The Art of Lore: Chapter 8: a brave man sits not considering
Author: starhawk2005
Fandom: Marvel's Avengers
Date: Sept 2021
Pairing: Loki/ Jane (Lokane)
Rating: Adult (18+).
Summary: Loki and Jane leave the water world of Nidavellir for the fiery world of Muspelheim.
Author's Note: Nope, not dead. But this COVID-thing, among other personal tragedies that have happened over the last year, have made it extremely difficult to keep up with this. I'm still trying, though!
Disclaimer: Marvel owns it all, except for the occasional OC.
The rest of their week on Nidavellir is just as marvelous and fascinating to Jane.
Loki first takes her to visit one of the Dwarves' forges, where she watches and takes notes and videos (with the Dwarf blacksmith's grudgingly flattered permission, of course) of the creation of an elaborately jeweled belt for their King.
Jane is equally taken by the building full of steampunk-esque engines, which are yet another puzzling merging of science and magic, that distill the seawater so that the Dwarves can drink it.
Through it all, Jane has to smile and shake her head. Poor Tolkien was SO off-base!
Loki is equally amused by Jane's obsessive note-taking and videoing. "As I have noted before, my love, your memory is more than equal to the task. Why the need for such a detailed external record?"
To which Jane answers: "It's not just for me. Darcy will want the full play-by-play, right? Heck, maybe Fury too."
Loki's eyebrow arches even higher. "Given the many travails he has put you through, I am surprised you would be willing to do anything for that mortal."
Jane sighs. "It's his job, OK? Besides, like it or not, he's holding the purse strings if I ever want to get my Bridge rebuilt."
He's mystified by the expression she used, so she goes on: "I can't rebuild without SHIELD's resources. And he's the head of SHIELD, so keeping him happy is probably a good idea."
At this, Loki glides over and folds his arms around her. "If it is a question of wealth, I assure you I am more than equal-"
She kisses him to forestall his protest. "Never mind. It's our honeymoon, our time, and I don't want to think about all that just yet. Besides, I like taking these records, OK? I'm a researcher, in case you hadn't noticed."
He seems satisfied with that. For now, anyway.
As the days pass they continue to tour the Dwarven city. Jane can't help but be impressed by the workmanship of the buildings, of the statues in the public squares (if that's the right word for them, since they're usually more round or oval in shape), and even the structure of the squares themselves, with their high arched domes of transparent, glass-like stone, looming like giant bubbles above their heads.
The highlight of the visit, however, winds up having little to do with the Dwarves' artistry. That's the morning she wakes up, stretches, and hops out of bed to find Loki seated at the room's braided-metal table, poring over a book nearly five inches thick. And old, judging by the dust on it.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"Reviewing a spell I have not had cause to use in some time," he replies. Jane squints past him at the delicately formed symbols on the pages, but of course it's all Norse to her.
"What kind of spell?"
At this, Loki closes the book with a snap, smiling secretively. "You shall see soon enough, beloved. After you have dressed and broken your fast."
Try as she might, she's unable to get nothing else out of him, except that smug smile. Pretending annoyance, she flounces off and gets dressed.
True to his word, after a huge breakfast (surrounded as always by suspicious, taciturn dwarven company), Loki leads Jane away down a new corridor, one they hadn't been down yet during their previous explorations.
As usual, Jane keeps wanting to stop and admire the corals, and the astonishing array of creatures she can see swimming above and around them, but Loki keeps urging her on. Finally the hallway comes to an end with an archway at least twice Loki's height, shrouded by a shimmering curtain that Jane now recognizes is an indication that the waters lie on the other side.
"Are we going out there? In one of the Dwarven submarine-things?" Jane asks excitedly. She's wanted to take a closer look at the ocean life ever since their initial walk through the Dwarven city.
"You shall soon discover, my Jane," Loki answers, smirking mysteriously. Closing his eyes for a moment, he makes a pass or two in the air between them, pale green light spilling from his fingers. Fascinated as always, Jane watches in interested silence.
When his eyes open again he steps in front of her, and she can't stop herself from jumping a little in surprise as he settles his still-glowing hands on her, one on either side of her face. Her skin tingles in response. "That tickles," she comments.
Loki cocks his head, eyes narrowing. "Your sensitivity to magic asserts itself once again," he observes. After a beat, shaking his head slightly, the smirk reappears on his lips as his palms slide down the sides of her neck in a slow caress, then both his hands curve around to the front of her throat, above the enameled snake necklace she put on this morning.
He shifts even closer and Jane expects him to kiss her, but that tingly touch continues its slow journey down, over her collarbones and the tops of her breasts, and then to and down her sternum, before slipping down to her belly. Then finally he pulls away, before she can scold him for crossing the line into 'inappropriate for public'. Jane's cheeks colour anyway, but when she glances down the corridor behind them, there are no witnesses.
"OK, what was that all about?" she shoots up at him, putting her hands on her hips. He grins back, then hooks his arms around her and pulls her flush against him. He does kiss her this time, and very thoroughly at that.
By the time he releases her, she's breathless. His hands've stopped glowing, she notes fuzzily. It takes her a further moment to realize he's turned towards the magical-curtain thing and is waiting for her, hand outstretched towards her invitingly.
She takes it and they walk through the curtain…and right into the open ocean.
Jane gasps, first at the coolness of the water, and then again as she realizes- I can breathe!
They are standing on the shell-studded sands of the ocean floor, life teeming around them, and yet somehow her clothes and hair and satchel of cameras and notepads are still dry, and- I can BREATHE!
Totally floored, she turns to Loki. "How?" she blurts excitedly. Was this some feature of the planet's waters themselves (unlikely, given the Dwarven use of submersibles)? Some special magic wreathed close around the city? Or was this the purpose of the spell Loki had just cast on her?
Except all that comes out of her mouth is: "Hhhhhhhhhhhhhh."
Still smirking, Loki taps his temple with a finger. The waters do not permit speech. Even my prowess with magic cannot defeat that fundamental law of Nature. We must needs speak in a more…direct fashion.
Jane blinks, mouth falling open (luckily, the water somehow doesn't come rushing into it). She'd just heard Loki's voice in her head, as clear as her own thoughts!
Can you hear me? she thinks, feeling like she's in the world's most weird Verizon ad.
Of course, he thinks back at her, the tones of his mental voice as smugly haughty as if he'd spoken aloud. He extends his elbow courteously towards her. Shall we?
Jane would later decide, based on her memories of watching recordings of Neil Armstrong on the moon, that walking on Earth's satellite must have felt much like this. Although Loki's magic is obviously keeping them from floating all the way up off the ocean floor (and keeping the no-doubt tremendous pressure from crushing them to death), the water's buoyancy still makes their steps more like slow, high bounds than like typical walking.
Feeling like a child again, Jane giggles, clutching tightly to Loki's warm hand. At last the novelty of walking like this wears off, and the allure of the ocean life around them takes over, and she stops to fumble for her cameras.
She snaps pictures of something attached to the corals, which looks like a three-armed starfish with a compound eye in the middle of its arms. There are also corals that look like giant Slinky springs, their bioluminescent colours constantly shifting and changing. There's also the thing that looks like a giant aquatic centipede, transparent and glowing, and as big and long as Jane's forearm.
There are larger beasts too, spotted and striped in bright oranges and blues, who seem to communicate to each other with timed sprays of bubbles in a kind of undersea Morse Code, and creatures like octopuses on steroids, their long bodies sporting upwards of twenty arms, each ending in almost human-like fingers.
But perhaps the greatest marvel is the singing. It isn't loud and it isn't coming from any of the fish or other creatures, but from the corals themselves. She keeps stopping to listen to the soft, chiming notes of it. When she asks Loki about it, he explains even the Dwarves do not know the purpose of the coral's song, but all agreed it was best not to disturb it, or the corals, for the health of the ocean all depends upon their continuing health.
Jane loses track of time out there, but finally her energy begins to flag and her stomach to growl, and they turn and make their slow, bouncy, meandering way back to the city.
How? Jane keeps wondering, stealing a peek now and then at her arm, or down at her shoes as small puffs of sand explode around them at each step she takes. How did Loki even do this? Is his spell creating some kind of force-field around us, millimeters above our skin and clothes, holding a thin layer of air all around our bodies, and that's why I'm not soaked…but I can still somehow feel the water?
As well as some kind of magical filter, to keep the water out of our mouths and noses? And what about this sudden telepathic ability? Why's he never used it before? Despite herself, her mind takes a darker turn, for a moment remembering her imprisonment by The Other, and later by Thanos. If she and Loki had been able to communicate, it would've been that much less of a horrific experience!
Yanking her mind back to the much-preferable present time, she nevertheless is unable to resist asking Loki (mind-to-mind, ironically) about this newfound telepathic ability.
You are no doubt curious as to why I have not employed this spell before. At her confirming nod, he continues: The reasons are two. One, it is a very short-range spell, and improved immensely by contact. He holds up their joined hands to illustrate.
Two, I have little skill in this particular sphere. I have never felt it was much needed, to speak to another in such a fashion. Therefore, should I decide otherwise, I will have to spend many months in quiet study and practice, to make it more effective and for it to have a much wider sphere of influence.
Oh, Jane thinks back at him. She'd never realized there could be so many parallels between their lives; what he had just said sounded a lot like the process of research that Jane knew so well.
So the 'ocean-walk' had definitely been the highlight of her visit to Nidavellir.
There hadn't been much else left to do after that. Other than bathing, sparring, and working their metals, the Dwarves didn't seem to do much in the way of hobbies. There were no theater performances, and few sporting competitions, for example.
One other difference Jane notes - everywhere they'd gone on Alfheim, there had been Elf children: smaller, more hyper versions of their parents, and often found trailing after Jane and Loki in curiosity, giggling behind their hands.
But here?
She turns over in their bed, pulling the smooth sheets up to her chin and snuggling into Loki's side.
"Loki?"
"Hm?" he answers absently.
"Where are all the Dwarven kids? They don't hatch full-grown from eggs or something, do they?"
He surprises her with a deep belly laugh, his arm tightening to draw her closer. "No. But the Dwarves are a long-lived people. It is not rare for them to live til the ripe old age of five- or six-hundred years, by Asgardian count. So they rarely feel a need to reproduce, and if and when they do, it is usually only within the first one-hundred years of their lives. As well, the progeny they do have quickly grow to adulthood and are indistinguishable from their elders, after a brief period."
"Huh."
"They do not even marry," Loki continues, anticipating her further questions. "There is not even a word for that in the Dwarven language. They will 'couple' for a time to assist their child into adulthood, but once that is over, the Dwarven parents go their separate ways again. All Dwarves, male and female, are far too much enamoured of their metal-craft to waste time on things so 'petty' as love and companionship."
Jane rolls up on her elbows and gazes into his face, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. He's got to be putting her on.
But he seems entirely serious. She sighs and rests her cheek on his pectoral. "That's just sad."
"Is it? When first we met, though in your heart you had recently pined for Thor, for many years previously your sole true companion was your work."
Jane's jaw drops open as she pops back up on her elbows to glare at him. "What? OK, who told you?" It can't have been Erik; the two men had an uneasy truce, which was entirely understandable, so that left- "It was Darcy, wasn't it?" Jane groans loudly and wonders what other embarrassing secrets of hers Darcy has spilled to Loki. Or to anyone else, for that matter!
He tugs her back down against his chest. "Do not be angry with Lady Darcy, my love. She shared that tidbit in the context of telling me how glad she was that we had 'worked things out', as she phrased it. I do not think she meant to be disrespectful in any way. For once," Loki adds with his familiar smirk.
Jane snorts. Then her stomach growls loudly enough to be heard by both of them, so she kisses Loki before rolling out of bed. "Time for breakfast, I guess?"
"Yes," Loki nods. "And then it is time to move on."
"Oh?" Just as well. Her eyes stray to the piles of goods stacked on the floor and the tables in their rooms.
After their ocean exploration, there'd been little else to do but visit the many bazaars and markets, and as always, the experience had been rather uncomfortable for her. Everything her gaze had rested on for more than two fractions of a second, Loki was always rushing to purchase, and it still bothered her as much as it always did. What the heck was she going to do with fifty different necklaces, as beautifully worked and bejeweled as they were? She certainly didn't go to that many formal events back on Earth, and unless they moved permanently to Asgard…
She stops that train of thought right there. That's yet another big discussion she's sure they'll have to have, but not now. Now is for them, and for both of them to recover after what they've been through. All the big, weighty decisions can just wait.
"Yes. Have you any thoughts on which Realm you would care to see next?" His tone is light, but his gaze locked with far too much interest on the exquisite workmanship of a bedpost, rather than on Jane. She sighs internally. Much as she would love for this trip to be totally stress-free for them both, she's well aware that two future destinations on the list – Asgard and Jotunheim – are going to probably be a challenge for Loki. For different reasons, of course, but there it is.
And maybe Earth will be problematic, too? she wonders. It's not like he's a popular guy, not after what happened in Manhattan.
At least she can put all that off for a little while.
"OK, what about that place that was all fire and lava?" After a world of mostly water, why not? Add to that her curiosity about the place that could produce those gorgeous little (and not-so-little!) fiery gems. "What was it called, again?"
"Muspelheim," Loki supplies. Is it just her projecting her assumptions onto him, or does he seem relieved at her choice?
Regardless, Jane packs up her cameras and notes and clothes, before Loki makes everything vanish into his Interdimensional Closet (so useful!). They have breakfast down in the Hall with the usual group of Dwarves, who do their best to ignore them.
Then apparently they must go before the King to thank him for his hospitality. Ugh, Jane grimaces, remembering how differently (and much more warmly) this had gone with Ar'tora. The Elven Queen and her Consort, with absolutely zero ceremony, had pressed Loki and Jane's hands with theirs and wished them a 'pleasant sojourn through the rest of the Realms'.
The Dwaven King doesn't leave his throne. Actually, he barely raises his eyes from a scroll he's currently reading.
"Inestimable King," Loki proclaims, executing a graceful bow anyway, which Jane does her best to imitate. "My honoured wife and I thank you, as does Asgard, for your boundless hospitality." Jane has to bite her lip hard against a snort. Laying it on a little thick, isn't he?
"Ye'll be taking yer leave, then?" the King asks in bored tones.
"Yes, my King, and may I just say-"
"Thanks be to the Great Waters," The King interrupts. "Ye Midgardian-" He finally raises his gaze from the scroll, pinning Jane with a fierce stare. "Be mindful of that one." He indicates Loki with a sideways jerk of his bearded chin. "Mark well my words: Honour is an attribute entirely foreign to him. He'll abandon ye the moment he thinks it expedient."
Loki's body tenses ever-so-slightly, but like the consummate diplomat he is, his tone is still supplicating when he protests "But, O Wise King-"
But said King has already raised the scroll to block the view of his unwanted guests, and from the corner of her eye Jane glimpses the Dwarven Guards beginning to converge on them. I think we've just been dismissed.
"Uh, thanks? Right, take care." Jane tugs urgently at Loki's elbow, trying to get him to turn and leave. Will Loki offer a chilly bow and then stalk calmly out of there with her, chin held high in affronted dignity? Or will he draw his daggers and engage with the Palace Guard-
Instead her view of the room and people around them turns blindingly to white. Trust Loki to make as dramatic an exit as he can, she thinks with dry amusement.
When his teleportation spell finishes, they're standing on a stone terrace that seems familiar to Jane. It could be the one they originally landed on when the Einstein-Rosen bridge first brought them here. The sun beats down from a clear, cloudless sky, the comet hangs in the air just above the waters on the horizon, and the cold salty air tickles at her nose once more.
"Uuuuhhh," she blurts, suddenly puzzled. "I thought you couldn't teleport to the Dwarven city. Why did we spend all that time on the boat, if we could just've 'beamed' over there?" And I could've avoided my seasickness!
Loki raises an aristocratic brow. "What I said before is true; I could not. But what I had not explained, is that Dwarven spells have a tendency to be quite…specific. Efficient, they would likely say. One cannot teleport to, or even within, their fair cities. However, if a mage like myself is inclined to leave that way, apparently they are not averse to that." He smirks.
Oh. "Well, that's one way to get rid of people quickly," Jane concedes, grinning up at him.
"So you wish to visit Muspelheim next?"
"Sure, why not?" Almost against her will, Jane raises her wrist. After being reminded of the fire-gems this morning, she'd decided to wear the necklace and bracelet of them to breakfast. Now she recalls more than one Dwarf shooting sidelong glances at her jewels during the meal.
She can hardly blame the Dwarves; at the moment she can hardly resist admiring the stones in the clear sunlight. They're even more gorgeous than they were in the torchlit halls of the Dwarves, casting ever-shifting little spits of orange and red against her skin.
Loki laughs. "If you are so enamoured of those tiny gems, beloved, I am curious to what extent you will be enthralled by this one," he declares, sweeping his arm through the air in an extravagant gesture as he steps closer to her. When he turns his hand over the palm is now filled with a large fire-stone. In fact, Jane would swear she's seen it before-
"Oh. My. God." She hesitates to take it, even though he's obviously offering it to her. "Let me guess. That isn't a stone like the one you gave the Dwarf King. It is the one you gave the Dwarf King." The expression of glee dancing in his eyes tells her she's bang-on in her guess.
"He was so boorish the entire time we were there, why should I not reclaim my gift?" As Jane still has not taken it, Loki spins the gem in his hand with a deft twist of his wrist, her eyes following the spinning lights the move produces. "I suppose now would be a poor time to mention that I also relieved one of the King's storehouses of a bushel or two of their finest gold filament?"
With an effort Jane tears her eyes away from the light-show, scowling up at him. "Loki, pissing them off even more than they already are is probably a very, very bad idea!"
She still has not taken the gem from him, and with a shrug Loki snaps his fingers. It shimmers out of existence once more. "Oh, no doubt Odin will smooth things over, as he always does. For all their bluster, they are too dependent on shipments of wood and other essential sundries from Asgard to take much in the way of revenge, I assure you."
That doesn't exactly excuse his behaviour, but Jane knows better by now than to argue. Loki lives by his own personal code, that's been evident since they first met. Besides, it's not like she's dependent on the Dwarves and their good-will in any way, nor does she intend to be in the future.
I don't like Odin enough either, to want to spare him the aggravation of having to play peacemaker with the Dwarves. Maybe that's even ultimately why Loki seems determined to piss them off – it's yet another way to get back at Odin for being such a poor father.
So she only shakes her head and smiles up at her husband. "I just can't take you anywhere, can I?"
He scoffs, but a smirk hovers on his lips. Then he cocks his head, looking at her speculatively. "Speaking of travel, before we depart for Muspelheim, there are preparations to be made."
"Huh? What d'you mean? Don't tell me you forgot to pack something into your 'Interdimensional Closet'."
"Not precisely. Here-" he makes a plucking motion in the air, then hands her a pair of butter-soft leather boots she's never seen before. Jane pauses to admire them a moment before exchanging them for the other Asgardian boots she'd put on this morning. The runes etched into the leather are intricate enough to rival anything she's seen on this planet of craftspeople, and is it her imagination, or is that a glimmer of green light along the edges of each symbol-
"And here-" Loki interrupts her train of thought, handing her a long shift of white fabric with a golden belt, both also marked with runic symbols. "You should exchange your current outer garments for these. And I assure you we are cloaked from view, although no one is near enough to witness you disrobing," he adds, anticipating her scandalized refusal to change here in the middle of the open terrace.
Jane rolls her eyes but turns her back on him, quickly changing as fast as she can. I'll never get used to these Asgardian customs.
As soon as she finishes he strides past her to the terrace railing. Facing the panoramic view of ocean and sky, he spreads his arms wide and shouts words in a language unfamiliar to Jane, the sounds ringing off the rocks around them. Even in the intense sunlight, Jane can see the pale green glow coalescing around his hands.
His arms drop as he turns to face her again, his eyes closed in concentration.
He then moves in front of her, though he leaves some space between them. Watching her husband, Jane realizes he's writing symbols in the air between them; they exist briefly, floating and shimmering, then dissolve into smoke.
Loki's hands are still glowing faintly when he opens his eyes once more. Just like when he cast the spell to let them walk on the ocean floor, he now steps right into Jane's personal space.
"What are you doing? And don't just say 'Magic'!" she warns him.
He laughs low, leaning in to brush his lips across hers. "Inquisitive wife. To satisfy your burning curiosity, I will explain as best I can. You feel the breeze here, yes?"
Despite the sun blazing above them the wind, salt-tinged and cold, gusts strongly where they are standing, whipping her hair and his, causing his cape to flap loudly, and her cheeks to sting ever-so-slightly.
"I could hardly miss it." She notes.
His grin lengthens. "I am using it to fuel a spell." He raises a hand to stop her question, as he continues: "I explained to you recently how magic can be sourced. As a mage and a god, I can take the power directly from myself – my bones, my strength, my life-force. But that will leave me tired and drained, and whenever possible, I prefer to source it from the natural world. The chill in the air here, relatively mild as it is, and the power of the winds, is enough of a base to start from."
But…? When she opens her mouth to ask a question, he puts his fingertips lightly to her lips to silence her. She stills and his hand drops to her chin, raising her face and holding it still, his other hand moving to her forehead, and the familiar tickle skates across her senses. He's tracing some shape there, on her skin. Another symbol, or could it be lettering of some kind?
In a low voice her murmurs to her: "Muspelheim, as you know, is a world of fire. Of molten rock and searing heat. It is nothing to such beings as myself, but your fragile mortal flesh would be reduced to cinders in mere moments. Even one breath of the Muspel air would sear your lungs to blackened ash and spell your immediate end. And I value your company far too much to allow that." He smirks and presses a quick kiss to her mouth, before tracing more tingling symbols onto her cheeks.
"So, you're-" her breath catches as he tilts her head gently back, tracing more symbols in a horizontal line across her throat, above the snake necklace she put on again this morning, "-protecting me. Making me fireproof?"
He chuckles. "Essentially." He pulls aside the fabric of the shift to bare her sternum and her breath catches, but he only traces another set of symbols over the spot. His next act is to write another symbol on the palm of each of her hands. This time Jane can clearly see the lines of the runes glowing faintly for a moment, before they fade away.
Loki then crouches at her feet, urging her to lean on him for support as he removes each of her boots, one at a time, to draw more symbols on the top and sole of each foot. She winces, her fingers digging into him reflexively – it tickles! – but it's over quickly.
He assists her to put on her boots again and gets back to his feet, looming over her. Just when she thinks he's done, his hands grasp the front of her shift, bunching the fabric. His grin sharklike, he gathers the cloth, pulling it up and up, until her belly is bared to the chilly air.
Jane squeals, her hands catching at his though she has no chance at all of prying that iron grip loose. He's still wearing that grin as one of his hands drops to touch her newly-uncovered skin, his slow caress gradually morphing into more of the spell-writing.
Funnily enough, Jane discovers if she focuses hard enough, she can feel the magic contained in those long fingers, as if the molecules and atoms of his flesh are subtly vibrating. When she's not too busy squirming, anyway.
"Forgive me, beloved. I only wish to be thorough." His leer clearly indicates that he's enjoying her discomfort.
"Bullshit," she retorts, though half-heartedly. "You're loving this way too much."
"Perhaps an infinitesimal amount," he allows, using his grip on the shift to hold her still as he traces a final symbol on her belly. "But as much as I am entertained by your squirming – as always – it is merely an additional reward. A spell such as this requires certain 'anchor points', if you will, as well as boundaries."
"B-boundaries?" she asks, her breath catching. Yikes, that tickles!
"Indeed." At last, his eyes gleam mischievously as he tucks her shirt back in for her, his hands unreasonably slow to accomplish this task. "That is one of the very first things you learn as a mage. If boundaries are not set on one's spells, the results can be most unpleasant."
"How?"
"The spell could draw far too much power from its source, either weakening or destroying it. For spells sourced from the strength or will of the mage themselves, you can see the obvious dangers."
Jane nods, fascinated.
"And then there are lesser, though often no less dangerous possible consequences, Let us take for example the spell against heat and fire I just worked on your person. Had I not limited it to your physical body, I would be expending energy needlessly, and I would exhaust myself very quickly. But let us consider another potential problem: that I set the spell to be indeterminate in length. Or perhaps permanent. And then, forgetting that I had done so, we visited Jotunheim." His mouth tightens, and Jane doesn't think it's entirely because of the problem he's describing.
She attempts to put two-and-two together, to bring his attention back to her. "If I was cold, and tried to warm myself up…"
He nods. "It would fail. Oh, no doubt it would prove a minor inconvenience, as I would be there to instantly remedy the situation. But what if I was not? It could mean a slow, painful end for you. It is the same for any other spell. Unchecked, you can imagine how disastrous certain spells can be. Ones that suppress hunger, or that mask exhaustion…"
She nods. "Makes sense to me." But at the reminder of cold, and of Jotunheim, she can't help wondering why he's bothering to heat-proof her at all. He's a Frost Giant, right? Can't he use his Jotun powers?
But she knows the answer to that. He may be more at peace with the idea he's not Asgardian, but that doesn't mean he's accepted being a Jotun. Not yet, anyway.
"Shall we, then?" He takes her hand.
"Sure," she agrees.
The scenery swirls to white around them as Loki's teleportation spell whisks them away.
Jane doesn't believe in Hell – she's a scientist, after all – but if she did, Muspelheim would certainly fit the bill.
When Loki's teleportation spell concludes, only the colour of the light burning through the lids of her closed eyes changes. White becomes orange, but the glare barely reduces.
Squinting, Jane tries to shield her eyes with her hand. Beside her Loki mutters something, and it's like someone has slipped sunglasses over her eyes, the searing brilliance reduced to something tolerable.
They seem to be standing on the side of a mountain, high enough that she can see for miles.
Jane is rendered speechless. After what Loki showed her in those bubbles of illusion he cast before their honeymoon started, she expected the erupting volcanoes and the shooting geysers of sulfurous water. Just…not so damn MANY of them.
Row upon row of jagged volcanoes lies between them and the horizon, most of them hurling lava high into the air. The air is thick with toxic steam, gases that would probably have killed Jane instantly if not for Loki's spells, and through the soles of her boots Jane is aware of a low, steady rumble in the earth. Ash falls around them constantly, drifting like blackened snow.
Much like on the planet of the Dark Elves, the sky is obscured by overlapping layers of yellowed clouds. Enough of them shift and move in the strong, poisonous wind to allow Jane to realize there's a sun behind them; occasionally it sends flashing spears of light down to the ground.
"Wow, this is a hospitable place," she observes dryly.
"Indeed," Loki chuckles. "I am sure you would be unsurprised to learn that few Midgardians have ever set foot here. And when they did, needless to say, their visits were…brief." The hot, turbulent winds tug the long strands of his hair against his cheeks.
"I'll bet," Jane agrees. They'd probably been consumed instantly, if Loki's earlier statements are anything to go by.
She squints up at the clouds, pushing windblown hair out of her own face. "How many suns does this planet have?" Shafts of piercing light keep breaking through the cloud-cover, but in several widely-spaced spots within the same quadrant of sky. At least two or three suns, she guesses.
"Only the single one. But it is enough, I daresay." Loki reaches upwards, making a twisting motion, and the clouds part for just a moment. Long enough for Jane to realize that there's only one sun there.
"Oh. My. God." It's HUGE. No wonder this planet is literally boiling.
She looks around again at the hellscape, batting at a large clump of ash that seems to be trying to land square on her nose. "Wait, did you say that people actually live here?" That seems impossible to her.
"If you could consider Fire Giants as a sort of 'people', yes." His voice is strained, and glancing over at him, Jane notes the frown bracketing his mouth. Now she remembers that he'd told her once that Fire Giants and Frost Giants are the same in many ways. And he considers the Frost Giants – and himself – to be monsters.
"Loki-" she starts to say, wanting to reassure him somehow, but he forestalls her by plucking his telescope from his Closet and handing it to her. "Train your gaze on that region, there-" he points, "-and you will see some of the denizens of this fiery world."
She looks in the direction he's pointing in, and realizes she can indeed see some distant shapes teeming along the side of one of the volcanoes. An active volcano, no less.
She raises the instrument to her eye to see these beings better. It's impossible to tell how 'giant' they actually are, but they certainly are different from anyone she's encountered so far on this trip through space. Where they are not dirtied from the ashy 'snowfall', their pale orange skin looks as craggy as the rocks they are carrying.
"What are they doing?" she asks, passing Loki the telescope.
"Mining, most likely. Muspel gems are formed in the hearts of active volcanoes. Or they are mining the ore required to make their weapons."
"Weapons?"
"Oh yes. There are several clans of Fire Giants, and they are forever at war. Resources are few and far between on a world such as this, and one must battle to hold onto or to possess them. But they will also take on conflicts with other Realms. They are perennial foes of the Frost Giants," he continues, his voice carefully bland, "and also occasionally of Asgard. Indeed, with Asgard weakened by Thanos' recent attack, they will probably attempt to take advantage. It is consistent with their past attacks on Asgard, in any case."
Jane's brows pinch together, but Loki steps towards her, sliding his arm reassuringly around her waist. "Fear not, Jane. They are not, and have never been, much of a threat to Asgard."
"Are they a threat to us?" Jane has to ask. "Is it why you insist on wearing that armour all the time?"
He flashes her a quick grin. "I do not expect to engage in any battles here. I am already concealing us from their gaze and hearing, and will continue to do so. Still, it is never imprudent to be prepared. Besides, why not wear my amour constantly? It is made from the finest Asgardian leather. And you seem to appreciate how it looks on me." He leers suggestively down at her.
Jane gives him a little shove, shaking her head, but she also smiles at his antics.
Compared to 'civilized' worlds like Alfheim and Nidavellir, there isn't much to see or do on Muspelheim. The vistas are certainly something to behold, from towering, seething volcanoes to the rivers of steaming lava and poisonous waters that flow everywhere between them.
But there isn't much else. There's hardly any vegetation, and what exists is like desiccated cacti. Water? Not unless steam counts. And the constant rain of ash is somehow…depressing. Everything that isn't covered in lava is coated in grey and black from it. They probably would be, too, if not for Loki's spells.
There are also few animals. Jane sees several reptilian-like creatures skittering among the rocks now and then. Most of them are about as long as her hand, ten-legged, and striped to match the ash-stained rocks. It's almost impossible to see them unless they move. Loki tells her some of these lizard-like things can grow as long as thirty feet. Wow.
There are some flying creatures as well. They remind her somewhat of pterodactyls – if the latter had an extra set of smaller wings behind the first set, and was overall the size of a parakeet. They too seem to tend towards camouflaging themselves, their skins mottled in hundreds of shades of greys.
And then there are the insects. They remind her most of giant beetles, though their antennae are nearly six times as long, and they also have ten legs. She steers clear of them as they have long, wicked-looking mandibles, even after Loki assures her that they would not find her flesh to their liking. Apparently they gnaw on the rocks and extract minerals and nutrients that way.
Wow, this place is….something. How anything or anyone can live here just proves how adaptable life can be.
"Is there nothing green on this planet?" Jane has to ask at one point, after stepping aside from another grey, trundling beetle.
Loki chuckles. "Yes, though not on the surface. I will show you later. For now, there is a village near here, should you care to take a closer look."
Although she's kinda nervous about it, despite Loki's spells and assurances, he boldly walks them right through the heart of the collection of about thirty dwellings. Reassuringly, the Fire Giants don't notice them at all.
Although these people do tower over her and Loki, Jane can't help feeling a little let down. They're tall, but to her, 'giant' should mean, well, GIANT!
But maybe that's for the best. Loki is a Frost Giant – a 'small' one, supposedly – so if he was as tall as a mountain, I doubt we could've made us work. The mental image of him trying to make love to her, while being as tall as a sequoia, makes her grin.
You're assuming Fire Giants and Frost Giants are around the same size, though, she reminds herself. But she's not sure Loki will react well to her asking about it. In any case, they'll be visiting Jotunheim soon enough, so the answer is forthcoming.
She turns her attention back to the village; there's no drifts of ash littering the ground here, she notices. It swirls through the air far above them – Jane can see it if she tilts her head back and stares straight up into the grey sky – but somehow it is billowing around and past the village. Must be Fire-Giant magic. Wonder if they can teach me to use a similar spell to keep dust out of my apartment and the lab? Jane wonders with a grin.
Their homes are essentially multi-room huts made of neatly stacked rock, and with a particular symbol on each hut to the right of each doorway. Jane doesn't know what paint or ink or chalky substance is used to make that sign, but the lines are orange and glow brightly in the clouded daylight.
The symbol looks like a representation of a flame, with two lines on either side of it that meet in a point on top of the flame. Rather like a triangle, but with no base. Loki later explains this indicates the name of this band of Fire Giants, which in this case has to do with 'mountain that breathes fire', their term for volcanoes.
In the middle of the village is a large open area, with several vents in the ground– whether natural or giant-made, she doesn't know – that have steam and hot gases smoking from them. She wonders what the purpose is, until two Fire Giants approach.
Jane can't tell their gender, but by the size difference between them, she guesses one is an adult, and the smaller one (still nearly three times Jane's height) is a child or teenager.
They are speaking to each other, and Jane is taken aback to realize she can understand them. More of Loki's magic, no doubt.
Or rather, she can understand their words; the taller one is speaking about someone called Surtur, and a battle, and a harvest of some kind, but it all makes little sense to Jane.
The taller Giant extends what looks like a thin pole of rock towards one of the steam vents. Something Jane recognizes as the carcass of one of the reptilian creatures has been threaded onto it, and the Giant thrusts it into the steam smoking out of one of the vents.
Must be the Muspelheim equivalent of spit-roasting, Jane realizes. Loki will later explain that the Fire Giants, much like the other creatures they've seen so far in this hostile landscape, primarily eat ground-up rocks and the nutrients they provide, supplemented by plant life (the greenery Loki mentioned earlier) cultivated underground, and the occasional protein from animals or insects. I'll pass on trying the local delicacies this time, thanks, she will think dryly to herself as he describes the typical diet.
But now they continue moving through the village, carefully skirting groups of adults in twos and fours holding discussions, or preparing food, or building a new hut. There are several groups of much smaller beings that Jane is sure are children, at least based on how they race energetically around, tossing small, smoothed balls of rock between them, or drawing lines in the gritty soil with more of the same type of thin pole of rock the Fire Giant was using earlier to cook meat.
They're singing, she observes. It seems that children's songs aren't unique to humans. Again, though she can understand the words, the content makes little sense to her. As near as she can tell, it's about fire, and battles, and…did that giant-kid just say 'Jotuns'? She glances sidelong at Loki, but if he heard, he doesn't react.
Safely hidden from sight or not, Jane still exhales a sigh of relief when they
leave the village behind.
The sky is rapidly darkening and fatigue is beginning to assert itself on Jane at least, so Loki leads them away from the village, through a set of low rocky hills, and finally a short way up the side of a much larger hill – or is it a small mountain? Jane's no authority on where the dividing line is – to a dark opening in the rock.
It's a cave, wide enough that there's plenty of room to lie down in, and tall enough that Loki isn't bumping his head on the ceiling. It's also black as pitch, until Loki casts one of his small globes of light.
Jane realizes the cave isn't so much a cave, as the outer end of a long, deep tunnel. And it's filled with a faint rustling noise that puzzles her at first, until Loki beckons her to follow him into the tunnel. After a couple of minutes' walk, the light-ball leading the way, they encounter row upon row of pale green plants covering the tunnel floor and walls.
Well, green might be an over-statement; the stems are white, and the leaves are white with the palest veins of green one could imagine, and curling petals of purple-grey. These must be an example of the 'green' things Loki was talking about earlier.
A mild wind that feels warm to Jane, but is likely searing outside the bubble of Loki's protective spells, moves the foliage. It ripples in hypnotic waves, like rushes in a breeze back on Earth. Hence the rustle she was hearing earlier. Tough plants, she thinks, wondering just how fast she'd be reduced to ashes without Loki's magic right now. It worries her for a moment or two, wondering what would happen if his spell fails.
But she knows better than to express that to him. He'll just remind me, AGAIN, that he's a 'god' and a 'powerful mage', and he doesn't make mistakes, and blah blah blah. Besides, does she really believe after all they've been through together, that he'd not be completely obsessive about protecting her? His spells probably have the Asgardian equivalent of some kind of back-up system. Likely even a back-up system to the back-up system, if she's learned anything at all about this alien who is her husband.
It still seems like nonsense to her when she stops to relly think about it. Husband. I have a husband. I'm married. To a Norse God of legend and myth, no less. Me, the hard-core scientist who used to laugh off the idea of magic, psychic powers, all that crap. If I believed in God – a Christian God, anyway – I'd have to think He's got quite the sense of humour!
Out loud, she says only: "So I take it this is the equivalent of agriculture here?"
Nodding,Loki snaps off a few of the plants growing on the wall, then motions to Jane for them to return to the cave.
Sitting cross-legged on the relatively smooth cave-floor, Loki produces some food and water for them from his Interdimensional Closet. Jane remembers some of this from their time in the last inhospitable 'Realm', Svartalfheim. It's basically Asgardian trail rations; flat yet fluffy rounds of bread, strips of dried meat that melt almost shockingly in the mouth, and chips of dried sweet fruits. Even the Asgardian water she sips from a magically-cooled flask tastes and looks different from water on Earth. It is somehow subtly sweeter and earthier, and even appears to sparkle slightly when Loki pours some of it into a small pot, to cook the greens he plucked.
Loki doesn't even need to kindle a fire to boil the water, he just motions with a hand and a bubble-within-their-bubble appears. Even through the protective spells Jane can feel the heat in that tiny pocket, can see how the air wavers with the intense temperature. Loki thrusts the pot into that space, leaving the handle poking back into their protected bubble, and Jane watches with her mouth open as the water boils almost instantly. Insane.
Loki pulls the pot quickly but carefully back into their atmosphere, before half the water can steam away. He dumps the plants they harvested, whole, into the bubbling water, then waves his hand again to collapse the little pocket.
Jane has to shake her head at the whole process. Wait, I should be taking notes! Her hubby indulgently waves his hand again to produce the bag with her cameras and notebooks, and Jane spends most of their meal scribbling down every detail she's seen since they got here, plus a few notes on Nidavellir she hadn't gotten around to adding yet. For his part, Loki produces one of his spell-books from the Closet and flips idly through the pages, content to let both of them do their own thing for the time being, at least until the greens are ready.
Jane had been more correct than she knew about the plants being 'tough'; it takes nearly forty-five minutes to boil them to a state soft enough to chew! The taste isn't half-bad, though. It's like a cross between asparagus and green beans.
After supper Jane continues documenting the planet, going outside to take a few shots and videos of the raging landscape. Then, anticipating her needs, Loki uses his magic once more to coax the clouds apart.
Muspelheim has no moons, and no comets, but it does have a gorgeous array of stars and nebulae. Jane is fairly convinced it will take her years to study this one skyscape alone; unlike on Earth, where there's only one Milky Way band to be seen (at least once one is away from all the light pollution), here two bands of their local galaxy are visible.
There's also the aurora, which rolls across the sky like in waves, furling stripes of neon green and blue.
A final magical addition is the meteor shower Jane witnesses. It's like diamonds falling from the sky, which then expire in streams of bright, coruscating light.
It's so beautiful, a surreal counterpoint to the blasted landscape of the planet itself. What a contradiction, she marvels.
She turns to Loki. "Thanks so, so much for all of this," she declares. "This…everything, really…it's all so unbelievable. So fascinating. I had no idea…" She gropes fruitlessly for the words to express what she's feeling, the enormity of it all. I had no idea whatsoever what it was like out here.
And to think, if she had never embraced astrophysics, never let her Dad's passions become hers, she would almost certainly never have experienced all of this. Never have encountered Thor, which had led to meeting Loki in the first place.
It boggles her now to think of all the random variables that had to occur, in just the right way, to engineer this very moment.
Loki grins and steps close, towering over her. "I am pleased to be able to feed that voracious desire for knowledge that you possess, my Jane. As well as any other desires you might feel this night, once your thirst for-"
Jane doesn't know what has changed, but Loki goes abruptly silent, his eyes narrowing. He turns away from her, looking around them. Then: "Get into the cave, Jane. Now," he orders. She discovers he's now holding a dagger in each hand.
Oh God, we're under attack!? She hustles back towards the cave opening, resisting the urge to look behind her even as a grinding roar begins to sound.
"Come then," she hears Loki taunting them, "Come seek your death on my knives!"
Panting, her blood thrumming in her ears, Jane ducks into the cave's mouth. She knows she should probably go deeper, see if there's some place to hide in here, but she finds herself drawn back to the opening, peeking around the jagged edge to watch.
She counts nine of the Fire Giants. No, ten – one already lies still at Loki's feet, bleeding smoking, lava-like blood from a deep cut across its neck.
Wrong again, she realizes a second later. There's yet another Giant, standing a bit further down the hillside, so Jane can only see the top half of its body. But she recognizes, or thinks she does anyway, the gestures it's making with its arms. It's casting spells!
Jane's nails dig anxiously into the rock. She has faith in her husband, but he's so outnumbered!
There's a fierce grin on his face, one that Jane's witnessed before, as he throws a series of glowing daggers into the chest of an advancing Giant. It collapses, but another Giant throws a spear of sharpened stone. Loki easily and gracefully sidesteps it, still grinning.
Then comes an explosion of sound and eddying light that dazzles both Jane's eyes, and the eyes of their attackers, judging by how they stumble, shaking their heads and cursing (or at least, Jane assumes their words to be considered curses).
The magic-wielding giant shouts even louder however, and Loki's spinning lights die. One new giant lie wounded on the ground, and at first Jane doesn't see her husband.
Oh God, where is-? Oh, there-! He's standing at the edge of the ledge of rock now. Oh no! Jane gasps helplessly as three giants charge full-tilt at him, bellowing their rage.
A second later they are gone, falling howling over the edge. Yet Loki somehow remains standing there, still grinning almost maniacally.
What the-? How did he-? There's no way he could have dodged all three of them.
The Loki on the edge winks cheekily at her, before dissolving into wavery green light. Another Loki appears back in his original position, just before the attack.
This is rapidly followed by a second Loki materializing, right in the middle of the remaining grouping of four Fire Giants. Then a third, and a fourth…soon there are two Lokis for each of the giants who remain standing.
The Giants do their best. But as they waste their energy either punching, or stabbing, or throwing those wickedly honed spears, the fake Lokis laugh and swirl into nothing under these assaults. Meanwhile, the real Loki is doing some stabbing and slashing of his own.
Through it all the Fire Giant wizard waves his arms, vocalizing frantically, and Jane can tell that he's panicking.
Soon the wizard-giant is the only one left, all the other attackers left bleeding and dying, littering the ground around Loki's feet.
Teeth bared and daggers dripping with smouldering Giant blood, Loki advances on the wizard. The latter scrambles backwards, simultaneously attempting to hurl a large ball of fire at Loki.
It connects, and Jane cries out, but once again her trickster of a husband has pulled his favourite ploy: this Loki is yet another illusion, breaking into glimmering fragments of green light as the fireball strikes it.
For a beat, nothing else happens. Relative silence reigns, broken only by the distant sounds of geysers and volcanoes erupting, and the low whine of the wind through the rocks.
Jane blinks, then realizes with a shock that she's standing totally exposed in the mouth of the cave. Loki is nowhere to be seen. The confused wizard-Giant spots her, but for a long moment they just stare at each other across the thin wisps of smoke that continue to rise from the corpses strewn between them.
Then the impasse is broken and the Giant growls and starts in Jane's direction, raising a hand, and she flinches back, her heart stuttering first to a halt, then racing in fear. Where the fuck is-?
The creature halts in its tracks with a rattling gasp, and Jane sees there's a sharp point now sticking out of its stony orange-toned chest, something that gleams like glass.
It howls, its body trying to thrash, as a white substance spreads from that glassy point, creeping rapidly across the attacker's chest and limbs. Ice. It's ice-
The giant's body is soon covered from head-to-toe in solid ice, and it has stopped moving and vocalizing. Then there's a harsh yell and the sound of a blow landing, and the wizard-giant shatters into a thousand pieces. Jane utters a short scream in shock, hand going to her mouth.
At least she can see Loki again; he'd been standing, likely cloaked in invisibility, behind the wizard-giant. His skin is blue and his eyes burn blood-red. Jane is less surprised by this than by the expression he wears. If she were to put a word to it, the best one she could come up with is: Exhilaration.
The Jotun colour is already fading as he kicks the frozen pieces of the former wizard out of his path, returning to her side in long loping strides. "I trust you are unharmed, my love?" His voice may be calm, but that ecstatic light is still dancing in his eyes. Oh yes, he enjoyed that.
He's a warrior, from a culture that values skill in battle, Jane reminds herself firmly. "I-I'm fine," she stammers, the blood still pounding in her ears. She doesn't bother to ask if he's OK, as she knows he'll just boast about how he's 'too adept to be harmed by the likes of these', or something to that effect." His arms slide around her, and Jane sighs in relief, wrapping her arms tightly around him in return.
After a moment she asks, her words muffled by his leathers: "How did they even know we were here? I thought you hid us with your illusions?" She's not accusing, just puzzled.
"I attempted to," he answers slowly. She glances up to see him frowning, the joyful gleam fading. "But I did not detect that there was an accomplished Fire-Mage among those in the village nearby. Magic is far less common among the denizens of Muspel than it is in Asgard. Perhaps one in every thousand Muspels possesses some slight ability, and perhaps one in every fifty or sixty of those, enough talent to sense the alteration of reality that attends upon the glamours I typically employ."
Jane doesn't really understand what he just said. This magic thing again. If it's really so wide-spread throughout these 'Realms', why the heck isn't it more common on Earth? she has to wonder.
Or maybe it is, and Jane, with her head buried in the sands of science, just hadn't seen it. Or wanted to see it.
Loki steps away from her, leaving her to ponder this unsettling possibility. But as always, it just won't compute, no matter how she tries. Physics, she gets. Chemistry and biology, no problem. Even the idea that there are energies in the universe that she doesn't understand fully yet – dark matter, etc.
But this is something else entirely. It's right here, it's a part of my damned husband, this 'magic' thing, and yet I can't begin to figure out what it even is, let alone how it works!
She shakes her head slightly, only semi-aware of Loki using said magic to clean both his blades and his hands of the still-smoking blood.
As soon as he's done, he is wrapping his long arms around her again, distracting her from her frustrations. "Forgive me, beloved. Had I been more cautious, less complacent, I would have thought to check for just such an eventuality, and woven my spells differently to compensate-"
"It's OK, just…" She looks past the circle of Loki's arms, to the scattered, steaming corpses. "Maybe we should get out of here?" she asks plaintively, closing her eyes against the sight. Now that the initial shock is over, it all reminds her far too much of the more unpleasant moments in their shared past.
He nods. "Indeed. More Giants will undoubtedly come looking."
When Loki's teleportation spell is complete, they stand in pitch darkness. Jane's very glad for Loki's arms, still around her, and the solid feel of his body against hers.
He kindles a couple of those light-spheres of his, and Jane finds that they are standing inside what appears to be another cave. At her questioning look, Loki assures her that he took them halfway around the planet, far away from those who might be tempted to seek revenge. "And I am about to make the necessary adjustments to my spells so that we will not be disturbed here."
Letting Jane go, he seats himself cross-legged on the rough floor of the cave, forearms resting on his knees as he closes his eyes. His brow knits as he concentrates.
"There," he declares several minutes later, "it is done." He smiles up at her, then holds out a hand in invitation.
She takes it and he tugs her gently down, settling her into his lap. "Given I have just fought valiantly to defend you, esteemed wife, can I expect that a reward of some kind will soon befall me?" His eyes gleam greedily.
He really does intend to 'christen' every planet we visit, Jane thinks first. Then:
Are we really about to make love, right after he killed all those…people? Beings?
It feels odd, but also…right. For just a moment, when Loki had been hidden from her sight and she'd been faced by that angry Giant-Wizard, she'd thought she might actually die. Her heartbeat is still a little fast, reminding her of that scary moment.
But I survived, just as I survived The Other and Thanos. The knowledge of that sends the blood singing through her now, but differently; it makes her want to feel alive, in every way possible. Is this what Asgardian warriors, no, all warriors, feel after a battle?
"I don't know," she answers him playfully, "what kind of 'reward' were you hoping for?"