Chapter 7:

Loki starts awake with a half strangled gasp, his arms flailing a moment in the thick covers pulled over him, and for a long moment, he does not remember where he is.

He sees only darkness around, feels only a smothering and awful warmth and flashes of bright pain through is face and limbs and the entirety of his form.

For a moment, he is certain he hears the choked weeping of his wife, begging him to be still.

"Sigyn!" He cries in hardly more than a whisper, but when he turns his face to find her, there is no one there at all.

For a moment, there is crushing grief, and then in a wave of memory, it comes rushing back to him.

The two mortals who rescued him, Julia and Tim, their names were. And they'd brought him to their home. To this well made house with so many things he didn't understand. Given him this room to rest and recover in, and the woman, Julia, she had told him to lie down on this strange and uncomfortable bed, which had beneath its oddly textured surface an abundance of coiled metal which he could so easily feel, which jabbed and pressed into his back. But he had said nothing, of course, for it would have been inexcusable, to so spit in the face of their hospitality.

Even with the uncomfortable bed, his exhaustion had been so heavy that he'd fallen quickly to sleep, restless and filled with dreams though it might have been.

Before that, he recalls quickly then, they'd taken him round their home, and as he'd marveled at the outside, so too had he done within, taken aback and wondering at the vastness of the space. The many levels of it, and all the astonishing devices and contraptions which adorned the place. Things which he had never dreamed of seeing, which both Julia and Tim swore were not magical in nature, but which performed such tasks as Loki could ascribe them no other means of working.

He had still every intention of asking further questions about these things, and, perhaps if he were allowed, to take them apart and examine them himself. He thought with hope that his hosts would not mind so greatly, once his magic was well recovered and they found him able to easily put these things back together.

Breathing out slowly, trying to calm his still thrumming nerves, he pushes the stifling covers away from him, and casts his eyes about the darkened room.

A thing he did observe about Julia's and Tim's home, which had left him somewhat unsettled, was the curiously cold furnishings. Everything was bizarrely sparse and unadorned, designed with flat, hard lines and little warmth. It struck Loki as somewhat depressing, though again he hadn't dared speak as much for fear of offense. Another oddity had been the flimsiness of certain parts of the structure. From the outside, it looked remarkably solid, but within certain aspects had been very poorly designed indeed.

Loki had quite by accident broken the knob off of one of their equally flimsy doors. He'd been mortified, dropping the thing and stepping back before blubbering out an apology which had done shame to his reputation as a silver tongued trickster.

Julia had patted him along the back and told him it was alright, but still, Loki had felt awfully ashamed and promised to repair the damage once he was more rested.

Still, there had been far more to astonish than lament, not least of which had been the extraordinary wizardly of what Julia and Tim told him were "light bulbs", the same as those he'd seen them wear on their little helms from the cave. They'd tried explaining to him that it wasn't magic which called the light forth, but a thing called "electricity", a form of invisible energy. Well, that sounded to Loki very much like magic indeed, but reaching out to the curious containers of light, he could sense none of Yiggdrisil's touch, and so he supposed Tim and Julia spoke truly then. He thinks in any event he would have known, for the unusual glow of these "bulbs". The light was not natural. Wondrous and beautiful as it was, it had to it a very clear cast of falsity.

Further to amaze had been the draft of cool and soothing air which Loki had detected through the space, keeping at bay the late afternoon heat from outside. A sort of system which he'd been told was called "air conditioning", which in the colder seasons did the opposite, creating warm air to keep the houses occupants from freezing. And without need of fire! Loki had nearly been beside himself with wonder.

Then there had been the loud humming windows which seemed to lead out to another world entirely, showing glimpses of life and sound and journey's. Loki feels a pique of embarrassment, remembering how he had practically run towards one such window, exclaiming excitedly over mortals having at last divined the workings of scrying pools, and known the foolery of his own proclamation when he'd glimpsed the looks of bafflement upon his host's faces.

They'd gone on to again explain to him that the windows weren't scrying pools, but rather something they called "television", supposedly a form of entertainment which put on a kind of play they called "movies", in which yarns and poems were acted out. This certainly was something Loki was familiar with, as they had put on similar such productions back in Asgard, though those had always been performed on a stage of one kind or another. So too had he observed like customs within the more advanced civilization's of Midgard. But this television, again, was something else entire, and Loki had spent many minutes walking about the strange window, trying to divine its workings, until he'd been pulled away by Tim, wishing to show him something else.

That something else had proven to be the most astonishing of all, and also most perplexing. Loki's bewilderment seemed to Tim a great source of amusement. Loki did not so much mind that though, as he could see it was not with malice that the boy laughed and smiled at him, but rather his own kind of astonishment that Loki should not know of these things.

The thing, they told him, was called a "computer", and it was most enthralling indeed. A kind of interactive tool, they told him, in which many a different task could be performed, many of which Loki had understood little of when Tim had tried to show him. Though two such aspects had captured Loki's imagination whole. Some manner of touchless paper in which one could write freely through lettered buttons which depressed at a touch. Each button somehow sent the letter marked upon it onto the touchless paper, viewed through a window very much similar to that of the "television".

Upon seeing Tim demonstrate this, and the speed with which text could be laid down, Loki had immediately thought of all the long hours it had once taken him to write within his own journals, how much time he had needed to set aside each day to do so, and then found himself almost immeasurably excited at the prospect of managing such with a fraction of so much effort. Though Tim also had explained, when he'd tried the same as the boy following the example, and found his hands rather clumsy and unable to duplicate what he'd seen demonstrated on the buttons, that it took a measure of practice before one could execute it with any efficiency.

That had been little bother to Loki, as he had always invited a challenge, and working to achieve his goals was a thing most familiar to him.

In any event, Tim had promised to show him the proper technique for "typing", as he'd called it, and Loki had happily accepted.

The other aspect of this computer had been perhaps one of the most extraordinary things Loki had ever seen. Tim had called it an "internet", an "information highway", he'd said. Loki knew not the terminology he used. Knew not this "highway". But upon demonstrating its uses, Loki had all too quickly gleaned its true purpose. What it truly was.

A library.

A limitless library, in which one could discover almost any piece of desired knowledge within mere moments, simply by writing, using the lettered buttons, what it was one wished to know into the knowledge keeper so named "Google".

It is casting his eyes about the sparsely furnished room he's been given, taking in all its visible amenities, that his gaze lands on a crudely fashioned desk tucked into a corner adjacent the room's entrance. And there, sat atop that desk, is one of Julia and Tim's computers, its window blackened with the exception of a strange splash of color floating about its expanse, bouncing off its edges to move in a slow, mesmerizing pattern from side to side.

Loki stares fixedly at it for several, long seconds, enchanted by the bright, luminous hues and the almost peaceful sway of them.

It reminds him, strangely, of his youth on Jotunheim, when he would sit at night upon the forest floor, during the summers and springs, when the weather was not so bitterly cold, and he did not have to take such long refuge in whatever dwelling he'd managed to then secure for himself, and he would watch the fairies flit through the air, their sparkling wings shining through the dark, the trails of their glittering and colorful fairy dust following so beautifully in their wake.

Sometimes, even, the fairies would deign to perch upon him, sitting upon his shoulders and pulling his hair into elaborate braids. And in return, he would gift to them tales of intrigue and adventure, heroism and sadness. And sometimes too they would fall asleep where they sat, and he would watch over them through the night, until the first rays of daylight peaked over the distant mountains, and they would wake all in a tizzy, cursing him in their secret language, but which language he knew, for Loki always made the secrets of others his business. And then would they fly off to disappear into the trees, sometimes to return that very night. Sometimes to not, but Loki would sit still, waiting and hoping, for then he had been very lonely, and the company of fairies, short tempered as they might oft be, was better than no company at all.

Finally, after a time, Loki manages to pull his attention away, and slipping from the uncomfortable bed, his bare feet touching against the equally strange floor, bizarrely soft and squishy against his soles, he moves towards the desk with the computer, a kind of vague excitement working through him.

Coming upon it, he finds some manner of seat pressed up again the desk, as flimsily built as so many of the furnishing in this place, upholstered in some false feeling fabric and seated upon a metal frame. Pulling it out, he finds the legs of the thing placed upon wheels, rolling across some other sort of hardened mat, and Loki can't help grimacing at the thing. It is just so… odd. What seat would require wheels upon it? Whatever would be the purpose?

Almost cautiously then, he lowers himself into the chair, hands gripping what he assumes to be the arm rests, though from how narrowly and stiffly built they are, he can't imagine them ever being very comfortable.

The seat feels horribly unsteady, and Loki's stomach turns unpleasantly as the thing wheels backwards all of a sudden, his hands gripping more tightly around the armrests. A moment later and he feels the delicate things give way beneath his hands, crushing inward easily, and his eyes widen as he stares down at the accidental damage, releasing his hold and seeing the arms deeply dented with the impression of his palms and fingers.

He hadn't even been trying to do so, and he realizes in that moment that he is going to have to tread very carefully indeed, lest he destroy his host's entire dwelling. He hopes they will not be greatly upset. If they tell him to leave due to his clumsiness, he knows not where he would go.

He makes certain to remember to repair the ruined chair later, again when his magic is more healthy within him.

He takes a few moments longer to experiment with the ridiculous seat, trying, vainly he suspects, to accustom himself to it, before he eventually gives it up as useless, simply choosing to ignore it as he turns his attention to the computer before him.

He stares at the black window and floating colors for long seconds, trying to recall what Tim had shown him about working the device.

Looking it over, leaning a bit closer, and his eyes land on a wedge shaped object sitting near to the window, and Loki remembers Tim using such a thing with the computer before. What was it he called it? Something nonsensical, Loki thinks. His mind remains patchy and he cannot bring forth the exact term.

Though he recalls well enough that the mortal boy had moved it about, cradling it within his palm and depressing the tip of the thing with his fingers, though what purpose that had served, Loki had had little success in gleaning, only that it had seemed essential in working the device.

Loki wonders now if perhaps the thing is spelled to recognize only Tim and Julia, to ward off undesirable intruders. After all, such a contraption as this computer has the potential to be a very powerful weapon indeed. Though, his hosts had sworn to him there was no magic here on the Realm, and Loki had yet to detect such either way.

Still, it seemed a prudent course, to somehow guard this computer against unwanted use. Perhaps he would suggest as much to his hosts when next he saw them.

It does little to quell his own curiosity now though as he reaches out, laying his hand over the wedged thing and sliding it to the side, as he'd seen Tim demonstrate.

He starts slightly as, without warning, the window brightens, almost painfully, and he finds himself squinting against it, having to look slightly aside for how it assaults his eyes, when the room before had been so dark.

Blinking rapidly, dark spots dancing before his vision, slowly he turns back to the window, still having to narrow his eyes against its light. Eventually though, he begins to grow used to its glow, until he's able to look fully upon it without much difficulty.

His eyes remain sensitive, he supposes, from spending so many, long centuries in nothing but the purest dark.

There is some manner of written text across the window, he sees, and… he isn't entirely certain what it is he's looking at. They are as pictures, only… they aren't illustrations. It is as though he is gazing through a clear glass pane, to a moment of living, only frozen and rendered still. This one of a man dressed in most unusual garb and an even odder hat, brightly colored and appearing as some hard, shining material. He's bent at the knees and holding in his hands some sort of weapon, like a club, it seems, made of wood. Across the chest of his tunic is a word which Loki knows not the meaning of. "Yankees", it reads. Above the picture, in bold, black letters, it says "Yanks beat A's 5-Zip". Beside the picture and running beneath it is a longer text, which, upon reading, Loki discovers is some sort of recounting of what appears a manner of sport or game, though the writing is woefully dry and stale. Truly, Loki understands none of this, and despite the peculiarity and newness of the entire thing, he finds himself quickly growing bored.

Taking hold the wedged device again, carefully now he pulls it along, and watches as across the window moves some manner of thing, shaped like an arrowhead. It doesn't take Loki long to realize that the movements of the arrowhead are determined by which way he moves the wedge, and he smiles to himself over this small triumph of discovery.

He remembers well enough now what Tim had shown him regarding the navigation of what he'd called "web sites", though upon inquiry as to the meaning of the title, the mortal boy had been unable to tell him a thing. Still, his direction had been clear, and Loki finds himself with little difficulty moving the arrowhead to the correct space, making certain to depress the left side of the wedges tip, and then locating the button which reads "backspace", proceeding then to depress that as well.

He watches, fascinated, as the text which before had filled the space of the elongated box vanishes completely, and he cannot help but smile at the wondrous efficiency of it all.

He picks out the right letters along the key board then, writing out the word "google", and then pressing down on the button which reads "enter".

Immediately, the window changes, resolving into a bright, white expanse with the multicolored word "Google" positioned at its center, and beneath that, another, elongated box, two, smaller ones below that, reading "Google search" and "I'm feeling lucky".

Loki has little idea what the "I'm Feeling Lucky" box intends to mean, though the phrase inspires in him thoughts of mischief, and he thinks he would like to see what choosing this option might lead to. But for now, he will not stray from what he knows, all of this being yet too untested.

Moving the arrowhead to the elongated box and again depressing the left side tip of the wedge, he ponders a moment after on what he would like to study.

There are so many things he has missed. That is becoming more and more clear to him the longer he spends here, is this strange, new world.

He hardly knows where to begin.

/

"He's so weird."

Julia finds her eyes widening and her mouth hanging agape, what would be comically if she weren't so aghast at her fiancés words.

"Tim, Jesus Christ, be quiet! He might hear you or something! And that's a horrible thing to say anyway!" She chides him quietly, but he just grins wider at her protests, his eyes fixed to the screen of his laptop.

"No, seriously Jules, you gotta read some of this stuff." He goes on, barely restraining his laughter. "It says here that one time, he turned himself into a girl horse, banged a boy horse, and then after gave birth to an eight legged horse named… Slip nur, I don't know how you say it. Whatever, apparently, its Odin's main steed. Odin being the king of the gods, or something."

He looks up at her finally, grinning.

Julia stares at him askance, half smirking.

"What?" He asks after a moment.

"So you're pretty much convinced he is who he says he is now, huh?" She replies.

He shrugs, nodding.

"Obviously. Babe, you saw what happened to that car that ran him over. And he keeps breaking shit. He's clearly superhumanly strong. Like, Superman strong or something. Which, look, I'm also a little concerned, because reading all these myths and stuff, it's pretty clear Loki was a bad guy."

Julia feels her expression sour, her head automatically shaking.

"You don't know how accurate those things are though Tim." She says. "He seems almost… sweet. You see how polite he's been. And the way he reacted to the… to his…"

"I know, I know." Tim answers, cutting her off. "It's just, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around all this. Alright? Neither of us are really religious, and all of a sudden we've got a god crashing at our house? Like, an actual, legit god?"

"I know, it's weird." Julia says. "But it's true, isn't it? I mean, everything we've seen… he isn't human. And the way we found him in that cave… it matches the myths…"

"That's what's got me worried." Tim says. "It says here he was put there because he killed Baldr, who was, like, the most loved of all the gods. Julia, I know he seems like a nice guy, but… he's also supposedly the god of lies. What if he's lying to us? What if he's really this super evil dude and we've let him loose on the world?"

Julia is about to respond, but she's cut short by a soft voice at their backs, her eyes widening in shock.

"I am not." They hear Loki say, and turning, the both of them see the god standing there, along the stairs landing, one hand rested on the banister.

He looks… awful, Julia thinks. Shaky and frail. She can see him trembling, even from several feet away, his chest rising and falling in too shallow, uneven breathes.

And his expression is almost crestfallen as he gazes upon them with his unnaturally bright, clear eyes.

"Please," he goes on. "believe in my words. Though you may know me only as a liar and a Prince of Lies, I tell you true you understand not the meaning of my domain and what it is I govern. As I tell you true, I've no malice in my heart, though full was the attempt to push me towards it. Aye, 'twas I who felled Baldr. But judge me not, I pray you, though you may know him by his titles, Baldr the Brave, Baldr the Beautiful, Baldr the good, I swear to thee on mine honor and Norns lay your curse greater upon me if I speak falsely now, he was none of these things."

He comes then, moving closer towards them, stopping halfway to where they sit, his gaze intent to the point Julia finds it a struggle to keep her eyes on him. There's that feeling again, as though she's witnessing something ancient beyond her comprehension, and once more it leaves her almost breathlessly unsettled.

"Your hospitality has already in its breadth been beyond your duty, and if you now wish to eject me from your home, I will go willingly and without protest. Know that I owe you a debt immeasurable, and that too, on mine honor, its fulfillment will be done, by whatever means I can. But before you dismiss me, I beg you, please, do not think so ill of me as what you hear of my reputation."

His hands wring together nervously, his brow crumpled in distress, almost as though he's in pain.

"Against mine will have I been cast a villain!" He goes on, voice breaking, seemingly on the verge of tears. Judging by the wet sheen of his eyes then, Julia thinks maybe he is. "Woe unto me. Such is my lot. Never to be trusted, never looked kindly upon for the assumption of my nature. Even have your mortal myths cast upon me an unlovely light, laid to record eons past when last I walked among you. Think not ill of me, I beg you. Little could I bear your hatred. Heavier would it lay upon my heart to know you perceived yourselves mistaken in letting me free from my eternal punishment."

Julia almost jumps at the sound of Tim's voice then, so transfixed was she on Loki's plea.

"But why should we trust you?" He asks, voice not unkind, but clearly skeptical. "You're the god of lies. How are we supposed to know you're telling the truth."

Julia wants to argue, to tell Tim not to be so judgmental. But she realizes then he's right. That, really, they have no way of knowing.

Loki's face, if possible, seems to crease in further agony.

"Aye, that is my domain." He nods. "So too do the ways of mischief and the gift of stories fall beneath my watch. But to be the god of lies does not define me as a liar. Does not mean I speak only lies. 'Tis an ability of necessity, which I gifted to your people in your earliest days, so that you might better survive. You, who are such volatile and impulsive creatures. Knew you not how to lie, you would have destroyed thy selves long ago.

Thought I to you, I gave a gift. Yet for that gift I received only your suspicions and disgust. You thought me evil, thought me dishonorable, though well enough mortal kind has utilized deception to their own good ends. Long have you misunderstood my role. I know lies. I see lies. Always and in any form. I am beyond being deceived, for the nature of lies is a thing I understand entirely. But lies I only tell when lies are a needed thing. As does truth spill from mine lips when truth is the right and needed course. I've only my comportment, only my actions to gain your trust, my friends. I've nothing else now to offer. I pray then to the Norns it will be enough."

Long moments pass then in silence, and Loki looks away, his face turned down and his hands beginning to fidget in the material of the overlarge t-shirt Tim had given to him.

"I… I shall take my leave of you, if you desire me gone." He says softly. "My sincerest gratitude for all that you have granted me. Words fail to express the depth of it. I need… need only gather what things are mine and I'll be…"

"Wait…" Julia interrupts him, and Loki at last lifts his face, gazing at her, his brow lined in worried confusion.

She shakes her head.

"Look," she goes on. "you've given us no reason to doubt you yet. You've been incredibly polite. And whatever you did, no one deserves to be chained up the way we… we found you. You said you killed this… Balder guy?"

Loki nods warily.

"Well why don't you explain to us why?" Julia presses. "The myths say he was a good guy, but I know well as anyone that history is more often than not revisionist. We'll hear you out. Right Tim?" She turns to her boyfriend, and he shrugs, nodding.

She looks back to Loki, smiling encouragingly at him, though still he watches her like a rabbit might watch a fox. Like he suspects some trick. Ironic, she thinks, that a trickster god would look so wary of being tricked himself, and she wonders suddenly what caused in him such painful and obvious distrust.

"Why don't you tell us what happened?" She says. "And we'll judge for ourselves."

For long seconds, the god continues to watch them, uncertain and gauging, as though determining their own sincerity.

And then he straightens, nodding minutely.

"If you will hear me?" He asks. And Julia and Tim nod both.

"Then I will tell you." He says, stepping nearer, coming round to lower himself into the chair opposite them.

His eyes upon their faces, long and purposeful, filled with a knowing beyond Julia's grasp.

"I will tell you my story."

And so he does, Julia and Tim rapt upon the god's soft and gentle voice.

To Be Continued In Part 2 ~