Ok, so, this is what has been keeping me away from updating BatB. It's massively AU, set in a medieval alternate universe. Seriously, some shit happens that might make you look cross-eyed at the screen to make sure that you read it right. Just roll with it; it's probably not a typo. Characters may also seem slightly OOC. If you're looking for playful-trickster-god Loki, he's going to be very difficult to see for a while; this is dealing-with-some-shit Loki

It's based on a novel I'm writing for NaNoWriMo, so PLEASE give constructive criticism! I love it!

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

– Andre Gide

Chapter One

In Jane's opinion, there was nothing worse than the chill of the wind at night.

She huddled down in her bedroll as another gust blew past her, wishing that the fire she'd made would put off more heat. The pitiful thing barely succeeded in keeping the animals away.

The long, mournful cry of a death howler echoed around Jane's small sanctuary; the eerie sound caused a shiver to run up her spine. She sat up and scanned the clearing, though she knew that the light would make her view into the darkness unreliable. The crackling and twisting of the flames distorted the shadows on the edge of her field of vision, making them twist and dance in sinister ways; for a moment, she saw the shape of a person through the hulking outline of the trees. Jane leaned forward, pulled her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her hand around her ankle, throwing a glance toward the longsword that lay beside her, partially concealed by her bedroll.

The fire was the only light that battled with the looming darkness, granting her no aid in discerning who was scouting her campsite. She had known from watching the clouds during the day's travel that there was a storm coming; it was still many miles off, but the moon was already obscured by the cover of clouds. The musky smell of an upcoming rain had placed her in a calmer mood earlier in the day, yet the subsequent drop in temperature as the sun went down had prompted her to rethink that elation. She'd been further disappointed when the moisture in the air caused her fire to remain in its pitiful state throughout the night.

Tilting her head to gain a more discrete view, Jane's locks, having long-since rebelled against her hair tie, fell to frame her face and graze her shoulders. She used her hair as a makeshift shield, and with a practiced patience, she stared into the vast blackness beyond the clearing. After several long moments, she was ready to disregard the movement as that of a hermit bear, when a shadow separated from the base of a tree to her right. The figure was slowly picking its way through the trees around her camp in such a way that it was definitely not a hermit bear.

"If you're here to rob me, I'm afraid to say that you're doing a fairly poor job of it," Jane called out to the shadow. As a precaution, her hand slipped from around her ankle into her boot and grasped the blade hidden there.

The sound of her voice seemed to startle the shade, halting its movement. It wavered in place for a moment before it started on a steady path toward Jane. As it came closer, she noticed that the crunch of its footfalls seemed to reverberate around the clearing. The stranger had to either be a very large man or have a very heavy foot to create a crunch this early in the year, when the bluegrass was still so new and full of moisture. She allowed a frown to grace her delicate features just as the stranger reached the edge of the firelight halo. Without pausing, the shadow passed into the amber glow, and Jane caught a glimpse of a defined masculine jawline beneath a well-worn black cloak.

"It would appear that I'm not quite as stealthy as I thought," a smooth baritone voice said. Large, slender hands rose from within the cloak and drew back the hood, revealing a young man of no more than five and twenty with shaggy black hair and the hint of a smirk on his face. "When I realized there was a camp made here, I had hoped to merely slip by unnoticed. I'm sure you appreciate how difficult it can be to judge friend from foe after nightfall."

Jane abandoned her hidden blade and pulled herself from her bedroll. As with any veteran traveler, she rested fully-clothed; this was especially helpful when a hasty escape was the only option. She felt the muscles in her thighs stretch against her well-worn breeches; the loss of her blanket caused her skin to ripple in complaint. Dragon-hide boots had long-since found purchase in the supple earth by the time that the stranger had walked into the warmth provided by inner circle of the fire. She gave the stranger a swift once over before she thrust her hand toward him.

He was a strikingly beautiful young man, with smooth, supple skin, unusual for these difficult times, and his features were obviously human. His hair was unkempt and shaggy, and it fell about the tops of his shoulders. Thick brows sat atop striking green eyes. She appreciated the man's strong, sharp jawline and high cheekbones, though something about him seemed off. When he took her proffered hand in his firm grasp, she gave him a wry half smile. She could not sense any malicious intent, but she had been wrong in the past. She was a light sleeper, though, and she had no doubt that she could subdue him, despite his size.

"Well, if you are no foe, then you are welcome to share my fire. However, if you have any ill intent, I can assure you that you will not make it to the morn," Jane said by way of introduction.

The man's grin was wide and easy, though she was unsure if it was because he found real humor in her assertion that he could carry ill intent or in her thinly-veiled threat. Jane found herself worried that either her new companion was as green as a spring sapling when it came to traveling,or he was more dangerous than he was letting on.

"Where I come from, it is customary to introduce one's self before the threats are made," he said, mirth coloring his tone. "My name is Loki."

Jane nodded and pulled her hand out of his grip.

"Jane."

Loki's grin never faltered as he walked the few steps to the fire, and Jane turned as he walked away, keeping him within her sights. He pulled a small leather pouch from beneath his cloak and began rifling through it. Jane settled back onto her bedroll and took the time to study him at length.

With his cloak still firmly clasped about his neck, Jane was unable to judge his build, but she could tell that he was at least a foot taller than she was. She noticed the outline of a sword, presumably a bastard blade, across his back. Seeing that he had been at least bright enough to be armed, Jane dismissed her earlier assumption that he was soft about the ears.

"Where are you from?" she asked as he pulled a piece of salted meat out of his pouch and grabbed a thin stick from the pile of firewood she'd collected. He turned his head slightly to place her in his field of vision, and the glow of the fire deepened the lines of his face.

"Nowhere worth mentioning," he said, sliding the meat onto the stick and heating it over the fire. "It has been five years since I left, and I have not once returned. And you?"

"You've probably never heard of it. A pile of ash up north near Mount Erratum. It was burnt to the ground years ago," she said with no small hint of scorn. Talk of her home made her agitated, as it always did; she pulled her gambler's dagger from her boot and began cleaning the dirt from beneath her fingernails with it in an attempt to appear nonchalant.

"It's a rough time for anyone to be traveling alone, you know," he said, sitting back on his haunches and pulling his meat from the flames.

"You're one to talk, skulking about with no fire at this point in the night," Jane shot back; a crooked grin graced her features. Loki chuckled and took a bite of his food.

After he swallowed, he turned and faced her fully, his gaze taking purchase in her visage. She couldn't help but feel as though his piercing green eyes could somehow see straight into her soul and, if the notion should strike him, he could reach in and pluck out her deepest secrets. She cleared her throat and turned to the fire to avoid his scrutiny.

"Which way are you traveling?" she asked.

"Farther south. I'm on a quest. Some materials that I need can only be found in the southern mountains. Where are you headed?" he asked.

"The same direction. I have my own quest to fulfill in the mountains," Jane said, placing her dagger back into her boot and slipping her legs back into the comfort of her bedroll. She didn't offer anything more in clarification on the nature of her quest, and she knew that he wouldn't inquire any further. She was traveling into the mountains to retrieve a valuable, powerful artifact; only one other person in the world knew of her quest, and she couldn't risk her success on an acquaintance's assumed morality.

"Mayhap we could journey together for a while," Loki said, his eyes bright. "I have traveled all over the north, but I am unaccustomed with the peculiarities this far south."

"So long as you are not a hindrance to my goal, you are welcome to travel with me, but for now I believe that it's best that I get some rest, else there will not be much journeying on the morrow."

Loki nodded and continued to eat. He turned back to the campfire as if it held all of the secrets of the universe. His intense gaze into the fire was the last image Jane registered before she closed her eyes and sleep took her on a fitful journey through blurry, twisted memories.

#

It had been raining for several hours the next day when Loki broke the silence that had prevailed through most of their traveling. Jane estimated that the sun was probably halfway across its daily path behind the thick expanse of clouds that darkened the sky.

"You said earlier that your village was burned down. What happened?" Loki asked.

"Raiders," Jane answered, looking at the compass in her hand, "about ten years ago."

It was impossible to get an accurate reading with the smears the rain created on the glass. She sighed and rubbed the front of the compass against her shirt in an attempt to get some sort of clarity. When that didn't work, she put the compass in her pocket and started scanning the terrain for a spot to rest and wait out the rain.

"Do you have any family?" he pressed. Jane figured that, after several hours of traveling with minimal interaction, he deserved a little social interaction. He had been a decent companion; his easy, extended silence and agreeability made certain that she lacked any complaints about him thus far. She'd been subjected to far worse characters in the past.

"No. The only family I had was my father," she answered, "and the raiders took his life, along with the rest of the town. I only survived because I was in the next town over; I returned to find the town engulfed in the fire."

At that moment, the roar of thunder echoed around them and the earth trembled in its wake. A split second later, the clouds opened and released the torrential downpour they had been trying to hold back. Jane picked up her pace and searched in earnest for a place to sit the storm out, missing the grim look that had crossed Loki's face. It didn't take long for them to find a reprieve, but the rain had already begun to turn the loose earth into mud when she heard Loki call out.

"There's a cave over there," she heard him say over the pounding of the rain. He gestured toward a small alcove at the bottom of a wall of earth a few dozen feet to their left. Jane nodded in agreement, and they trudged through the rain to the small sanctuary. The soft earth threatened to suck them in; Jane cursed her luck with each step.

"You would think that the trees would offer some cover from the rain," he joked when they were both inside of the alcove and the roar of the storm was muffled.

"They did," Jane said as she grabbed her hair and began wringing it out, watching the water soak into the ground, "before the bottom dropped out. The trees down here can't handle a storm this heavy. It's normal for this time of year. Closer to the mountains, we'll pass through marshes with sungrove trees, and spring rains get more frequent farther south."

The cave was small; where the wall met the ceiling was perhaps a few inches taller than Jane and sloped in such a way that Loki had a few inches of clearance near the ceiling's apex. She set her knapsack down a few feet away from the edge of the entrance of the cave amidst the anemones that lined the walls. She unclasped the scabbard across her back and sat with her back against the wall of the small cave, crossing her legs and placing her sword across her lap. She sighed and rested her head against the wall of the cave, watching the rain continue to pour down the entrance of the cave like a liquid curtain. Loki leaned backwards against the opposite wall with his arms crossed against his chest and his shoulders tilted in toward his body. Jane pondered why he didn't just sit down when it was obvious that the sides of the cave were shorter than he was by enough to make him stoop. Jane reached down and absently stroked one of the small purple and white anemones that covered the floor and wall next to her.

Just as Loki opened his mouth to ask her another question, Jane caught sight of something in her periphery that rarely made her grin. The cave they had settled themselves into provided more than enough cover, and the creatures were a humbling sight to behold. She quickly gestured to Loki for silence. Once she was certain of his cooperation, she made a small motion toward the objects of her attention. Roughly forty feet above the ground and a hundred yards from their miniature cave, a pair of massive breach sharks slid through the trees. Each shark was at least eighteen feet long from snout to fin, with one being slightly larger than the other. From her vantage point, Jane could make out the brilliant white of their underbellies contrasting with the deep charcoal clouds rolling across the sky; the rain seemed to roll effortlessly down their gray skin before continuing its descent to the earth below.

She glanced at Loki and took almost immediate delight in the dueling expressions of fear and awe written across his face. Turning back to the sight at hand, she was certain that her face mimicked the awe he felt. Loki stepped away from the wall without breaking his gaze on the sharks; Jane followed his example and joined him at the edge of the entrance, strapping her scabbard back across her back. The breath caught in her throat as the larger of the two breach sharks opened its mouth and revealed two rows of wicked, jagged teeth. She found herself wondering at all the damage that these great beasts could do with in a single strike.

"So, there really are sharks out here," she heard Loki whisper, "They're massive. Why aren't we hiding?"

Jane managed to contain her laugh.

"Of course there are. We're relatively safe in this cave, but if they really wanted to have us for lunch, we'd already be dead. You've really never seen them before?" she said when she regained control of her mirth.

"My people were Plains people," Loki said, "I'd never been in a forest before a few months ago. I thought breach sharks were a myth. Like death howlers or sanguine apes."

"Those aren't myths either," she whispered, torn between feeling guilt for ruining the illusion of safety or cynically pleased that she wasn't the only one who'd ever had their naivety ripped from them.

"But they're so beautiful," Loki said, watching the pair glide through the trees with the barest flicks of their powerful tails. For a fleeting moment, Jane questioned whether he had heard her at all.

"Well, that's the catch, isn't it?" she said. "The perfect predators are not only supremely vicious and calculating but also appealing to the eye. Power begets power and all that."

She noticed that the rain had slowed down, and she scanned the immediate woods for any sign of company for the sharks that had disappeared from view. After a few moments, she decided that it was safe to leave the sanctuary. Nodding at Loki, she swung her rucksack over her shoulder, checked her compass, and stepped out of the confines of the cave. After a few moments, she heard the loud thump of his footsteps following steadily behind her, and she decided that she would have to take the time to teach him the art of stealth. It wouldn't do for her new companion to be unable to conceal himself when the time came.

"Where are we headed?" he asked, noticing their slight change in direction.

"I need to pick up some rations," she said, "and I'm pretty sure there's a town a few hours to the east."

Ok. I know, things are a little strange, but have a little faith in me. :) I am totally without a beta, so if you notice any errors or typos, please point them out!

What do you think? R&R!