Remarkably Familiar
She poured over the texts, completely surprised that there would be so many. Most of them seemed like they hadn't been opened in centuries or more, the bindings creaking as they were opened and the pages smelling even mustier than most of the books that came from the great library did. She'd started with almost a dozen, the first batch delivered to the grand dungeon rooms. She'd barely opened up the first tome when the next delivery came. Twenty-two book burdened librarians later, with well over a hundred books and she was assured that she had all of the literature written prior to the last great war with Jotunheim.
This had been a request she made of Thor upon his second visit to his brother. Loki had been unconscious once more; the combination of poppy milk and his bodies natural desire to heal in an unconscious state had made him dead to the world soon after she begged as much food down his throat as she could manage. She'd had several reasons for asking. One, there might be information on how best to treat Jotun wounds and secondly, she truly was curious. Thirdly and most importantly, she didn't think she could take another day where she simply paced about the floors, tearing her hair from its roots as she waited for his return. The study, the research, the long ago created habit of losing herself in information would let her take her mind away from the grizzly acts being committed against the man she now called her husband.
She wanted books written from before the war in the hopes that the writing would be less tainted and biased by the strong feelings of hatred that can be caused by the horror and desolation of war. She'd been delivered archeological histories of the realm and anthropologic studies of the people. She'd gotten catalogues of Jotunheim's flora and fauna, a diversity existed there that she never would have imagined. There had been such a wealth of information delivered to her but she decided her first foray into the written word, one she peripherally scanned earlier, would be translation of a Jotun author. The book was thin and so incredibly old but the idea that she would be reading words by a member of a species she hadn't even considered literate before, fascinated her while making her feel foolish at the same time.
Of course they would have literature of their own but after a lifetime of stories about how savage and how like beasts they were, it was just a natural assumption to make, born of ignorance and fostered by a lack of interest. It was the same assumption most of Asgard would make and had made as well. The only difference between her and the ones that were now spectators to Loki's punishment were the odd circumstances in which she now found herself. Circumstance had forced her to reevaluate her lifelong held views. It was inevitable. Finding out what he was had been a shock but she'd discovered it at a time filled with life altering discoveries. The fact that he was a Jotun was but one, the final one. The initial ones included his decade long plan to make her his wife, his actions here in Asgard directly after his disappearance, what had happened to him in the void during the year he was lost to her and his plans to become Midgard's king, her its queen and to get her with child. All of those facts combined had left her numb to surprise that by the time she found out he was a frost giant…
Her initial gut reactions of disbelief, disgust and fear had now been mostly replaced and in the void they left, she would fill it with as much unbiased knowledge as she could. The translated book she now held was filled with folklore from that realm, tales of their creation, fanciful epics and stories of love, loss and strife. Though the characters and setting were different, the underlying meaning and lessons of each story were remarkably familiar. One tale, a story of a Jotun warrior named Staune, who battles a giant serpent in order to keep his wife and unborn son from harm, sacrificing his left by jumping into the beasts gaping maw and striking the death blow from inside its belly, sounded like a tale her father told her when she was a child of a man named Steinn. The Jotun story was almost identical to the one she remembered being mesmerized by so long ago.
She finished it and with that personal curiosity out of the way, she set that book aside and decided it was time to build a medical understanding of the species. She spent an hour quickly flipping through dozens of books, gleaming only tidbit of random information here and there but after a quick perusal of nearly a third of what had been brought to her, she still had not found anything that would meet her criteria. Her search came to an abrupt halt when she heard the door to the main chamber opening. Her heart jumped into her throat as she was suddenly brought back to reality, her research coma effectively broken.
They brought him in once more, in the same manner as the day before, set him on the bed, gave her their respectful farewell and left wordlessly. She tended him in the same manner, this time he wasn't conscious at all when they returned. As she'd suspected the day before, his back had not fully healed by the time he'd been taken. The pain of today's punishment was likely more intense as a result. She finished his initial bandaging but unlike the day prior, she did not lie down next to him, too anxious about the mountains of book in the other room and the possibilities hidden within their covers. She looked him over one last time and then began hauling a dozen or so books into the room so she could study them and still be by his side in case he woke for any reason. As such, she began to fill her mind and lessen her ignorance of a race to which she would always be so closely tied.
XxX
"Tall, dark and handsome. Ladies usually use that to describe the perfect guy but I think I'll be a pioneer and turn it on its head." Tony smiled charmingly at the female warrior who did not seem to find his flirtation amusing in the least. She just stared at him with those piercing eyes, one eyebrow delicately lifted in either mild disgust or mild confusion. Either way, it was pretty damn sexy and so was the Asgardian armor she wore. Tony had suddenly developed yet another fetish… female armor. It had sprung up spontaneously upon setting his eyes on this exotic, tall beauty. He was infinitely relieved that Pepper wasn't around to witness his shameless ogling and flirting at the moment.
"I do not see how that answers my request?" Thor asked him; mildly irritated with the single-minded attention Tony was giving to Sif and not his very important reason for being here. Deciding that it probably wasn't the best idea to actually piss off the godly portion of the Avengers initiative, Tony barely managed to pull his attention away from the Amazon before him. It was a hard thing to do; the idea that this bona fide warrior goddess could probably kill him with a flick of her wrist was strangely one of the hottest concepts of his life. Reluctantly, he turned to the brooding surfer-esque god.
"Lemme get this straight Goldie Locks. You want me to go to Asgard, build a power consolidator at the end of your," he started to giggle, "sorry, the name kills me," he calmed himself, "at the end of your rainbow bridge so that Loki, of all people, can transport multiple peeps here in case of another Chitauri attack. An attack that he wouldn't be leading this time but trying to stop?"
"Yes, that is as I said." Tony couldn't believe that Thor actually looked confused by why he'd just repeated the plan. The billionaire turned to Sif.
"Does sarcasm exist in Asgard?" It earned him a smirk.
"It does." She said simply before she looked to Thor. "My I speak?" Tony saw the god king give her a nod, the universal go ahead sign. "I mistrust Loki as well but I do not doubt that these forces he once led are still bound for your realm and will not stop until they've enslaved or decimated your kind before they turn their sights on Asgard. Despite who created this plan, it seems the best hope for our shared prosperity and freedom." Tony pursed his lips and drew them to the side before nodding.
"Okay, okay, I get that and I even get why but I'm not too keen on the second bit. Giving us back the tesseract once all this business with the bridge is complete so we can make more of those weapons that we all got a bit pissy about back on the hellicarrier?"
"Tis why I came to you and not to your S.H.E.I.L.D. You possess your iron suit and have not shared its formidable power with your realm. Surely you could build the weapons in a way that once the tesseract's power is removed from your realm after the danger has passed, that the weapons will simply no longer function." Tony smiled.
"And they say you're the dumb one." The smirk that Sif had given him before now quickly morphed to a scowl. Someone's protective of the big blonde. "I have a couple of conditions."
"Such as?"
"First things first, I want to hear this from the horse's mouth." Thor suddenly looked completely confused.
"What horse would that be?"
Tony let out a bark of laugher. God he loved colloquialisms and this guy's complete lack of understanding of them. "Loki, I want to hear it from Loki. We haven't really gotten a chance at a good conversation since he threw me off my own building." Thor's expression quickly darkened.
"That might not be for the best."
"No talkie, no dice. He might be the God of Lies and I might not be able to sniff them out of him as a result but I still wanna hear him say it. I want to hear this plan of his and more importantly, I want to hear from him why the hell he would help."
"My brother…" Thor stopped. Tony watched as the team of hamsters started doing double-time in that massive head of his. Stark could actually see the moment the decision was made. He didn't think he'd ever met anyone as transparent, emotionally, as this guy with maybe innocent ol Steve Rogers coming in a very close second. "Agreed." He finally said. "And your other conditions?" Tony could feel his own expression turn devilish.
"That I be personally given the grand tour of your realm by a beautiful warrior goddess."
XxX
AN: Pitifully short chapter I know! Apologies but I hope the short reintro of Stark made it somewhat worth it.
Skyler McAndrews: That's great that you do. While not everyone agrees, I'm glad that most of my reviewers seem to like my version of Loki in this little tale of mine. And Kenna, thank you for thinking as much. Soon has never been a problem with me. :)
CoreyBuerella: Thank you! And I freaking love your review. I do listen to music; in fact, I did have 'Odin Confesses' as part of the little play list I used when writing this chapter. The others included: "A Fond Farewell – Richard Harvey", "Harry & Grace Make Peace – Trevor Rabin", "Leave No Man Behind – Hans Zimmer", "End Of An Era – Zack Hemsey", "Quiet – This Will Destroy You" and "A Gift of a Thistle – James Horner". I'm a music freak and the last few chapters have been mostly instrumental pieces. And yes, the 'Thor' soundtrack was beautiful. You might like to check out some of those others since they are all in the same vein.
(Fuchsia)Grasshopper: He's back! Yeah, I don't want a sappy Loki. I'll always think of him as reluctantly romantic and I hope that will always show even as things between he and Kenna continue to evolve. I had to do the hair washing again… who doesn't love having their hair washed? I swear it's the main reason I go to a salon, heavenly. As per this chapter, I'm obviously going to be doing a bit of writing about Jotun. I've only seen a few fics that delve into those aspects and it's just a fun idea to toy with and twist to fit my ideas. As it stands now, he can't show her since he doesn't have use of his own magic in order to undo Odin's. I don't even know if he can without an outside influence even with his abilities intact… we'll see.
lokiworshipper13: Aww, thank you for saying so. I hope I can always keep him Loki despite some of the gradual changes I'm making him undergo. I hope you liked Tony's pre Asgard intro.
KeeperoftheNine: I can't imagine Loki ever wantig his best weapon to be anything but at its sharpest especially considering his current situation and upcoming events. It's why I wrote that Kenna had never seen him drunk before. He's just not the type as far as I can imagine. I can't wait to see what you do with Dani and Loki in Vice… so excited!
reader204: My thoughts exactly.
Guest: I wish he could too but in all the times I've seen clones in the movies, they never seem to have a physical form, more like holographs than flesh (though I must say I do enjoy a good 'multi-loki' fic from time to time… wink, wink). So I'm leaning towards the idea that a clone wouldn't actually work for this. But I like how you think. :) Thank you!
gameofshadows: (53)Awww, thank you, thank you. It's hard to write something like that about a character you like. I had no idea it was descriptive enough to put you in the moment though… cool, I guess. I figure there has to be a reason that Thor is so firmly in Loki's corner beyond just being brothers for thousands of years. I thought the idea of owing Loki for his current goodness could be one of those reasons. I wish I could get into M/M fics, I'd have so many more to chose from but alas, I'm stuck with the idea of women… oh well. I'm so happy you liked that line. I think about that sort of thing whenever there's a riot somewhere, especially when it's over dumb stuff like sporting events or trial outcomes. That's where that line came from since it's how I'm depicting that element of the Asgardian population. (54) ROFL. He does seem to have a crazy active libido when it comes to her. I'll go ahead and chalk that up to my crazy desire to write lots of sexy time Loki. I'll be bringing that up a lot since I would imagine Kenna would think about it a lot. Heck, she's married to one and I've described her as someone with an inquisitive mind, always wanting to study and learn more so it seemed like a logical extension of her character. You're heart can take it because Tony Stark will be your balm whenever it seems like it's going to overwhelm you. :)
