"I will behave however I please!" Thor snarled angrily.
"You will not!" Odin snapped, towering over his son. "I'll not have any son of mine stomping around acting like a spoiled child! You are a prince, not a peasant! Start acting like one!"
Loki shook his head slowly. This was not the first argument he had witnessed, but it was by far the loudest. And by "witnessed", he meant "snuck in uninvited". Yes, Loki clung to the shadows in the corner of the chamber, unseen. He was spying. He could not help it; he had to know what was going on, exactly what was said. Secrets were not to be kept from the raven haired prince. But espionage on this level was dangerous. If Frigga knew of his presence, all would be well. Odin, however, was another matter. And then he would never hear the end of it from his atrocious brother.
"What are you going to do about it?" Thor laughed arrogantly. "Give the throne to Loki as my punishment?"
'Now, that's just uncalled for,' Loki thought with a frown.
"I might!" Odin threatened. "If it will pull your head out of your arse!"
"Odin!" Frigga admonished from his side. Kings were not supposed to use such language, especially if trying to prove a point to their hard-headed sons.
"Tell us, Mother!" the golden haired prince said, turning to Frigga. She rolled her eyes. "Who is right? Which one of us is in the wrong?"
"You are," Frigga retorted without hesitation. Thor snarled at her. She flashed him a hard look. "I did not raise you to fight like an animal," she countered. "Hush and listen to me."
Thor scoffed and turned away from her.
"Look at your mother when she is talking to you!" Odin barked.
Frigga shushed him as well. "Thor, your actions are repulsive. How dare you turn up your nose, after having spent all day torturing the poor servants, riling up the livestock, scaring half the court ladies to death! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. And you, husband, you are going about this all wrong. He is a soldier, but he is also your son. Be a father, not a commander. And while we are still in the same subject, Loki would make an excellent king."
The raven haired prince could not suppress a slight smile. At least she thought positively of his future. Frigga cast a quick glance to his corner and pursed her lips. Loki froze. She knew he was there.
"Now, I want both of you out! Thor, you go clean up your mess. That is your punishment. Apologize to the people you've upset, and –" A chicken tore through the room, screeching in terror. "– collect the chickens," Frigga sighed, rubbing her forehead.
Thor growled under his breath, scooping up the chicken and holding it by the feet. It squawked and fretted all the way down the hall until they could hear nothing more.
"He'll not do it," Odin scowled.
"You are not following my wishes either," Frigga murmured quietly.
Odin grunted and rubbed his face. "What are you punishing me for?"
Frigga pushed him out. "Give me some alone time before I snap." She smiled sweetly. Odin flinched and left.
It was silent for a moment, and then, "I hope you do not intend to stay there all day."
Loki dropped his shield, head hung. "Am I to be punished as well?" he asked.
Frigga sighed. "I cannot continue to let you sit in on these. It is damaging to your honor and to mine."
"If I was invited cordially to these family meetings, there would be no snooping."
"But you've done nothing wrong," Frigga smiled, casting him a look.
Loki flashed a thin smile. "Not today, I haven't," he answered. He looked at his feet. "I worry for him, Mother. For both of them. Father is tired, and Thor is ill-suited. He is still much more eager to trample around than focus on the inevitable future."
"Are you suggesting you are ready to take the position?" Frigga asked, thumb to her chin.
Loki held his palms up. "No, no, I am far from ready!" he said quickly. "But I am certainly more ready than he, from this exact moment."
Frigga clicked her tongue. "From this exact moment, I do not doubt it. Now go, before your father catches you."
Loki left the chambers, hardly surprised to see a trail of chicken feathers. A couple of frightened birds clucked around the corner. The raven haired prince sighed and gathered them up, cleaning Thor's mess. It was not the first time he had covered for his brother. It most certainly would not be the last.
҉
"I am so sick of that retched man still treating me like a child! I am obviously more worthy than my brother. Why does he insist on dragging this out? At least reveal it to us that I am going to be the next king!" Thor paced in front of Sif and the Three, who had, in achievement to their efforts, become the Warriors Three. The golden haired prince was oblivious to their skeptical stares.
"I am hounded for everything I do! Everything! Loki is only scolded for his stupid magic tricks; I am ridden about my attitude, my posture, my language, my appetite, my armor!"
The audience refrained from commenting. They shared a singular thought: 'Loki is scolded far more harshly than you would ever be, Thor.'
"Perhaps, we ought to go let off some steam somewhere," Fandral piped up. "Wrestle with giants, bother some trolls. Nothing gets you to feeling better like a nice fight."
"No, I have a better idea," Thor grinned.
Hogun quirked an eyebrow quietly.
"Let us go to Midgard. Strike a pose, knock down a bad king or two, be respected for the gods we are. As a treat to ourselves!"
"You just want someone to kiss your bruised ego," Sif smirked. Thor cast her a hard look. She did not flinch.
"Promise me some delicacies and I'll go with you," Volstaag said, patting his stomach. This trip in general did not sound pleasant, but if there was at least something worth snacking on, he would join.
"Fine food and fine women and plenty to drink. I know exactly where to go."
"Notice how he listed nothing for you," Fandral whispered to Sif. She elbowed him away; Fandral had a difficult time containing his chuckling.
They marched to Heimdall's observatory in a line behind the mighty Thor, who swung his mace at his side. Many times Hogun regretted gifting him that iron weapon. This was one of those times.
"Heimdall!" Thor shouted, approaching. Heimdall might have smiled.
"You ought to be kinder to your blood," the gatekeeper and overseer murmured.
"What was that?" the golden haired prince asked. He stopped before the door. The mace seemed to sway menacingly of its own accord. Heimdall eyed it.
"On a rampage, I see. Very well, then. But do not blame me later for your father's anger. You bring this on yourself. As always."
And with that, Heimdall whisked them away to Midgard. They landed in an acrid place off the coast of an island that called itself Great Britain. It was by far the worst town in existence: the air was heavy with sea salt and sewer rot and dead fish and men's sweat. The streets were unkempt and filled with horse droppings. Broken glass littered what cobblestone laid out along the road. Bar fights erupted at all hours of the day and night. Surely this town was abandoned by its king. Thor took in a deep whiff, smiling. "Smells like a man's town," he chuckled.
Sif rolled her eyes.
They strolled through the district, Thor jumping into every skirmish he could find. It was not difficult.
"Must you really attract so much attention to yourself?" Lady Sif asked. She kept to Thor's side, matching his haughty tromp with ease.
"Of course," he said smugly. This was pleasant. It took less than ten minutes before a crowd gathered behind them, cheering the golden haired prince forward. A group of followers was a nice addition to his task.
The Asgardians arrived in this place only moments ago, but they had since broken up three massive bar fights, a skirmish between a handful of scraggly teens, and stopped an infestation of pirates. The bandits in question lay in a crumpled heap on the wharf, groaning. Their ship was now a pile of rubble floating along gloomy waves. The grateful residents bowed to Thor, Lady Sif, and the Warriors Three. Thor held up his fist; the crowd cheered. They were the heroes of the day.
"Is it just me, or does Earth look a bit different to you?" said Fandral, looking around turn-of the-19th-century England.
Sif chuckled. "Well, it has been a thousand years. . ."
The portly warrior Volstaag sighed in exasperation. He remembered the last time he came to Midgard. The world he remembered was most certainly not like this. "Things change so fast here. You leave for a millennium, and it's like the whole neighborhood is gone. You there!" Volstaag asked, approaching a woman with plenty of excess avoirdupois. She smiled bashfully at him. "Could you direct us to a nice pub, where my friends and I may feast and rest?" She led them to a shabby place, but it glowed with warm light and from the windows poured the sound of merrymaking.
The five Aesir warriors sat themselves to a booth. They were sorely overdressed, appearing as if they'd walked straight out of a Shakespearean play. But no one paid them much attention. The pub was filled with drunkards and who could be troubled to question one's fashion sense when they themselves could not walk straight? A woman approached them, hair and bustle in shambles. She was tired but money forced her to continue on late into the night.
"What are you after?" she asked them, hardly questioning their appearance.
"Well," Fandral answered, turning on the charm, "I think I would like a drink of you."
She was hardly affected by his flirtations. "A bottle of rum for you, then," she responded, "and I would assume a keg of mead between the rest of you. Are you having anything, Miss?" she added, glancing at Lady Sif.
Sif grinned. "I'll drink more than at least two of these boys."
The servant nodded and sidestepped her way into the kitchen.
"She completely blew me off," Fandral exclaimed, mortified. "No one has ever done that! No one! Tell me, am I losing my charm?"
"You never had charm to begin with, dog," Hogun responded.
They laughed and carried on, enjoying the atmosphere. Excluding Thor, that is. He watched the kitchen door for a time, stroking his chin. There was something about her that just seemed. . . perfect. Not for him, but for someone else. But who? He could not shake the feeling, even as she returned to pass them their drinks. "What is your accent?" Thor asked. He knew full well what her accent was. She grew up with Norse on her tongue.
"My mum was English, father a Swede. Grew up there, moved here when he followed his job. Died shortly after. Quite the trip." She set down their mugs and rubbed her hands on her dress.
"Your eyes are incredible," Thor commented, sipping off the froth.
"Thank you kindly, sir, but your flattery will get you nowhere. I work in a bar. How many men do you think try to hit on me in one night?" Her eyes flitted to Fandral in mild boredom.
"All of them," Sif said.
"All of them," the girl repeated.
"Could you tell me what the chef is serving tonight?" Volstaag interrupted, unsure how to feel about Thor's interest in this human. Ignoring the fact that he held the plump human girl on his own knee. She was only a snack for later.
The servant chuckled, shaking her head. "That's not something you want to ask around here, Love. No one really knows what goes in the grinder, not even the cook. We're an abandoned town. I think you were the ones who took out those blasted pirates; you must realize that was not an uncommon occurrence. In a week's time, I'm willing to bet more will be taking over our little port. England, she doesn't care about us anymore. A small sacrifice for the good of the country." She gave a short laugh and turned away. "I have to get back to work now, or there will be no food for me tonight."
"Nordic," Thor murmured. He knew exactly who this servant girl was meant for.
But she never came back to check on the Asgardian warriors. They left only when the crowd thinned to nothing and the sun prepared to rise once more. The five strutted out into the night, full of stale beer and questionable meat, but they were content. Fandral left with no women, sorely disappointed. Volstaag's own treat disappeared sometime earlier when she realized her husband was around. That was a pleasant experience.
"Heimdall," Thor said, looking up at the lightening sky. Nothing happened. "Just once I'd like him to answer to me," Thor sighed.
Hogun stared grimly into the heavens.
"Don't even open your mouth," Fandral warned him, drunkenly putting a finger to Hogun's lips.
From around the corner, a girl shrieked. Thor, believing himself the hero, rushed to see what the commotion was all about. The servant girl from the pub was chased down the alley by shadows – two scoundrels from the ship who seemed to have escaped the Asgardian wrath. It was five gods against two pathetic humans; the battle was short lived. They easily took the scraggly ruffians down and threw them over the pier.
"Thank you," the woman breathed, clutching her chest. If she was in shambles at the beginning of the night, there were no words to describe her now.
"It is no matter. I would do anything to save a beautiful woman," Fandral replied, holding out his hand to her. She took it and pulled herself up, but otherwise ignored him. He frowned, offended.
"Tell me," Thor said suddenly, "Do you have a significant other in your life?"
"No?" she replied, surprised by his forwardness.
"You do now." Thor took her by the wrist as the Bifrost opened. He had just kidnapped a human.
A lady with dark brown hair and blue eyes.
҉
"But you cannot just bring a human on a little sightseeing trip through Asgard!"
"This is a bad omen, Thor."
"Please, it is hardly as serious as an omen. She is what my brother yearns for. At least, if she is not what he wants on the inside, she is what he wants on the outside. Consider this girl a present for him."
"So that's what that 'significant other' question was about?"
"Is he still going on about this soul? Has he not grown up?"
"Look, she's coming 'round."
Sprawled across the floor, the servant girl groaned and rubbed her face. She fainted on her way through the Bifrost.
"Thor, I am not often angered by your actions, but the way you treat this woman is enough to make me want to hurt you. Say much more and I'll break your jaw."
"You've irritated even Sif with this! Just take her back, before she knocks your block off."
"Thank you, Fandral."
"Fine, then, stop making such a fuss. Heimdall, return her before she awakens fully."
"I cannot comply with your childish requests any longer. The Bifrost is not just some toy to jump worlds. You have ruined this woman's life. If she returns now, she will have been missing for days, weeks. Take responsibility."
Thor ignored Heimdall's words outright and came to the girl's side. "Are you awake enough to stand on your own?" he asked her. She fully opened her eyes and stared in terror at him. At the five behind him. At the strange golden room flooded with bright light. It took amazing effort on her part not to faint again. Her words trembled in her throat. She could not respond to him. Thor moved to pick her up from the floor. She smacked him across the face.
"What was that for?" he laughed in surprise.
"Leave her be," Heimdall said. His voice was low, intimidating. She shrank away from the gatekeeper. He turned his gaze to her. In his strange eyes, she could see a great mass of galaxies, displayed in such a beautiful array that she could not even begin to imagine what they were. "Tell no one of this woman you have so selfishly brought into this realm. She must continue her life here in Asgard. If any of you see her, say nothing. Do not converse. Do not make eye contact. Do not think about speaking of this. Bury it in your memory. Remember that I am the overseer. If I even suspect you dare repeat the events of this night to anyone, I will cast you off to a deserted rock in the forgotten pits of the aether, not of any realm, and you will die there."
He was met only with a scowl from Odin's son, but they nodded. Lady Sif cast one last wavering glance toward the shivering mortal, wondering her fate. The five bowed their heads and returned to their homes in grim silence.
"They are gone," he murmured, turning a much kinder eye to her. "Clarice, daughter of Erik and Elizabeth Andersson of England, born in the year 1781, you are in a place much stranger than your dreams."
She stared blankly at him. 'By all means, sir, my dreams are nearly as strange as you,' she could not help but think.
"You are, by the actions of a man who is no more a man than a boy, forced to live the rest of your life here in Asgard. I recommend not talking to anyone either. Stay to the outskirts. Live in the shadows. You will age much faster than the rest of us. When fifty years run its course, your life will have been lived out to its old age. We'll have not physically matured a day. You are human; we are gods."
"So I just . . . find myself a new life?" she asked, baffled.
Heimdall might have smiled. From seemingly out of nowhere, he presented her with a simple Asgardian dress, plain and inconspicuous. "The Asgardian palace will hire you as a maid, hardly different from your life on Earth. You will tend to whatever they tell you. Do not draw attention to yourself. Pretend you have been there all your life if you must."
Clarice stood, taking the dress from him. Her body felt numb.
"And another thing," Heimdall said, voice a touch more playful. "Women of Asgard do not wear bustles. You are relieved of your duty to wear one, if you feel the need to relieve yourself of it."
She nodded and stumbled across the great bridge, clutching the dress with trembling hands. Below her, an ocean of black water churned and fell away to nothingness. Just when she thought the world was supposed to be round, not flat.
҉
"Come on," Loki muttered. "Come on, you can do it. . . There!" he grunted.
Half of his chambers were replaced with the cosmos, inky black. Distant stars twinkled faintly, but none provided with even enough light to read by. These were not Asgard's stars. The raven haired prince opened a window to another galaxy, another realm perhaps. It was a beautiful sight. This was one of his many personal pockets of space. And it sat right here amidst his books. The edges of the window trembled, threatening to break the seal and swallow half of the palace wing. Blood dripped from Loki's nostrils. He dropped the magic, shoving the cosmos back into its own corner of whatever universe it came from. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand . . . then combusted into a cloud of golden dust.
"What a pity," Loki sighed from his desk. "It was nearly a success." He marked a few notes in his ledger and set down his quill, rubbing his forehead.
However, the raven haired prince was pleased with his results. He'd opened a portal to another realm, in his bedroom to boot. Wide enough to stretch from floor to ceiling and across nearly the entire length of his bedchamber window. And the shield protecting him from the vacuum was near perfect, until the edges flickered at the end. And he'd done it all with a doppelgänger. Not to mention he hid the entire show from Heimdall. Loki was growing stronger by the hour. It was wonderful.
But Loki was tired. The raven haired prince worked without sleep. Currently, he observed the observatory, tied up the last of the free-roaming goats, and comforted his mother who still wept for Baldur after having a few drinks. And those were only the normal bodies. Dozens of other doppelgängers meandered through Asgard, as horses, as salmon, as birds, as bears, as wolves, as bilgesnipe, as lightning beasts, as trees. He was at once cataloguing every instance that happened in Asgard, and charted the minds of every creature he contacted. Even Frigga's.
Something was strange with the Bifrost, Loki noted as he retired to his bed. He finally made sense of it all. Time was not distorted by any Aesir. It was the fault of the bridge itself. The energy used to transport a being from one end of space to the other caused the Bifrost to burn a hole through the fabric of time. Each trip the Bifrost made, the fire burned a bit hotter, took a little more time from the timeline, simultaneously slowed down Asgard and sped up Midgard.
'Asgard could use some speeding up,' Loki thought, resting against his pillows. They all lived long enough lives as it were. He fell into an unrestful sleep, plagued once again by the threat of war and destruction and bloodshed.
21:47
12.1.14