Winter's Treasures
By Rey
Chapter summary: Prejudice, lack of information, culture shock and a smattering of danger mixed so very well. It worked, even against the Silvertongue.
4. Basics, Part 2
"We should keep rotated watch," Loki ventured out when the golden hue of the sky deepened and reflected rather painfully from some of the icy surface all round them, in addition to warming the place up to the point of drowsiness.
"How you know about rotated watch, little?" Đorkyn, now sans most of their travelling clothes and curled in their bedroll under the ice roof that Ovrekka had just erected, scoffed. "No say thing you not know. Make you look younger your age."
"I am old enough to have experienced it, many times over," Loki bit out. He was still fully wrapped in his travelling attire despite the warmth of the sunlight, with no intention to lie down any time soon, and his attention was stubbornly focused on their environment, skittishly watching out for any bandit or predator or natural disaster in the making.
He only tore his sharp gaze away from the rocks and boulders and jagged stones that populated the area when he sensed horror and disbelief emanating from all his companions. "What?" he bit out again, more unsurely and defensively than he had meant to sound.
"You…?" Avlar, also still in their full attire, although their lower legs had been jammed into their bedroll, gawked. The sentiment was echoed, in varying degrees of disbelief and/or scorn, by the others.
"I am nearly one-thousand-and-three-hundred years old," Loki bristled even fiercer. "I am perfectly capable of many things. Keeping watch and fighting are only some of them."
`Keeping watch and fighting against you, if need be,` he wanted to add; but Ovrekka looked so tired and distressed already that, somehow, against the order of his mind and æsir habits, his heart baulked on the idea of giving them more stress to try to diffuse.
Still, he had never expected them all to laugh, of all things.
Ovrekka shifted closer and plopped him into the loose cocoon made from their limbs, as if to show how small – how young it seemed – he was compared to them. He tried to wriggle his way out, but got cuddled instead.
"I am two-thousand-one-hundred-and-three years old," they said, with an unmistakable smile in their voice, the deepest and most gravelly of them all. There was a childlike quality in the simple proclamation that made Loki pause from trying to kick, punch, jab and bite at his living cage, highly disturbed.
"I am one-thousand-five-hundred-and-sixteen," chirped Avlar teasingly. "Still older than you!"
"One-six-nine-five," Derek, the third largest of the travelling companions, stumbled quietly through the Allspeak with a tiny smile in their voice.
"One-thousand-eight-hundred-seven," drawled Đorkyn. "See? You youngest, little. It show anyway."
"Some Kindreds are small, Đorkyé," Ovrekka sighed, as Loki tensed up in their arms. "Our best mages are usually small, too."
"And those who were forced to grow up fast," Avlar piped in, absent of their earlier levity. "Like Ranyé."
"Like Ranyé," Ovrekka agreed sadly. "But Ranyé is with Ymir now, like my gannha. Should Ymir choose to rebirth them, I hope they have much better lives."
"What happened?" Loki failed to contain his innate curiosity, and also the darker drive to gather some intelligence. The information was nno longer new to him, as Ovrekka had explained it to him beforehand, but these comments put it into a different perspective, a more tangible context from which he might be able to base his behaviour on until he could go somewhere else – far, far away.
"Tell us your name first," Avlar stipulated in response – in a bolder voice than the statement warranted, in Loki's opinion. The vulnerability in their red eyes – the only part of them that was readily visible at present – hardened a little into unreadability, as they curled up into a gangly ball with their arms perched across their knees, covering the lower part of their face.
Loki tensed up even more, wary; wondering if his name was common in this place or otherwise and if Laufey had ever announced what the name of the King's runty son would have been, worrying if it would be connected to his Asgardian attire – at least by Ovrekka – and then to the rare bearers of the name "Loki" in Asgard, thinking if he should invent a false name if not a false identity altogether….
"A fair bargain," Ovrekka agreed soothingly, patting Loki's shoulder, as if they could dismiss his tension and the general unease in that way. "We know about the recounting already. Some of our elders were even there directly during that dark time. But you were not there, little one. We do not wish you to be a stranger, but we do not even know your name."
"You did not ask me before," Loki accused weakly, distractedly, even more confused than before; a state of mind that he had rarely been in, and now he found he detested it so much. Feeling uncomfortable with the proximity now, he used Ovrekka's inattention to slip out of their lap and seat himself on the farthest corner away from the rest of their small party.
"It is your choice to introduce yourself or not, is it not," Avlar pointed out impatiently. "Do you not know that? Your maternal jitya has four braided lines, your paternal jitya as well to a great degree, and Ymir's crown-line is on your brow. You are somehow from royalty. Elder Vrelkki said so in one of their lessons. And Elder Vrelkki fought alongside the Royal House in two wars. There were even rumours that Rekki's nar looked so much like Konnar Laufey."
Loki's heart thumped madly in his chest. `Laufey's son,` his mind shrieked. `Suffering. Abandoned. Left to die.` And then, `If Laufey's other gets ever know that his runty, worthless son is here….`
His own damn body was betraying him. Who knew that these barbaric markings had meaning?
If the right people read these meanings correctly….
His breathing sped up. He felt numb, and yet electrified.
When Ovrekka leant forward and reached out a hand, he skittered back and hissed, "Stay away from me!"
"Do not treat Rekki so!" Avlar barked, jumping up to their feet. The other two followed suit.
Loki, now also on his feet, tensed up even further. Ovrekka's entreaties for their charges to settle back down and finish the discussion without blows passed by him like wind, acknowledged but dismissed.
Still, when he next spoke, he chose to address them above all, while keeping the three smaller, incensed jötnar within his peripheral vision. "Did you take me in and include me in this journey only because I am somehow royalty to your eyes?" And damn the new fears that colluded with his resurfacing insecurities, he had not meant his voice to come out so shaky.
He reached into his pocket dimension for an úru dagger and fell into a defensive stance, to compensate for his unconvincing demand.
Đorkyn snapped something at Ovrekka in that untranslatable language, which must be their native tongue, while sneering – showing all their black, sharp teeth – to him. Derek fidgeted, looking with wide-eyed fear at the dagger held competently in his hand. Avlar snarled and bowled their fists.
"Please put the knife away, little one," Ovrekka, the only one still seated on their weird picnic blanket, frankly and desperately begged. "There is no need for that. I do not want you to hurt yourself or the others."
"Hurt myself?" Loki sneered, lifting up the dagger as Avlar approached menacingly. "I have been trained in using weapons like this one since I was two hundred years old."
"You lie!" Đorkyn growled, scorn and disbelieve thick in that short declaration.
"Why would I?" Loki retorted. "In…" `…in Asgard…` "…in my place we train from that age."
"You would practically still be a toddler, then!" Avlar squawked, offence turning suddenly into horror, fists unravelling. "What barbaric place would do that to such a small child?"
`Asgard, and it is not as barbaric as Jötunheim is, you monsters!` a part of his mind automatically parried. Nevertheless, for a long, embarrassing moment, he could only open and close his mouth in vain.
"We have different concepts of age," he concluded at last, in his best dismissive tone. "I am one-thousand-two-hundred-and-ninety-four, and I am a perfectly capable warrior in body, mind and experience." He did not put away his dagger, but relaxed his stance a little. "Now, please tell me why you took me in and included me in this journey." He infused his best commanding tone into the demand, in hope that the topic would not be veered away for the second time.
"You are not our parent!" Avlar glared at him.
Loki scowled right back, unimpressed by both the retort and the glare. What was the childish offence of one small monster worth, compared to the furious and disappointed damnation of Odin Allfather? And he had received the latter so generously given since a long, long time ago already.
However, before the situation could spike up again, Ovrekka pushed themself verbally into the stalemate. "Gannha took you in without looking at your jitya," they said firmly, with stubborn conviction so much like Thor's that his much abused heart ached. "We – Gannha and I – only knew when we unwrapped you, to tend to any possible wound you might have. Nobody else knew, until these three saw you before I wrapped you for travel." They took a slow, deep breath, next, and pinned Loki with a disbelieving look more potant than Đorkyn's ever was, nearly rivalling Mother's – no, Frigga's – that he was slightly taken aback.
"Why would we leave you back there, regardless of who you are? How would you live off of a barren land? Do you think we would uproot ourselves, if the situation was not dire? People of the fields are not nomadic, usually, as people of the seas and mountains often are. Now, please, little one, for the sake of our unity in this trip if for nothing else, tell us your name?"
`Damn. A second Frigga,` was all that filled his mind. Then his courtly training snapped back, ironically triggered by that thought, and he schooled his bearing and expression into distant unreadability. His mind, meanwhile, feverishly tried to come up with a fake background for himself, to properly introduce himself with, and tried also to find a way to obscure the markings on his skin without attracting attention.
"I do not remember who and what I was before I fell," would have sufficed, if only he had not claimed that where he had been warriors underwent training since they were two hundred years old.
But, with all the emotions and thoughts and plans jumbled together in his flabbergasted mind, he could not think of anything else.
And then, it became a moot point, as Avlar forced themself back into the conversation, insisting, "Now, what is your name? Or shall I call you… ah, how do those stinking pigs say it? Princeling?"
Loki snarled. "For one who seems to revere the royalty, you are one impudent thing," he snapped, bearing his teeth like the monster his skin was wearing – like the monster he was.
"I just followed tradition, and tried to show you a basic respect," Avlar growled back, with acid scorn that was usually Loki's purview when he was most wrathful with somebody, and with an unimpressed look that Loki would have applauded in another time and another place. "We have no ties to the nobles, anyway, except for the times when Elder Vrelkki and Rekki's parents worked with them, and those stupid rumours about Rekki's nar. Titles mean nothing to the fields, too. Animals and plants cannot grow by touch of a highborn."
"I never said that!" was the only answer that Loki could come up with, childish as it was, as the sheer impudence of the little monster floored him. His gift of eloquence failed him thoroughly, for once.
In Asgard, no commoner would have dared to behave thus. They would have spoken and spread gossip behind the nobles' backs and underneath their lofty attention, but they would never have spat right on the said nobles' faces.
This was… refreshing, but also troubling for his all-too-pressing predicament.
Just more trouble, on top of a heap of them.
He shook his head, then tossed his dagger back into his pocket dimension. "Just tell me," he said at length, suddenly feeling tired and fed up with everything. "Why are we not in Tora yet? Or at least the next village? You will not have to see me ever again, then."
"The next village is a half day's worth of brisk walk for an adult, little one," Ovrekka said reasonably, while patting the patch of ice beside them in clear invitation. "We are neither adults nor in prime condition for any brisk walking. We may reach it by tomorrow afternoon, if nothing hinders us. As for leaving us, who are you going to live with, then?"
"Nobody," was his immediate comeback. Frustration converged with confusion, and it was all that he could do to stay put, standing at the edge of their odd campsite. "I told you all. I can take care of myself. I have many skills. I can work." Not that he would need to work in the long term, as he would sneak away the first chance he got, maybe to Midgard or Nornheim – places that Asgard either looked down on or was not so friendly with.
"You are still far under three thousand," Avlar scoffed, with hands all a-milling. "I would like to work, too, if I could. But I am only half the way there. Not even Rekki is of age yet for small and simple works, or so I heard. Two-thousand-five-hundred is the norm, people say, in cities like Tora."
Loki threw a deadpan frown at the seated, long-suffering Ovrekka. "You said… everyone back there…."
"City and village lives are two different things, little one," Ovrekka frowned back at him. "Surely you know that? We need… needed… all hands that could help, out in the fields." Their craggy face – craggier than those of the others – crumpled up further, yet again, and their effort to regain their equilibrium was painful to watch.
"Call me Loki," he said, instead of responding to the remark, ungracefully and quite abruptly changing the topic, before Ovrekka could wallow more in their misery,
Or else, ask uncomfortable questions and think uncomfortable thoughts.
He really, truly needed a believable background soon, especially with his name being out in the open like this.
And regarding the information he had just received…. If these weird monsters, hiding their savagery under a veil of childishness and civilisation, wanted to treat him like a little child, then maybe…
…He could strike at them from new, creative angles, all the bitterer for the monsters for that, as a parting gift before he was gone forever from this harsh, pitiful realm.