Chapter 21: Memories Of A Princess, Part 2

Steve and Kory finally gave the jogging a break by the time more people started arriving in Central Park.

It was a miracle that none of them had run out of breath after those 10 jogging laps they did, circumnavigating the entire park since dawn. It was already hard to believe how despite wearing heels, Kory still managed to keep up with Steve's speed. She didn't even slip when they made turns on trails. At one point, they ditched the trail for the greenery, which caused Steve to discover that Kory ran a whole lot faster over grass and through trees than she did on the cemented trail. It must have been around 9am when they finally decided to settle in a shaded spot by the Harlem Meer.

"You're impossibly fast!" Steve took deep breaths as they paused underneath a tree by the lake. Powdery snow covered bits of the grass. Kory grabbed some of the snow, rubbed it with her hands, and just like that, bottles full of liquid bottle appeared.

"I'm a whole lot faster without them. Try jogging with me in the Taiga and you'd lose when we barely started," Kory said. She handed him a bottle.

"Thanks." He uncorked it and took some sips, pleased by the cool temperature. Steve then noticed Kory's perplexed look. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Kory."

"I should probably just give up. Knowing you, you'll keep insisting until I give in. Which ends up happening ALL the time." Kory groaned.

"Well, I can do this all day." Steve shrugged.

Kory rolled her eyes. "Evidently you can, Captain Stubborn-Head. Go promote that catchphrase, I'm sure it will sell out faster than the 'I LOVE NY' merchandise." She sat on the grass. "You're worse than Abimbola and Aaricia. Hopelessly stubborn. Always refusing to give up on me."

Steve sat down next to her. "I know it's a… difficult topic for you, but what was she like? Abimbola? When you first met her?"

"Hopelessly stubborn like you, but maybe a bit worse." Kory sighed. "Insanely brave, a great warrior… and the kind of person who'd do anything for her country but who ends up turning her back against her government in favor of someone else. Very much like you, unfortunately. Except she wasn't a super-soldier but a spy who infiltrated an underground Norwegian Resistance brigade…" She paused, to be careful with the words she chose, and pointed at Steve. "Your… government had their ways of acquiring vibranium from her country. They sent out spies to see how the Westerners might use it… If the spies might have to reclaim the vibranium. Abimbola was stationed in Scandinavia before the Axis Powers claimed it. Posing in the underground resistance was to gain further info on potential vibranium exploitation on any side. Fortunately, there was no vibranium in Scandinavia… Unfortunately, she met me." She sighed again. "After the war ended, I personally went to the Wakandan Embassy in Oslo to deliver a consolidation letter to her family…" Tears escaped her eyes and began to freeze. Steve wiped them away for her gently.

"Did it turn out alright?" He asked. "I mean, you got to keep her weapon."

Kory grimaced. "Yeah, the response was a bit ugly. They were annoyed that she was turning their back on them… but since it wasn't an outright crime like leading unwanted invaders in their country or sell vibranium on the black market, they sent paperwork confirming that I could keep her weapon and that she'd receive a memorial as a war hero… Her family wasn't enthusiastic about her leaving their country for a pagan demigoddess. I haven't heard back from them since."

Steve nodded solemnly. "Bucky didn't have other relatives besides his parents. They died before the war started. My mother died during the Great Depression, so we only had each other. Then he died…" He looked at Kory. "We're really bad at keeping those we love alive, right?"

"Sadly." Kory tilted her head. "Though it's highly likely that Aaricia's better off."

"You'll be better off…" Steve got shushed by Kory pressing her cold finger on his lips.

"Don't finish that. Especially if you want to convince me that you were sincere last night," she warned him.

"I always am." He took her hand, planting a small kiss on it gallantly, causing Kory to blush. "Are you?"

Kory blinked at him. Her green eyes then turned to the lake in front of them. She got up and raised her hands, a blue aura illuminating them as her skin turned blue. Something sparkled on the lake's waters before a fog suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It covered them before dissolving. Steve and Kory were no longer in Central Park but in some sort of black-and-white mountainous forest under a dark night.

"Kory, what is this?" Steve looked around. He was especially confused when he saw how he and Kory looked like colorful ghosts compared to the old picturesque forest.

"A projection of my memory. After I ran away from home…" Kory pointed ahead of them. Steve noticed the ashamed expression on her face and looked at what she was pointing at. To his horror, what lied ahead was a black-and-white mass of ice. Not polished or perfectly smooth, but jagged and spiked. These spiked spears of ice were growing on the snowy ground, piercing through the stomach of what looked like World War II soldiers. Not just any soldiers, given how Steve recognized their uniforms' symbols despite the colorless blood staining them.

"HYDRA soldiers…" Steve gasped when he got closer and saw more than dozens of past HYDRA soldiers impaled by ice. He looked at Kory, who still looked ashamed. "You killed so many."

"I nearly killed a hundred. My powers were so uncontrollable…" Kory began before the gunshots interrupted her. She and Steve turned to the direction of the noises. Countless men were seen running in the forest, many were while some seemed to be carrying flamethrowers. To Steve's shock, one of the soldiers shot a beam of a familiar blue hue towards a shadow running in the distance. Another soldier, a superior judging by the uniform, shot the shooter in question.

"Idiots! Herr Schmidt wants the witch dead or alive, not disintegrated! Capture her!"

"Red Skull did know about you!" Steve gasped. "How could he have known?"

"The town drunkard, remember?" Kory said. In the memory, colossal shards of jagged ice grew from the ground, impaling to death another dozens of soldiers.

"Kory, it was winter in Norway! And at a time of diseases! You could have been mistaken for a hypothermia victim! Typhus possibly!" He pointed at the direction the soldiers were heading. "HYDRA hunted you down when the drunkard confirmed their suspicions, which meant that Red Skull was after you SPECIFICALLY!"

This seemed to be new to Kory as she blinked in confusion. "But I never ran into HYDRA after that… After…"

The memory blurred. Instead of where they were in the forest, they found themselves in a different part of the forest. This time, they were close enough to see a hole underneath a conifer, hidden by a thicket. Unseen by the soldiers that ran past it but seen by Steve and Kory. They saw the people hiding in the hole.

A younger Kory was in the hole. Steve couldn't believe how Kory's younger self was different than her current self: clothes coated in mud and branches, probably to camouflage herself, her bare feet and tattoo-less arms bandaged, longer hair tied in a braid, a loaded bag meant for a traveler planning to hide in the wilderness for escape, and most importantly, her Jotun appearance. She kept shaking, most likely not due to the cold, and her eyes were filled with horrified, scared agony.

Next to her was a young African woman, pining Kory to the ground while keeping her hidden next to her underneath her Basotho blanket. Her braided hair was tied up and she kept a concentrated look outside the hole while holding down Kory.

"Is that Abimbola?" Steve asked.

"Yes. This was after she caught me running. She pulled me aside and into her hideout." As Kory said that, frost was appearing under her younger self in the memory.

"You need to calm down," Abimbola firmly whispered to Kory. "Turn into your human self."

"I can't!" Kory-in-the-memory whimpered. "I'm a monster! I don't know what am I or who can help me! Everyone was right to despise me!"

"I don't even know you. Do I despise you?" Abimbola quietly snapped. "The only monster is your head telling you that you are." Abimbola held younger Kory's hand, startling the latter. When the frost started stinging on Abimbola's hand, younger Kory tried to pull her hand away, only for Abimbola to tighten her hold.

"Let go! You'll get hurt!"

"No, I won't! Concentrate and tell yourself that you CAN control your powers! Tell yourself that you can change back and forth because whatever you are, they are a part of you! Tell yourself that you know who you are! Tell yourself that you know you wouldn't purposely freeze me so you don't freeze me!"

"What tells me you won't kill me when I'm weakened?"

"Who do you want to tell you what you are? Me, or you?"

Abimbola's words had their effect. Younger Kory closed her eyes, inhaled, and the blue of her skin shifted into their human coloring. Despite the projected memory's black-and-white state, Steve knew her eyes were green when Younger Kory reopened them. Younger Kory smiled in joy when she saw herself human again. Abimbola pulled her and put herself in front of Kory, keeping the demigoddess hidden underneath her Basotho blanket while pulling out her mambele.

"Why are you helping me?" Younger Kory asked.

"I don't know why those Germans are after you, but no one deserves whatever is in their way. Why are they after you?"

"I don't know. I thought I was being chased because I'm Jewish, but I think they're after me because I'm blue."

"Then I guess you and I will be stuck together for a while…"

Kory chuckled as the memory dissolved and they were back in Central Park. "And we were stuck together for the rest of the war…"

"She was brave. She didn't even know you and she immediately protected you." Steve smiled. "No wonder you fell for her…"

"Hey, she fell for me first!" Kory protested with a smile as they decided to stroll a bit around the lake. "I was the most distant when it came to what we head. What we had meant the world to me, but I didn't want to lose her like I lost my mother. Then I let her in and I lost her…" Ice cracking interrupted her. She and Steve then saw how without any spectacular move, the lake's waters had frozen into perfectly smooth ice. "OK, I did not do that," Kory said.

The ice glowed until two large red-and-purple lights appeared, formatting into eye shapes.

"What is that?" Steve exclaimed.

"WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS IT, KORYANNA?" A deep voice shouted out of nowhere, but the blinking eyes suggested that they were the source of the voice.

"Why are you speaking to me?" Kory demanded in fury. "It's already bad enough when you torment me in my head! Since when do you go torment me in the living realm!"

"Kory, you know him?"

"ASK HER WHERE IT IS!" Steve looked alarmingly at the ice. Did the ice just talk to him? "TELL HER TO FIX IT! SHE NEEDS TO FIX IT OR ELSE EVERYONE WILL BE DESTROYED!"

"Don't you dare talk to Steve!" Kory pushed Steve aside as she confronted the talking ice. "He doesn't deserve any of your stupid speeches!"

"THEN TELL THE OTHERS I NEED TO HAVE A WORD WITH YOU PRIVATELY! AND BRING SOME OF YOUR GOULASH WHEN YOU! ALSO, TRY NOT TO GET YOUR LOVE INTEREST KILLED AGAIN!" The lights disappeared.

"Hey! Stop lecturing me!" Kory ran towards and started kicking on its now-liquid contents. "And you don't have the luxury of approving or disapproving Steve! Thanks to you, I'm screaming at a lake for no reason!" She kicked the water again, freezing it where she struck. When she marched away from the lake, frost was found on her footprints. "Steve, I need to clear my head in medium-hot cocoa and as much sugary goods as possible. You want any coffee before we get the stuff for that meeting?"

"Sounds reasonable." Steve followed her. "Kory, what was that?"

"Long story short, you just had the dishonor of meeting my great-great-grandfather."

Much later

One of the things that Kory could appreciate about Steve was that he didn't press on for specific topics. After she literally admitted that the 'talking ice' was her great-great-grandfather, Steve was startled but let in sink in and kept himself quiet as they went to the nearest café. He didn't even make a comment when Kory went for a technically unhealthy breakfast (a large Black Forest cake slice to go with her semi-hot chocolate coated with whipped cream, fudge, and sprinkles). Kory couldn't resist smiling when Steve decided to go along and get himself an apple pie slice to go with his coffee. Fortunately for them, they found a pretty nice booth table at the café, well secluded from the other tables.

"Feeling better?" Steve asked.

Kory took a sip of her drink. "Mentally? No, I'm not. Physically? I've been worse."

"Fair enough." Steve slightly poked his apple pie slice with his fork. "I'm really worried…"

"If it's about my…"

"I don't mean your great-great-grandfather, Kory." Steve looked at her. "I mean, yes, I do want to know about that, but I know there's things you don't want to talk about. I'm hoping we can because I'm worried about you, but right now? I'm more worried about why HYDRA was chasing you…"

"Steve, that was seventy years ago. They didn't catch me…" Kory lost her words when Steve reached out to hold her hands, startling her with their firm grasp.

"Kory, it's HYDRA! You lost your mother because they destroyed Tønsberg to get the Tesseract! When you were hunted down in the memory, one of the soldiers had a gun fueled by the Tesseract! Their weapons disintegrated people and destroyed towns!" Steve let out. "Red Skull believed in weaponizing what people think are myths! When we first captured your father and brought him to SHIELD, I found out that SHIELD kept HYDRA's weapons in their archives! They used them for research so SHIELD could make weapons of mass destruction using the Tesseract! Don't you get it? Red Skull knew about you, he could have weaponized you! I don't want you to end up in some sort of SHIELD lab and get experimented on!"

His hands actually trembled. Kory was stunned by his words. His blue eyes looked like they wanted to break from the worry. "Steve… That's… an understandably, heartwarming concern from you. I don't know what to say. But you do realize that I'm more worried about the cosmic and divine threats than mortals trying to play God, right?"

"Still doesn't put me at ease. After finding out that HYDRA weapons were being studied by SHIELD, I started to remain suspicious of them like Tony and Banner pointed out." Steve's hold softened. "I plan on doing more research. I don't like the idea that Red Skull knew about you. Whatever he wanted from you, I plan on finding it."

Kory smiled at Steve. She didn't understand it, but Steve's endless thoughtfulness was so warm, it painlessly melted her internal icy barriers. He was willing to put up so much for her despite how much of a burden she was. She sighed and gently pulled herself away from his grasp.

"My great-great-grandfather is Ymir. He's the first Jotun. Literally," Kory finally said quietly. "He's… the only member of my paternal family I actually met."

Steve tilted his head. "I thought you avoided interacting with Loki's side of the family? And why on Earth did he talk to you through ice?"

"Actually, he annoys me telepathically… OK, how to explain this…" Kory pinched her nose. "You know how I've been talking about the Tree of Life that supposedly connects all the Nine Realms?"

"Yes. And the mural of it in the church that caused you to learn who you are."

"Very good. So, as much as I hate going along with this nonsense of how the cosmos works, it's the only supernatural, logical explanation. The Frost Giants on Earth literally believe that Yggdrasil represents the magic flowing from the other realms onto Earth. You learned how to make knots in the military? Imagine making a knot out of nine colorful strings, you have this knot with many different colorful areas, and you decided to put pins anywhere you see a blue area. That's how the Frost Giants here explain the magic, or essence or whatever, flowing from Jotunheim to Earth to intertwine with the magic of the other realms…"

"And where there's a connection to Jotunheim, that's where the clans are," Steve finished. "Like the way you figure out how to set military bases on enemy turf."

"You got it." Kory gave him a pleased wink before getting serious. "So you get that principle. I obviously know the scientific explanation of how planets are formed and I believe in the universe being built within a week. Unfortunately for me, other people who see Yggdrasil as a real tree where flowing magic are the branches and roots, they see the realms as 'the fruits.' And in their perspectives, said fruits are titanic, conceptual beings of nature. Earth's cultures see their fruit as Mother Nature figures like Gaia. For the Frost Giants, the titan that bloomed from Yggdrasil to create Jotunheim from his own body was Ymir."

"Your great-great-grandfather is… how big is he?"

"Well, if Jotunheim is cosmically believed to be made out of his body, his foot would be the size of New York's six boroughs combined… And the American Frost Giants are convinced that if he lied down, his ass would crush California. Look, I know, it sounds creepy! Long story short, Ymir's the first Frost Giant ever, his body formed Jotunheim, and he spent the first millenniums self-mauling so that his ripped-up body could bring things to Jotunheim like glaciers, mountains, frozen forests, icy cold oceans, and eventually, the replicas that would become the first members of his people. Then, when he was done, he decided to just give the leadership to his actual biological children and practically killed himself by ripping off his head and heart."

Steve looked rather disgusted, he pushed aside his apple slice. "This is.. a disturbing new intake on Loki's side of the family. Why did your great-great-grandfather do that to himself?"

"How should I know?" Kory asked in exasperation. "Ancient mythology is weird! It's a miracle I haven't gone insane from the mere nonsense!"

"But Ymir survived his own intended suicide, right? He just talked to us… somehow."

"Brace yourself, the story gets weirder." Kory straightened herself on her seat. "First, he rips off his head and throws it at Earth for no reason whatsoever. Human records obviously show nothing, but the immortals native to Earth before Frost Giants came believe that Ymir's skull crashing on Earth was so hard, it caused the Ice Age. Then, Ymir shrunk his heart and gave it to his six sons and one daughter as a relic. Mind and heart separated, his soul then moved into some alternate dimension within Yggdrasil. Where there's ice, snow, winter, or Frost Giants, Ymir can see and hear everything. A lot of Frost Giants I've met firmly believe that whenever they hear some sort of rumbling in a blizzard, an avalanche roaring, or even glaciers breaking, they're the results of Ymir's agitations from what he sees. And we never know if he's happy or furious."

"What about his heart?"

"Well, my great-grandmother and her brothers kept the heart safe and used it to encourage the other Frost Giants into what would become their civilization. Unfortunately, and logically, they had archenemies prior to the Asgardians. Fire Giants from Muspelheim, the realm of Fire. Surtur was their equivalent of Ymir, only he could manifest into smaller sizes. His people tried to wage a war on Jotunheim, thinking that they could burn the realm to oblivion before the civilization was properly founded. Ymir's six sons perished to defend Jotunheim… My great-grandmother discovered that she could use the heart to freeze the Fire Giants to oblivion. She saved the realm, but Ymir wasn't happy with how she weaponized his heart, so she vowed to him that she would lock up the heart in a confinement that could only be used or opened by someone of Ymir's biological blood. Can you guess what she turned it into?"

Kory watched as Steve tapped his fingers against the table. "Well… if I heard right from all of Thor's stories… didn't his father confiscate from your grandfather a relic that could freeze people?"

"More like a lethal Ice Age Pandora's box, if you ask me." Kory crossed her arms and turned her head, hoping to hide the hint of fear in her eyes. "My great-grandmother built the Casket of Ancient Winters. It holds Ymir's heart. During her reign, she kept it in the throne room as a symbol of Jotun unity… Well, that didn't last well until she died, Laufey became king, and he went against her wishes and he weaponized it."

"That's horrible. But what does it have to do with you?"

"Besides the heart being in the Casket? Ymir's skull not only landed in Norway, but it landed and remained in the fjord of Tønsberg." Kory saw Steve' incredulous look. "What? Earth is literally called Midgard, the middle of Yggdrasil! People say that Yggdrasil's trunk goes through Norway. Tønsberg, specifically! It didn't seem like much of a coincidence for Laufey to use my hometown as a starting point. He didn't seem to know that Ymir's skull was fossilized deep in the fjord… which really angered Ymir. He thought that Laufey brought his heart to Earth to bring Ymir back among the physically living. In the end, not only did Laufey not know where the skull was, but he weaponized the heart in an attempt to colonize Earth. Jotunheim overpopulating was his excuse. As for me finding out about Ymir… I fell into his skull by accident."

"You fell into his skull by accident," Steve repeated in disbelief. "In the middle of a fjord?"

"It was in 2000. Ingrid Aybeer had funded an excavation project so the Jotunheimen Clan could collect remains of the original civil war to put on display. I was trying to dig out a buried ship when I tripped and fell into some rapids flowing towards an underground network that finally led into a cavern literally underneath the fjord… And… And…"
"Kory?"

Kory's hands were shaking and her fingers cut through the tablecloth. Without meaning to, getting agitated over the past event caused the café around them to blur. Kory couldn't move from her seat as she now witnessed the café turn into a colored, barely saturated underground cavern big enough to fit a cathedral. The walls were surrounded by fossilized skeletons, but on one wall was a massive skull. Made of pure ice sticking out of the rock and its mouth wide open enough, it could have put the biggest cruise ship in its mouth. In the memory, Kory looked almost like she did now, except her excavation suit was wet and covered in mud and Kory held out her hand to summon a glowing orb of blue light. Her own skull felt like breaking into ice cubes when the skull's empty eye sockets glowed with red and purple orbs that stared down at her past self. Her past self screamed in fright until the memory dissolved, courtesy of Steve shaking her back to her senses.

"Kory! Calm down!" Steve gestured at the frost that appeared underneath her fingers. Kory quickly summoned it away. Thinking she couldn't take it, she pulled Steve out of the café and into the park.

"We should get back to the tower," she said. "I think the others can skip my cooking at the meeting." Snow was beginning to fall from the sky in inconsistent patterns to match her panicked breathing.

"Did you destroy his skull?" Steve asked as they walked quickly.

"The clan chiefs I'm allies with helped me destroy Ymir's skull and they hid the fragments back in their clans." Kory shook. "I had to. Ymir terrified me."

"Did he try to kill you?"

"Worse. He actually sees me as family."

"Now I'm lost. 'Terrible' doesn't define Loki enough. Laufey was obviously just as bad, but what has Ymir done… besides self-harming himself in gruesome ways to create Jotunheim?"

Kory let out an amused snort. Steve's ignorance could be silly at times. "Well, he's like Anubis. Forced to watched mortal civilizations come and go, fall into self-corruption, and being left into non-existence. The only difference is that with Ymir, the Frost Giants know he still exists and is their equivalent of a physical god. They just haven't bothered to bring him back among them, too busy fighting in their civil wars and creating clans. Doesn't help that humans keep worsening global warming and melting ice caps. DEFINITELY doesn't help that Laufey and Loki were both on Earth and never ONCE bothered to stop by."

"His feelings were hurt?" Steve frowned. "He sounds sensitive."

"I guess… Honestly, it's just weird for me. You know how some people have like this odd relative that really loves them and would outright dote them but is unbearable to be with because of their personality? Usually says trashy stuff like 'I don't like this non-white person you're dating', 'I think all people from this group are terrorists', or 'Why are they telling you that homosexuality is good?' You know?" Kory sighed. "Ymir is like that, except with him, he's more 'Why can't you accept that I think you'd make a better ruler than the rest of our family, you're worthy, we could be a great team, and yattee-yatta.' What's worse, the self-harming, the family betrayal, and how civilizations changed… really did a number on him."

"He sees you as probably the only real family he has," Steve concluded. "And because you aren't a power-hungry conqueror like Loki or Laufey, he probably thinks you'd make a better ruler, just like your great-grandmother. Maybe that's why the Frost Giants on Jotunheim insist that you lead them. You won't abuse the power."

"But I don't want the power, Steve!" Kory paused in her tracks to block him.

"I'm not telling you to want it, Kory. I'm saying it's because you don't want it that they want you. You told me yourself, Ymir was upset when your great-grandmother weaponized his heart, when Laufey used the Casket to conquer Tønsberg without even looking for him, and when Loki never went to look for him when he invaded Earth. You ran into Ymir by accident and he sees that you didn't seek power when you ran into him! Isn't that how it started, the prejudiced stories that Frost Giants are power-hungry, conquering monsters? It's only the actions of limited people and the perspectives of those with higher positions that lead to these beliefs, which is followed by persecutions! You defy those prejudices, you're what they see as a worthy ruler, and all this because in the end, you're not trying to prove anything. You're you."

Kory's heart swelled at his words. She fought back the tears above her smile and rushed to give Steve a hug. He returned the gesture, piling up all the human warmth she had missed out on in decades.

"If I had a krone for every time your words hit me where I need it…" She sighed.

"You'd be richer than the king of Norway?" Steve guessed.

"Hilarious." Kory's hold on him tightened. "But seriously, Ymir's dangerous," she said seriously. "If his skull and heart ever unified, his soul would transition out of Yggdrasil and into his reincarnated body. The first thing he'll do is turn everyone into Frost Giants and if you even get near a lethal area, I will start killing people!"

"I wouldn't be surprised. You're dangerous."

"Idiot."

"Jerk."

They let out some chuckles. Kory found herself blushing when she looked at his blue eyes. However, when their faces were getting closer, Kory was the one to halt it.

It's not that she didn't like him. He made that impossible.

It's not that being with her would kill him.

She just worried, deep within her, that she might be betraying Abimbola.

Kory pulled away from him but passed off from a cold shoulder by holding his hand in hers. The small smile and nod that Steve gave her was a relief. It was telling her that he understood.

They kept walking hand-in-hand out of the park and took their way to the Avengers Tower just in time to hear a beastly roar.