Winter's Treasures
By Rey
Chapter summary: An argument. An heirloom. A parting. – Horror. Pain. Fury. Only after. – Hindsight is twenty-twenty, always.
7. Vindicated, Part 2
"Caravan," Derek suddenly said during the fourth day of their trek away from the walled village, as they crested a hill that was, according to Ovrekka, the quarter-way point of their journey instead of pretty close to Tora already. Loki had spent the journey so far learning about the jötnar's native tongue, especially those related to navigation and things that they might find on the road, intersperced with trying to survive several more – thankfully smaller – hailstorms. He had given up on trying not to learn anything about this broken realm, figuring that some knowledge of it would indeed be vital for his survival. It paid off now, as the ever-silent, keen-eyed Derek declared their observation in that very language.
"We wait," he interjected in the same tongue, before anybody else could utter the horrible idea of approaching the said caravan for help or, Norns forbid, just run there without any plan.
And still, he had to grab hold of Đorkyn's braided leather belt, to prevent them from just charging down the hill and catching up with the speck of dark figure down below.
"We wait," he insisted. But the tallest of the three smaller jötnar just snarled and shoved him away, with such force that his much weakened body spilt onto the ragged surface of the road.
"Đorkyé!" Avlar squawked, protesting, even as they helped a shocked and incensed Loki up.
"Little children know nothing," Đorkyn scoffed in the Allspeak; although, contrary to the sharpness of his shove, there was little heat to be found in his tired words.
"You are not much older than we are," Avlar pointed out, growling.
"Old enough to know more," Đorkyn jibed back.
Loki squeezed Avlar's hand before they could utter any more responding retort. He himself longed to flay Đorkyn alive with his tongue, far sharper and more skilled and more experienced than Avlar's ever was; he knew a dead-end argument when he heard and saw it, though, and he was too exhausted – too fed up with everything – to bother with arguing with a child, all the same. "We wait," he aimed his imploring words at Ovrekka instead, back in Ymska. – If they would not accept any advice, let alone command, maybe they would be softened by some begging in their own tongue?
But Ovrekka, bowed down by the weight of leadership that they were not prepared for – or so he assumed – and maybe also fed up with everything, agreed with Đorkyn.
"I am the oldest," they cut in, when Loki then tried to argue his point in Allspeak.
`"Know your place, brother."`
He shut up.
But Ovrekka was not his brother, nor was Thor his brother any longer given that painful revellation months ago.
He followed nobody.
He was really, really tired of arguing, too, for once. `Monsters do what monsters do,` his mind supplied, staying his tongue further from pointing out that he had been right before, about that walled village that had rejected them.
"Go, then," he conceded. "Just give me a map or at least some direction to follow to reach Tora. I shall go by myself."
Ovrekka hesitated, but then halted and reached into their pack. "The Anchor powered most of our devises," they said quietly, wistfully. "However, one can operate this one without much trouble if one has great and fine enough grasp of seiðr. Gannha said your grasp of seiðr was exceptional, far beyond your age, when they tested the layers and latticework of spells surrounding you even when you were deeply unconscious, so I am entrusting this to you. Býkonnar Angrboða gifted this to Gannha after the War with Malekith's people. It was one of Gannha's most prized possessions. Please do not lose it… or your life. I would like to see both of you safe, in Tora."
The aforementioned devise was a thick, bluish transparent crystal disk with ridged circumference. An unbroken line of tiny, unfamiliar, darkened runes, all different from each neighbouring etching, ran along the inner circumference like an exotic, delicate calligraphic decoration. It looked rather small, laid on Ovrekka's palm, and Loki had no doubt that it would be coin-sized to a full-grown jötun, or at least close to that.
"This devise has many uses. Gannha said some called it Ymir's coin, because of its ties to the Anchor and thus to Ymir themself, and the fact that it has less potancy when used outside of Ymir's reach. The proper name is simply 'beacon', since it basically sucks energies and redistributes them for various purposes, and sensitive people usually know when it is activated, let alone when it is being used."
"Quick, Rekki," Đorkyn interjected impatiently in Ymska. The sharp-voiced reasoning that came next sounded just like babbling to Loki's limited knowledge of this language, save for the word "caravan" and something that might be "went", but the meaning was clear even without a good grasp on the admitedly – shockingly – smooth-flowing, almost lilting tongue.
He sent the belligerent jötun a glare.
Đorkyn returned it two-fold, with disgust as a side-dish.
"We will talk more, in Tora," it was Ovrekka who cut back in – in Allspeak – instead of Loki, as if trying to wrestle back control of the swiftly unravelling conversation and civility between them all. Then, resolutely turning their attention back to Loki and the… beacon… still laid outstretched on their palm, they continued, "Ask the elders in Tora to teach you more Ymska. These runes are written Ymska, but of the sort that is mostly used for enchantments and road signs… when the roads were still well taken care of, that is." They let out a weary sigh, sinking into wistful contemplation, then plodded on after an eager-eyed Avlar poked at their side, seeming thirsty for more of the apparently new information, "Send a small tendral of seiðr into the rune or runes you wish to activate, but do not overflow it. If you wish to find a sharper result, up the flow slowly. Greater power does not mean greater result, here; finer, continuous and well-paced supply is much better and safe."
They regarded Loki sharply for a moment, then resumed the explanation with more details after he had nodded his understanding and assent, "This rune, the one that resembles the outline of a ball with a big dot on the middle, will tell your mind of where the nearest settlement is… or settlements, for that matter. If you feed it exact thoughts of where you wish to go – or at least the name of the place that its inhabitants might call it by – and at the same time link it to this rune," they indicated the adjacent rune, shaped vaguely like the Aldska rune for 'ch', "it will lead you to that place through a mental trail and provide you a limited knowledge of what lies between you and that place. If you activate these two and the one at the opposite side, the square one with two diagonal lines intersecting each other on the middle, you will have the illusion of the map outside your head instead, though Gannha said it's imperfect, unlike the real map the mages built."
They fell into a heavy silence, like they had been doing whenever deeper thoughts of their grandparent surfaced; but, again like all those times, they shook themself free of the reminiscence soon enough. "This," they soldiered on with a sigh, while shaking the beacon a little for emphasis, "is an all-purpose travelling beacon, meant for personal use, so it is small and rather simple; but it still has many uses, and activating the right combination of runes on it can help you nearly as much as if you use the more advanced versions. You can ask me or the elders for more information when you reach Tora." Their gaze and expression turned stern and deadly serious, then, even more than before, and Loki unconsciously straightened up into the pose a soldier would adopt at attention.
"I told you that this is a priceless heirloom," they said in a quieter voice, sad and solemn, like a child forced to mature beyond their years and comprehend things a child should be yet ignorant of. Their eyes met Loki's and held him still, and for once he did not seek to turn away from such a monstrous eye colour, surrounded by ridged bone sockets. "If you are between life and death, still, use it," they continued at length. "Overflow the beacon with your seiðr, activate all the runes, and throw it where you want it to go, quickly. The explosion will kill the danger or dangers, but please have care that you are not caught in it. People used this tactic during the wars, when they were in desperate situations, but they said unwary and unskilled use of this last resort resulted in far more problems than it was worth."
Avlar and Derek winced. Đorkyn scoffed disbelievingly.
Loki, meanwhile, somehow had to bite back the well-drilled instinct to salute and say, "Yes, sir!"
Ovrekka talked some more about the more practical things about the beacon, let Loki have a guided test drive on operating it, then let him stow it away in his pocket dimension.
He could not bare looking at its lit inside too much.
Because, when initially activated, and more when any of the runes got prodded by his seiðr and intention, the centre of the beacon lit up with an eerie, sharply beautiful maelstrom of blue and white and the shades in between.
Too much like the Casket of Ancient Winters, that other thing that Odin had taken away from Jötunheim those centuries ago.
"I will stay, keep Lokyé company," Avlar said at length, when Ovrekka began to move away, following Đorkyn's lead. "Lokyé seems new here, somehow. It will be suicide if they go alone." They looked faintly bewildered, but also determined.
His pride stung a little, Loki stirred from his dark thoughts and waved away the intention. "I can take care of myself," he insisted, for the umpteenth time already since days ago. For supposed children, these monsters did like to baby him somehow, and that had become tiresome right from the start.
Just like in the previous instances, however, nobody heeded him. Derek even decided to tag along. "Shield," was all they said in their seemingly limited grasp of Allspeak, and the dirty, scraggly tangle of Loki's hair stood on end hearing that solemn pronouncement.
"You do not have to go with me. I do not trust that caravan you spoke of, but perhaps it is caused just by my paranoia and lack of understanding about aspects of this current situation," he insisted, with an unknown dread of an impending something pooling on the bottom of his empty, shrivelled stomach.
The quietest of the jötnar gave him a small, non-tooth-bearing smile, and waved a hand in what he had surmised by now as being a shruggy gesture for these… beings.
Đorkyn called impatiently from up ahead, so the matter was quickly driven from Loki's mind by irritation and an ever-piling dislike for that jötun. "Go, and keep these concealed somewhere in your person," he said curtly to Ovrekka, while retrieving a couple of emerald disk beads from his pocket dimension, activating their tracking and mapping capabilities, and thrusting them into the latter's hand. "Give one to that oaf, if you want, and ask… them… to do the same. I shall be able to track you using these, if no ward beyond their strength is present and if you do not lose them."
"Talented, indeed," Ovrekka smiled admiringly, with aching wistfulness that he – astonishingly, disturbingly – shared. "Gannha would have been so delighted to teach you alongside me… if only we lived in happier times."
`If only. If only. Well, if only I were dead and that one were alive….`
"Just go," he said, with some roughness caught in his throat, as he pushed the tallest jötun towards Đorkyn's direction. "Say nothing about the three of us. We are going to follow you in concealment as well as we can. We might be able to conduct a rescue mission should it be required if – and only if – they knew nothing about our presence. We are too small, too few and too exhausted to manage a frontal assault."
"This is not a military operation, Lokyé," Ovrekka threw back over their shoulder, even as they jogged to catch up with Đorkyn.
"Tell me that it is not," Loki muttered somewhat resentfully as he wove a mobile ward for invisibility and distraction round himself and his two remaining companions. "Children."
"Well, you are one, yourself," Avlar quipped, maybe in an effort to lighten up the gloomy atmosphere that was permeating this splintered group of theirs.
"I am not," he retorted, treading the same tired argument that was on par with the questions about his survival skills. "Now, all of… you," `No, no, not us. I am not you. I am a monster, but I may be more monstrous than you are.` "have seiðr of your own, and I saw for myself that you have a rather good grasp on it. I want you to reach out to this ward I am placing around us and feed it whenever it starts to unravel. The work of three people–" `Ha! People! Well, are you a person? Am I a person? Are we not monsters that Asgardians use to scare children into behaving?` "–should retain the strength and durability of the ward beyond expectancy."
They needed this, his gut instinct said, regardless of what he might otherwise think about these jötnar and himself. He did not trust strangers easily, and the appearance of a lone caravan on this desolate road, in an earlier-than-predicted vicious storm season, was suspicious indeed.
He only relaxed, a little, when Avlar and derek had clumsily connected to the ward and begun to feed it with trickles of their own seiðr.
He had no doubt the ward would collapse long before it was due, given their sharply flagging strength; but at least it was something.
His shoulders slumped further with relief when mental impressions of Ovrekka and Đorkyn popped up on the back of his mind–
–And tensed back up, worse than before, when he noticed the chaotic mess of shock and horror and fear and betrayal emanating from that pair of impressions not long after, when he had begun to lead his reduced company along the interrupted journey.
`SLAVERS!` rang loudly in his mind, so loud and messy that he did not know who had screamed it. One of the impressions flared, then, before dropping away and unfolding into a mental map of a trolley or wagon of some kind.
An enclosed, dirty one, with chains all over its surface, wrapping round Ovrekka and Đorkyn.
Slavers, indeed. He should not have been so shocked. This was the land of monsters, after all. It would make sense if slavery was rampant, with monsters preying on their own kin, even – or rather, especially – on the children.
But he was shocked, there was no denying it.
Shocked and angry, helplessly furious.
And horrified, and dearly wished to just storm the slavers and make them pay…, somehow.