The frozen wind whipped across the snow-covered plains of Jotunheim. In the distance, two frosty megaliths rose against the bleak, starless sky, their jagged outline made visible by the pitiful fires of the remaining Frost Giants. Beyond the megaliths, Loki knew, lay a once-great city, its stone walls and buildings now dust, its castle collapsed under the weight of too many winters and the raw energy of the Bifrost. At Loki's feet, runes from the newly-repaired Bifrost were pressed into the snow, their icy outline reminding him that he'd come to this realm for a reason. He stretched a hand out to Natasha, who was clad in robes of white fur, hair adorned with her royal circlet, and they set off for the broken city.
Loki's first step was a stumble, and Natasha caught him by the arm just in time. As chunks of ice fell off the rocks into a depthless chasm, Loki saw- for the first time- the extent of what the Bifrost had done to the planet. The last time he had traveled to the heart of Jotunheim, the plain was smooth; since then, parts of the planet had fallen into nothingness, leaving great gaps in the ground where the swirling snow was sucked into the void.
"What happened to this place?" Natasha asked.
Loki gazed across the broken plain. "I did this to them," he sighed. "When I opened the Bifrost. Before I fell into the void. This is what I did."
She stared at the wrecked planet. "This is why you needed to come back."
He nodded. "Tread carefully. There is a path, but it is a treacherous one." He pointed to the ground, where a rough road of ice stretched over the gaps.
They made their way into Utgard, where evidence of the destruction was even more conspicuous. Obelisks lay in piles of rubble, and the once-great castle was a shell of its former self, cut down to a fraction of its original size. When he had come here with Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three, he wondered what this realm had looked like in the days before Odin's victory; now, the curiosity was even more overwhelming. /What have I done to this place?/
As they came to the plaza, avoiding the crumbling and broken pillars, Loki tilted his face into the snow and shouted at the castle. He realized, suddenly, that he did not know who he was addressing; both Laufey and Fridoc were dead. "King of Jotunheim," he called. "I am Loki, King of Asgard, and this is Natasha, my queen. We are here with the intention of assisting you."
A coarse laugh echoed off the ruins, and a Jotun stepped forward from the castle. "We do not want your help, Laufeyson," growled the king. "If we receive any more /assistance/ from you, we shall be extinct."
Loki produced the Casket of Ancient Winters and set it before him. "What is your name, Your Majesty?"
The king eyed him suspiciously. "Fálki. Brother of Laufey."
"Fálki. My uncle, then."
"If I must claim that relation."
"I am here on behalf of Asgard to seek peace, and on my own behalf to atone for what I have done to Jotunheim and its people." He noticed Fálki's eyes had not moved from the Casket.
"Loki," Natasha warned. Jotun soldiers emerged from the ruined buildings, icy daggers encasing their fists.
"Whether we have peace or not," Loki continued, keeping calm in the face of their threat, "the Casket of Ancient Winters belongs to the people of Jotunheim. It has been a long time since Laufey and Odin made war. Remember, they once also made peace; it was the foolishness of myself and my brother which ruined that peace. We were no more than boys. Now that we have grown, now that we are men, we have seen the grievous wrong in what we have done, and we endeavor to have peace with Jotunheim once more. So this is our gesture of goodwill. Take back what is yours."
Fálki nodded at two of his soldiers, who snatched up the Casket.
"A useless gesture," Fálki said. "As powerful as the Casket is, it cannot repair the damage that you did to our realm when you unleashed the Bifrost on us."
"I can."
"What do you mean?"
"I can restore this realm to its former glory." This time, no hint of sarcasm edged his voice. "There are many things in my life I've done that I cannot make up for. But this I can do. I can repair your world."
"And why would you do this?"
"There was no reason for me to do what I did," Loki told him. "This is my birthplace. I am a Jotun." As if to prove it, he closed his eyes, banishing his Aesir shell, and met the king's red eyes with his own. "Laufey left me to die, that is true. But Laufey was only one Jotun. I should not have exacted my revenge on an entire realm. From this day, I mean to protect and to defend this realm."
"How can you repair Jotunheim?"
Natasha's hand instinctively tightened around her gun.
"With this." Loki reached into the folds of his robes and drew out the Infinity Gauntlet, fitting it onto his hand. The power, raw and all-encompassing, was dizzying; he could feel the weight of the cosmos in the comparatively infinitesimal space of his palm.
"And for this you demand peace."
"I cannot demand peace," Loki replied. "I can only ask for it. But I will undo the damage I have caused, whether you grant me the peace I wish for or not."
Beneath their feet, the ground began to shake. One of the sentries drew back to strike Loki, but Fálki put up a hand to stop him.
"Look!" cried a young soldier, his gaze focused on the horizon. "The mountains are rising again!"
Indeed, in the distance, peaks pierced the icy shell of the ground. They grew steadily, taller and taller, until they penetrated the thick blanket of clouds. Instantly, snow began to whiten the gray rock.
As the mountains formed, the ground began to solidify. New earth grew between the old, decaying fragments, making the plains whole again. The forests of Jotunheim, which had been long dead, began to bloom once more. Thick trunks pushed their way through snow and ice, unfolding boughs and branches as they grew, sprouting thick blue needles to shelter the creatures that had suddenly appeared. Species that had been extinct for centuries now found themselves living again, shaking snow off of thick-feathered wings, snapping off branches with rock-hard beaks to build shelters, chipping away at the trees to suck the sweet sap.
Around them, the ash and rubble disappeared, leaving behind perfectly intact structures: tall obelisks, carved with runes and battle scenes; the temple, its bell pealing in the biting winds; the unique a sculpture garden, with statues of all the old kings of Jotunheim; and the castle, complete down to the last brick, each intricate carving restored, the stone /jarnsidir/ atop the roof keeping watch once again.
"The winds," one of the soldiers said, turning to the Jotun beside him. "Nailay. The winds have abated."
"It is because of the trees," came his comrade's reply, allowing the dagger of ice around his fist to disintegrate. "You are too young to remember a world with trees." He looked at Loki. "Will we have water again?"
"Water?" The young soldier was mystified. "Water that we must not melt from the ice?"
Behind the castle, the soldier's question was being answered. In the mountains, a trickle of water, deep beneath the surface where the earth was warmer, made its way down the gentle slope. It joined with another little rivulet, and another, and another, until they combined to make a rushing river, its current too quick for the frigid air to freeze it. At the base of the mountain, it burst into the open air, carving a channel into the snow, finding the old riverbed with ease. Swiftly it flowed, across the plains, finding its way to Utgard, where it rushed over a steep dropoff in the rear of the palace, creating a majestic waterfall. The gorge, which had been dry for centuries, suddenly filled with water. From the gorge, two rivers forked out, flanking the plaza.
"Rivers," whispered the young soldier, watching the water rush past in amazement.
Above, the permanent clouds vanished, revealing a sky full of brilliant auroras, a riot of cerulean and emerald and magenta, gemstone fire against the black of night.
"It's beautiful," Natasha whispered, as Loki slipped the gauntlet from his hand and replaced it in his robes.
Loki gazed around himself. "Laufey was right," he breathed, almost to himself. "It was glorious."
Fálki turned to his guard. "Nailay. It is time."
"Your Majesty, can she-"
"Go," Fálki demanded. "She must not be kept from this."
Once Nailay was on his way, Fálki stepped forward. "You shall have your peace, Asgardian," he pronounced simply. "A permanent peace. For as long as I reign."
"I am not just Asgardian," Loki replied. "I am Jotun, as well."
"And you are my kin."
Loki nodded. "Once, I had an uncle who taught me many things; I have many fond memories of him. It is my hope that I will have the chance to learn from you as well. You are the only part of my Jotun family which remains."
"What do you know of your mother?" Fálki asked.
"I- I do not know. I had assumed she was dead," Loki faltered.
"Not dead. My brother repudiated her after she gave birth to a-" He stopped short.
"Do not worry about being indelicate. A runt."
"To something unexpected," Fálki amended. "She was imprisoned."
Loki stared back at him. "All these long years- she has been-"
"Here," came a hoarse voice, and Loki turned to see a frail Jotun woman, short for a Frost Giant but taller than himself, being escorted into the plaza. "Although- after Laufey died- Fálki was kind enough to let me out of the prison your father sent me to." She eased into Fálki's chair. "Come, my son. Let me look at you."
Loki crossed the plaza and allowed his biological mother to put her cold fingers to his face. He stared back at her; her sharp cheekbones mirrored his own, and the shock of black hair atop her head matched the color of his. "My child. I am so grateful you survived. I knew Laufey would leave you to die, and I could do nothing to stop it; not from where I was, imprisoned in the pit of the palace. I pleaded and begged, but he would not hear me. I am so grateful to the Allfather for saving your life, /so/ grateful..."
"His wish," Loki replied, his stomach taut with a mix of emotions, "was that I would be the key to a permanent peace between his world and yours."
"And you were," she said. "Perhaps not in the way he imagined." Fárbauti broke off, gazing up at the skies, watching the light dance and pulse. "Oh, it's beautiful... I have not seen the sky in so long." She smiled at her son. "But you have given us back our world, and you have negotiated a peace with Fálki. You /were/ the key." She caught sight of Natasha. "And you... you are no Aesir, but you wear their crown. Who might you be?"
She stepped forward, red hair flaming against the endless white. "My name is Natasha. I'm Loki's wife."
"Loki. /Loki,/" mused his mother. "I named you properly after all; and Odin kept your name. It is a very old Jotun word," she explained, "for 'everlasting winter.' The heart of our realm. A strong name for a boy who would need to be strong, for a boy who was meant to lead armies to fight forces of evil, a boy who was meant to someday sit on the throne and bring glory to his people, a boy who was meant to preserve the beauty and strength of this realm." She took his small hands in her large ones. "And though I envisioned this happening much differently, you have met and exceeded my every expectation." She turned to Natasha. "And you, Queen of Asgard," she said, touching Natasha's bright red hair, "you I would have named /Sigyn./"
Natasha could do nothing but gape at the old woman. "Excuse me?"
"Sigyn," she repeated, as if Natasha hadn't understood the word. "It is the word in our language for 'flame.'"
She turned to Loki, forgetting all propriety. "But- how could she know? How could she possibly have any idea that-"
"You are a human," Fárbauti said suddenly. "Of Midgard."
"Yes?"
"You are the image..." Fárbauti stared intently at Natasha, and Natasha stared back, unsettled. "My husband's grandmother once made a prophecy," she explained, taking her son's arm. "Come. I will show you." She led Loki and Natasha into the temple. "The Hall of Kátali was one place which was never destroyed. Kátali was not only a seer, she was a master of magic, and her enchantments have kept the hall standing. It is the safest place on Jotunheim." She reached for a torch, her arm shaking as she held it aloft. Loki relieved her of her burden, lighting the dark tunnel as Fárbauti continued to talk. "She traveled across the Nine Realms to give her prophecies. Even Midgard," she said, with a nod in Natasha's direction.
They came into a vaulted room with high ceilings, the walls carved with runes and scenes. "Let's see. Ah! Here we are." Fárbauti steered Loki toward a short wall, and the torch illuminated a familiar scene. Natasha put a hand over her heart. She was staring at her own face, etched in great detail in the blue-grey stone; Loki, in equal detail, sat bound to a /svaneblomst/ tree.
"This has happened," Loki said to Fárbauti. "Natasha saved me from the serpents of Hel. Just like the etching shows."
"What do the runes say?" Natasha asked.
Fárbauti smiled. Her withered hand traveled over the runes. "An immortal daughter of Midgard, with hair of fire, shall join with a prince of Jotunheim to unite three realms against a great evil."
"And?"
Fárbauti took a long look at her son and daughter-in-law. "And they shall defeat it."
"That's all?"
"Have you defeated your evil, daughter of Midgard?"
"If you mean Thanos, it was Loki who did that-"
"And you?" Fárbauti searched Natasha's face. "What did you do?"
"She banished Hel from Asgard," Loki interjected.
Fárbauti smiled. "You are the prophesied ones. Come, let us return to the surface. This damp air pains me."
As Loki helped his mother up the jagged stairs, Natasha took one last look at the etched relief and the lines and lines of runes surrounding it. Fárbauti wasn't telling them something, she was sure of it.
"It is time for me to rest," Fárbauti said, upon reaching the surface. "I am unused to moving about so much. Loki- Natasha- I hope I shall see you again."
Loki nodded. "Of course." He could find no words for all the things he wished to say, all the emotions racing through his brain. "Thank you," he settled on.
She nodded and, with the help of a few Frost Giants, disappeared into the castle again.
"Fálki," Loki ventured, "would you lend a horse to us? There is one place I must visit before we leave Jotunheim."
He gestured for them to follow him. "We do not have horses; we have /hrúturhesturs./ But you'll have to take a foal," Fálki told them. "A grown /hrúturhestur/ would be much too large."
As Loki met the eyes of a grand brown beast at least two stories high, which looked like a horse with the horns of a ram, he understood.
"Go in peace, nephew," Fálki said to him. "And thank you for giving our world back to us. We will honor your faith in us by allying with Asgard. The old wounds, the old grudges; let them die. We will begin a new era of cooperation between our worlds."
Loki nodded, mounting the little /hrúturhestur/, Natasha close behind him. "We are honored by your alliance. May it prove fruitful for both of our worlds."
With a smile, Fálki gave the animal a slap on the rump and it galloped out into the icy world.
Loki was not sure how he remembered the path; he almost felt drawn to the spot, as if by magnetism. As Utgard shrank into the distance, the caves began to appear, and he knew he was going in the right direction.
They galloped past the ancient cave Loki and Thor had stayed in centuries ago, where Thor had wrapped him in the pelt of a /jarnsidir/, tended his wounds, and kept him safe until he could travel back to Asgard. Loki could almost smell the pungent scent of its fur as he glanced inside. In the distance, a cluster of caves stood against the unending white plain. Unlike the last time he'd been here, they appeared to be abandoned; no cooking fire lit the rocks, no Frost Giants moved in the shadows.
He reined the /hrúturhestur/ to a stop and dismounted, Natasha following. Once she saw the slab of rock, the abandoned dwellings, she understood. "This is it, isn't it?"
Loki nodded. Inside one of the caves, an old wooden box rotted away, its rusted blades barely visible in the light of the auroras. He seized instinctively, but found that he was not afraid; the box no longer had power over him. His memories of being trapped inside that box no longer paralyzed him. Thjazi was dead and gone; and, even if he met an enemy like him again, no longer would he need someone to rescue him. As he stared at the box, he could think of at least six ways to escape it. As he replayed his captivity, he knew just how he could get away. As he remembered the moment Thjazi revealed to him that he was a Frost Giant, he gazed down at his blue skin. Natasha had been right; it was beautiful.
"Why would you come back?" she demanded, glaring at the caves. "I've never been back to Stalingrad. I'd never go again, not after what they did to me there..."
Loki sank down onto the stone slab, the same one he'd been bound to all those years ago. "I only wanted to come here to destroy it, in the beginning. Even when I came here with the intent to rebuild this world, I wanted to destroy it. But after my uncle... and my mother..." He sighed. "I've destroyed enough things in my life."
She sank down onto the very rock he had been bound to as a youth. "It makes me wonder if I have any family. I guess... you know, I never really thought about it before. Did my parents have sisters or brothers? I don't know. I suppose it doesn't matter. I have no connection to them. I never have."
He sat down next to her. "What if you did?"
"I'll never go back to Stalingrad." Her voice was hard.
"Fair enough."
"I got the feeling that your mother wasn't telling us the whole truth."
Loki nodded. "About the prophecy? I felt the same way. But I can't read Jotun runes. I could not tell what the wall said." He paused. "I will learn."
Satisfied for the moment, Natasha nodded at the caves. "So what are we doing here, if you aren't going to destroy it?"
He looked around himself. "Stand up."
She did. From his robes, he drew out the Infinity Gauntlet, slipping it onto his hand once more. He reached out for Natasha with his bare hand; her skin felt warm against his.
Before their eyes, the ice encasing the slab of rock splintered and shattered. Beneath the shell, the rock itself cracked and split; from the ground underneath, a tree pushed into the arctic air. As it grew, Natasha recognized it- it was a /svaneblomst,/ its branches delicate and blanched, fragile petals shooting open from tiny pink pods. But instead of the white flowers she'd seen on Asgard, the flowers were a brilliant scarlet, an amaranthine burst of color against the white canvas of endless snow.
"How will it survive here?" Natasha wanted to know.
Loki put the Gauntlet away and drew close to her. "This would survive the end of the world."
xx
A/N: THIS IS IT! I can't believe it. I would like to thank all of you for your reviews, for your kudos, for your favorites, for the time you spent with this story, for the encouragement and patience as I worked my way through it. I truly hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. It has been so much fun. THANK YOU to every single one of you—you can't fathom how much I appreciate you!
I have an epilogue for you, too—if I know myself, I won't be able to resist a sequel. Ideas are formulating in my head. I will say that if I do write a sequel, I likely won't update as regularly as I did with this one—I do want to work on a novel. My goal would be to finish before Thor 2, but that could be a lofty goal… and my canon has deviated from Marvel enough now that any subsequent movies after Avengers can't be counted toward this (with the exception of Iron Man 3, which is a distinct possibility.) If you're interested in a sequel, make sure you're subscribed to this one.
Also, it's a possibility that I'll write one-shots based in this universe—especially if you are interested in them. I have some things written down that weren't central to the storyline—I'd like to explore Steve's visit to Peggy (and Coulson), a bit more on Abigail (all the behind-the-scenes of her assembling her team/the attack on Stark Tower), maybe some closer looks at Natasha's backstory (Budapest in detail?)
Anyway, whether there's more to this universe or not, thanks for spending time with me in it. I love you all! Big hugs and thanks again for reading! XD
