LOST CREATURES IV
To his eternal shame, it takes Thor a full three days to realise that, since their return to Asgard, his brother has been starving; a combination of Odin's geas preventing him from asking anyone for food to be brought to him, and his own sheer stubborness preventing him from seeking out his family's table results in Loki's hunger, though not Thor's obliviousness to it.
It also takes their mother - who asks Thor hopefully each evening mealtime if she might expect her prodigal younger son to make an appearance - noting on the third day after Loki's sentencing that the kitchens haven't received any orders for food to Loki's chambers, nor to the workshop, and was Thor's little brother choosing to eat only with his older sibling, perhaps?
Thor hasn't seen as much of his little brother as he would wish in those three days, and in that time they've certainly never broken bread together. Uneasily, Thor becomes certain that if left to his own devices? The dark-haired seidr-worker might well allow himself to waste to nothing before he bent his head to the necessity of food. Certainly, the fickle mischief god has made no mention of his famine when the thunderer sought him out.
His brother has made no mention of anything, in fact, despite Thor's repeated invitations to do so.
The sunlight is spilling through the windows of the forge-come-workshop that has become Loki's domain when Thor steals in, a platter piled high with salmon and apples and the brilliant little red berries his brother has always loved. He moves quietly; the trickster is not above evading him, vanishing fleetly to the library or his chambers or somewhere - anywhere - else should he sense his brother coming. For all his speed, Thor has not the trickster's stealth, even without magic, and unless he captures - corners - the other first, the thunderer cannot quite keep apace. He's gotten quite adept at hunting down his brother though, and it is a strange change from their youth, where Loki would struggle to catch up with him, to stay abreast of him and his warriors three. Now, if Loki has half an opportunity to be gone before Thor finds him, chances are, he's taken it and the Thunder god must search high and low for his brother to make his latest attempt at communication. None of Thor's friends have yet clapped eyes on the trickster god, though nor have they tried particularly hard.
Thor had thought, initially, that Odin's judgment would prove a boon; for what better way to express his feelings to his brother than if said brother was unable to reply, to twist his words as he uttered them, shape them into weapons to fling back into his face. But it becomes clear that this 'boon' is not one that serves the thunder god, for all that it punishes his silvertongued brother as much as the gag likely ever could.
He's planned his speeches to his sibling with as much care as any he's ever delivered at court. He's tried appealing to their brotherly love, to their mother's hope, even tried challenging Loki's thoughts and accusing him of jealousy, of madness, of pure chaos. Each time, when he's finally caught up with his brother, when he's been able to give voice to his sentiments, he's been met with a perfectly blank mask on his brother's face. No answer, no hint as to 'why' nor to 'how can we fix this?'
Each time Thor has found the other, the thunderer has begun by speaking his piece. Each time he has finished by stating, almost begging, "Now, brother, I give you leave to reply."
Each time silence has met his words. He may have given his leave to reply, but he cannot force Loki to take it.
Even magically silenced and under geas, it seems, his brother can force communication to be on his terms alone. And at the moment? Well, it seems Loki has no desire to speak with the thunder god at all.
But this afternoon will be different, Thor is certain. For one thing, he's brought food. For another, he's left Sif and Fandral in the training arenas, Volstagg in the pantry after the two of them have raided enough choice tidbits for Thor to take to his brother. He knows his friends would not approve of their restored crown prince playing a servant's game of fetch and carry for the convicted criminal, but his mother's comments about Loki's eating habits - or lack thereof - have cut a little too close to home. When he finds Loki, working with ferocious concentration, apparently insensate of his presence, at the large workbench in one end of the forge, he takes a minute to really look at his little brother.
Thin. Far too lean, as though falling through the spaces between the worlds took a knife to him and pared back any and all softness the mischief god might ever have possessed. Fever-bright eyes, fixed and all but glowing with genius, focus on the tools in slender, clever hands. The sheen of the emerald eyes is matched by two bright spots of high colour on the otherwise-pale cheeks, tired grey smudges beneath his eyes speaking of an age since last the mischief god slept.
His brother looks driven. And yet, not maddened. This wild flurry of creation, of manic genius, suits the slender brunet. He is grace itself, in his old, loose leggings and a threadbare green sleeveshirt, as he spins and dances through the workroom. Behind him blazes colour and light, and delicate, fragile-seeming machinery of a kind Thor has never seen before. With a start, Thor realises his brother has made the skeleton of a control panel; there a space for Heimdal to stand, and there perhaps where he would spin his sword, to activate the Bifrost, were it once more whole. Faint sparks of colour, the familiar opalescence of the now-dark Bifrost, spin out in weak tendrils from around the golden devices his brother is forging.
Starving, hounded by Thor's insistent attention and his own determined evasion, bound by an Allfather geas, his brother has accomplished more in three days than twenty of Asgard's brightest Volur have managed in two years.
The thought is sobering, awe-inspiring, and Thor shifts uncomfortably. Perhaps here, then, is the real reason all of Asgard has determinedly thought so little and been so dismissive of what Loki could accomplish with his seidr and his unmatched curiosity. To give encouragement to this frightening genius? Without a task and a leash to reign it in? How near to the brink of disaster would they teeter? Asgard has been at the peak of civilization for an aeon; unchanging and perfect. What winds of change would such a mind, given free reign, blast through it? It doesn't bear thinking about. Asgard is changeless, eternal, perfection. Thor would shed blood - his own and others - to keep it so. Leave the artificing and smithery, the invention and development to the Dvergar, and more recently to the Midgardians. To any realm but the perfect, shining jewel that is Asgard. He'll take the products of those Dvergar forges, the Mjolnirs and the Gungnirs, and use them to defend his realm's supremacy. But suffer their development on his doorstep? No.
No, far better to grind down those that would make as if to do this on Asgard, to force his seidr-gifted intellect of a brother into an ill-suited warrior mould. Thor finds, now, that he understands his father, understands Odin's attempts to force Loki to conform to Asgard norms, to develop as a warrior rather than a thinker. He understands it, this desire to preserve Asgard as the jewel that it is even at the cost of his brother's mind.
He comprehends his father's priorities, and puts aside his half-formed regret, the wish that he could have introduced Loki to the Master-smith, Stark, in a friendlier manner than the pair had met. Perhaps, had he a friend of like mind to his own, perhaps his brother would not have fractured so spectacularly. Not that it matters. Odin was likely correct; an unbridledly inventive Loki could only have spelled more disaster, more anguish. The Allfather had read the signs of Loki's innate creativity when the trickster god was eight, had moved to protect Asgard by punishing them out of his second son. Though, as Thor well knew, that hadn't worked. Then, their father had co-opted the fruits of that innovation when he'd taken Loki's creation, Sleipnir, as his steed in an odd sort of compromise when it became clear that, chained or not, poisoned and mouth-stitched or not, Loki could not be forced to bend.
The silent compromise, the curbing though not annulling of Loki's seidr-based inventiveness, had lasted until Thor's own banishment; Loki making small 'mischiefs', Odin ignoring or punishing them if they got too large. Loki learning and mastering small fragments of seidr, of technology, Odin ignoring his younger son's discoveries and deriding his developments in favour of praising the elder's military prowess. The balance had lasted for centuries. And Asgard, unchanging, perfect Asgard, had prospered.
And Thor wonders what dire threat now rears that could make his father so very desperate as to throw away that compromise, let slip that conditioning, minimise his leashes, and let his genius second son create on the scale of grandeur he was perhaps always meant for.
At the moment, it matters not. At the moment, all that matters is the pale wanness of his brother's face, the boniness of his shoulders. Half-crazed, half-stifled, second-best or not, Loki is his brother, no matter how estranged they might be.
Worldlessly, he sets the platter down on a more-or-less clear bench, one which Loki, in his erratic orbit around the room, will have to pass right about . . . now.
It seems that all it takes to stop a mischief god dead in his tracks is some fish and a few pieces of fruit. If he'd known that earlier, he and his allies on Midgard might have had a far easier time of it. A slender hand reaches towards one of the apples; a choice specimen from Idunn's orchards, and Thor finds himself holding his breath. It is not unlike stalking a wild animal, in that he fears that the slightest word from himself will see his brother flee, wordlessly opting to continue to starve. The thought is heartbreaking.
He watches in silence as Loki demolishes the apple in a few sharp bites, moves on to delicately - but rapidly - devour the fish, saving his favourite berries for last. The god of mischief eats neatly, but quickly, and with an absent sort of distraction. One hand forking food daintily into his mouth, the other continues its incessant scrawling of some odd circular sigils. Thor frowns; he doesn't recognise the script - which doesn't really surprise him, his brother was ever-better at book-learning - but it annoys him that these scratchings can hold Loki's attention where he cannot.
He's planned out what he wants to say, as the last crimson berry passes his brother's lips. He's going to invite Loki (again) for dinner with their mother, ask (again) why Loki chose Midgard for his mischiefs, demand (again) that Loki reveal what the Chitauri wanted, and what they offered him for it.
As the light from the doorway behind him is blocked, as Loki looks up at him - past him - and pales, Thor realises his plans are for naught. There is no way now his brother will acknowledge his presence, nor take a moment to speak to him.
Not when Odin Allfather stands in the doorway of the workshop, single eye taking in the extraordinary progress his son has already made, his expression carefully neutral.
NOTES: I don't know how true to Marvel Comics-verse this is, but the thing that always struck me as a child reading the Eddas and Norse myths, was that none of Asgard's great devices or treasures were actually made by Aesir or Vanir. Loki comissioned several things from the Sons of Ivali (Dvergar), and several more were made by the dwarves Eitri and Brokkr in Asgard, but made by the Asgardians themselves? Nope. The closest things to made-in-Asgard-by-Aesir were Loki's offspring, all of which were biological (and hey, Angrboda was a giantess, not Aesir). Which got me wondering if, in the Marvel universe, Odin - and by extension Asgard - sees Loki's unabashed curiosity and creativity as un-Asgardian at best and a danger to Asgard at worst, since they're not traits usually displayed by Aesir/Vanir men. After all, Loki's adoption seems to be a pretty closely held secret in the movies.
As always, C+C is greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think!
