a gruesome sight; the skin of his calf was in bloody ribbons, it looked as though he was fortunate the wolf hadn't simply taken his leg clean off at the knee.

Upon seeing the wound Loki cursed and summoned the healers back into the tent. "So what is it, this Dread Wolf?" he asked, coming back to stand beside Thor.

Volstagg grimaced as a healer spread a salve on his injured shoulder. "Just as the men have described – a wolf."

"But it can't be," Fandral cut in, "not really."

"A conjuration then? The Vanir are known for their magic," Sif supplied.

Magic. It had been the Aesir's largest disadvantage in this war and probably the one thing keeping the Vanir in it. The Aesir were warriors, not sorcerers, and magic was something they didn't fully understand. Though all Asgardians are born with magic in their blood it is not a widely accepted art, and those that do practice it for more than a parlor trick or two do not openly admit to doing so. It made a person different, dangerous because of the things they could do with only a little willpower and the concentration of their mind.

Perhaps that was why Loki enjoyed it so, it tested his calculating mind and gave him one thing that he didn't have to share with his brother. Thor had his brute strength and battle prowess, Loki had subtlety and magic. Where the Asgardian people looked at Thor with awe and admiration, they regarded Loki with caution and a respect induced by their fundamental misunderstanding of his skills.

All the same, Loki doubted the Dread Wolf was a conjuration. Skilled in the magical arts as he was, he knew there were quite a few things that conjured forms were capable of, but at the end of the day they were merely a conjuration, not nearly solid enough to almost cripple a man. With enough skill and concentration it was possible to create a solid form, but its strength would correlate directly with the sorcerer who created it. It would lose its solidity over time, fading back into a projection before disappearing completely.

"What makes you think it is not really a wolf?" Loki wondered.

"Its eyes," Hogun replied immediately.

"Its eyes?" Thor echoed, confusion knotting his face.

Volstagg rubbed a large hand over his bearded face in obvious frustration. "The beast… it didn't behave as an animal should… it…" the warrior trailed off, looking to his friends for assistance because he clearly didn't know how to describe it.

"It understood what was going on around it," Fandral said then.

"So someone's trained it?" Sif asked.

Fandral shook his head. "No, it's more than that. The beast could take stock of what was happening and react accordingly, it was calculating and clever. It understood."

Loki knew then exactly what the beast was and he felt the grin spread across his face at the cleverness of it all. It was magic, but not a conjuration or a projection. It should have been quite obvious from the start of this whole Dread Wolf fiasco, and Loki was irritated with himself for reading so far into the soldier's battle stories. He was no longer a child and the stories the men had been telling were nothing more than fantasy not unlike the stories Frigga used to read to her sons. But things were rarely so simple with endings tied up nicely with a bow and a kiss on the forehead.

Turning on his heel Loki made to leave the healing tent, brushing past a messenger as the young man all but sprinted into the tent. The last thing Loki heard the messenger say was, "Forgive me Your Grace…"

Loki wandered to the edge of the Asgardian camp, looking at the line of trees beyond. He knew there were Vanir soldiers concealed in the branches and leaves, their magic hiding them from plain sight, but Loki could feel them watching him now. For a moment he had it half in mind to set the forest aflame, it wouldn't take much a twist of his wrist, a snap of his fingers and the leaves would ignite in a blaze of gold, and the cries of the Vanir soldiers would swell into the sky as they burned.

He didn't even realize that he had his hand raised until he heard Thor call out his name. Loki turned away from the forest hesitantly, finding Thor approaching him leading two horses with one hand and carrying Loki's helmet under the opposite arm.

"What's this?" Loki wondered, nodding to the two horses.

"The Vanir have sent a message, they wish to meet before the battle."

-:-

Svana crossed her arms as she looked out over the forest, to the glow of the enemy camp just beyond. Come tomorrow the same forest would be decimated, soaked with blood and Svana's heart sank thinking of it. Vanaheim had suffered much since this war began and she wondered just what exactly they would possibly gain by winning now. She knew it would take hundreds, maybe a thousand years to repair the damage that had been done to her realm.

Unlike many other Vanir, Svana had not been gifted with foresight and so knew not what the next battle would hold for her people aside from the certainty of blood and death. Even the Soothsayers, the most gifted seers of the Vanir, could not give her father a sufficient answer as to the future of the war. The future was malleable, its outcome manipulated by the circumstances. There were too many variables, too many possibilities at this point and they would not know which future would coalesce until moments before it happened.

Svana for one was not content to simply sit idle and wait for the future to surprise her, so she had taken matters into her own hands. She hadn't expected it to work so well to their advantage, but she couldn't deny the thrill of delight that shivered through her spine when an Asgardian soldier attempted to muster all of his courage in the face of the "Dread Wolf". But if she was being honest with herself, it had been disconcerting, the first bitter and metallic taste of blood on her tongue, the snap of flesh that reminded her of the first bite of a crisp apple, the tremor of bones about to break under the pressure of her jaws.

Closing her eyes, Svana shook the images and sensations away abruptly. She tried not to think about it, about the wild animalistic thoughts that sometimes occupied her mind when she recalled her time in a wolf's flesh. Shape-shifting was a dangerous form of magic. It was a narrow line to walk, to share your form with another without losing yourself. At times Svana could feel the wolf's howl rattle through her bones, feel it throw itself against the caging of her ribs as it fought to be free. If she was not careful, if she spent too much time as the wolf, Svana knew that eventually she would not be able to regain her human form.

But to free her people from the prison camps, it was a risk Svana had been more than willing to take. And with the help of a small contingent of trustworthy soldiers, the Dread Wolf had successfully liberated three prison camps, returning over a thousand men to their ranks.

The sound of approaching footsteps brought Svana out of her reverie and she looked over her shoulder to find her younger sister, Malina, headed in her direction. "You're not thinking of going out there again, are you?" Malina wondered as she came to a stop beside her sister.

Svana didn't acknowledge her sister right away. Malina looked so much like their mother that at times, Svana found it difficult to even look at her. And she didn't belong here. A skilled fighter though she was, Malina was too kind, too good for the horrors of war. But Svana was thankful that her younger sister had not yet taken part in any battle; however, her healing skills had been greatly needed as of late, especially by Svana.

Finally the older girl shrugged. "I should, there are two more camps to the west of here, and though the men already freed have reported they have been treated fairly, they said they'd heard rumors of the cruelties committed at one of the other camps. I cannot bear the thought of our men suffering any more than they already have."

"Nor can I, but you must think of your own safety sometimes, sister," Malina replied. "Since the first camp was liberated, the security on the remaining camps has increased, there will come a time when your… reputation…" Svana rolled her eyes at Malina's veiled reference to the Dread Wolf., "will not be enough of an advantage for you and the men who accompany you."

Svana hadn't been surprised when Malina had confronted her about the Dread Wolf months ago. The girl knew every secret her siblings had ever tried to hide, and Svana was sure that Malina's own spy network rivaled that of the Royal Spymaster's. Svana knew that was why their father ordered her to the front lines – her people were the ones concealed in the forests below watching the movements and goings on of the enemy camps. Two hundred years ago Malina had even managed to smuggle one of her men behind enemy lines, and he funneled information to them for decades before he has discovered and killed.

"What am I expected to do, Malina?" Svana replied irritably. "Simply wait for an end to this war? It has been four centuries and each day that passes we are no more closer to a resolution than we were when this first began. I will do whatever I can to turn the tides to our favor."

"You're not the only one who grows tired of this war," Malina reminded her quietly with a shake of her copper curls.

"There you are Svana, I have been searching for you everywhere!"

The two women turned, smiles breaking across their faces as they took in the sight of their brother and commanding officer approaching.

"And you haven't been searching for me, you wound me, Reidar!" Malina cried dramatically.

Reidar laughed affectionately, stooping to drop a kiss on his younger sister's cheek. "Hello, Malina," he greeted her with his face still pressed against her cheek. "I do need to speak with you as well so it's good you're here."

After nearly four hundred years of constant war, Svana was terribly grateful that her twin hadn't crumbled under the weight of leading the army. That wasn't to say it hadn't taken its toll on him, because try as he might to conceal it, there was little he had ever been able to hide from Svana. With each new battle and each new casualty report Svana saw the weight on Reidar's shoulders become heavier, the shadows that shifted in his tawny eyes that were a matched set to her own. In their youth they had played at war, but the reality of it was so much more than they anticipated.

"What did you need, Reidar?" Svana asked.

Reidar turned to his twin. "I've sent a messenger to the Asgardians, I need you to ride out with me to meet them." Before she could react, he turned to Malina, "Which means I need you to recall your men from the forest."

Svana blinked in shock, unable to formulate a coherent thought for a moment. "You've done what? Why? You realize that you have possibly signed that poor man's death warrant!"

"I haven't, he returned not an hour ago," Reidar replied matter-of-factly. "They'd agreed to meet as long as the forces in the trees are gone. There will be no army behind either of us for this meeting."

"But – "

He stopped her, cupping her cheek. "I have grown just as tired of this war as anyone, if we can end it peacefully now, there will be no battle come the morrow," he said emphatically.

Svana couldn't gain a bearing on her thoughts as they spiraled with confusion. Never before had Reidar given any indication that he would have liked to see a peaceful resolution to the war. Under his command Svana was sure that Ragnarok would be upon them should he ever consider anything besides a violent, bloody end to this conflict. He was their father's son after all.

"Father will not be pleased," was the only thing Svana could think to say.

Reidar scoffed as he released her and took a step back. "The King is swathed in luxury while our people die, so forgive me if I care not for Father's approval at present. For four hundred years I have courted this war under his banner and I am exhausted."

And for the first time, Svana saw his confidence falter. He was, Reidar was absolutely exhausted down to the marrow of his bones and now allowed her to see all that he had concealed from her these four hundred years. She saw the new lines that had appeared on his handsome face over the centuries, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The years of constant battles and loss had taken more of a toll on her brother than Svana had originally thought, and he had hidden it from her surprisingly well. Like the rest of the men, all he wished to do was go home.

"So what say you, sister mine, will you ride out to meet them with me?" he asked her, smiling gently.

Svana swallowed heavily and nodded. "Of course, brother."

-:-

The forest was quiet, Loki couldn't hear anything moving through the fauna which meant that the Vanir forces had been recalled from their positions in the trees. Surprising. Still this meeting didn't fill Loki with any kind of good feeling. Thor had said the messenger's letter was vague simply requesting that the leaders of their respective forces meet at sun down. How did Thor know the Vanir weren't simply waiting to draw them out from the camp and then attack?

Should that be their plan, I pity them, Loki thought, casually eyeing Mjolnir at his brother's side.

Something shifted in the trees ahead of them and there was the very distinct sound of a twig snapping. "They're here," Loki informed his brother just as the two Vanir stepped into the clearing.

Loki had heard of the man before, Reidar his name was, the prince leading Vanaheim's forces. Thor had met him on the battlefield a century ago and their nearly matched strength had laid waste to everything around them. After the battle Thor had praised his opponent's skill and strength, and expressed his desire for the two of them to meet on the field of battle once more. Should that happen today, Loki wasn't entirely sure the forest would survive the aftermath.

The woman with him on the other hand, Loki had never seen nor heard of before and where Reidar's armor was a shining silver hers was bronze in color. He couldn't see her face, hidden by the face plate of her helm as it was, but her eyes were same tawny brown as Reidar's and the braid that laid casually over her shoulder was the same pale blonde as his. Loki assumed that it could only have been his twin, the warrior princess whose name Loki didn't particularly care to learn or know because he had never heard of her partaking in battle. She must have stayed behind in their camp, building the Vanir's battle plans and war time strategies. Perhaps she wasn't as skilled a warrior as her brother.

"Thor, Loki," Reidar said, nodding his head to each of them in turn. "You have my thanks for meeting with me."

"Reidar," Thor replied with a nod of his own, "for what reason are we meeting?"

Reidar looked to his sister, and they seemed to have a silent conversation before his sister stepped forward. "This forest is ancient," she began. Her voice was lovely, low and tempered, the syllables of her speech rolling over one another pleasantly. "Tomorrow's battle will likely cause irreparable damage to these forests, and we will each suffer great losses."

"What is it you want?" Loki demanded, irritably.

"We propose this battle takes place another time, in another place," she replied.

Beside him, Thor roared with laughter. "You want us to retreat!"

The woman shook her head. "Both of our armies retreat. We will all live to fight another day on more… preferable staging grounds, these woods will do neither of our forces any favors."

"Or," Reidar added, "we end this in a more… civilized manner. A duel to the death, with only one loss, a determined victor and this… monstrous war will be at an end."

Loki almost couldn't believe what he was hearing. Four hundred years of fighting and blood and death and now the Vanir decided that they wanted a less messy end. Thor continued to laugh, as if the two Vanir royals had just told him the most entertaining joke in all of the nine realms and if Loki was being honest with himself, it was a little unsettling. But they weren't joking, looking at them Loki could see the tiredness in their gaze, they were fighting a war they didn't want and now of all times, they wanted to back out.

"Why now after all these centuries?" Loki demanded, his voice eerily calm in his anger. "We could have ended this so long ago."

"You should know better than anyone that we are not wholly free to make our own decisions," Reidar replied.

Now he understood. They were doing this without their father's, their King's, knowledge.

"No," Thor suddenly interjected and he had a hard, blazing look on his face as he glared at the Vanir twins. "You wish for a civilized end, then you should have considered that when you murdered our dignitaries at the peace summit four centuries ago! We are ready for battle. If you retreat, we will hunt you down. A duel? Your army will still stand and so will ours, and I doubt yours will take kindly to your defeat, the battle will take place regardless. Come the morrow, we will lay you to waste."

Loki nearly rolled his eyes. Of course Thor would still choose a glorious, destructive battle instead of a simple duel.

In a flurry of movement and agitation, the woman suddenly ripped her helmet from her head and stepped up to Thor, and Loki was shocked to discover that she very nearly drew even with him in height. Loki's eyes darted to where Thor's hand was tightening around his hammer, and he could feel what he assumed was the princess's magic rolling over his skin and raising the hair along his arms.

"Do not forget, Asgardian, you are not the only ones who lost people that day!" she sneered in his face. "Valhalla help me, I will find you amid the chaos of tomorrow's battle and I will send you bloody into the arms of your ancestors."

Loki, admittedly, was in awe watching this woman so boldly stand before his brother, for there were few in the nine realms who could. She did not falter nor cower under the intensity of Thor's glare, and just as Loki heard the rumbling of thunder in the distance she abruptly turned and stormed away.

There was an inexplicable disappointment on Reidar's face as he nodded once more to each brother before turning to follow his sister back into the shadows of the forest. And until that moment Loki had nearly forgotten that Vanaheim's Queen had been one of the many who lost their life at that disastrous peace summit those many centuries ago.

Hello all! This is my first attempt at anything in the Marvel 'verse and I'm a little more than nervous about it. Like most people lately, I have completely fallen in love with Tom Hiddleston's Loki and once this idea was in my head it wouldn't leave me alone.

I've been working on this first chapter for nearly a week, trying to make sure everything was the way I wanted it because I was so nervous about posting it.

To be honest, I don't even know if I'm going to continue it, I just wanted to post the first chapter to see if anyone would actually be interested in reading it. This isn't a Pre-Thor or Post-TDW, it's completely independent from them, so it's an AU... I guess?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you thought by filling out that box down *points down* there!

-(gxr)-