From Another Land
Chapter 1:
It is three days and nights since Loki left the humble lodging of the kind farmer and his family.
Three days and nights, and already, again, he finds himself in trouble.
Stuffing the leather strap into his mouth, he bites down on it, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to block out the pain.
Easier said than done.
It is a dizzying effort, his vision swimming even behind his closed lids, nausea rising up in his throat as he forces the bones in his left arm back into alignment.
He tries swallowing down the scream which threatens to burst past his lips, the sound coming out a choked moan instead, tears springing to the corners of his eyes, escaping down his dirty cheeks.
By the time it's all through, after he's managed to secure the limb into a makeshift sling, made from his own cloak, he is breathing heavily, sweat thick against his forehead, soaking his hair.
He spits out the leather strap, his good hand gripping his shoulder as he slumps forward in exhaustion, the burning agony of before still throbbing like an echo through his arm.
He wishes bitterly then he could simply heal it. The pain would be wretched, but at least it would be over with quick.
But he knows too that isn't now an option. His magic remains depleted, what little power he still possesses needing to be rested and conserved, so that it might, he prays, begin again to build.
It had been foolish of him, to cut a path through these woods. He'd known that they frequently found themselves infested with bandits and marauders, laying in wait for ignorant and naive rich men, nobility and, yes, royalty. It was only that he'd thought to save himself several leagues distance back to the city, his injuries continuing to nag him and drain him of energy.
For his weakness, he'd paid supremely.
There had been four of them, and of course they'd recognized him immediately. It hadn't been a simple case of robbery then, for which Loki would simply have given them what remained of his purse and left at it. It wouldn't have been worth the fight to him, not as he currently was.
But the men had seen opportunity for far more than a few hundred gold pieces.
They'd tried to capture him, hold him hostage and demand a ransom.
Loki had nearly laughed aloud at their intent. Or would have, had he not been so weighed down by his own exhaustion and anger. He'd wanted to tell them they could take him as their prisoner, but little good it would do them, for few in Asgard would notice his absence at all, and fewer still would see him worth the price of demand, whatever it may be.
He knew though the men would fail to believe him at all, knew they would not leave him be, knew he had no choice but to defend himself.
And so they'd fought.
He'd had to kill them, because they were going to kill him.
Oh, a simple matter it would have been, had he had his magic to rely upon. How easily he would have destroyed them.
As it was, however, he'd had only his fists and his sword, and he supposes in that moment he should have been grateful to Thor and his friend's for all the torturous hours of training and battle he'd been made to suffer through. All the moments of humiliation and defeat at the hands of all of them, which drove him farther and farther, harder and harder, until his own hands bleed freely as his broken nose and bloodied mouth.
Though it would always be Mother most of all who won his deepest gratitude. It had been her to really teach him the ways of fighting. Her who had turned his failings into success, his weakness into strength.
He'd triumphed over the bandits, though just barely. They'd come upon him as one, and the struggle with them had gone on far longer than had been in his favor. At one moment, one of the men had taken him from from behind, locking an arm round his neck, pressing their forearm against his throat, nearly choking him, and in his frenzied attempts to break free, one of the others had come and taken hold of his arm, stretching it out straight and slamming a heavy club hard as they could against the joint.
The bone had snapped instantly, and it had taken every ounce of his strength not to cry out at the suffocating pain.
How he'd managed to get free, and to overcome them after that, remains largely a confused fog to him. He had been acting on instinct alone, violent and brutal, until, at last, sweat drenched and soaked in his and their own blood, he'd realized with a kind of disbelieving shock that the four men lay dead at his feet, with him hardly keeping his own footing, so overcome was he with exertion and the exhaustion of days of hard travel and previous injury.
He'd needed to get away from the bodies after that, and he wasn't even sure why. The forest was silent and alone, only the various creatures who made their home there present, and they were silent, as such animals always were.
It had been an impulse, a fear even, and Loki had fled for many miles before the pain finally overtook him, and he'd sunk to the ground on his knees, gasping for breath and shivering.
Sitting there now, in the same place, tears drying on his cheeks and staring listlessly ahead, past the darkened trees before him, he wishes suddenly, powerfully, that Thor was here.
He and his brother hadn't been getting on well of late. Well... Loki hadn't been getting on well with Thor. Thor, as ever, had remained oblivious to any trouble.
Thor was arrogant. Had always been, since he was a child. But now, in manhood, he had grown unbearably so. There were days Loki found himself wanting to scream in his brother's face, take him by his ears and make him understand the mistake of his own attitude and actions.
It had always been easy for Thor. Everything. He had been born with an incredible physical strength and ability, and so too had he been born with intrinsic charm and likeability. People were drawn to him, struck by him and left dazzled, amazed, and Thor had only to be himself. There was no effort. No need to try. To work at it.
Remembering the young daughter of the farmer then, he thinks, those who had not even met his brother were enchanted by him nonetheless.
Unlike himself.
He, who was born so frail and weak. Who found it an almost overwhelming difficulty simply to talk to people. Who had worked tirelessly his entire life simply to understand how, and still others looked at him with dislike and distrust. Looked at him as something ugly and unwanted.
It wasn't fair. It was wretched. It left him wretched. And his brother, in his infinite ignorance and stupidity, had the gall to chastise Loki for it, to tell him he was imagining things, and being, as always, too sensitive, too fragile...
It was times like those when Loki had wished to strike Thor. To strike him right across his smug, handsome face. Thor would thrash him for it, he knew. And coward that he was, it stayed his hand every time. But his brother was wrong. It was he who was blind. Blind to the actions of others, and blind most especially to his own. He spoke down to people. Treated them as things rather than beings, and in due course, it would come back to sully him, to follow him round like a curse or a hex.
In his most truthful of hearts, Loki wished only to help Thor. To make him see the folly of his own comportment. To help him grow into the man he had the potential to be. Thor's heart was great. His capacity for love and kindness nearly infinite. But it was becoming lost in his own, bloated sense of self-importance. In his ego.
Loki knew his feelings of contempt stemmed from his own jealousy. He wasn't unaware, wasn't without self-reflection. He wished with an almost tangible feeling of desire that he could have what Thor had. That others would look at him with the same respect, the same awe, the same acceptance and friendliness they did his brother. Wished, more than anything, that Father would look at him the same as he did Thor. Would just, for once, look at him with pride.
It was that pitiful wish that had led him on this increasingly absurd venture to begin with, and Loki curses himself now for his own, sorry weakness which leads him so constantly into trouble.
He had thought, perhaps, if he could do this one thing...
Father had been speaking of late about commissioning a new set of armor from the dwarves of Nidavellir. Only he had been hesitant in his action towards it. Relations between the realm of the dwarves and Asgard had been strained for a good many centuries now, to say it mildly. Thusly, Asgard found herself in recent times with a shortage of well crafted weapons and armor. A near inconceivable position for a people who both thrived and prided themselves most on their prowess in battle and war.
And so Loki had formed the idea in his head that, handled correctly, he could both win the favor of his father and of his people, if he could somehow broker a trade deal between Nidavellir and Asgard, and in the doing, procure a new set of armor for Father, as a show of good faith on the part of the dwarves.
Things, though, hadn't gone according to plan.
Loki had been to Nidavellir when he had been a child, with Father and Thor, but had made no visits as an adult, and he hadn't at all taken into consideration the hostility the people there would feel towards a prince of what they now obviously considered an enemy realm.
Foolishly, he'd used the secret pathways to arrive there, informing no one of his plans, not even Heimdall, concealing himself from the gatekeeper's sight.
The moment he'd made himself known to the dwarves, however, they'd immediately attacked him.
Loki had been so taken off guard, that he hadn't even had time to mount any sort of defense, and the dwarves had been wearing armor infused with their own spells, negating his magic.
In the end, Loki had barely escaped with his life, humiliated and badly beaten. They'd found it amusing, he supposes, watching a son of Odin squirm and trying at times fruitlessly to choke down his screams in the midst's of their tortures. They'd wanted him to beg. They'd told him if he did, they would let him go. "Run back to Daddy.", they'd said. But Loki had refused. He wouldn't allow himself to sink so low.
It had cost him dearly. He'd run himself dry of his magic in the effort to break free from their prison's and tear open a hole in Yggdrasil's fabric, hurling himself through, praying it would land him back in Asgard.
It had, but within the farthest outskirts of the realm, from which he had been traveling by foot, back towards the city, for well over a fortnight now.
He'd had nothing. No food, no water, no horse. Naught but the clothing on his back, which he'd barely had a chance to steal back on his way from escaping.
Loki realizes then his fist is clenched, the sharp pain of his nails digging into his palm, and slowly, he loosens it, staring dazedly down, seeing the crescent shaped marks, pink with nearly drawn blood.
He presses the palm against the top of his thigh and turns away, breathing out heavily.
He really does wish Thor was here. His idiot, oafish brother, who always is so blindly inconsiderate and self-centered.
But if Thor were here, he would take care of Loki, and Loki knows that. Thor would have set his broken arm, and saved him a good deal of the pain. Thor would have kept him from the broken arm at all, and dispatched those bandits with a ridiculous ease. Thor would never have allowed Loki to be captured by the dwarves, never allowed him to be tortured, never allow him to make so foolish a mistake to begin with.
If Thor were here, Loki wouldn't feel so lonely now. If Thor were here, Loki would have someone to hold onto...
But Thor isn't here, and Loki chastises himself for being so childish.
He tries to shove such thoughts and longings aside, and focus on his situation now.
The sun is now starting to dip beneath the horizon, the wood's quickly growing dark.
He's too exhausted to find a better sheltered area, but he knows then he's going to have to build a fire to keep any predator's away, and simply hope there aren't any other bandit's about to see the smoke.
He doesn't think he could successfully fight off another single of them, never mind a group.
He thinks then he would have been better off, had he stayed among the kind farmer and his family for another day or two. He wishes deeply he could have. But he'd imposed enough upon them. Benefited already more than he deserved from their hospitality.
It had shocked him, their generosity, when clearly they had so little. Shocked him further, that they had regarded him with and shown such respect. It wasn't... it wasn't a thing Loki found himself used to, and he hadn't quite known how to react.
Oh, they must have thought him a bumbling idiot, staring stupidly at them and stammering out his baffled words. Though if they had, they managed somehow not to show it, and for that alone, Loki would have given them twice as much coin as he had.
He was so easily laughed at, it seemed, the people of the court whispering slyly to one another as he passed, their muffled chuckles like booming laughter to his keen ears. Worse still was the way so many of them looked at him, with disappointed, even disdainful eyes, as if he were an embarrassment, a blemish on the name of his father's house.
And when he would dare to command them, it was more oft than not with begrudging attitude they would comply. And then there were those bold few who refused compliance at all, simply scoffing in his face and turning away.
Loki knew this was his own fault. He could punish them for their insolence. Had even threatened such on a number of occasion's.
But he hated the lash. It was an ugly thing, something about even the thought of it churning Loki's stomach and making him dizzy with sickness. He'd witnessed servants submitted to it too many times, their back's a tangle of deep cut lacerations, awash of red.
He'd felt the sting of it himself too many times. Knew how it ripped from you all strength, and sunk you to your forehead, until your shoulders quivered and the taste of copper filled your mouth. Until the bone deep sting faded, and you felt only a dull snap, the nerves beaten into a deadened numbness.
He couldn't subject anyone to that. He couldn't. Though he'd threatened it endlessly. And they knew now it was an idle threat, and so they only laughed in his face if he gave it.
Not Thor. Not Odin. They most routinely had insubordinate whipped, as was their right, as was their duty even.
But Loki was of weak constitution, and violence had always made him uneasy.
He laughs at himself now, thinking of it. He, a prince of a warrior race. Of a people who lived, it seemed at times, only for battle. And he would oft quail at the sight of blood.
No wonder then so many despised him. He failed them even in their greatest collective definition, when he should have given his all to represent them truly.
But once more he is allowing himself to be distracted by his morbid and useless thoughts, and he shoves them aside, forcing himself to his feet.
He needs to find proper kindling if he's to build a fire, which he knows may prove more difficult than he would hope. The ground is damp from rain these past, few days, and finding wood which will take is going to take some searching.
As it turns out, it is more difficult than even he'd feared, and by the time he's gathered together his meager pile of dry twigs, the sun has well set, shrouding him in near pitch darkness, the only illumination coming from the dim light of the moons, clouded over.
A foretelling of more rain, and Loki finds himself smiling, wondering if his brother is in a mood tonight. Wondering more somberly if it is because Thor has noticed his absence, and he worries...
Again, he forces the thoughts away, setting his sticks within the pit he's dug and taking up a pair of flint stones, one's which he'd been relieved to find still within his satchel.
He's often accused by Thor's friends of being unable and helpless without the aid of his magic, but that isn't true.
Loki, in secret, has always taken pride in his practicality and skills of survival. He and Thor have often gone trekking through lands of wilderness, with little more than he has now. And though those times Loki always had his magic to rely upon, he knew there would come others when he would not, and so he knew from a young age to develop his knowledge and abilities.
Still, it proves infinitely more difficult to strike sparks from the stones with one of his arms broken, a struggle which leaves him embarrassingly flustered and agitated by the time he succeeds.
Though succeed he does, and it is a relief when the warmth and flickering light of flame catches along the twigs and begins to build.
He stokes it for a time, the heat making him uncomfortably aware of the ache beginning in the pit of his stomach.
He hasn't eaten at all since the supper Sven and his family shared with him the nights before. Before that, he hadn't eaten in several weeks.
Fool that he was, he hadn't brought any food with him on his journey, assuming he would be received by a delegation and provided for as a guest.
He knows he doesn't need food to survive, but it does nothing to change the truth that he feels the pangs of hunger deep as any mortal creature might.
Once more, he forces his mind away, and thinks of other things.
He remembers the first time he and Thor went camping by themselves.
It hadn't been a true venture into the wilds, of course. Only Mother's garden's, but...
Loki smiles unconsciously to himself, recalling it.
He and Thor had been so close then, their imaginations vivid and free.
They'd slept out under the stars, pretending they were great warriors of the realm, holed up in their battlefield encampment, awaiting daybreak, when they would engage their enemy.
The night had been warm and balmy. Loki remembers that, because into the early morning hours, the heat had become too much for him, as it often did, and they'd had to go back inside.
But still, before then, they'd imagined their surroundings, not as the pleasant and comforting lushness of the Queen's personal gardens, but as the harsh and unforgiving cold of Jotunheim's wasteland. The land of the frost giants, as barbarous and cruel as their climate.
They'd envisioned themselves like their father, leading Asgard's armies against the monstrous Laufey, King of the frost giants. Imagined slaying him, watching his great form which had reached to the skies crashing down like a great ash, lying still with death, defeated.
Imagined then how glory had been theirs, the praise of their fellow warriors won, tails of their greatness forever sung among the halls of their home and great Valhalla beyond.
But that had been then, and slowly, Loki's fond smile fades from his lips, and he's brought once more cruelly into the present.
Exhaustion gnaws at him, the lids of his eyes feeling increasingly heavy with each moment passed, the deep ache of weeks of travel and the violence of his earlier skirmish settling deeply now, lining his face with pain as he shifts down onto his side.
He curls his hands under his head, using them as a pillow, pulling his knees to his chest as he stares listlessly into the warm flames.
A few days longer, he thinks, and tries to ignore the desperation of the thought. A few days, and he should reach the main city.
Should reach home...
It's to these thoughts he holds fast then as he tries to force himself into a more relaxed state.
He needs to sleep at least some, if he's going to have the energy to cover as much distance a day as he's hoping.
Still, it's many hours before he feels blessed unconsciousness beginning to creep in round the edges of his thoughts, dulling them to only vague impressions.
Eventually, oblivion takes him whole.
/
AN: Howdy ya'll! So, this story is a sequel to my one shot "Who You Really Are", so if you haven't read that, you can find it under my user name. It isn't really necessary to read this, but if you want, it's there. I'm not sure how long this story will be, if I'll make it more than a couple chapters or not. It depends on how it develops. But anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the first part, and please, if you have a chance, let me know your thoughts!