AN: Longish chapter but ridiculously long review response section. Apologies.
One Day
Kenna jumped from the bed when she heard the locks releasing, rushing to be there as it opened. Two of the queen's elite guard carried a barely conscious, shallowly breathing Loki into the room and Kenna forced herself to suppress the gasp that threatened once she saw the terrible state of his back. They pulled him to the bed and with a care they must have been commanded to exercise, the lay him on it on his stomach. They stood; each gave her a bow with a hand over their heart and then excused themselves. Kenna didn't think about their odd formality with her as she gingerly moved to sit next to Loki, too caught up already in her own mind as she accessed his injuries and determined the best way to begin his treatment. She smoothed his chaotic hair off and away from his face. His green eyes were just slits but she saw the smirk on his lips just before he spoke in hoarse tones.
"Now that wasn't too bad."
"Shh." She cooed, hoping that for once he might find it better to not speak. It seemed she got her wish when his eyes closed fully a moment later. She slid off of the bed and quickly retrieved the pack of items she'd requested along with a pitcher of water and basin. She set to work immediately, cutting off his tattered shirt as carefully as she could, taking care to slowly peel it away from his flesh and the drying blood that tried to keep it clinging to him. She filled the basin with water, a packet of herbs that had been prepared and brought to her and began the delicate process of cleansing his wounds. They had stopped seeping blood before he'd arrived, aided by what must have been, at one time, white powder on his back, now caked and red. She'd finished with the first rinse of his wounds when she heard the door opening. She didn't turn to see who it was, her focus entirely on her work as it used to be when she acted as a surgeon on Earth. Nothing else mattered at that moment except the deft movements of her hands and the patient to which they tended.
It didn't matter that the Queen and Thor stepped into the room. Kenna barely registered the shuddered gasp of the pained mother. She didn't turn to see Thor embrace her as they looked on at the healer as she meticulously continued her work. Not until she'd finished the second rinse and began to lay muslin strips across the already knitting flesh did her mind diverge enough from her task to allow her to address the royalty in the room.
"This will happen everyday?"
"Yes." It was Thor that answered solemnly.
"He won't finish healing before the next time he's taken."
"Is there anything I can fetch for you?" He sounded almost desperate in his desire to help. Kenna just shook her head, keeping her eyes on her work.
"I've already requested and received the materials that will best help." Silence fell over the small group while Kenna continued to lay strip after strip of medicine infused bandaging over his back as Loki's family could do nothing but watch helplessly. After she lay the last strip down, she caressed his cheek with the backs of her fingers before she stood, bowed in deference to the royalty in the room and asked. "Were they satisfied?" Thor continued to look troubled and her question did nothing to relieve that.
"They were affected, in the way my brother thought they would be, I believe." She nodded.
"How many more times must he endure this?" Kenna felt how tightly she'd clenched her fists and had to concentrate just to loosen them.
"I have left the determination up to him." Thor still had an arm around Frigga's shoulder and he seemed to be getting as much comfort from the woman's nearness as she was from him. "He made me swear to that." He looked seriously at his brother's prone form, now covered in a weave of soft white cloth and medicines.
"May I?" The queen asked of the young healer, indicating with a daintily raised hand to go to her son. It was the first time since Loki's return that Kenna felt awkward. To be asked permission by the queen for anything was enough to pull her out of her hardwired doctor mindset.
"Of course my queen." She gave a small bow, unsure of how to grant permission to someone so much greater than herself. She watched as the elder beauty glided over to Loki's side and gently sat in the same spot that Kenna had occupied only moments before. She watched as the mother smoothed his disheveled hair with tears running down her cheeks and dripping onto the covers of the bed. During this time, Thor moved over to stand next to his brother's wife, his brow still a mass of knots.
"I am glad he has you." Kenna nodded at Thor's words, her skills were well suited to this predicament. "I believe he does it for you." His second statement knocked her away from her logical mindset and she couldn't help the stunned stare gave him.
"I would never wish for anyone to endure such a thing for my sake."
"Regardless, he does. I believe he does it for the realm as well, despite what poor and altogether misdirected regard my people have for him, he has always acted in what he believed their interests to be… even if it was not always executed in the best manner." Kenna held the Thunder God's gaze, the once brash god, and smiled.
"And I am glad he has you." She said quietly, leaning into him slightly. "He will one day as well." It made the somber king smile in return and he nodded.
"Mother, we should leave him to rest." Frigga rose with astounding grace and came to stand before her two children, one by blood, the other by law. She touched Kenna's cheek with a sad smile before she obeyed her king's bidding. They left Kenna alone with her husband and his injuries.
She walked back over to him and this time lay down next to him, her face to his and fell asleep, finally succumbing to her exhaustion. She dreamt of blood and death, cries of pain and suffering and when her eyes finally opened once more, she was greeted with a contemplative look from a set of cool green eyes. She was at a loss for words. Everything that came into her mind seemed trivial. Ask him how he felt? Foolish. Ask him if he needed anything? Unnecessary. Ask him how it went? Grotesque. So she did the only thing that seemed right. She closed the small distance between them and gently kissed him. He responded immediately, even if he didn't move his body. He took up the mantle of speech when she finally pulled back, his ragged vocal chords having already made a full recovery.
"You make what must be done easier to bear with each passing moment." She wanted to smile for him but found she could not. Instead, she bit at her lips and sighed before carefully sitting up in order to check his bandages. She lifted at the edges to find his back a mass of old scars and new red, but quickly healing cuts. They had knit themselves closed but still looked awfully raw and tender.
"It would be best if we could get you into the bath but how do you feel about moving about?" He didn't answer, just drew his arms up to his sides and gingerly pressed his torso off the bed, a mild grimace forming on his features for a moment as the stiff and sore flesh protested the movement. He drew one knee underneath himself before he used it to push off the bed and then move to stand. He groaned once or twice during the process and a fine sheen of sweat covered his brow by the time he successfully stood up fully, if not a little hunched. He waved off her offer to help him in walking to the washroom so she scooted in front of him, holding the door for him before then moving to get the water running into the tub. He walked by it and over to the oversized mirror. He faced away from it and then with a hiss of pain, craned his neck to look behind him and at the reflection.
"They will believe the lie." He said quietly. Kenna said nothing in response and instead hurried to her satchel to grab the herbal concoction for his bath water. By the time she returned, only moments later, he had already made it to the edge of the tub and was gingerly sitting down on its edge and preparing to lift one leg and then the other into the filling basin. She watched him with concerned eyes.
"After you soak and are clean, I'll apply a poultice to your cuts that should aid in their healing a little faster as well as removing a bit amount of the residual pain." He nodded. "You should kneel in the center." He nodded again but said nothing, not looking at her, not yet moving. "I will wash you." This earned a glance in her direction, which grew to more than just a glance when she started to pull her dress over her head. She arranged several items on the edge of the tub before crawling in and sitting on the molded bench that was quickly being covered by water. It was then that Loki finally moved and took his suggested position in the center portion, kneeling. The water was currently at the level of his mid thigh. Kenna felt his eyes on her as she sprinkled some powder into the churning water and then grabbed a cloth and a bar of soap. She let out an exasperated little sound when she turned to see his physical state that was just now coming in contact with the warm water.
"You are insatiable and are not in a proper state for such activities." He smirked at her.
"I would say I'm in the exact state for such activities and it is no fault of my own that you are irresistible."
"That's not what I meant and only to you see me that way." She huffed.
"Unlikely, but a point that would not bother me if it was true."
Rolling her eyes, Kenna decided now would be the best time to administer the small vial of liquid. She grabbed it from the side of the tub and handed it to him. "For the pain." She said. She didn't tell him that a side effect would be drowsiness and a distinct lack of desire for such carnal acts. He raised a single eyebrow as if sensing some ulterior motive. He pressed it to his lips all the same and swallowed the cloyingly sweet liquid. She took the empty vial before moving closer to him. The water was now up to his hips and its warmth would soon aid in lessening the physical representation of his desires. As much as she was sure he would wish to have her now, she wanted his energies focused solely on healing. As such, she waded around to his back and began there, removing herself from his gaze.
She turned the water off and took her time inspecting the healing process, something so different from what she'd become accustomed to over the past decade. A human would have required surgery in order to recover from such a beating. Stitches in most areas, skin grafts in the more brutalized spots. Infection would be the greatest fear but in Asgardians, and apparently Jotun, such procedures were unnecessary. That caused her to think, she knew next to nothing about Jotun anatomy and physiology but despite their normally different outward appearance, the two races seemed rather similar.
"Dunk your head back into the water if you can." He could and he did, saying nothing in the process. She built up a lather with the soap and started to run it through his now wet hair, cleansing it of the blood and tiny flecks of his skin that had made it there during the whipping. He groaned in pleasure instead of pain as she massaged his scalp in the process. Despite his earlier aroused state, he didn't try to do anything but simply allowed her to attend to him. She marveled at the quality of his hair, it was thick, somewhat coarse and so impossibly black, nothing like Asgardian hair. Kenna had always thought she had unusually dark hair, but the deep chestnut color was nowhere was rare as his. She pursed her lips together as she pondered his heritage once more. In any of the depictions she'd seen of his birth race, she'd never seen any of them with any sort of body hair. The question escaped her lips before she considered their wisdom or the consequences.
"How did you learn what you are?" His body noticeably tensed and Kenna immediately thought of what she should say in order to backtrack out of this situation she'd just created.
"I…" She started but he cut her off.
"One of them touched me but even as it froze my armor off of my arm, my flesh did not freeze." He sighed. "Instead, my forearm turned a sickly shade of blue where he held me."
"Oh." Was the dumb response she cringed at saying the moment it left her lips.
"I didn't know what it meant, I'd never been in the presence of one of them before and while I knew it should have hurt me, I had hoped that somehow my magic had intervened in some unconscious way. I tested that theory later."
"How?" She whispered, still absently massaging his scalp. His shoulders noticeably slumped and he hissed at how the move stretched his tender skin.
"I entered the weapon's vault and picked up the Casket of Winters bare handed. Only frost giants should be able to handle it directly, to feel the power within it. I felt it flow through me and that's when I knew. Odin confirmed it a minute later." He was quiet for a minute, seemingly lost in contemplation. "At least, that's how I remember it and I'm fairly certain those are untampered memories. No matter, if they are false or not, I'm still Jotun regardless."
Kenna filled a pitched with some bath water and slowly started to pour the water over the back of his head, he tilted it back without being asked in order to make her task easier.
"What caused you to ask that now?"
"The healer in me wondered if my treatments, which are for Asgardians, are the best for you."
"So clinical." He sounded only slightly disgusted and this made Kenna shrug.
"It's who I am."
"So it is."
Silence fell between them again as she finished rinsing his hair, tucking the wet mass behind his ears and out of his face. She picked up the cloth, wet it and worked a lather into it before starting the process of cleansing his neck, shoulders and arms.
"Is it your father's magic that conceals you?"
"It is Odin's." Kenna did not miss the subtle correction of the man's title in Loki's eyes.
"How do you appear when it is overridden?"
He sighed once more, a common occurrence during this conversation, but answered.
"Truthfully, I do not know. I have only seen my hands and just barely my nose in my revealed state. Only Odin and Heimdall have witnessed it."
"Heimdall?"
Surprisingly to Kenna, he chuckled lightly. "I froze him with the casket." Suddenly the old god's choice to walk them through the throng of people the day of their return did not surprise her.
"It seemed he recovered." She said with a small smile that she made sure he saw.
"It seems he did."
She slowly moved around to the front of him and saw the slightly glassy look to his eyes and decided that since this conversation had gone as smoothly as it had so far, she would continue. "I should like to see it one day." She didn't need to explain what she meant. It was obvious that she wished to see him in his natural state, in his Jotun skin. He grasped the wrist that was just about to start on his chest, wincing slightly with the sudden movement.
"Why?" His eyes bore into hers. "It is not what I am."
"Curiosity." She answered without shame. He looked to the side but did not release her. He seemed to be weighing her request with a great amount of consternation until finally, he nodded with one curt, quick movement.
"One day." And he let her go, still not looking back to her eyes as she continued to wash him. "What was in that vial?" He asked suddenly.
"Poppy milk."
"I do not wish to take it again."
"But it takes the pain away."
"It dulls my mind and that is far worse than the pain." She nodded solemnly. She did not like the thought of his pain. She saw his smirk before he spoke. "And it dulls my desires." She rolled her eyes and finished her work, leaving him to soak and heal in peace.
XxX
AN: I hope this chapter wasn't boring… it got kinda wordy and descriptive. Next chapter, the return of IRON MAN! We need some lighter subject matter and rinse out the constant feels.
Guest: (41) Yeah, I forgot that when I wrote it. Please forgive the faux pas.
skywriter23: I'm so happy that you do! I've tried to believably change my rendition of his character and I'm glad you appreciate it. Yeah, I have a hard time writing whump, but I didn't feel like I could completely gloss over it. Yeah, the powder was just for show for the crowd. Thank you, thank you!
Mzfeebs: That makes me really, really happy. :) You didn't have to wait too long.
TechieNinja18: I do, I do. Movieverse Thor seems willing to forgive just about anything, I mean Loki almost killed him in "Thor" twice and he was still trying to save him at the end. So that's why my Thor cares so much. I'm a sucker for trying to make different aspects of my stories as logical as possible, I'm glad you liked it! Loki is supposed to be a genius so I'm glad his plans come off that way (despite that they usually backfire). He's so selfish, he can't even imagine himself acting selflessly even when he sorta is. He's that pathological. I wouldn't want to see them either… that sorta thing is hard for me to take. I don't think Kenna could watch… it would tear her apart. Thank you.
CYBERKAT2: HAHA, glad to hear it! Thank you but we've since reconciled that she alerted the story to see my response, not to read anymore and I'll take her at her word on that. Woot! That's great to hear.
CoreyBuerella: I'm thrilled you thought so!
AvalonTheLadyKiller: Thank you, I tried to write it mainly through people's impressions of the act instead of really describing the physical actions of the scene. I'm glad it worked. In the end, they really aren't all that much different (not in my story anyway) like most of the old pantheons of gods tended to be back in the day. Oh don't worry, I won't forget about that guy or Kenna's old fiancé. Stark is on his way, expect at least a couple lines from him in the next chap. Haha. She wasn't really a flamer, just a tad harsh and judgemental in a non constructive way the first time around. We've since figured it out. I'm not one to hold or even form grudges but I can have claws from time to time. :)
(HappyDeath)Executioner: That he is. The man's mind is genius, his greatest weapon and his greatest downfall as well.
(Fuchia)Grasshopper: He knew what was coming, so that helped. And you're right, making the decision was most likely the hardest part. Someday perhaps but changing 1000 years of ingrained personality takes a lot of time and pressure to change… believably anyway. It is building.
Dunamess: Thank you. Lol, I love that you are still with me and still enjoying the fic. Don't get in trouble on my account though. :)
Manara: I'm happy to see that you alerted it in order to see my response to your review and not secretly read what you claim to dislike, faith in humanity restored. So now we can do a little tete-a-tete as far as why I wrote Loki the way I have vs the way you like to see him written. My knowledge of Loki comes from what little we can gleam of his character in the movies "Thor" and "Avengers" but prior to chapter seven, it's based off of the former. But also, some of my characterization of him comes from the mythology that this movieverse character is derived from (as everyone is already aware). Loki was a hedonistic god (sexually and otherwise), a trickster who gained hundreds if not thousands of enemies over his centuries of life. At the point in his life that I'm depicting him, he's already felt overshadowed by his brother, unjustly vilified by the other gods and unloved by his father. Some of my depiction also comes from his obvious feeling of superiority to those of a lower social status than himself. The deleted scene with the servant and the snakes and the scene where he says the guard should be flogged for not getting the message to Odin sooner point to him being a bit of a pompous jerk in that respect. We don't see what his interactions with sexual interests concern but everyone knows why Sif's hair in dark and not its original blonde so we know he has a history of already doing cruel things to women. So that's my justification for how I wrote him. If you continued past chapter seven, you would find that I've changed the character and at this current chapter, he is somewhat becoming that generous lover you mentioned but he has a reason now. He never had a reason to be generous with another person before this because he was distrusted by most and hated by others before it was even revealed that he was a frost giant. Also, he was plenty damaged by this time in the story, before "Thor". He'd already been tortured, humiliated and punished by Odin several times for many of his tricks and what not. Are they discussed in the flick? No, but his character is based on that mythology so its not like you can say he was some Disney prince before and be anymore correct than me. So I think I do understand the character and I do not believe that I, in any way, just 'imagined' a pervert. Could you safely say it was over the top at times? Yes. There you have it. I'm not trying to convince you that your view of him is wrong but I have provided you now with many examples from both the movie and mythology that support my characterization. Your view of my characterization was a bit closed minded, a tad harsh and per your first review, a little too vague for me to properly offer a rebuttal. But in the end, you're only going to like what you like, regardless of how accurate or inaccurate my portrayal has been. As such, good luck finding other fics that are more to your reading tastes.
FatOldSun: ROFL. I can get a bit catty from time to time but we've hopefully come to an amends. Thank you, I aim to please!
reader204: I smile every time you tell me that! You're very welcome. :)
KeeperoftheNine: No worries! I know you're there. I am trying to do something I haven't personally read before (though I haven't read them all) and this direction seemed nominally unique. That's awesome to hear. I am no fan of torture porn so I would feel a bit hypocritical for writing it for that reason. They are ever growing closer… baby steps, mostly due to Kenna's insane ability to forgive. She's a little too forgiving and she also likes to rationalize her situation into making herself more pliable to the situation. Sometimes over rationalization can be detrimental though… Thank you!
Shishingami: I'm so happy it's a continuing sentiment. Awwww, thank you! I am an obsessive writer. If I don't write something, whether fan fic or original, everyday, I get a little antsy in the pantsy. It's like my stress reliever. That and running. I'm not a high strung person but I would be without my outlets. I'm glad it benefits us both! I most certainly feel hugged, thank you. :)
