Another Pre-Thor thang. Was planning to post this first chapter yesterday, but it took me several tries to realise it was too many words for the site to process for one chapter, apparently. So this story will be in smaller chunks than I'd originally planned, but hopefully that won't affect the reading too much since I'll be able to update it relatively rapidly.
I hope your holiday season is safe and happy :) Even if that's just wishful thinking on my part, for some of you.
Please feel free to constructively criticise! But I hope you enjoy.
"It lurks in the skies above a Midgardian ocean?"
Thor's tall voice fills the tall consult chamber from the bottom upwards, like strong ale poured into a stein. The afternoon sun stains the walls with amber through high, arched windows.
Odin says, "Heimdall will transport you as closely to the skuldagr as possible. I must speak to him again about the inter-world pathway it slipped through. Return it to Asgard alive if you can. Kill it if you can't. It's a danger to any mortals it may come across."
He adds a small smile, like a crack appearing in a grey mountainside. "I know I can trust you with this."
The Allfather's lone eye rests serenely on Thor's blue ones, which are lit with anticipation.
"I'll return soon with the foul beast wishing it had never fancied crossing Asgard's borders." Thor hefts Mjölnir in his palm. His cloak flutters behind him like crimson wings as he strides from the room.
Loki turns to the Allfather. He knows his expression is touched with uneasiness; he is glad no one else is in their company.
"Father," he hates how he always hesitates before addressing Odin. "Are you sure Thor's usual methods are… suitable for recapturing a skuldagr?" He also knows the question sounds condescending. But it is a mere starting point. If their father heeds him, it will be worth it.
Odin's gaze shifts to settle on him, as if to see the workings of his second son's brain. Loki knows this is no real study of Odin's – their father would doubt him a little less if it were. "You mean to tell me that you already know Thor's plan to bring it back?"
Loki selects a wording more polite and much less humorous than when he and Thor debate about their contrasting battle styles. "He nearly always turns to Mjölnir's power during confrontation, but skuldagrs are swift enough to dodge lightning bolts."
"I know they are one of Asgard's most fearsome creatures, Loki. As does he."
"This will be the first any Asgardian has faced in decades, and the very first for him, so Thor might not realise – "
"Which is why I sent him to handle this, to better teach him how to adapt his battle tactics." Odin says firmly, like a stone door closing shut. "Our other, less skilled warriors are needed elsewhere, and even without Mjölnir, do you not think him capable of recapturing one rogue beast?" The single eye continues pretending to study him.
Loki tempers his expression, tingeing it with the right amount of hurt. "No one looks up to him more than I, but – "
"So you can see he will deal with the creature admirably. Thor is learning a good leader must also do things himself, instead of sending an army marching for every tribulation. You do not wish to hinder your brother's preparation for kingship, do you?"
Over Odin's broad shoulder, the sunlight flares in Loki's vision. The room darkens briefly as he lets his gaze sink to the ground. "Of course not, Father."
After some moments, the imperial tone in the Allfather's voice recedes somewhat. "But if you worry for Thor's welfare, accompany him with your magic and your knowledge and ensure the beast is returned to our realm. Before it wreaks any havoc on Midgard."
With that, Odin makes his way out of the chamber. His echoing footsteps make the room sound completely empty. Loki allows himself a quick smile as he prepares to leave.
The sky above the Rainbow Bridge is soft, coloured with buttery yellow and pale blue. As always, it seems to blacken and thicken with stars beyond the Bifrost. Thor listens to the muted timbre of his own footfalls on the bridge's glassy surface as he approaches Heimdall.
Only the gatekeeper's mouth moves when he speaks in his baritone voice. The rest of him remains motionlessly vigilant as ever, like he is carved from the same golden steel as the Bifrost behind him. "I hear you must return the loose skuldagr from Midgard."
Thor grins. "You hear correctly. Do you see it?"
Heimdall's gold eyes appear to flicker to something in the far distance. "It is, as the Allfather said, still flying above an ocean on Earth. The winds and waters there are currently too wild for humans to travel, so you will have a clear battleground."
"Then this should prove simpler than I thought." Thor follows the armoured giant into the near-dusky shelter of the Bifrost. The yawning gateways churn and pulse furiously with their strange concoction of colour and darkness. The brilliant light glances wildly off Heimdall's broadsword as he prepares to unlock the entry into Midgard.
"Be ready to stay aloft," the gatekeeper intones. "Where I must place you, the only solid ground is an abandoned Midgardian platform that once was used for drawing oils from the seabed."
Thor nods, spinning Mjölnir's handle in his palm almost subconsciously. With that, Heimdall drives his blade downwards into the Bifrost's centre, sending chaotic veins of light dancing around him as if instead of blood splattering from a wound. Thor is temporarily dazzled when more light from the gateway leaps forward to swallow him whole, dragging him all the way down to Earth.
The first thing Thor really appreciates when he pierces Midgard's borders is the wind.
When the roar of the Bifrost's gateway ceases, the ocean wind continues whistling and howling so wildly that for a second Thor thinks several shrieking skuldagrs already surround him. The air sands the back of his throat with the scent of sea salt, and whips his face and hands with cold.
He had slammed feet-first onto the hard floor of a bizarre, floating contraption that Heimdall had said had been used for deriving something from the ocean bed. What look like miniature metal towers poke out of his makeshift landing ground, and the whole structure sways faintly from side to side with the tumultuous waves. The surface he stands on is large enough for the Bifrost's runes to imprint upon in a perfect circle.
The Midgardian sun had set, and nightfall has started to bruise the water into waves of dark ink in all directions around him. The waters that skirt Asgard's city and outer lands are impressive and probably far deeper than any of Midgard's. But there is something about this horizon's flatness, unmarred by a colossal, brightly lit citadel, that makes Thor think fleetingly of how lonely it would be to drown there.
Blinking away the stinging gales, he begins scouring the sky above with narrowed eyes. Thick billows of pearl-grey clouds scud the darkening canvas, threatening a storm that would be feeble against any that Thor could raise.
As he searches, Thor recalls the illustrations of flying skuldagrs he and his friends had seen in old books from past schooling. The detailed strokes and washes of coloured inks had shown a serpentine creature with greyish hide in wingless flight. They can convolute themselves into grotesque coils, otherwise soaring straight as spears after their prey. Thor thinks the head and forelegs vaguely resemble those of the dragons in some Midgardian novels that Loki had shown him before. Every interpretation he has ever seen of skuldagrs has given them distinctly savage expressions.
Then, in the distance behind him, he hears a strange, rippling screech slice through the bawling tempest. It is a tortured, animalistic keening that befits something scraggly and wounded. It sounds more terrified than terrifying. Thor smiles.
Seconds later, just beneath the cathedrals of clouds, he is airborne – one of his favourite sensations – with Mjölnir raised and cape being snagged by the harsh tempest. He lets the energy start thrumming through Mjölnir, and lightning gathers with bone-trembling crackles in the bellies of the nearby blackening clouds. He flies to meet the source of the oncoming scream.
Even in the nighttime gloom, Thor recognises the snake-like creature from the books. He estimates it is only the length of a four-man rowboat, its ashen hide camouflaging it against the sky. Its fanged maw distorts with murderous resolve as it arrows towards him. Thor might have seen a similar expression when Volstagg once watched Fandral eat the last morsel of roasted boar, or the first time Thor had asked Sif during sparring if she wanted respite before the rest of them did.
"You don't scare anyone," he mutters. Moments before they would have collided, he lashes out the building electricity. A ragged torrent of blue-white lightning obediently drops from above, scorching the air. Thor catches what looks like blank shock in the skuldagr's flat eyes, just as the lightning erupts. He almost laughs.
As the air clears, Thor alights upon one of the steely masts jutting up from the sea-borne platform. The oscillation of the waves is even more pronounced up there. Mjölnir in one hand and holding onto the metal with the other, he combs the sky and sea for a limp, twisted figure. Nothing.
Where is it?
The only noise is from the ever-howling wind and crashing waves. The rays falling from Midgard's pale sliver of a moon reveals no creature other than himself. Suddenly, his bare skin is being pelted with pinpricks of chilly wetness, and thunder that is not his own is reverberating through the labyrinth of clouds. Icy droplets begin gathering at the ends of his hair.
Where is it?
A flicker of movement dances in his vision's periphery, amidst the fresh rain and higher clouds several dozen yards before him. The skuldagr worms itself into a slow, exaggerated knot, keeping its saucer-like eyes fixed on him. Its hide does not even look like it is scorched. Its squeal fills the space between them again, and now to Thor it sounds more like laughter.
"Ridiculous." Thor narrows his eyes and hefts Mjölnir higher.
He wastes no time, tearing towards the shrilling beast again through the freezing gale, which assaults his face like bitter knives. He lets more lightning flay the air around him like a second cloak, and flings a blazing Mjölnir forward. The roiling scream still crowds Thor's ears as the skuldagr's scrutiny of him continues to burn.
This time he actually sees it manoeuvre. So rapidly that the movement may have not occurred at all, it warps its body into another knot with gaps that the branches of Thor's lightning simply passes through, leaving the creature untouched. Thor's heart thuds. Then its clawed foreleg darts at his throat.
Instinctively, Thor throws his forearm upwards, wrenching the limb to the side and feeling the serrated claws try reave through his bracer. He notes its foreleg movements are not as fast as the rest of its winding figure. Which is impossibly quick. He swings Mjölnir up to catch its jaw, only managing to graze it as it snaps its head out of the way. He shoots his other fist at the softer underside of its exposed throat, pleased when he hears it gag.
Then its spiny dark tail whips around his neck and tightens irresistibly –