The plague had swept through the lower quarters of Asgard's capitol, devastating the populace, and wiping out most of the lower classes. They called it the Red Death, after the tell-tale flushed, feverish face those afflicted were marked with. Those with scarlet faces were avoided like, well, the plague.
Loki, as a Jotun, was immune.
For once, he had something to be grateful to his heritage for, but it all seemed so… pointless. Why should he be grateful to his hideous flesh simply for allowing him to not die? It seemed foolish.
His parole officers, his constant companions since he'd returned from Svartalfheim, hovering behind him like vultures for the slightest wrong move so that they could stuff him in a cell, again, were, currently shaking in their shoes.
Why?
Because Loki was, at that point, strolling through the most infected, Death-ridden part of the villages. He didn't know why his steps had led him here, but it was annoying the officers, and that was always something he appreciated. They didn't want to be hanging around him, right now, just as much as he wanted them gone, too. If they caught the Death, they'd simply be replaced, though, so it was through no ill will towards them that he refused to leave these quarters.
Something had prompted him to come here, this evening, call it what you will, fate, destiny, a horse, but Loki knew he was here for a reason. Not just on this planet, right here. In the midst of the Red Death.
The wailing was quite unnerving.
From basically every hut, the sobs of broken hearts curled up like smoke into the sky. Nothing moved in the streets, besides Loki and the two Einherjar flanking him, but the screams, the moans of the surviving, and the quickly waning light of the sun culminated into an extremely eerie atmosphere.
If only Odin could see this.
Perhaps he'd do something for his people, perhaps not, but at least he could get a true feel of what suffering looked like. Sure, the old king had seen many a battlefield, but the horror this scene presented was more touching, more sobering, even, than a battlefield. In war, you had odds, you had something to strategize against. This was different. If you caught the Death, there was nothing you could do, because the up-on-top-people, the government, didn't care. They would do nothing to help, because they didn't want to soil their reputation. There was no research going on for a cure, because, in the royalty's mind, there was no plague.
If Asgard acknowledged that she had a problem, she would be tainted, tarnished, and spoiled.
So, the people, the true people of Asgard perished in the name of reputation.
It was repulsive to Loki.
The whole situation.
As his boots clacked along the cobblestones, he noticed a strange new voice had joined the harmonic choir of despair. An innocent voice, one who was too young to know what the matter was, and only wailed for lack of something better to do. An infant's voice.
He turned his head in sorrow towards the source of the noise, and realized it stemmed, not from the inside of a house, but from a narrow, dark alleyway.
A few steps closer revealed a baby, no more than a month old, wrapped in a dirty rag, and laid in a wooden crate. The poor, abandoned child wailed for her mother, fists waving in the air, as she hollered her little lungs out. Her skin was flushed, her straggly strands of blonde hair clinging to her forehead, damp with sweat.
Suddenly, Loki knew what had been going on inside of Odin's head when he, himself was picked up off of that frozen rock on Jotunheim, so many years ago. This child was helpless, alone, cast out, no doubt, because of the sickness, something she couldn't have changed if she'd wanted to.
Just like him.
He wasted no time in gathering the child into his arms, and cradling it to his chest, murmuring soft words of comfort to the poor thing.
"Your Highness…" One of the guards spoke up in a panic.
Ah, yes. Loki had almost forgotten about his personal vultures. "What?" He glanced up sharply, as he adjusted the dirty rag around the tiny body in his arms.
"The child…" He trembled. "She's infected."
"And?" Loki raised an eyebrow in challenge. "Are you worried for my welfare? Because, as a monster, I could swallow the germ in its most concentrated form, and it wouldn't do anything."
"Not yours." The second one, the blunter of the two replied. "Ours. And the whole palace's. You could kill the entire royal family."
"The entire royal family except for you!" The first rejoined. "What is this, a scheme to rule Asgard?"
Of course they would say that.
After all they'd been through together.
(It honestly wasn't much, just creepily watching him when he slept, ate, and basically everything else, save the brief respite of privacy they allowed him, in order to wash, dress, and relieve himself.)
"Did it ever occur to you," He drawled. "That if I had any desire to rule, first of all, I'd already be ruling, and secondly, you wouldn't notice anything amiss?"
They glanced at each other warily. Apparently, it hadn't.
With that new thought in their minds, he began making his way back to the palace. How could he possibly stand by and allow this child to die, alone, of starvation, before the disease caught up with her, and do nothing?
Yes, he was a monster, but he wasn't heartless. This was a baby. So full of hope, of promise, of potential. He couldn't allow her to be snuffed out, just like that.
Her wailing had quieted to a miserable fussing, and she clung to a lock of his hair insistently, gripping with a surprisingly strong hold. She was adorable, and she was entirely Dependent upon him. No one else could care for her, no one would be able.
A tiny part of him piped up, insisting that he wasn't really a monster, if the thing that made him monstrous enabled him to possibly save the child's life.
It was a very gratifying part of him, but an entirely unrealistic one, so he smushed it down where it belonged.
It wasn't long, before he was able to close himself in his room, in privacy, save the vultures. Gingerly, he laid the small child down on his crisp, white sheets, and stroked a finger over her tiny cheek. No plague was uncurable. No ailment was unreversible, and if anyone were the man for the job, it would be Loki, because of his innate immunity.
The child began fussing, again, since she wasn't being held. The fever probably did nothing to help her morale, either.
That was what Loki needed to focus on the most, in truth. It was the fever that killed, so to keep the child's down was imperative.
Keep her cool.
Throwing the rag into the fireplace, as it was most likely crawling with the infection, he wrapped the child in a clean, damp towel from his washroom, and pressed a hand to her tiny forehead, cooling it down with a quick spell. She immediately quieted, and, for the first time, opened her eyes, which had previously been squeezed shut in her misery.
Green, like his own, and glassy from the fever, she stared up solemnly into his fac as she sucked greedily on her little fist.
"You're an adorable little thing, aren't you?" Loki murmured, a fond smile stretching over his face. "I wonder what your name was… I suppose I'll have to think of a new one."
In response, the child kicked her legs sluggishly, the towel twisting awry on her little body.
"I could call you Frigga." Loki suggested. "That was my mother's name, you know. She's dead, now, actually, so maybe not. I wonder who your mother was, and why she'd throw away a treasure like you."
He hummed for a second, a tune his nanny had sung when he was a little boy. He couldn't carry a tune to save his life, but the little girl seemed to enjoy it, and cooed tiredly. "A treasure, that's what you are." He smiled down at the precious bundle. "I should give you a name from that. Crystal, perhaps?" That didn't exactly seem to fit. "Gemma?" No, not that, either. The child blinked, her deep green eyes not having once left his face.
"Jade." He decided. "My little Jadestone."
Jade didn't seem to like the choice of name, and began fussing, again, her fists waving insistently in the air.
"What's the matter?" Loki murmured. "You're cold, now. The fever should be going down. Are you hungry?"
She only waved her hands more insistently, and if Loki hadn't been holding it to tight to her skin, she would've kicked the towel off, by now.
Loki chuckled softly, and stood up, fetching a bottle of milk from his cabinet. He didn't exactly have a baby's bottle, so he soaked the end of another towel in the milk, (he had no shortage of towels, in case he needed to clean up a spill from one of his experiments.) and inserted it into Jade's tiny mouth. Immediately, she latched on, and sucked greedily, little sounds of contentment escaping the back of her throat.
"When's the last time you had a good meal?" Loki sighed, and shook his head. "Never mind that. I'll take good care of you."
"You're just going adopt her?" The second guard gasped. "You'll kill us all!"
Loki rolled his eyes. "No, pea-brain. I'm going to use her to find a cure."
"There is no cure."
"Do you know why?" Loki looked up sharply, a feral grin stretching across his face. "Because no one cares enough to find one. No one has cared, I should say, because this plague must be stopped."
"Why do you care?"
Loki resisted the urge to stomp his foot like a toddler. "Because people are dying, and it's high time someone did something."
Turning towards his desk, Jade still nestled in the crook of his arm, Loki mentally rolled his eyes at the incompetence of the Allfather. Why must he be the one to do everything? Even when the realm needed saving, if it wasn't honorable to save it, it had to be him. Odin was perfectly willing to come to the aid of the people if there was any killing to be done, but cold, hard science? Heaven forbid!
"Here, love." Loki murmured, and gently pried the milk-soaked towel from Jade's lips. "I need to borrow your slime." With a scrap of cotton, he wiped some of the drool from Jade's gums, much to her protest, then quickly returned her meal to her.
An image launcher situated above the cotton swab, magnified a few hundred times showed Loki exactly what he wanted to see. Lots and lots of cotton, obviously, and plenty of baby-slime, but there, swimming in the saliva, was the cause of the Death. Hundreds of thousands of tiny bacteria.
It was long after midnight, when Thor knocked on the door, then, without waiting for a reply, barged in excitedly. Loki jumped up from his work, and waved his hands frantically to quiet his older brother, but it was too late. Jade, who had finally nodded off, and was sleeping, propped between two pillows on Loki's mattress, woke up, and began howling.
"Oh, for the love of Bor." Loki groaned, and dropped his face into his hands.
Thor stared with wide eyes, as Loki gathered his weeping bundle into his arms with a sigh, and rocked her gently to calm her down. "Can't you have some sense of discretion?"
Thor only gawped.
"Oh, look, a fish." Loki deadpanned, and Thor's mouth snapped shut.
"Am I an uncle?" He finally breathed.
"In a manner of speaking." Loki smiled down at the adorable little bundle, who had quieted somewhat, but was looking a little more miserable, more flaccid than earlier. He was running out of time.
"Who's the mother?" Thor's eyes couldn't be bigger if he had no eyelids at all.
"Heavens, I have no idea." Loki rolled his eyes. "Or the father, before you say anything."
Thor frowned. "You just took in a random baby?"
Loki shrugged a shoulder. "Your father did. Why can't I? The rules must be fair, after all."
"So, this is why you didn't come to the party?" Thor mused. "I missed you."
Loki shook his head, and placed Jade in his lap, as he returned to his work. Of course, Oldin would hold a feast as his people died in the streets. This was Marie Antoinette all over again. "Her, and other things. I'm a busy man, you know."
Thor wasn't paying attention, and bounded closer to Jade. "May I hold her?"
"Actually, no." Loki muttered distractedly. "She's a cross-contaminant for a terrible plague, that, as of right now, has no cure. In fact, just your being in the room is putting you at risk."
Thor roared with laughter. "Oh, you're always saying such funny things, Loki!" He grinned, and clapped his brother heartily on the shoulder. "If you want me out of the room, just tell me."
Loki glanced up in irritation. "Odin didn't tell you. Of course."
"Didn't tell me what?" Thor frowned in confusion.
"The Red Death." Loki scoffed. "Wiping out most of the city, right now. Basically, it gives you such a severe fever so that you bake from the inside, and a bit of a cough, so it's sufficiently contagious."
Thor's eyes were wide, as if Loki was telling him a horror story. "You're not joking."
"Of course not." Loki curled his lip. He'd hoped Thor would trust him a little more, after he'd saved his life on Svartalfheim, but apparently that was too much to ask. "About any of it."
Jade coughed a little, and Thor jumped back in fright. "She's contagious!" He yelped, pointing a shaking finger her way. Jade, naturally, burst into miserable tears, and Loki sighed, holding her close to his chest.
"She'll give you the disease, brother!" Thor insisted, as he backed away. "Put her down!"
"No." Loki glared fiercely. "She needs me. Besides, I'm immune. The bacteria can't even survive in my body; it's too cold."
Thor blinked in terror, but didn't protest, again.
"Look at her, she's dying." Loki insisted, still feeling the need to defend himself, as he laid Jade on the bed, again, and returned to his work. "And thousands of others, too, if I can't find the cure. From what I've seen, the only survivors were the ones who could keep the fever down long enough for their body to fight off the infection, but it's so ridiculously high. Jade's at 105 degrees, right now. If she were older, she'd be babbling nonsense from delirium, poor thing, but she can't talk."
Thor gazed down at the suffering bundle, who whimpered slightly, fists waving out of habit. "She really is cute."
"Mm." Loki acknowledged. "If only I had a way to keep her colder…"
"But you do." Thor's lips quirked up in a smile. "You're Jotun."
"I said keep her colder, not give her frostbite." Loki irritably corrected. "You're not funny."
"I'm not trying to be." Thor humphed. "Father said Jotnar only burn when they're trying to. Normally, they just feel like a silver spoon left out on a snowy day."
"It's still uncomfortably cold." Loki bit his lip, trying to ignore the Thunderer.
"Which may be just what she needs." Thor insisted. "To bring her fever down."
With a sigh of annoyance, Loki leaned back in his chair. Thor had a point. In fact, he sort of wished he'd thought of that. "Turn your back." He commanded, and Thor obliged, a flicker of confusion on his face. Without his brother's gaze on him, Loki closed his eyes, and willed away the glamour Odin had cast so many years ago. His Jotun form shone through, and Loki stood up, tucking his hideous blue skin out of his line of sight, and plucked Jade off the covers, cradling her gently in his arms.
At first, he'd half-expected the horrible blackening to spread over her young skin, anyway, but, instead, she seemed to be vastly comforted by the chill of his body. Almost immediately her eyes slipped shut in exhaustion.
He breathed a sigh of relief, and, wearily, laid back against the pillows on his bed, sending a glance up at Thor, who still had his back turned, and was making vague noises of confusion, without putting anything into words. Typically, the two of them never needed to voice anything, they knew each other so well that they could simply make an abstract noise, and the other would understand.
There'd been times they'd held whole conversations in murmurs, hums, and facial expressions, much to the confusion of everyone else, who didn't speak the language of brothers.
Loki didn't want Thor to see him, nor did he exactly want Thor to know why. (It was because he was a coward. That's why) So, he simply left Thor standing there in confusion. The guards, however, had no stipulations about gaping in horror at Loki's disgusting form, but he didn't care about them so much. He simply made a face at them, and rocked Jade quietly.
"It's helping." He announced, referring to the Jotun form bringing down the infant's fever. Apparently, Jotnar's sight was slightly thermal, and he could tell, simply by looking at her, that she was not as warm as before.
"Oh, good." Thor nodded. "Can I look, now?"
"No."
Thor groaned in annoyance. "But your wall is boring, Loki!"
"No more boring than you."
Thor sighed in frustration, but didn't deign to answer. Which was fine. Loki could live with quiet Thor. In fact, it was slightly better than the alternative.
A thought occurred to him, suddenly. Thor had been the one to suggest that Loki wear his true skin, to help Jade. There was no way he'd done it simply to get a glimpse of the freak Loki truly was. Thor wasn't like that. The nonchalant, off-handed tone of his speech proved that much. Thor was absolutely fine with the notion of Loki being Jotun. Probably more fine then Loki was, himself.
"You can turn around, now, if you wish." He quietly spoke, now deciding it was his turn to stare blankly at the wall, as Thor turned around, and hopped onto Loki's bed.
"Yes, you're right, she does look far better, already." Thor rumbled pleasantly, and, in surprise, Loki turned back to stare at him in wonder. Not a word about his obvious horridness? Not even stupid platitudes about how "he really was beautiful, in this form, too", or "It doesn't matter to me, really, you're still my brother"? Loki would've known those for what they were. Thor, saying the words to convince his own stupid head that they were true.
This, however… Thor really didn't care. He truly didn't mind Loki's being Jotun, to the point that he hadn't even thought it worthy of note.
His eyes filled with tears, his lashes sticking together as they froze on his face. For all Loki's silver tongue, for all his affinity for words, the one time Thor hadn't used them was when they truly hit home.
He was loved.
He always had been, and he always would be, whether he liked it or not.
"Are you actually going to keep her?" Thor was asking, and Loki snapped himself back to the present.
"I doubt it." He sighed. "Not with these two living turds breathing down her neck."
The guards looked a little outraged, but Thor only laughed. "So, you'll give her to the orphanage?"
"Heavens, no!" Loki shook his head, banishing the thought of his little Jade growing up, alone, in a government facility. He'd seen "Little Orphan Annie" when he was on Midgard. He knew what a cruel place an orphanage could be. "I'll find her a loving home, somehow."
Thor nodded thoughtfully. "Then… I know Healer Eir has always wanted children, but she's unable."
Loki's eyes lit up at the thought of the sweet, kindly old woman, who basically like an aunt to him, growing up. "That's brilliant, Thor. Eir would be a wonderful mother."
Thor's eyes widened in incredulity. "You said something nice about me!" He blurted in disbelief.
"Yes, well…" Loki ran a hand through his hair. "Don't get used to it."
"What about the cure?" Thor questioned, after a moment of comfortable silence. "How close are you to finding it?"
"Oh, that?" Loki chuckled, and gestured to a vial, steaming slightly on the Asgardian equivalent of a Bunsen burner. "It'll be done in an hour. We can begin its widespread distribution tomorrow."
"You're a hero, Loki." Thor declared, resting an earnest hand on his brother's slim shoulder. "You know that?"
Loki smiled softly. "No. No, I didn't."
TheOnlyHuman.