The Arrogance of Youth
Eir slammed another book shut with a sigh. She must have combed through at least two dozen books in the medicine and healing section of the royal library over the past two days, spending her afternoons looking for mentions of the blood disease in newborns. There was very little literature on the subject to begin with and her research had not yet uncovered anything useful. She could feel her resolve fading as she scanned through several texts that just rehashed the same few paragraphs of basic information and contributed nothing beyond her existing knowledge of the illness.
"My, my, you really aren't one for patience, are you?' Panini's sharp voice echoed in her mind. Her eyes were drawn to the large tome that was left lying on the side of the desk – "A Comprehensive Guide to Healing – by Panini"; it was her old personal copy. She picked it up and aimlessly flicked through the heavily annotated pages. "Now you are just wasting time", she chided herself. She had committed the entirety of this particular book to memory ages ago but her fingers still turned the pages to the section on illnesses and arrived at the relevant passage.
Ondaveri (Blood Sickness) – observed only in new born infants – no discernible symptoms or post birth complications seen in the mother – Symptoms – lack of response to stimulus - difficulty breathing - petechiae on extremities - pale gums – Causes – uncertain - thought to be a disorder of the blood – Prognosis – extremely poor – fatality rate of 100% - rapid progression resulting in systemic failure and death within hours of birth – Treatment – seidr assistance may help with temporary alleviation of symptoms - note that seidr intervention loses potency and proves ineffective beyond a couple of hours - no proven cure or treatment methods for long term survival exist.
"That's all you had to say? Not exactly very comprehensive, Panini", Eir grumbled under her breath. She knew she wasn't exactly being fair to her old mentor. Panini's book was one of the most widely revered texts in the field of healing but his main focus had always been battlefield healing. Eir doubted he had ever had the time to study obscure infant illnesses in much detail given his involvement in nine major wars and around three dozen battles during the course of his career. He was renowned for his prodigious talent and his ability to maintain his cool even in the most stressful of situations.
Eir could still remember Panini's favourite speech where he likened battlefield healing to constantly being in the eye of a storm. "It's our job to survive chaos and disorder, to be calm and deliberate in the face of death, and to channel our skills towards the best possible outcome. There is only one way to ensure this", he would growl, his dark eyes glaring out at his students from underneath fierce, hawk-like eyebrows – "practice, practice and then more practice."
"You need to build confidence in your instincts and abilities – in the midst of battle, there will be no time for fear or doubt, no time to sit around and think, there will only be time enough to act. You must be able to find the eye of the storm and remain steadily rooted right there – no matter what is happening around you." he would lecture.
Eir had trained diligently for centuries, following his lead, and rising through the ranks as a battlefield healer herself. It had been one of the most satisfying moments of her life when after the Battle of Veraden, Panini had remarked, "Eir, I have never seen anyone thrive in chaos quite as well as you." But the instincts of a battlefield healer were hardly useful to her in this current scenario, cooped up in the royal library and trying to make sense of a senseless illness.
"Maybe I need to expand my search", Eir thought to herself. She looked around at the vast Royal Library of Asgard; one of the largest knowledge repositories in the nine realms. The building had four levels above the ground, two basement levels which were used to store rare and ancient scrolls, as well as several reading rooms and alcoves that scholars could use for quiet study and contemplation. It was becoming increasingly apparent that she would need some help if she intended to pursue this seriously.
Eir gathered up her notes and books and walked out of the medicine and healing section. She was just thinking about speaking to the chief librarian when she noticed Loki silently sitting in one of the alcoves, bent over a book. A spark of an idea entered her mind and she called out to him, "Hello Loki". He glanced up from his book and immediately stood up to greet her, "Good Evening, Lady Eir".
Eir acknowledged the greeting and got straight to the point. "Loki what would you think about helping me out with some library research for the rest of the week instead of the morning hours at the center?" she asked.
Loki seemed intrigued by this unusual request, "Research on what?" he asked. "Blood sickness in newborn infants", Eir replied. A flicker of understanding passed over his face at that – no doubt the news of the child's death had made the rounds of the palace by now. Manu and Rosna were well known within the royal circle as many of the noble folk of Asgard had commissioned artworks from the pair of accomplished artisans, some had even struck up friendships with them.
In fact, it was Minister Hema who had asked Eir to oversee the birth as a favour to her friend, Rosna, who was nervous about her first pregnancy. It was fairly common for births among the general populace of Asgard to be handled at home by an experienced family member. Nevertheless, Eir had agreed to the simple request thinking it would just be a routine delivery; she had not anticipated the tragic turn it would take.
"Well?" she pressed even though she already knew Loki's answer. He was never one to pass on an opportunity to bury himself in the royal library; it was one of his favourite places and he had been known to spend hours poring through the books, endlessly fascinated by a variety of subjects. He really was the perfect person for this job.
Loki nodded, "Alright, when do we start?"
Four days later Loki was waiting for Eir in one of the reading rooms. In all honesty, he was slightly disappointed with the results of his search. He had got a few of the library clerks to help him out once he realized the monumental nature of the task at hand and had even used text scanning spells as a last resort. He had no doubt done exactly what Eir had asked of him, all the books and scrolls that referenced the blood sickness were neatly stacked throughout the room. He had made notes and carefully catalogued the different sources of information in decreasing order of relevance. But he had not come across any information that he would classify as groundbreaking, it was all fairly vague and repetitive at best or completely misleading and irrelevant at worst.
Eir entered the room and took in her surroundings, "I see you've been quite busy, take me through what you have" she instructed.
Loki handed over a sheaf of notes, "The first three pages are all the references from the medicine and healing section – around thirty books and half a dozen manuscripts" he said as he gestured towards the stacks of books on the first desk in the room. "It's mostly the same list of symptoms over and over again and they all say it's fatal. The ones I have marked in the margin, those contain a complete case description."
Eir began skimming through the notes, her right index finger running down the list and magically highlighting certain lines in blue for later review. She motioned with her other hand for Loki to keep going.
"The rest of the sources are from outside the medicine and healing section, so I'm not sure how reliable they are", Loki continued. "That stack of books over there is from the history section – I found mentions of eleven historical figures that supposedly lost children to the blood sickness – one point worth noting they're not all from Asgard – I found three from Vanaheim, two from Alfheim and six from Asgard. Did you know that the famous Vanir explorer Luskadell is said to have lost two of his children to the illness?"
"You found mentions of the blood sickness among the light elves as well?" Eir asked skipping over Loki's question as the detail caught her attention. She already knew the affliction could affect both Aesir and Vanir children but she hadn't really heard of any cases from Alfheim. Though it wouldn't exactly be much of a stretch – the physiology of the light Elves wasn't significantly different compared to that of the Aesir and Vanir. But while the Aesir and Vanir were virtually indistinguishable due to several millennia of intermarriage between the two races, the light elves had largely preferred to marry within their own kind.
Loki seemed to hesitate, "Well they don't specifically name it as such but it definitely sounds like it." He snapped his fingers and two of the books from the pile gently flew into his hands. "See here", he said cracking them open to the bookmarked pages.
Eir bent over the books, her brow furrowed in concentration as she slowly deciphered the Elvish script. It was a language she had never achieved great fluency in, given that she had spent the first half of her life on Vanaheim and now the remaining half so far on Asgard. The complex script, convoluted grammar and superfluous prose of the light elves had always tried her patience.
"I wish they would get to the point and just say what they mean but it seems like some kind of god awful competition amongst them to see who can write the most tedious book ever", she had once lamented to Frigga after painfully plodding through several medical texts from Alfheim that had been procured for the library of Asgard. Frigga had smiled in her usual kind and gentle manner and had then gone on to mischievously suggest that Eir try reading Elvish poetry if she thought the prose was tedious. Eir had smiled at that and retorted, "Oh let me add that to the list of hobbies to take up when I'm old and retired someday, back home on the beach – maybe then I'll have the luxury of whiling away my days reading Elvish poetry. But for now some of us actually have to work for a living, My Queen."
Frigga had narrowed her eyebrows in mock anger, "Is this how you speak to your Queen? If you think it's so easy let's trade positions for the day. I'll go over to the medical center and boss around your assistants for the afternoon. And you can take over the four hour evening meeting I have with Minister Hadini, perhaps then you will build up your tolerance for tedious activities." Eir had quickly shot back, "Maybe you should ship Hadini off to Alfheim as some kind of ambassador. I bet he would fit in perfectly, who knows they may even crown him King". They had both burst into laughter at that point.
Loki watched Eir as she frowned down at the relevant passages. She finally looked back up and said, "As far as I can make out it does appear to be the same thing. But there's really not much detail to go by. Do any of the medical references cover cases from Alfheim?"
"No they don't, the case studies were all written by Aesir healers" Loki replied. "Hmm, alright – what else?" questioned Eir, as her eyes wandered over the remaining stacks of books in the room.
"I checked the Seidr section. I couldn't find anything of relevance though I did find some truly horrific blood curses and rituals", said Loki. "There's no chance that this isn't actually an illness but a curse of someone's doing right?" he asked seriously.
Eir shot him down, "Any seidr would leave some kind of trace, some signature. I could sense no foreign seidr or dark influence in the cases I have handled".
Loki shrugged, "I figured as much, that leaves us with Fiction and Mythology and those are all over the place", he rattled off – "It's just random chance, it's a cruel trick of the Norns, it's punishment for infidelity between parents of the child, it's an ancient Vanir curse directed at Aesir children, it's an ancient Aesir curse directed at Vanir children, it's an omen that predicts periods of famine, it's all caused by demonic snakes that live in secret underground lairs – take your pick."
"There's really not much about preventing or curing the illness either, just outdated rituals to appease the old Gods and some advice on living a life free from sin and vice. Oh and if you're ever in the mood for misery there's an entire sub-genre of tragic romance novels devoted to the theme of unfaithful couples whose children die at birth, that's several hours of my life I'm never getting back" Loki finished with a shudder.
"Well as intriguing as the idea of mythical demonic snakes sounds, I think we are better off just going through the medical case studies for now", said Eir with a wry smile. They spent the next hour reviewing the handful of cases that Loki had dug up. Loki paced around the room in circles while Eir sat at the desk carefully noting down the more promising lines of enquiry as they threw ideas back and forth.
Loki finally came to a stop and leaned on a pillar with a sigh of frustration, "The problem is there are not enough documented case studies. There's no way to narrow down our focus." "So what should be our next logical step?" asked Eir.
"Well we could collect more data; so we have a wider pool of cases to analyze. Maybe then we might find some kind of pattern", mused Loki. "And how would you set about doing that?" Eir questioned.
"By talking to lots of healers and asking them about cases in their experience", suggested Loki. Eir nodded encouragingly, "Conduct interviews with healers, that's a good thought, what else?" she quizzed automatically slipping into the role of teacher.
"Well we could also ask that all healers keep track of any future cases though it might take years to accumulate information that way, it's quite a rare illness right? Do we know exactly how rare?" Loki asked.
"What would be the best way to determine that?" Eir asked pointedly. She always preferred to draw out answers from her students rather than just feeding them knowledge. She found it interesting to hear their thought process and this way sometimes they even ended up surprising her with their ideas, making her re-examine her own understanding of a subject.
Loki stared down at his feet, lost in thought as he considered her question. He suddenly straightened up, his green eyes gleaming. "I'm an idiot. There's so much raw data just lying around already, we just need to go and check the records. But you've already thought of this, haven't you?" he accused Eir.
"I may have requested some information from the Vital Records Office a few days ago; they should be sending it over tomorrow. Birth and Death records are a good place to start our investigation, don't you agree?" she asked, keeping her face perfectly neutral even though she was quite amused by Loki's sudden realization that he was not the only person she had enlisted for help on this project.
She refrained from making a teasing comment about the arrogance of youth, probably because she was not yet so old that she couldn't remember the foolish overconfidence of her own younger days. Predictably, Loki had already moved past his initial indignation. "Yes, we are sure to find something useful there", he said eagerly, flashing his trademark grin.
Thor was waiting silently in the branches of the enormous old oak tree on the palace grounds. He glanced up at the horizon noting the position of the setting sun. The blazing orange disc had slipped further down the horizon; only the top half was visible now. He had been sitting in the tree for nearly half an hour now, he sighed in frustration.
Thor was definitely beginning to rethink his ill-considered wager with Fandral and was now wondering if the Warriors Three were playing some kind of prank on him. Perhaps Loki was also involved; this was exactly the kind of thing he knew his brother would find hilarious. Though thinking back, he realized he hadn't even seen Loki over the last couple of days. It had in fact been fairly calm and boring around the palace, which was in part why he had been so quick to accept Fandral's crazy challenge. However, when it came to Loki, Thor knew to always expect the unexpected.
Whatever the case, he decided the joke would be on them. He was going to climb back down and go back to the palace for an early dinner. He had no intention of foolishly waiting in this tree to see what they had planned. He adjusted his footing on a branch, about to start making his way down the tree, when he suddenly heard load shouts in the distance followed by the low thudding noise of heavy hooves. He focused his attention in the direction of the sounds, tense with the sudden realization that this was no prank and he was meant to go through with his stupid wager after all.
Soon enough Suri, the wildebeest appeared around the corner of the courtyard. His friends, the Warriors Three – Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg were chasing the beast with wooden sticks, shouting up a racket and herding her towards the oak tree. Suri was just a few yards away from the base of Thor's tree when Fandral shouted out, "Now's your chance, Thor!"
Crouched on the branch of the tree, Thor felt the familiar thrill of anticipation course through his veins as he gauged the speed of the approaching beast. He carefully positioned himself, mentally counting down the seconds; he would have to time this perfectly. He waited till the last possible moment, sending up a silent prayer before he finally leapt off the branch with a surprising amount of agility given his bulky build. He landed squarely on Suri's back and quickly leaned forward and grabbed hold of Suri's horns as she started in surprise.
Fandral and Volstagg whooped in delight. Thor smiled with grim satisfaction but he soon realized that the second part of the wager was going to be more difficult to pull off. He steered Suri in the direction of the training pitch, holding on tightly as Suri sped up in an attempt to throw him off.
The pitch and the surrounding area would usually be fairly deserted at this hour of the day but it seemed word of the wager had got around the palace. Thor was greeted by cheers as he reached the pitch with the Warriors Three following closely behind, calling out loud warnings. A good number of spectators were gathered on the small hilly mound that overlooked the pitch. They shouted out words of encouragement and made bets amongst themselves on how many rounds Thor would complete.
Thor managed the first few rounds fairly easily but then Suri put on another burst of speed in order to shake him off. It took all his strength to maintain his grip while still steering her in the right direction. "That's four rounds", announced Fandral.
"Just three more to win", Thor thought to himself. Suri suddenly decided to change tactics and started bucking wildly. She bent her knees towards the ground only to launch herself back into the air immediately. Thor nearly flew off Suri's back but he pressed his legs into her sides and somehow managed to hold on. The crowd gasped and then roared in admiration as Thor continued on course. They chanted his name and cheered him on.
"Five rounds", called out Fandral, Thor's face was set in determination but he was beginning to tire. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, his arms and shoulders ached. Suri, the wildebeest, was proving to be one headstrong specimen. Halfway through the sixth round, she veered sharply and ran off course. She cut across the grounds towards the line of wooden boards that were used for target practice. Crash – Crash – Crash! Suri smashed into the boards one by one. All Thor could do was hold on for dear life as she went on a rampage, completely destroying all the equipment in her way.
The Warriors Three moved in closer, shouting and banged their sticks on the ground in an attempt to herd Suri back onto the track. Thor could hear the distant roar of the crowd as Suri charged into a large wooden post. He was nearly unseated by the impact but recovered at the last moment by throwing his arms around Suri's neck, almost lying flat on her back to maintain balance. Thor could feel her rapid and powerful heartbeat under his hands. He heard her low bellowing over the noise of the crowd in the background.
"She's scared", Thor suddenly understood that it was all the noise that was driving her to panic. He called out to Hogun who was closest, "Stop all the shouting, we need silence". Hogun nodded, quickly instructing Fandral and Volstagg to back off. He ran back towards the crowd and ordered them to quiet down.
Thor pulled himself upright and tried to gently steer Suri away from the training equipment. She shook her head and snorted angrily as she crashed into yet another target and sent it flying. Thor slapped her lightly on the back and rubbed her neck, "Come on, calm down Suri", he urged. The crowd had gone quiet now and Suri finally began to slow down.
Thor continued patting her back and spoke to her in a slow and measured tone, "Now why don't we go that way, back onto the path away from all these obstacles? I know you must be tired by now too right?" Suri finally seemed to calm and she allowed him to steer her back to the dirt track. Fandral was standing at the corner with a grin of relief on his face, he winked at Thor as he passed and held up his hands with six fingers in the air.
Thor chuckled to himself, "Alright then, shall we win this bet?" he asked Suri. He rode on smoothly and this time she complied and continued running along the track at a steady, moderate pace. The crowd watched amazed as Thor completed the last round effortlessly.
Fandral pumped his fists into the air and called out, "That's seven, and he has done it. Prince Thor has tamed Suri, the untameable wildebeest!" It was quite a sight, everyone present watched spellbound as the Golden Prince of Asgard rode comfortably atop the magnificent animal. Thor looked positively radiant in the light of Asgard's glorious sunset, his blonde hair flying wildly in the breeze and his deep blue eyes sparkling with good humour; he looked every inch the prince he was.
At last Thor pulled Suri to a halt, a safe distance away from the mound the crowd was gathered on. He stopped to bask in the glory of the moment, but something was wrong. It was too silent, even Fandral had stopped talking. Thor turned and looked back taking in the royal mess Suri had left in her wake. The training ground looked like it had been hit by a tornado, what was left of the training equipment was messily strewn about in every direction. But everyone's attention was fixed on the imposing figure in red robes, standing at the edge of the pitch.
"What in Hel's name is going on over here?" yelled Odin.
Note: So I finally managed to update this story that I started a few months ago, I'm hoping to be more regular with my posts now that I have most of the main story lines plotted out. Do let me know what you think – how do you feel about Eir and Loki teaming up? Did you like Thor's introduction? Any comments or criticism would be greatly appreciated :)
