THE LAST MIDGARDIAN
BOUND
Midgardians were considered exotic - so small and soft and fragile. Jane was a curiosity on Asgard. Everywhere she went, her height alone gave her away and kept her from being able to hide her origins from the throngs of eyes watching her every move. Many were genuinely and sincerely curious, but other times, this quest for knowledge carried a bitter edge of self-aggrandizement within.
"It is just the way of things, Jannike. You were born to Yggdrasil's roots and we to her crown. We all have our place in the great Tree and that is how order is maintained. You have the unique opportunity to live in the Jewel of Yggdrasil instead of continuing in ignorance on Midgard. You have improved yourself by learning the ways of the Aesir. You are, without a doubt, the most fortunate of all Midgard."
She wanted to scream at him, but she couldn't. She'd tried once. It hadn't ended well.
The worst was when Aesir men told her she needed "protection from a man like them." She quickly amended that to "from men like them." When lingering stares and jeers were not enough, men with super human strength cornered her and tried to come even closer. She could not hope to escape them...and since she technically had no legal rights in Asgard, she was not optimistic of how it would end for her without assistance.
Voldstadt found her like that once, arguing and spitting on a group of Muspel tourists who came a little too close to her for her comfort. Voldstadt escorted her back to the observatory, much to her embarrassment and relief, and gave her what he considered to be very good advice.
"You need to accept an Aesir protector and carry his blade with you. Then you will be safe from these ruffians. As long as you have no protector, you are vulnerable and many will take that as an invitation."
She grit her teeth and refused to answer. She'd been offered "protection," of course, and kept turning such offers down so she could maintain whatever shreds of her dignity still remained.
"You, Aesir, pride yourselves on being so 'civilized' and 'morally superior' to us lowly Midgardians," she spat once in her anger and frustration. "But then treat women here like this."
"Women have the utmost rights and powers on Asgard," Heimdall began, in his usual, unflappable calm. She cut him off with an incredulous snort.
"But I...," she began, but did not get the chance to finish.
"You are not Aesir. You are Midgardian. Of course, you do not have the same rights as our women. Aesir women are innately superior and of exceptional quality. None would dare cross an Aesir maid for the retribution of the lady and her kin would be swift and deadly."
"So, because I am fragile and have a shorter lifespan, Aesir men can treat me as if I were no better than a whore, whether I agree or not?"
"Of course not. That would involve payment. You are not entitled to recompense for the privilege of knowing an Aesir man. The honor you are bestowed on by receiving their attentions is more than enough."
She furiously stormed from the observatory that day and hid. She refused to speak to Heimdall for a week, but he only gave her the most insufferably patronizing smile and did not so much as mention her silent treatment.
Asgard's gatekeeper, while both arrogant and proud, still had a modicum of dignity and a certain universal politeness which he begrudgingly included her in, Midgardian or not. He also had the respect and healthy fear of the rest of Asgard and uncannily near-omniscient sight which could track Jane's every movement, for better or for worse.
When he rescued her for a third time from a group of drunken youths in a back alley, he gave her an ultimatum.
"Accept my protection, carry my ceremonial dagger, and none in Asgard will dare to raise a finger against you," he told her. "This is the last time I will interfere."
There were provisions to this arrangement, of course. While none in Asgard would dare cross the woman who carried the gatekeeper's dagger, this also meant she "belonged" to Heimdall, and only to him. In order to avoid the unsavory attentions of any other in Asgard, it meant she had to accept the attentions of the gatekeeper. She knew, if she didn't choose to accept one of the offers she'd been given, she would soon, someday, no longer have a choice at all. Was the freedom to choose a terrible choice preferable to having no choice at all?
At times, during the decades that followed, she believed the gatekeeper developed a fond affection for his pet Midgardian. His role in the observatory was all-encompassing and isolated him from much of the social life of Asgard around him. He could not partake in the daily lives of the Aesir and he was, for all intents and purposes, married to his position. He seemed to gain a certain amount of satisfaction in her company and he reciprocated by throwing her crumbs of knowledge whenever the fancy struck.
This arrangement lasted until the day the shining crowned prince returned from some quest, jovial and half-intoxicated. By chance, Jane was unfortunate enough to be mopping the Bifrost and gained his unsought and undesired notice. The prince's curiosity was piqued when he heard of her origins and he requested her company that night...and the night after and the night after. Heimdall could hardly refuse the wishes of his prince any more than Jane could, but he could hold a grudge with more vehemence than he guarded the Bifrost sword.
The prince forgot about his exotic Midgardian conquest as quickly as the new horse he had impulsively acquired on Vanaheim. When Jane returned to the observatory, Heimdall's greeting was borderline frigid. The anger he could not unleash on his prince, he could pour out on Jane. He was convinced she threw herself in the prince's path on purpose. He chided her soundly for her "blackened honor" and he refused to "defend the honor of a woman like her" anymore. He asked for the return of his ceremonial dagger and barely spoke two words together to her after that.
Not long after, Jane woke in a glass cage.
ooooo
A wall of ice absorbed the brunt of the weapon's rays, shattering on impact into a million tiny shards. Jane gasped as the weight of Sagittarius enclosed around her as a second barrier between her and the weapons of their attackers.
"Look! It's one of those Ice Makers!" shouted a voice, which Jane could understand.
"I thought those were extinct!" came a second.
"How did it get all the way here? Their planet is three jumps away from this outpost," said the third.
"Well, he's obviously dangerous. Where's the little one? What do you think that one is? Asgardian?"
"No. Too small for Asgardians. Maybe an albino Zen-Whoberis?"
"Can't be. She's tiny."
"Maybe a child?"
Sagittarius cautiously rose off her, hands outstretched and grunted something to the trio. They each gaped at Jane in response and she rather wished she could hide behind her companion again to avoid their scrutiny.
"You must be joking. A Terran? How'd she get all the way out here?"
Sagittarius grunted a reply again, which their visitors appeared to have no trouble comprehending.
"Oh, we've heard of Knowhere. Rumor has it, its nearly bankrupt and out of commission after that last run in with an Infinity Stone. Still, that means you must have stolen that there ship and have illegally squatted on a Xandarian outpost eating all our stores of rations."
Sagittarius' hands illustrated his impassioned reply even as his body moved in front of Jane again to block her from the range of their visitors.
"Yeah, yeah. I don't blame you. It just makes our job more complicated. Look, if you promise not to skewer us with an ice sword, we will promise not to blast you. Let's see what we can do."
Sagittarius nodded and the three lowered their weapons. The all walked in the direction of the bunker, continuing to ask questions of Sagittarius as they did.
"Excuse me," Jane interrupted. "How can I understand you but not him? How can you understand both of us?"
The trio burst into laughter. "Oh, that's rich! This day just keeps getting better and better! They will love this down at headquarters! A Terran and an Ice Maker live together without a translator! What a time you must have had! How have you even survived here? Better yet, how did you even find this outpost? Hold on. We might have another translator or two back on our cruiser."
The smallest of the trio, a man with yellowish, scaly skin and bulbous blue eyes, vanished back through the cave. When he returned, he tentatively approached the pair with a pair of small circular devices in his hand the size of small ladybugs.
"Put this just below your ear," he said.
The pair complied. Their three visitors stood back to watch them from a distance with undisguised amusement on their mis-matched faces.
"Now what?" Jane asked. "Do I have to do something else?"
Sagittarius turned to her with a wide, genuine grin on his blue face. "Yes. Now you must tell me your name."
"Oh, wow! That's amazing! How does that work? Does it…wait, never mind. I'll ask that later. My name is Jane Foster. Wait, do you really understand me?"
"Yes, Lady Jane of Midgard, I understand you," he answered. His previous deep, guttural sounds now effortlessly became understandable to her mind.
Her face fell. "DO NOT call me that!" she said, louder than she meant to. "Do not ever call me that. I am Jane Foster, not Lady Jane and definitely not Lady Jannike. I am not the son or daughter of anyone anymore, and I am from Earth, not Midgard, not Terran, not any other name."
His face didn't display any motion other than one arched brow. She flushed with embarrassment. In their first true verbal communication, she reacted by yelling at him. Instead of taking in how strange it was to understand the words he was speaking and trying to learn more of her companion, she instead dwelt on the unpleasant reminds the words he chose elicited within her.
"I apologize, Jane Foster of Earth, I meant no offense. I take it your paths have crossed with those of the Aesir in the past."
"Unfortunately. If I ever meet another Aesir in my lifetime it will be too soon," she said, not caring if she was scowling at him now or behaving every inch as a petulant child.
He burst into laughter at that, a breathy, grunting sound. "For once, then, I am grateful that I am not Aesir."
"But you know about Asgard…and you greeted me like an Aesir….and I know you recognized the Aesir who came into that terrible museum. Did you spend time in Asgard?" she asked, struggling to piece together all she could from what she'd already seen from him.
"Nearly all my life," he answered.
"But you are…not like them," Jane said.
His face momentarily fell and before he grit his teeth. "No. I am not."
"Thank God! I like you all the better for it!" she said.
He barked out another laugh. "You are full of surprises, Jane Foster of Earth."
"Who are you? And how did you end up in that terrible place? And why did you get your mouth sewn up? And how long had you been there before I came?"
"Let us begin with my name...I am Loki, of Jotunheim and Asgard, son of no one."
"I think I like Sagittarius better," she answered.
"What is a 'Sagittarius'?" he asked.
"Your name. Well, what I named you. I needed something to call you besides 'blue guy' and that suited you. Better than Loki, I think."
"I see. Well, if we are going by the names we gave to each other in our nonverbal ignorance, then you will henceforth be referred to as 'Mortal'."
Jane stuck out her tongue at that and shook her head so vehemently that she nearly made herself dizzy. "Nice to meet you, Loki," she said. "I'd shake your hand, but I don't want to end up with frostbite."
"And I would request to kiss your hand, if I did not think you would threaten to behead me for sullying you with an Aesir custom."
Jane instinctively curled both of her hands into the pockets of her jumpsuit and grimaced. "Yeah. You are right. Maybe we should, I don't know, bump elbows or bow or curtsy or something safer."
"Or perhaps our new companions can teach us the appropriate way to greet in Xandar," he said and motioned for her to follow the trio into the bunker.
ooooo
Gorm, Ryko, and Tal, the Nova Corps soldiers tasked with manning the small outpost, each sat on one of the metal chairs, bowls of steaming stew in their hands. Jane took the fourth chair while Loki (who she still called Sagittarius in her head) leaned against a bunk and took long draughts from his own cup.
"And this is where?" Jane asked, bubbling with excitement over finally getting some of her questions answered.
"The farthest quadrant of the Andromeda Galaxy. We don't make all the way to Bithring very often, maybe twice in a solar year," Gorm, the slightly yellowish man, said.
"How long is a solar year?" she asked.
"In your terms, approximately five hundred and thirty years, if I am calculating properly," Loki said, after catching the confusion of the Xandarians. "It would be my luck that you would meet upon us now."
"I think it might just be your luck. How much longer do you think your food stores could have held out here? It's definitely not enough for a hundred years, let alone five hundred," Tal put in. The five grey tentacles protruding from his head wavered when he talked and Jane could see a ridge of similar grey spiny growths in a ridge down his spine.
"How did you find this outpost?" Ryko asked.
Loki shrugged. "What habitable planets in Andromeda lack a Nova Corps outpost?" he answered.
"Huh. Good point," Ryko answered, once he considered it.
"It was more likely to have supplies than any in the Triangulum Galaxy. There isn't much there other than Ravagers and rubbish heaps."
"Again, good point," Ryko said.
"Now, if you come from Asgard, how come you need a translator?" Tal asked. "I thought everyone from Asgard has their own way of communicating across all the languages in the galaxies?"
Loki took another sip of his stew and held up one of his wrists. The silver bracelet glinted in the lights of the bunker and then he dropped his wrist again.
"The Collector had enough foresight to bind my magic completely before imprisoning me. The Asgardian means of communication relies solely on magic."
"Wait, is that why, you know, your lips were, uh, like they were?" Jane stammered out. Then she wondered if that was an appropriate topic to ask in front of their visitors. By the way Loki's expression turned stormy, she figured it probably was still a sore subject, metaphorically and literally.
"The Collector is nothing if not thorough. He ensured I would not be able to use any possible faculties to escape."
"Let me see those," Tal said. Gorm stood so Loki could sit and splay both his wrists in front of Tal. Tal began to pull tools out of a belt and fiddle with the devices, his stew left forgotten on the table in front on him.
"I've tried everything I could think of," Loki said. "Nothing worked. I think the All-Father himself helped design these."
Tal paused for a moment to consider Loki more closely. "What have you gotten yourself into that would get Odin All-Father so involved in your punishment?"
"Let's just say the All-Father did not appreciate my efforts to renegotiate the balance of power in Yggdrasil."
Tal gave a noncommittal grunt in response and returned to fiddling.
"You can't stay here much longer," Gorm put in.
"Obviously," Loki replied. "We required a safe refuge while my Midgardian counterpart regained her strength after her captivity and her system was able to rid itself of its dependence on the sedatives Tivan felt compelled to flood her with."
"Didn't you get them?" Jane asked.
"Of course. But my body did not form a dependence on them."
"Oh, you mean, oh. That's why I was so wonky after we left. That makes sense. Why didn't they impact you the same way? Don't tell me it's another one of those 'my body is stronger than yours' things. I'm so sick of being told all the ways my Midgardian body is inferior to everyone else's."
"You would prefer that I lie?" Loki asked.
"No. Yes. Maybe."
"Your eloquence astounds."
Gorm sighed and set his bowl down with an unnecessarily loud thwack onto the table. "I think now is as good a time as any for you both to tell us how you came to be here," he said. "Then we can decide what to do with you next."
"Of course," Loki said. He adjusted himself in his chair and, when Jane nodded at him to go first, he began his story. "Over a thousand years ago, I was born in Jotunheim…."
He trailed off when a metallic crash followed by a blinding light engulfed him. He gave a surprised cry of pain and looked down to see his wrists, dark and burned, but unbound.
"That did it," Tal said. "You just needed the right tools."
Loki gave a wide grin before his entire body was enveloped in a flash of shimmering green light. After it dissipated, Jane's companion could no longer be described as "blue."
Author's note: While this story could easily grow into an epic long adventure, I'm going to keep it at 11 chapters and call it done. There will be one more chapter after this one. Lot's of questions will be answered and loose ends tied up. :) Thanks for reading and reviewing!
One of Heimdall's jobs in the Norse myths is to institute and enforce the different social classes. Lots of interesting symbolism and meaning in that one.
I am pulling in random threads from both MCU and the myths in this one...so when backstories or characters seem AU, it's cause I'm playing with different sandboxes here.
