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The Runic Edda

Chapter 4: Raidho

Midgard Date: 07.10.19
Location: ?

Jane has spent a good portion of her life researching Einstein-Rosen bridges. She's traveled by one, in fact, from Earth to Asgard. So she knows it's a painfully-delirious experience.

This—whatever Loki's doing to them now—is at once smoother and a million times worse than travel by Bifrost.

The world suddenly tilts, rushing by at speeds her entirely mortal brain can't even properly process, and the dizzying, staggering sensation of it all probably comes within a hairsbreadth of triggering some kind of seizure. She shuts her eyes against it, half-wittingly turning her face in towards Loki's chest. Like him or not, he's the reason she isn't getting shot at right now, or captured by some shady alphabet-soup agency, and he does feel a lot more stable than the whirling vortex of color and light around them. She's dimly aware of Darcy's body against her side, pulled close somewhere in mid-transit, but then suddenly it stops, and she tears herself away quickly, finding the ground with her hands and knees and feeling her entire body contract as she heaves.

There isn't much of anything left in her stomach after her spectacularly-terrible bout of nausea that morning, but the water she'd downed in the meantime comes back up, drenching the startlingly-green grass beneath her. She might have cared to identify the shade, were she anything but sick as a dog right now.

Almost immediately, there are familiar hands in her hair: small, but strong. Darcy, gathering her tresses up into a bunch, then shifting to rub her back at the same time. "Easy there, bosslady. We're off the galactic rollercoaster now."

Despite herself, Jane finds her next breath catching, something that would have been a laugh if she wasn't so damn sore. She groans, pushing back on her hands until she more or less falls into a sitting position.

They seem to have landed in the middle of a rolling field. The grass underneath her is soft, almost springy, and here and there dotted with little flowers, every color imaginable and probably some she can't properly distinguish with her limited spectrum of vision. It smells fresh, like springtime even though summer is in full swing. Or at least it was, on Earth.

Wherever they are right now, Jane's fairly sure it's not Earth.

"Something something, Toto, something Kansas," Darcy mutters as if to confirm. Rummaging around in her purse, she comes up with a packet of tissues and a mini-toothbrush, both of which she hands to a grateful Jane. Honestly, the woman thinks of everything, grounded and present in a way Jane can only envy from quite far away. There's even a tiny tube of toothpaste.

While Jane sets about fixing the damage of high-speed travel, Darcy drops her bag on the ground and stands. "I'm, uh, sorry about back there, by the way. I wasn't thinking."

Loki, face pinched slightly, shakes his head. "You were thinking about what mattered."

Jane hadn't missed the way they'd bracketed her, the both of them. While she likes her independence, she isn't a moron: there's nothing in her repertoire that would stop a bullet, even a stray one, since the shooters probably hadn't meant to hurt her. Not yet anyway. It's still reassuring that the both of them were willing to cover her.

"Holy shit. Are those bullets?" Darcy's voice breaks Jane from her reflections, and she starts moving the brush again, turning her eyes to the only person she can possibly be talking to.

Now that she looks a little closer, there's a small, round hole in the front of Loki's shirt. Come to think of it… he'd possibly taken even more than that in the back, after he turned around. She makes a noise, meant to alert Darcy to this possibility, but her assistant is already moving, digging again through the canvas monstrosity she calls a purse.

"It is of little consequence," Loki protests. "Were my magic fully restored, I'd have taken no damage at all."

But that means he did take some damage, and Jane spits her toothpaste to the side, accepting the bottle of water Darcy hands her to rinse with and spitting that out, too. No time to stand on ceremony. "At least let her pull them out, Loki," she says, surprising herself almost as much as she surprises him, probably. At least if the way he looks at her is any indication.

Jane shrugs. Whether they did him much harm or not, he took the wounds for her sake. Just like with the dark elves. She's willing to give a little ground for that. "Thor said you guys heal really fast, but obstructions make it take longer. So there's no point in delaying it, right?"

"Sit." Darcy's contribution is a bit more pointed, but Loki obeys.

Jane gathers up her supplies and stows them back in the purse while Darcy wipes down her tweezers with something that smells faintly like rubbing alcohol. She takes care of the ones in his back first, setting her jaw with a familiar determination and tugging quickly, efficiently, and with enough force that it only takes one per bullet. Loki doesn't even flinch. It's interesting, Jane thinks, the way the slugs are smashed almost flat, like they hit something extremely dense. It would make sense as an explanation of the clear bullet-resistance of Asgardians, but at the same time, she doesn't remember Thor being much heavier than she expected for a person of his size. That must be where the magic comes in.

Thor had called his brother a sorcerer before, but at a bit of questioning, had also said that many Aesir had magic to some degree or other. The superhuman resilience and longevity were from something he just called the Apples, but anything beyond that was actual, individual magic. Including his lightning. So it must be that what makes Loki a sorcerer is a particular talent for it, or a wide range of abilities, maybe.

Something to think about. Or perhaps ask about. Jane's still not a biologist, but it's going to be important to know what she's dealing with in the future, she supposes.

Darcy encounters a bit more difficulty with the wound on Loki's front, which has apparently already started to heal just enough to mean she has to go digging for the bullet. She leans forward, a look of intent concentration narrowing her eyes, and places her free hand on his chest, splaying her fingers over the thin button-down shirt he's wearing. Jane wouldn't think anything of it, except she can see something Darcy can't: the way Loki's eyes widen as though he's startled. The way his hand clenches over a fistful of grass.

She tilts her head, then turns away.

Once that bullet's out, Loki and Darcy stand, and Jane does, too. The god among them has shifted his clothing with magic, back to a version of the green and black leather armor, emerald-colored cape descending to his ankles. Jane thinks it might be armor in more than one sense of the word, but she keeps this observation to herself.

"So… where to from here?"

Loki breathes out a sigh and straightens a little. With the slugs gone and new clothes, she can't even tell he was injured at all anymore. "Not far. The capital is only a mile or so in that direction." He tips his chin, and Jane follows the motion to a hill obscuring much of what lies beyond.

"And when we get there? We can just… walk in and speak to whoever's in charge?" It seems a bit absurd, but then Thor was a prince. Loki probably counts as the same, their weird family dynamics aside.

"Njord, yeah?" Jane's surprised by how easily Darcy pronounces that. She'd never managed to get Mjolnir right.

Loki nods. "At this point, It would be foolish to return you to Midgard even if I wished to."

"Yeah, there's no way the goon squad isn't at the trailer already." Darcy scrunches her nose, then shoots a glance at Jane. "And I'm not sure the kids like realm travel that much yet."

Jane has to concede the point. Maybe there's a chance they can return to Earth eventually, but it would be dangerous to do that right now, and she isn't going to risk them all for the sake of being on a planet she's not even sure she's all that attached to anymore. It's funny, what so much knowledge of the worlds beyond can do to perspective. If Loki thinks they'll be safer on Vanaheim… she'll believe it. She'll keep her eyes open, just in case, but she'll believe it.

Thor believed in him. He's Darcy's Soulmate. She can't believe that anyone like that is really horrible all the way down.

"All right," she says, taking a bracing breath. "In that case, I guess we'd better get walking." She can make a mile to wherever. Glancing at her company, Jane thinks that despite everything, it might not even be unpleasant.

Midgard Date: 07.10.19
Location: Vanaheim, or whatever

Darcy had never had the privilege of a visit to Asgard, but based on Jane's reaction to Vanaheim, it's at least a little bit different. She's got this look on her face like she wants to get her twitchy scientist hands on anything and everything she sees. And really, Darcy can understand that.

The architecture is magnificent, not in the kind of way that constantly smacks you over the head with how rich the occupants of the city have to be, but in the little details of it. Care is wrought into every arch, craft pressed into every molding. In places, the builders seem to have added touches for no reason at all but the beauty of them. Most of the time, it's deceptively functional—like the way the pale stone troughs cut alongside the streets irrigate the frequent trees and patches of flowers and things in their crisp, neatly-wrought boxes. It fills the place with the sound of running water, a constant undercurrent to the bustle of activity and murmur of voices, blending into some kind of exotic music.

To hear Jane tell it, Asgard went for might and majesty. If that's so, Vanaheim is trying really hard for grace and elegance. It's succeeding, as far as Darcy is concerned. It only seems to get more beautiful as they head towards the castle that sits with a quiet dignity in the middle of it, presiding over the rest like… some kind of mother bird maybe. Not a hen though. Way fancier than that. A swan or something.

Their entrance isn't exactly going unnoticed, either: Loki strides in front of them like a man with all the purpose in the world, head held high, as if daring every person they pass to recognize him. Darcy doesn't know how he makes the cape billow quite that way, because if she tried, she's pretty sure she'd just end up on the ground in a tangled heap. Were the situation less serious, she'd totally call him on being dramatic. As it is, she and Jane draw enough of their own attention just being obviously not from around here, courtesy of their jeans and worn shirts. Jane's gone full lumber… jane today, what with the ribbed tank top and red plaid. Darcy's more hobohemian: thin shirt, cable-knit cardigan, and the beat-up Doc Martens with embroidered roses she bought in her high-school-era goth phase.

The damn city with its sparkling lights in floating wrought iron lanterns and its beautiful colored cobblestones and whatever is enough to give a girl a complex. Loki, though…

Darcy studies his back, and just barely shuts her mouth before she sighs. Ugh. She really needs to get this under control. Yes, he's unfairly attractive, and yes she might actually have half—a quarter—a sliver—of a chance because apparently they're Soulmates, but this is not the time to be developing a crush on Thor's morally-ambiguous little brother. He sure doesn't have one on her, and Darcy's not into the idea of embarrassing herself, thank you very much.

"We're here." His voice, though soft, still manages to startle her. Darcy realizes he's looking right at her, and wonders if it might not be too late on the embarrassment thing. He probably caught her staring at him. Oy vey.

The thoughts fade as she tips her head back to take in the castle from up close. Asgard or not, it's huge, on the kind of scale that makes her feel tiny just standing here. She swallows thickly, wrapping her arms around herself and pursing her lips. Loki's brows knit, but he doesn't say anything, gesturing for them to wait a moment and advancing to speak with the guards. They definitely haven't failed to note the little party's approach, and Darcy tries not to wither under their scrutiny.

She's here for good reasons. It's legitimate, and she belongs with Jane. No one's going to kick her out. She hopes.

Whatever Loki says, it gets them in past the guards, and Darcy barely has time to gape at the tapestries and murals and sculptures in the massive hallway they enter before they're standing in what is clearly an honest-to-goodness throne room, and it makes every BBC period piece she's ever seen look like kids playing with a dollhouse.

Even the room itself is little compared to the man—god, she reminds herself—sitting on the throne. It's on a raised dais, a second, empty chair sitting to the left of it. The god himself has a relaxed posture, observing with what seems to be detached interest as they approach. Closer, Darcy can see that the dais is actually an island of sorts, surrounded on all sides by a pool, cut into the gilded floor. The water is so clear it's almost invisible, lending extra glimmer to the gems and metalwork inlaid into the bottom of the pool. She can't make out the exact scene from her distance, but she bets there are other gods involved, and some event she would have thought was myth less than a decade ago.

Njord's eyes are the bluest thing she's ever seen, a sort of ultramarine that's almost oversaturated. He's tall, she can see, with a fair complexion and pitch-black hair, braided back from his temples and forward into a beard studded with what she thinks might actually be gilded seashells, though she can't say for sure.

They clink together softly as he straightens, and Loki stops when he does, dropping into a smooth bow. Darcy isn't sure if she should do the same, but it seems better to be safe than sorry, so she shoots a glance at Jane and follows suit. When she comes back up, Njord looks almost amused, and she wonders if she ought to have curtseyed instead, or if maybe she just looked dumb or something.

"Loki Odinson." Njord's voice is a sonorous baritone, with a certain… broadness to it. Darcy can't think of any word that fits better. "It is Odinson, isn't it? I confess I struggle to keep up with the speed of things these last years." And oh shit, there's definitely a challenge in there, even if Njord sits comfortably as can be on his throne.

"Odinson. Laufeyson. Friggason. I have acquired a great many names, it seems," Loki replies, softly enough that it sounds like contrition. Just for a moment though.

"Ah. I see." The fingers of Njord's left arm tap out some kind of rhythm on the arm of his throne. Carved from wood, it looks like—some heavy dark kind, with waves chiseled into it. Darcy's beginning to sense a theme here. "And why have you come to Vanaheim, Loki-of-many-names?" His eyes shift pointedly, flickering briefly over Darcy before settling more heavily on Jane.

"We seek asylum," Loki answers, folding his hands behind his back. Darcy sees his knuckles whiten. He's not as sure of their welcome here as he said he was—or not as sure as he was ten minutes ago. It could be either. "I'm sure you have heard of the destruction of Asgard by now. And of my brother's fate. What you probably do not know is with us come the last of the Aesir. Thor's blood."

Njord straightens fully at that, losing the relaxed body language and rolling his shoulders back to sit tall against the chair. "The blood of Asgard is not yet fled from the realms of the living?"

Darcy thinks it's weird that everyone talks about this like Loki doesn't count. She must be the only one who finds it strange, though, because Jane doesn't look any more puzzled about it than she ever has. She's watching Njord intently; the wheels of that big, beautiful brain no doubt spinning almost too fast to handle.

Loki nods, and Njord's smart enough to draw the right conclusion. "It cannot be," he murmurs. But he doesn't explain why not, just shaking his head and expelling a heavy breath. "If that is so, then I suppose you are invoking the ancient promises I made to Odin."

"I'd prefer not to need to," Loki replies slowly. From the little Darcy can see of his profile, his face—like his voice—is carefully neutral. "But if I must, then I would."

"Very well." Njord gestures to one of the men standing guard at the end of the hall. "Protection, for blood of my blood. Vanaheim welcomes you."

Darcy's not completely sure she believes that, but Loki seems satisfied, at least enough to bow again and take the dismissal for what it is. Darcy takes one last look at the throne as she turns to leave, only to find Njord looking right at her. She flashes an awkward smile and a little wave, then hurries after Loki and Jane.

Somehow, she feels like they've just traded one kind of danger for another, but she doesn't know what kind of danger this place is, yet. It's almost enough to make her teeth ache with the tension of it.

Midgard Date: 07.10.19
Location: Vanaheim Castle

Miss Lewis steps out of the guest chamber allocated to Dr. Foster, pulling the door shut behind her with an audible sigh. Her arms fall back loosely to her sides, and she fixes Loki with a very blue stare. "She's asleep. Finally. I think the realm travel was harder on her than she wants to show anyone." She grimaces, pushing her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.

Loki, leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, inclines his head slightly. "It was… not ideal." Between the fact that he's still recuperating and the suddenness of the shift, it's actually quite impressive that he managed to put them anywhere in the vicinity of the city. But things are better this way, in one sense: while he alone could go unnoticed, Njord would eventually detect the Midgardians in his realm. Better to have presented themselves before him now, and formally asked for his asylum.

Miss Lewis looks back at the door. "I think I probably ought to stay here. I know the king or whatever his title is said we can stay, but he didn't seem too happy to have us. I don't want to leave her alone."

Her devotion is an admirable trait. She looks to be barely on her feet, and yet her first concern is for someone else. Loki hardly understands it, but he can at least do something about the more immediate issue. Concentrating for a moment, he produces a duplicate, which steps away from him and glances between himself and Miss Lewis.

"Do you believe she would object to being watched in this manner?" he makes it ask.

It takes Miss Lewis a moment to answer; her eyes have gone wide, and she steps towards the duplicate with an almost childlike wonder scrawled across her face. How easy she is to read. How transparent, compared to almost anyone Loki has ever known. She reminds him of Thor in that way.

Her hand reaches out, as if to lay flat against his chest, but passes through, the shape of the duplicate distorting slightly, like interrupted light or water. Loki almost imagines he can feel a ghost of the touch on his own body, and tightens his jaw.

"That's incredible," she says, and he huffs a soft breath, tilting his head to the side.

"After all you have surely seen, is it really?" It's a mere trick, bent light and just a tiny, thin thread of his own hugr. He's been conjuring them since he was but a child, seldom to anyone else's pleasure. Seidr is women's magic, and not even the All-Father practiced it without a few skeptical glances. He was simply able to quell them in a way Loki never could, for Odin was in every other way a man among men.

But Miss Lewis smiles at him, and there isn't the faintest hint of reproach in it. "Uh, pretty sure this is the thing that's gonna keep Janey safe while I sleep, so… yeah. It's very cool." She withdrew her hand, expelling a deep sigh before glancing over her shoulder. "But, uh, before we do… how likely is it that the walls have ears around here?"

Loki feels his brows arch. "Very. But if necessary, I can block such enchantments for a time." The spellwork on the castle itself is ancient and powerful, reinforced over years and years of subsequent layering. Breaking it outright is out of the question, but dampening is well within his capabilities.

She nods. "Good. You wanna take a walk? Maybe find somewhere to sit down? I haven't been this tired in a while."

He inclines his head, pushing away from the wall and moving to stand next to her. Some inbred sense of manners kicks in, and he proffers his elbow almost by reflex. It just… feels like the proper thing to do.

She cants her head, and he sees a tiny smile curl her mouth, almost shyly. The youth in the expression catches him off-guard; he has known Darcy Lewis for a short time only, but in that time she has always seemed to be… savvy, is the word. Perhaps even a little world-weary. But this expression belongs to an innocent; an ingenue, even. The simple pleasure in it is almost—

Loki's breath stills when she slides her arm along his, letting her fingers rest on his vambrace. Just over where his words lay. It's only for a moment, and then they're moving forward. He adjusts his stride to match hers easily, and in fairness for one of her diminutive stature, her steps are not the mincing, delicate things of women accustomed to life in gowns. She studies the architecture as they walk, and he watches her do it, curious as to what Vanaheim looks like through her eyes.

Once, he wouldn't have cared to know. He'd have taken her Midgardian heritage and upbringing to predispose her to awe at the majesty of things wrought by immortals. And perhaps there is a little bit of that, but mostly she is simply inquisitive, he thinks. Dampened by fatigue, no doubt, but inquisitive all the same.

Deftly, he steers them towards the courtyard gardens, and when they exit, it is to the mellow afternoon sunlight that precedes the dark, and the rapid cooling of a Vanaheim night.

"Isn't it summer here?" Miss Lewis seems to have noticed as well.

Loki hums slightly. "The seasons run long, save winter." He turns them onto a stone-wrought pathway, following the sound of water she cannot yet detect.

"Huh. How do they do that? Does this planet just orbit its star more slowly? Or at a weird angle?"

It's not a bad guess, considering cosmology as she knows it, but it's incorrect. "No," Loki replies, trying to recall the last time he'd had a conversation like this with someone. Perhaps never—he'd always been surrounded by people older and wiser than he, or if not, people who had no interest in such things as he could teach. "Vanaheim is itself steeped in magic. Over the ages, the work of Yggdrasil's greatest völva and sorcerers has been imbued into the land itself. Spells of plentiful harvest and temperate weather conditions, among others. The rains do not come until Njord calls them from over his beloved oceans."

"Guess I can see why he's king, then," Miss Lewis observes, pausing to lean down and turn the face of a lily towards herself. It's an artless examination, undertaken for the sake of seeing the bloom rather than the romanticism of the image. Some of the pollen clings to her fingers; she retracts her hand and rubs her thumb and first two digits together. "That's true even in Midgard—whoever controls the resources controls the people. Even if there's always a million other tweaks and complications."

"Just so," he concedes, and they fall back into step.

Loki does not stop them until they reach the garden's centerpiece: the towering fountain made of gilded marble. It spills water into a large central pool, which is then carried by small channels to other locations in the garden, ponds for fish and ponds for seeing, mostly.

Miss Lewis lays eyes on it and snorts, halfway to a laugh. "Man, I can't get over how fancy everything is here. Someone was really trying too hard with some of these details."

Almost despite himself, Loki feels the corners of his mouth turn up. "My mother's brother designed this garden for her, a very long time ago. He is something of a—" Loki pauses, searching for a word she would understand. "I believe Midgardians refer to such individuals as peacocks. Very disposed to obvious shows of wealth and prowess." Of various types, but Loki elects not to specify.

"Worse than you?"

He is almost offended, but a sharp look at her face reveals a sly expression he's sure he's worn more times than he can count. She's merely trying to get a rise out of him. He elects not to make it easy, sniffing faintly and lifting his shoulders in a show of apathy. "I've no idea what you could possibly mean, Miss Lewis."

She does laugh then, a short, almost sharp bark of it. "Uh-huh. Sure you don't. Except according to every story I've ever heard about you, you do everything in literally the most dramatic way you possibly can."

He could try to deny that, but he doesn't. Instead, he shakes his head and sighs, dramatically enough to make her point and win himself another easy smile. He doesn't think anyone has granted them to him for so little since his childhood. He steps away from their joined arms, then, ignoring the way the chill seeps into the space she just occupied, and uses his other hand to gesture to the edge of the fountain. Miss Lewis readily interprets it and sits, folding her legs up beneath her. Loki takes a seat about a foot to her left, extending his out in front of him and crossing them at the ankles.

The magic takes only a few seconds to work, and then he is as confident as he can be that they will not be overheard. "Now… there was something you wished to discuss?"

"Yeah, uh… I guess I just wanted to know your thoughts about how safe we are here. What's happened today. I'm guessing the original plan was not to just show up on Njord's doorstep apropos of nothing, right? What should we be looking out for, here?" She picks at a loose thread on her denim trousers. "This isn't exactly my wheelhouse, but I have this feeling that us and Jane are all we've got to keep each other… I dunno." She grimaces.

"Saying 'safe' makes it sound like I think someone's gonna attack us, and I guess I don't know that, but…."

"Your caution is understandable," Loki replies. And very apt. He considers it for a moment, and decides that, in truth, she is right. He has been negligent in his guardianship of them, and it is only right that she know what dangers may or may not lie in wait. For that, she will need to know more of him than he has said, and he does not look forward to sharing it. But Loki is a pragmatist above all. It is necessary, and so he will do it. "If you are not averse, I would like to… inform you of some things that might help your understanding of the situation before we discuss the present."

She looks surprised for a moment, but then claps her hands together, rubbing the palms against one another. "Intergalactic politics and history. Maybe this will be my wheelhouse after all. Hit me."

Loki blinks, brows knitting. "Excuse me?"

Miss Lewis regards him blankly for all of a moment before understanding lights her features. "Earth expression. I just mean… go ahead and tell me."

"Ah. Very well then."

The response to this continues to overwhelm me (and give me new plot bunnies, which is unhelpful). Thanks, everyone.