Chapter 6 Part 4:
It is days longer than the time it did take for him to travel from Asgard to Jotunheim, his strength lessening, threatening to fail him with each, passing moment, his hold on the spells slipping looser and looser.
Any longer, and certain is Loki he would have failed, and in so doing doomed he and Idunn both.
As it is, he still is unsure how ever he has managed to stay ahead. For Thrym had refused to yield, following behind, gaining ground, closer and closer with the rise and set of each day passed.
More than once through the bleakness of frozen, blowing ice and ruining cold, and then through the torrents of whipping wind and rain, and between the blazing, suffocating heat of desert wastelands, Loki came near to losing consciousness, so lost in his disorientation and spells of dazed sickness, he would snap back to himself in free fall, plummeting with speed towards the ground, scrambling then to correct his course and take once more to the skies.
More than once, in these moments, had Thrym nearly caught him.
But now he sees the gates of Asgard, its spires shining tall and golden in the distance, their bright beauty lighting hope high in his heart.
His beats his wings with renewed vigor.
He'll make it then, he thinks, and Idunn with him. He only must not give up. A short ways longer, and they'll make it, together.
/
It is endless long hours before they at last are upon the city's threshold, another, suffering burst of energy required to lift him and Idunn above the gates and over the tops of the wide spread dwellings and places of business which make up the main square of Asgard's most populace area.
Thrym will not turn back. Loki knows this. He will follow him in his rage, even into the very arms of his very enemies. It is that conviction on which Loki relies now.
Perhaps, he thinks, allowing himself a moments fanciful indulgence as he turns towards the courtyard surrounding Glaðsheimr, where all the more powerful gods oft reside during the early and mid evening hours, for this act, for this success in bringing Idunn home, and delivering to them an enemy worthy of their blades, perhaps for all this, they might even for once sing his praises, and tell tales of his valor at their many, elaborate feasts.
For once, they may look upon him as an equal.
At least for a while.
The hope spurs him on faster, and despite his utter exhaustion, it is soon they reach Odin's hall, Thrym's enraged cries echoing still loudly at his back.
Passing over the surrounding walls, and Loki gives out his own, urgent cry towards the gods below, loud as he is able.
And when he sees their faces turn up, eyes wide and searching and alert, a flood of relief washes over him, so powerful he, for a moment, grows dizzy with it.
And at last his exhaustion overtakes him, and he's falling, falling, falling…
The landing comes fast and awful, and he turns his shoulder into the ground before impact, keeping Idunn safe and protected within his talons, turning his belly up to spare her harm. Pain explodes through his wing as he smashes into hard packed earth and grass, the world around him spinning in dizzying, confused circles as he rolls and skids for what must be several feet.
Even as he does, he lets go his transformation, having hardly realized the devastation of holding it for so many days with his magic so woefully wasted, ripping agony coursing through his veins and muscles and bones, heating his skin like wild flames as he shifts back to his true form, naked and wrecked and shivering uncontrollably.
Still he clutches Idunn within his hands, her form still that of a seed. He has not the strength yet to shift her back too.
"Loki?" He hears voices above him.
"What new madness is this?" Another asks.
"I thought him dead!"
Loki curls in on his side, his voice gasping out harshly…
"Thrym!" He says, allowing all the urgency he feels to seep through. He needs their attention turned up, not on him. "Thrym cometh on high! He doth take the shape of an eagle!"
"What?!" A man hisses, alarmed. "Thrym? The Jotun?"
"Aye!" Loki gasps out, clamping his eyes shut, trying to quell the dizziness. "Make thy selves ready. He comes to claim back Idunn!"
His warnings then have the desired effect, as the crowd gathering about seems to turn as one, looking again towards the skies.
"There!" A woman shouts. "There! I see him!"
"Ready your bows!" Another man cries. "We'll bring him down!"
What transpires thereafter, Loki isn't entirely sure.
He remains curled on the ground, his breaths coming harsh and labored and short, while all around him there are deafening and overwhelming cries of fury, the sounds of violence lifting and filling the air, weapons clashing and striking and rending flesh, and choked off screams of deep agony.
It seems to last an eternity.
And then, suddenly, there is naught but silence, and the putrid stench of burning flesh, hazy smoke wafting in the air, making everything to look as if from some abstract dreamscape.
Loki blinks against it, trying to clear his vision as, at last, he forces himself to sit up, or in the least, to make the attempt.
It is a struggle, one he fails at once, and then again, before he at last manages, shifting up onto his bottom, still clutching Idunn to his chest.
Oh, but he feels wrecked. He is aware suddenly of his pounding head, a sharp, vicious headache throbbing through his skull, and then the menacing pangs of hunger which, for so many months had sat at his consciousness' periphery, now come raging back with an awful vengeance, threatening to double him over.
The courtyard about him spins in dizzying circles, and Loki groans, listing forward, letting his forehead fall against his hand, trying to block it all out.
He's given barely a moments rest this way before, abruptly, he feels a powerful and cruel hand fist into his hair and jerk his head harshly up, tearing at his scalp.
Loki hisses, eyes clamping shut at the pain.
"Speak now trickster!" And it is Tyr's voice which rumbles in his ears, thick with rage. "Now that you have brought another, filthy Jotun into our midst, and we have done your good work for you. Where be Idunn? Or is it another lie which spills from your lips? Little surprise it would be had you abandoned our beautiful lady while saving your own, worthless skin!"
Loki forces his eyes open, blinking back the tears which sting at their backs, and sees gathered around him a mob of angry Aesir men and women, their weapons still drawn and soiled with Thrym's blood.
Tyr still has his fingers buried deep in his hair, tugging ruthlessly at his scalp, and Loki finds himself having to swallow thickly several times before he is able to find his voice.
"Here," he begins at last, trying to sit up straighter to lessen the strain of his hair being pulled. He holds out the seed still clutches in his hands, presenting it in full view.
Tyr and the others sneer down at it, their expressions clear with their confusion.
"What game do you now play, liar god?" Odin's head general goes on, disgusted. "Where is the orchard keeper!?"
"Here!" Loki snaps, frustrated, his head spinning. He can hardly conceive of this. Do truly they still feel such hostility towards him, after so accomplishing the All-Father's will? After bringing to them a long hated and threatening enemy to slay?
He had thought surely, surely, they would find him well accomplished, in this if in nothing else. Would find him, for once, not wanting.
"What's that then?" Someone else calls. Frey, Loki realizes. "The seed of some fruit?"
"You dare mock us!?" Tyr rages, and suddenly his hand is around Loki's throat, squeezing viciously tight, crushing down his breath.
Loki sputters a moment, reaching up, trying to pry the stronger god's hands from him, but to no avail. He is too weakened right now to defend himself at all.
"'T-tiss… tiss Id-dunn!" He chokes out in a wheezing, frail whisper, trying urgently to explain. "Th-the ss-seed! 'Tiss Idunn!"
"What say you!?" Tyr's hand tightens. "What nonsense!?"
There is a rise of voices, angry and agitated and accusing.
"TYR!" And suddenly, the deafening voice of the All-Father rings out, cracking the air, and stilling all else to quick silence.
"Let him go." Odin commands, and then the All-Father is moving through the crowd of gathered Aeisr, the other gods parting without command.
Tyr growls in obvious anger, his hand squeezing harder a moment before, at last, he thrusts Loki away, back to the ground.
Loki chokes and sputters, sucking in desperate lung full's of air, his hand coming up to his already bruising throat.
"The fool tells nonsense and brings only more grief!" Tyr rages on as Odin comes nearer. "You send him to retrieve Idunn, her abduction his doing to begin with, and he comes back with naught but a useless seedling, claiming 'tiss her!"
Loki sees Odin's boots come into view a few feet from him, stopping at the general's side. And beside the All-Father, as after long seconds he begins to regain his composure somewhat, Loki sees too Baldr and Thor, flanking the king on either side.
Baldr smirks down at Loki with cruel, cold eyes, while Thor looks on with obvious confusion, mixed with an almost kind of relief.
"Loki speaks true." Odin declares passively, voice neither angry nor pleased. "The seed is Idunn. Do you not sense it?"
Tyr scoffs loudly.
"I sense nothing." He spits.
"Then you are not allowing yourself." Odin goes on calmly. And then he is stepping closer to Loki, looking down at him a moment, and Loki feels suddenly small, sitting there on the ground, bare and frail and filthy.
He looks away, ashamed, still clutching the seed against his chest.
The All-Father reaches out a hand, and Loki hesitates a moment before reaching back, taking it, allowing Odin to pull him to his feet.
He still cannot bring himself to look at the King, and he wonders bleakly where this shame has suddenly come from.
"If the seed be Idunn, then should Loki not change her back to her true form?" Baldr speaks then, and as always when the crown prince speaks, there comes murmurs of approval and agreement.
"Aye!" Frey insists. "Change her back then, trickster!"
Another round of agreement, louder, more pressing this time.
Odin is looking pointedly down at Loki, like most of the full blooded Aesir, towering well over him, and he can see in the All-Father's gaze that he, too, is in agreement with the others.
"I… I shall." Loki stammers. "I need only r-rest a moment more and…"
"Delay an instant more and I will rend the skin from your bones, liesmi…" Tyr starts, his voice cutting when Odin slices a hand through the air, silencing him.
"Loki." He says then, and the command is clear.
Loki can do naught but nod, even as fear takes hold his heart for how weakly his magic pulses within him.
If he cannot shift Idunn back this moment, there may well be a surge of violence against him, and he knows not if Odin will hold them back. Perhaps Thor, but…
"Father," Thor begins as though aware of Loki's thoughts. "should we not give him a moment? He appears greatly weakened."
"Interfere not brother." Baldr starts, eyes locked on Loki, grinning widely. "Our Father commands it, and he knows well of what our uncle is capable."
Loki looks back at the crown prince only a moment before averting his eyes, anger boiling fiercely in him.
Odin's eldest son is perhaps the most beautiful of all the gods. His face absolute perfection in symmetry and features, with hair golden as the sun and skin so equally kissed by it, his eyes the color of a cloudless and clear sky.
Such beauty does belie then his cruel and ugly nature.
More murmurs of assent and Loki knows he has no choice.
He has to try.
And so, cupping the seed in both his palms, he focuses all his attention upon it, trying best he can to block out the gathered faces, casting their judgments and aspersions.
His magic struggles and sputters as he forces it outward, into his hands, pouring it then into the seed. Pain lances viciously through his veins at the unnatural push, and he grits his teeth against it. He can't lose concentration at all, lest he let the spell go before the shift is complete.
Such a thing could and likely would kill Idunn.
It takes to the very last of his strength to hold all the way through, the transformation dragging out for minutes longer than it otherwise would were he at his peak, but, at last, blessedly, it comes, Idunn returned to her true form.
She stumbles away from him the moment he takes his hands from her, and the other gods move to catch her as she falls, even as Loki himself collapses to his knees in utter ruin.
And suddenly then, all Loki wants is to go home.
He sits there, none paying him any mind as they gather round the orchard keeper, fawning and asking after her well being. He doesn't hear what she or any other says beyond that, their voices fading into a low buzz at his mind's periphery.
He just wants to go home to his wife. To his sons…
Glancing up, he sees Odin and Thor still standing near to him, their eyes fixed on those gathered round Idunn.
Loki swallows, trying to wet his throat, tasting blood at the back of it.
"B-brother…" he calls out weakly to the All-Father, and Odin turns, looking down at him. He says nothing, and again Loki swallows. "May… may I return now to my family?"
For a long moment, the All-Father regards him, and Loki fears then he will say no.
But then he gives a single nod.
"Aye Loki, you may." He says. "I will be by later to take from you a report."
Loki nods, feeling in that moment too grateful to concern himself with having to prepare his family's home to later receive the king.
Sigyn will help.
Sigyn, oh, but how he longs to see her, and the boys. He feels his eyes sting with the very prospect.
Little then does the derision of the others matter, so long as he can again be with his wife and children.
And so with difficulty, Loki struggles back up to his feet, a wave of dizziness hitting him, so powerful it nearly puts him back to his knees.
He closes his eyes, jaw clenching. Somehow, he manages to stay upright.
A few, long seconds to compose himself, his eyes coming back open, and he sees several meters ahead the now butchered body of the giant Thrym, hacked near beyond recognition and still bleeding sluggishly, soaking through the grass beneath his body.
Loki feels a sense of disgust at the sight, thinking vaguely how it would have been better simply to put a sword through the giant's heart and kill him quickly. But such was not the way of the Aesir towards the Jotnar.
Turning from the sight, he begins forward to make his way from the courtyard and out into the city, through there to the edge of it and into the forest, where waited his home. He would simply have walked through the in between to get there, had his magic not been so dangerously wasted already.
He's barely made it a few paces before he hears steps fast approaching him from behind, and before he has even a chance to turn and see who comes, there is a crushing grip round the nape of his neck, and suddenly he's being shoved face first into the ground beneath.
A knee digs into the center of his back, keeping him pinned in the dirt, the hand still pressing down on his neck. And then there are lips, pressed against his ear, and a voice all too familiar speaking lowly to him.
"You think yourself safe, trickster?!" Baldr hisses, his nails digging painfully into Loki's flesh. "Do not forget who most has the All-Father's ear. You came back alive from Thrym's keep, but mayhap only to fall into a yet more perilous undertaking."
Loki stiffens where he lies, his fingers curling in the dirt, dread uncoiling, sick, in his belly.
"Baldr," he chokes out, wanting desperately to throw the other god from his back, restraining himself from the attempt. He wouldn't be strong enough now to do so anyway. "you would not…"
"Baldr." Odin's voice cuts through his own. "Stop it."
For a moment, Baldr's grip along his neck only tightens, nails threatening to draw blood they dig so deep, and Loki has to swallow down a gasp of pain, the knee at his back pressing briefly harder, and then Baldr's hand at his neck moves to the back of Loki's skull, crushing his face down violently into the dirt before he at last releases him, standing and stepping away.
For long seconds, Loki can only lie there, trying to regain his breath and his composure.
"You can stand now, little giant." Baldr says at his back, smirk thick in his voice.
Somewhere beyond, Odin sighs tiredly.
"Thor," he says. "accompany Loki back to his home. Make certain he arrives there without incident."
"Aye Father." Thor answers, and in the next moment, Loki feels powerful hands taking him beneath the shoulders, lifting him easily back up.
Thor, who is exponentially stronger than Baldr, and yet his touch is infinitely gentle by comparison, putting a massive arm about Loki's shoulders to steady him.
Loki feels like a child next to the Thunderer, who by far is the largest of all the gods, inches taller than even Tyr.
The crown of Loki's head just barely reaches the low end of Thor's hugely broad chest, his frame alike to a willow beside the mountainous bulk of his best friend.
And yet it is at Thor's side that Loki always feels safest. In ways, even, Thor is like unto a big brother, protective and strong.
Amusing to some, perhaps, for Loki is far older than Thor. But such is the nature of their relationship. Loki enjoys to think he gives as greatly to Thor in return through parting of experience and advice.
Whenever Odin does allow it, the both of them go everywhere together.
It is too only Thor who, beside Loki, ever deigns to acknowledge Baldr's oft cruel and ugly comportment.
As he does now, leaning in close and speaking softly to Loki.
"I am sorry Loki, for my brother's treatment of you. It is not right."
Loki shakes his head, forcing himself to smile up as he looks up to the Thunderer, and he knows in that moment, his eyes fixed upon Thor's wide open and expressive face, that no matter if it be discovered how he broke an oath to Thrym, no matter how he may incur the wraith of the Nornir for doing so, it was doubtless the right thing to do.
Thor is simple. Not unintelligent. But simple, and kind, despite his ferocity in battle. He knows no guile or deception.
"Think not on it Thor." He tries to reassure, even as he feels an unpleasant churning within as he recalls Baldr's threats. Thor need not be burdened with such, he thinks.
He need not be the thing that drives a wedge between two brothers.
And so he tries to push it all from his mind then, allowing himself to lean against the solid strength of Thor, and think how soon, he will again see his beautiful wife and children, ignoring the murmuring of Aesir voices at his back.
Trying most of all to ignore the burning gaze of the crown prince, for how he knows it still lingers hard upon him.
