Notes: This story takes place in the same universe as and long before "The Hammer and the Forge," but they can be read independently of each other, so I have no problem posting them at the same time. Seriously, it's very hard to focus on other fics when you have two large Jotnar breathing down your neck. I held off for weeks, guys, but in the end I gave in. I'm still working on my other Thor fics, I just needed a breather. And I thought it would be fun to play with the Frost Giants for a bit.
Anyone familiar with Norse mythology will probably also want to cause me bodily harm as I, with the exclusion of Utgarda Loki, kind of just selected Jotunn names to use. I looked them up, obviously, but... It's an AU of the already myth-abusing Marvel-verse, so I don't feel that bad.
Warnings: non-graphic m/m and rabid abuse of Norse mythology.
I hope you enjoy anyway.
Until It Burns
Utgard was once a mighty city. It was strong enough to defy the Jotunn King himself, and so the two factions suffered a war on and off for centuries. While their lack of obedience to the King was what earned his ire, it was the cultural differences between them that caused the rift in the first place. The Jotnar were of the ice, and yet the foundation of all their civilization was the stone. It built the bases of their homes, it was within its caves the women and the young thrived. It was what bound all the cities and all their variations together, the very earth of Jotunheim.
Utgard denied this. The city was built entirely of ice risen upward from the ice sheets that rested upon the sea. The ice shifted as the two seasons turned, and so Utgard was never where it was meant to be. This was their defense, and yet even this eventually failed.
After the Great War and after the King accused the Aesir of trickery and betrayal, he would turn to Utgard in his search for surviving sorcerers. Finding none, he would finally destroy that accursed city, and Jotunheim would grow quiet for centuries until then King Laufey would look upward and desire realms beyond the stars.
But for now Utgard still existed, though as a mere shadow of its former glory. No traders braved the temperamental ice of the sea anymore, and the animals that were drawn from the waters had never been enough to sustain the city. Its numbers shrank and its glittering buildings fell into disuse and collapsed. But Utgard survived. There were no underground tunnels here, and so men and women lived together and children knew their fathers.
Save one, who left the icy walls of the city behind him and headed towards the land. The boy traveled a long time, taking shelter at the occasional settlements and cities he came across, but never truly resting until he reached the heart of Jotunheim and the city of the King.
The watchtowers were abandoned, the sentinels at their bases still. There had been talk of war whispered among Jotunheim's people, of charging across Yggdrasil alongside the Aesir, Vanir, and even the Alfar against the chaotic dark that had plagued them all since the beginning of time, but for now they were at peace. Not that the boy had ever heard such things.
He was met at the gates of the city by two guards who regarded him with suspicion. He was a thin child, nearly starved, wearing nothing but a tattered cloak and kilt, his markings barely developed beyond the primary patterns.
"What are you doing on the surface, my son?" the elder of the guards asked, not having the heart to even point his spear at this pathetic waif.
"I have always been here," the child said, "I am from Utgard."
The younger guard sighed and used the butt of his spear to push him back gently. "Go home, little Utgarda, there is nothing for you here."
"There is. I wish to speak to the sorcerers, for I am to be one of them."
The younger man snort in derision, but the elder knelt and, taking the boy's chin in his hand, looked closely at the design of his developing ridges.
"He does have the marks of a sorcerer," he said.
"Many do," his companion groused, "but they have not an affinity with magic, do they?"
"Still, he came all this way. Send a messenger to the Temple, I think it best one of them make that decision."
Once the messenger was dispatched, the boy sat beside the gate, his legs tucked under him, and said not another word, save his gratefulness when the guards offered him a bit of food. They returned to their duty, the elder sparing a mere glance to the child only now and then. It was a long wait.
The sorcerer came suddenly, the Royal Guard itself at his back. Upon seeing him, the two guards dropped to their knees; they recognized the black furred cloak and the great plume rising from the top of the sorcerer's helmet. They could not understand how a scrawny child earned the attention of Jotunheim's First Sorcerer, second only to the King.
The First Sorcerer bade the guards to stand. "Where is the child who called on us?" His voice was soft and gentle, as one would speak to a lover in the dark of night, but his stance and expression was of a commander who expected nothing but to be obeyed.
"He is here, my father," the elder guard said and gestured to the boy to come forward.
The boy, so confident before, shuffled forward and stared up at the sorcerer in awe. He'd heard that the sorcerers were an impressive lot, but he'd never imagined such a man, armored in the shadows themselves save the jewels that glittered on the edge of his cloak and aventail, with great rams' horns curled on the sides of his head. The boy found himself unable to grasp the words he'd practiced on his long journey.
One of the guards took pity and spoke for him. "He claims that he is to be one of yours."
"Ah. Well, my son, you have the markings of a sorcerer, but do you have the talent?"
The boy snatched the words from the air before they vanished again. "I do."
It was a long moment the First Sorcerer regarded the boy, tilting his head and causing his plume to rustle. His eyes narrowed to slits in the shadow of his helmet. "Prove it."
The boy's head drooped and his fingers twitched. To all, it appeared as though he was dawdling or regretting his words. The sorcerer saw otherwise. The child was summoning whatever small spell he could to himself.
Fire, true fire, yellow and red and hot, burst forth from the child's outcast arms, scaling up the walls of the gate like a beast and exposing the stone beneath the ice before disappearing into the cold air. The guards and anyone nearby screamed and jumped back or dove for cover. Only the First Sorcerer stood unfazed as heat washed over him and the melted ice rained down.
"Impressive," he said to the panting child, "True fire is a difficult thing to master for our kind, and yet there it is. What is your name, my son?"
"I do not have one."
"We shall call you for your father, then. You are from Utgard, you should know him."
"I do not know who he is."
"Your mother?"
"I do not know."
"Well, you must have a name, so suppose it falls to me to give you one." He looked to the gate and the steaming stones. "The fire…" he mused.
The First Sorcerer stepped forward and knelt before the boy, taking hold of his head and pressing their cheeks together. The stimulated ridges began to warm. The boy tightened his hands into fists as it burned, but did not pull away.
"Loki," the First Sorcerer whispered, "You are Loki of Utgard, and you are now our son."
He stood and walked away, the Royal Guard falling in behind him, and Utgarda Loki could only stare after, his fingers touching his throbbing markings.
"By Ymir's mated legs…" one of the guards muttered behind him.
Loki ran, catching up to the entourage and passing them all to walk alongside the sorcerer. He tugged on the black cloak until the First Sorcerer glanced down. "What happens now?"
"Now, my son, we return to the Temple. You are no longer in Utgard, yet you are of the surface, so your status is that of a man. However, among us, you are not truly a man until you have sired a creature of use to the King. Until then, you are both student and servant."
"And when I am a man?"
"You will be apprenticed. You will not earn status as a true sorcerer until you have birthed a viable monster."
Loki gaped at his new 'father.' He could birth monsters? "Just one? What if I birth another?"
The First Sorcerer grinned, his red eyes glowing, "Ah, then you have earned the right to lead among us and take apprentices. It is a good thing to strive for."
"And if I birth a third?"
"You will not. It is rarely attempted and few survive."
"What of those who have survived?"
"They quickly wish they hadn't."
A darkness flashed across the sorcerer's face, and Loki decided it was best to turn the conversation elsewhere, if continue it at all. He let his eyes roam over the complex wonder of his new home. With no worry of straining the ice beneath them, the buildings rose upward to touch the sky itself. Ice and stone mated to create latticed patterns of light and dark, moonlight glittering in varying hues of blue. They passed many men, all who bowed as they walked by, and Loki felt very important. But it was not to him they bowed, but to the sorcerer beside him. Loki tugged on the black cloak once more.
"You're important, aren't you?"
"I am the King's personal sorcerer as well as his advisor."
Utgarda Loki nearly tripped at that. The King? "But…but I'm nobody! And yet you came, not knowing if I…Why?"
The First Sorcerer shrugged. "It was something to do. My son, we sorcerers have a great nemesis that eternally plagues us, one who can be kept at bay but never truly defeated. You will learn of it soon."
Loki shuddered as his imagination conjured the image of a great and horrible beast, large and forever hungry. Whatever could harm this great man beside him must be truly horrific indeed.
He had to ask, he had to know. "What is it?"
The First Sorcerer sighed, the weight of this constant battle pressing down upon him.
"Boredom."
The Jotunn King, Mogthrasir, leaned against the wall and watched dispassionately as his wife struggled through birth. His face did not show it, but he was excited. His firstborn would soon be here, his line continued. It was taking all of his willpower not to march over and demand from the midwives what was taking so long.
Finally, his consort threw back her head in a cry and the midwives let loose an ululation of joy. "A son!" they cried, "You have a son!"
Mogthrasir stepped forward. He wished to hold his son immediately, but instead of his child a midwife held up the umbilical cord to him. He bit through it, and then turned to his wife, ensuring her health. She smiled at him, and he couldn't help but return it. Another midwife tapped him on the shoulder and offered him his son to inspect.
He held up the child, letting it scream and wail. "Yes, my son," he whispered, "that is how you will stay warm. Keep up this din until your skin is ready for you." Already the babe's pale skin was darkening, entrapping his heat within, as his mother could no longer do it for him.
Mogthrasir turned the child, looking over his limbs, peering into his eyes, and inspecting his base marking patterns. It was there he wailed in disappointment. There were no markings upon his side in the Wing pattern, and, worse, no patterns at all upon the crown of his head. The babe had not the markings of the royal line.
The King's firstborn was not a viable heir. He could not carry the title of prince at all.
Mogthrasir, King of Jotunheim, remained childless, for he could not acknowledge this child as his own.
He could taste his disappointment, risen up his throat as bile. He met the eyes of his consort over the midwives as they dealt with the afterbirth and could see her own disappointment. She was not Queen until she was the mother of a prince. He gave her the babe that would not be his.
"He has the markings of a warrior, your station is still increased."
"I am not worried about that," she sighed.
"We will try again, my love. Someday you will gift me with a son."
He stayed the night, sharing the traditional meal of the afterbirth with his wife as the babe fussed in her arms. The King would leave in the morning, returning to the surface and a throne that was still only his.
"Regardless what he will be," his consort began, "you must name him. And someday when you look upon the finest of your soldiers and hear his name you will think, 'ah, I might have sired that one,'"
"True," he said, if only to appease her. He looked at the babe, his skin darkened to a proper blue and his garnet eyes open and observing. He was healthy and strong, and Mogthrasir lamented that he could not call this one his own.
He'd give him a good name, nonetheless.
"Gymir, I think. His name shall be Gymir," the Jotunn King intoned, and gave the babe his finger to clutch and drool upon.