I almost called this chapter Is There A Creative Word For Tension? And then I was like wait, exists. It wasn't helpful, but it definitely exists.
Yeah, I did not mean for that last chapter to get so sad. Sorry? It's a tense subject. And, unfortunately, there's a ways to go before we get through the worst of it.
Also, if you're curious about runes I use in the beginning here, Wikipedia has a pretty good entry on the Elder Futhark, which is what I use, because it's what Loki would have taught the kids. I would attempt to link it, but honestly it would be much easier to search "elder futhark wiki" because it will be the very first result (that isn't an ad).
Also, this chapter includes more languages, but this time I've managed to recruit bellamortem from tumblr (who knows French) to help me out :) Translations:
Tu lui croit? = You believe him?
Qui? = Who?
Le petit = The little one
Tu veux parler sur ça maintenant? = You want to talk about this now?
Il ne fait pas = He doesn't-
Non = No
Bien, on le laissera pour plus tard = Fine, we'll leave it for later.
Bien-sûr = Of course.
There's one more, but that one's a bit spoiler-y, so I'll put it at the end.
The snow piled up so thickly Fenris thought the hedges might collapse under the weight of it. The steps of the back porch had vanished under a fresh layer of it, and if he went up to the cupola to look, there was only the occasional glimpse of brown or green from the trees that circled the yard and bowed under the weight of the most recent snowfall.
Scully's footprints in the yard became a sort of trench she plowed to get to her favorite places, and then when it snowed so much the path was only a faint dip in the otherwise perfect layer, Loki put a sort of litter-box in the bathroom, declaring that she'd just get lost in the snow at this point.
Fenris, if he wanted to, could go outside and look at their house and not see a single bit of the dark blue roof.
"I wonder if this is what Jötunheim looks like," he said, peering out of the windows in the cupola. It was very small, compared to the rest of the house, and really didn't count as a third floor, but the window seat was comfortable and it was cool to look out from such a high place, like it was a tower. His breath fogged in a white patch on the windowpane.
"London is too flat to be Jötunheim," Slepnir said. "And there's too many buildings."
"There's enough snow."
"If the buildings were shorter," Slepnir said authoritatively, "it would look like Kaupang."
"Where's that?" Fenris turned around to look at him curiously.
"Norway. We lived there for - I mean, me and dad did. Before you were around."
"Oh." Fenris turned around to breathe on the window again, and he drew an ᚠ in the cloudy patch. It looked a lot like the letter for the same rune, which was nice, except the spokes of an F just went straight forward and not up, and Fenris was always mixing them up. Also, an English A didn't look anything like an F, which was weird.
He breathed harder, then added an ᛖ and a ᚾ.
"How come we don't live in Jötunheim?" Fenris asked.
Slepnir tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, as if that would help him think. Fenris could see his brother's reflection in the glass.
"I don't think many Jötnar like dad," Slepnir said.
"Laufey does."
"Well, yes, I didn't say all of them," Slepnir huffed. "Anyway, dad likes it here better."
"London?"
"Miðgarð."
"What for?"
"I dunno," Slepnir said. "Same reason he started hanging out in Asgard, I guess."
It was so weird to think about how his dad used to be friends with them. Not that Fenris had ever seen much evidence of that, even before.
Fenris breathed on the three letters he'd already written, and then added a ᚱ.
"What are you writing?"
"Just my name." Fenris finished with ᛁ and ᛋ.
Slepnir joined him on the window seat, leaving a comfortable distance between them. He looked out at the city lights for a few moments, and then sucked in a huge breath and exhaled a big foggy patch above Fenris's.
"It looks cool like this," he said, drawing a slightly lopsided ᛋ and then ᛚ. "With the street lights on in the daytime and everything all white."
"Mm," Fenris said, privately wondering if he was actually related to someone with such weird ideas of what was cool. Slepnir was only his half brother...
"You don't?" Slepnir paused in the middle of writing out ᛈ. "And you're complaining about not being in Jötunheim?"
"I wasn't complaining," Fenris grumbled, and added ᚾ to Slepnir's name before his brother could do it himself.
"Whatever," Slepnir said, and added the ᛁ. The ᚱ went off the edge and onto unfogged glass, so Slepnir breathed on it and then rewrote it.
Fenris's name had almost completely faded. It had turned into smudgy glass and the blurred city behind it, at least from Fenris's point of view. He breathed over it again, but it didn't help much.
"I like it here, too," Slepnir said, looking at his name, which was fading too. "Jötunheim is all grey and Asgard is...too much. And they don't like us."
"Does it bother you?" Fenris asked.
"Does what?"
"Your other dad's there somewhere," Fenris pointed out. Slepnir glanced at him, then out the window, then down at his knees, then back out the window.
"I know," he said. "Doesn't mean anything. He might not have been involved with - you know." Slepnir gestured at his head.
It was probably mean, to bring Slepnir's Æsir father up like that. Fenris slouched against the window behind him and nodded.
He looked out the city, past Slepnir fogging up the glass again and carefully writing out ᚨ-ᚢ-ᚦ-ᚢ-ᚾ-ᚨ-ᚱ.
"They called me Lokajarson," he said, out of the blue. "Someone did. I don't remember who."
"That doesn't seem that mean." Not to Slepnir, at least, not really.
"It didn't exactly seem like it was meant as a compliment," Slepnir muttered. He didn't say if he'd remembered anything else. Fenris didn't really want to start that conversation.
Slepnir wiped away the name he'd written. Fenris watched a car slog through the storm on the streets below, only easily identifiable by its headlights and the fact that it wasn't white.
"I wouldn't know him," Slepnir said. Fenris didn't know why he was still talking about it. "I've never had a parent except dad. You know? Sorry, stupid question."
"You had mom, too," Fenris said. "She wasn't just ours."
"Yeah," Slepnir said, "but I wasn't hers, not really."
Loki made a heaping amount of hot food, the kind that steamed and warmed a person up from the inside, and so gradually everyone was lured into the kitchen and ended up sitting around in the dining room.
Muriel ate absentmindedly like she kept forgetting what she was supposed to be doing, Hel didn't eat at all, and Fenris stayed in the kitchen with his dad.
"I meant to ask you," Loki said, from inside the pantry, "if you wanted to invite anybody over. I know we don't exactly celebrate Christmas, but your friends probably wouldn't mind, and anyway wizards are hardly Christian, I don't know why they celebrate it."
Fenris's mouth was full, which gave him time to briefly contemplate how the twins might react to being invited over. Lillian would probably be thrilled, but once they got to his house...
He wasn't completely unaware, he knew people didn't normally live in houses as big as his, and the Lovegoods certainly didn't. And he wasn't sure if they would like anyone else.
"Earth to Fenris," Loki said, emerging with a bunch of napkins. "You listening? Oh, you've got food."
Fenris swallowed his soup and reached for a piece of crusty bread (carefully - the loaf was still steaming from where it had been cut). "Maybe," he allowed, picking the crust off and eating the softer inside first.
"Well, think about it." Loki moved around the table and into the living room. "Okay, you're all gonna use napkins, because I don't trust any of you not to get stuff on the sofa and then just pretend you didn't."
"You don't have to throw them," Adam grumbled. Fenris glanced over to see him removing a couple napkins from his head.
"It wouldn't be fun, then." Loki was grinning as he swept back into the kitchen, directing his attention towards Fenris again. "If you were wondering where the mac 'n' cheese went, Jormungand stole it. I'm pretty sure she intends to eat the whole bowl."
Fenris snorted. Loki grinned wider and snapped his fingers at the motley collection of bowls and measuring cups and such that cluttered up the space next to the sink, cleaning them in an instant, and then fell gracefully into the chair opposite Fenris.
"So, friends, no friends? I'll eat that crust if you're not gonna."
"I'll eat it," Fenris said, methodically shredding it into small pieces and dropping them into his bowl. "I don't know if they'd want to."
"Hey, no rush, but y'know they'd probably be thrilled." Loki snapped his fingers again, this time in realization. "Wait. I promised X-Files! You wanna do that later?"
"Maybe."
"I wanna watch X-Files," Slepnir called, turning around to look into the kitchen.
"I'll put your name down for it," Loki replied, shooting him a grin. He sobered a little when he looked back at Fenris, and asked, "You alright?"
"Yeah," Fenris lied, and turned his attention back to his soup so he'd have an excuse not to talk.
Hermes wandered by to reach past him for the bread. "I'm surprised you still know how to cook anything," he said teasingly, tearing a slice in half.
"Oh, please," Loki scoffed. "I never forget anything."
"Uh huh."
Loki propped his chin in his hand, leaning on the table. "Tu lui croit?" He asked quietly, and Fenris glanced up in surprise. He didn't know enough French to understand it; normally his dad didn't speak it.
"Qui?" Hermes sat down next to Loki, propping his feet on the sole empty chair.
"Le petit." Loki saw Fenris's curious look. "Eat your soup, Fen."
Fenris took a bite of his bread, just to be contrary. Loki didn't try to hide his smile.
"Tu veux parler sur ça maintenant?" Hermes sounded irritated.
"Il ne fait pas-" Loki put his arm down.
"Non." Hermes stuffed some bread into his mouth, as if pointedly ending the conversation.
"Bien. On le laissera pour plus tard," Loki said, almost warningly. Fenris desperately tried to remember any of the French he'd overheard Jormungand use from time to time.
"Bien-sûr," Hermes grumbled around his mouthful, not sounding very pleased.
Geez. If they were going to argue in front of him like that, Fenris would have at least liked to know what it was about.
"Si tu ne veux pas qu'ils te mentent, essaies de ne faire pas comme si ça n'avait jamais passé," Hermes hissed to Loki, while Fenris and Jormungand and Slepnir were busy trying to divide up what remained of the loaf of bread. Jormungand looked over sharply when she realized he was speaking French.
"What'd he say?" Fenris asked under his breath, when Hermes had stomped off and Loki was left standing very stiffly in the doorway. Jormungand shrugged.
"Too complicated," she said back, barely as loud as Fenris had been. "It's not the same as what I learned."
Fenris glanced at his dad, who didn't appear to be listening, which was lucky, because whispering wouldn't have done much to prevent him overhearing. Loki was facing the other way, slouched up against the edge of the doorway. He didn't stay there for long - Loki straightened abruptly and went into the hallway, turning to go in the opposite direction that Hermes had gone in.
"Yikes," Slepnir said.
"I don't like this," Jormungand said.
"It's not like we can do anything if we don't know what they're even saying," Fenris pointed out.
"I still don't like it." Jormungand's mouth was set in a stubborn line. Slepnir picked up a piece of bread and offered it to her, steaming, when a moment ago it had been quite cool. Jormungand took it and dropped it almost immediately. "Ow, too hot!"
"Sorry," Slepnir said sheepishly. "I'm not good at - uh, being careful."
Jormungand picked the slice up again, very carefully. There was a visible decrease in the amount of steam, and a few bluish sparks that snapped in and out of existence around it for a moment.
"I don't think the book can help with this either," she said, and took an angry bite out of one side.
"What book?" Slepnir looked at her, bewildered. Jormungand froze for a moment, then took an even larger bite. Slepnir looked at Fenris.
"I thought she told you about it already," Fenris said quickly.
"What book?"
"The myth one," Fenris hissed.
Slepnir stared for a moment before he realized what Fenris was talking about. "You have it? Why didn't you say so? What does it say?"
"...I don't know."
"You don't-" Slepnir was brought up short. "Didn't you read it?"
Fenris glanced at Jormungand, who was glancing at him. They both looked away.
"Guys," Slepnir protested.
"Nobody said we had to," Fenris snapped.
"But - don't you want to?"
Fenris and Jormungand glanced at each other again. Jormungand reluctantly swallowed her bread, but didn't speak.
"Stop doing that," Slepnir said, sounding aggrieved.
"Stop ordering me around." Jormungand shoved herself away from the table. Slepnir stared after her as she stormed out, then looked helplessly at Fenris.
Fenris shrank down in his seat. "I just didn't want to," he said defensively. "If you do so badly, you can go read it. I don't care."
"But-" Slepnir grappled with words for a moment and then switched to Norse. "It could tell us what happened!"
Yeah, that was the fucking problem; Fenris didn't need a book to tell him those answers. He shrugged uncomfortably.
What a fun break this was turning out to be.
Si tu ne veux pas qu'ils te mentent, essaies de ne faire pas comme si ça n'avait jamais passé = If you want them to not lie to you, try not pretending it never happened.
Geez, I really need some release for this tension. I thought it was gonna be this chapter, but apparently not! Let's shoot for the next one.
Review, please!
