Winter's Treasures
By Rey
Chapter summary: Sacrifice, like hunger, takes many forms and corresponding tolls. The quietest version is the bitterest, as well.
Warning: Graphic (if semi-implied) violence against a child at the end, separated by three asterisks. Please consider your headspace and taste before proceeding past that marker. The plotline would not be lost even if you did not read that part.
8. Hunger
The journey seemed unbelievably longer without Đorkyn to snipe at and Ovrekka to walk with, somehow. Loki had not told his companions about the fate of those two, and yet they seemed to drag their feet anyway.
They had never tasted such adversity despite their no-doubt hard living prior to the wild Bifrost energy punching a crater down on their land, he thought, when they bedded for the "night." Neither Avlar nor Derek bothered getting out of their clothes, and none of them used the bedrolls as anything but lumpy pillows to sleep on. None of them tried to erect any kind of ice shelter as well, which further suggested to him that the skill required one to be older and more mature first, or, alternatively, that the person had been honing such skill regularly.
Or that the person had any will and energy to spare, for that matter, if looking at how Avlar and Derek immediately fell into an exhausted sleep almost before their heads touched their makeshift pillows.
Loki himself felt totally wrung out and empty, although not yet to the point of sprawling on the ground to sleep without any care for his surroundings. No meal of any sort had touched his stomach since at least six days ago, after all, and he had spent all that time trudging long distances entirely on foot with the weight of a semi-full pack on his back, battered mercilessly by a handful of storms in the open to boot. He had never gone without sustenance for this long, even in his worst adventures with Thor and that brat's band of idiots. Going anywhere with Volstagg meant a steady supply of food and drinks, and going anywhere with Thor oftentimes meant food put into his mouth first before into… his.
He hated hunger and chill nearly above all others, and the combination of both was certainly near the top of his list, next to lack of identity and lack of family; and now, he was experiencing all of those. Damn it, he had never even thought that a jötun could feel chilled!
And damn the wind, too. It had been blowing hard all evening and he was fed up with it, and the misery it increased in him.
He still could not form any kind of ice yet, except for lightly coating the glove part of his outfit that covered the palm of his hand with it, but he still had some remaining seiðr pooling in his body. So, given the abundance of ice scree nearby, he dragged a few heaps of it using his seiðr to the campsite and arranged them as naturally as he knew it along the circumference of their tiny camp. An illusion laid on top and in between them made it as if there was a hill of ice scree at this very spot, instead of a campsite bordered by smaller heaps of it.
The wind died down somewhat, and so did the chill plus his paranoia of sleeping in open spaces.
He plunked into a fitful slumber right afterwards, without his mind's leave.
Using the beacon was like letting his consciousness be tugged along by a much vaster one and spread out like jam over a slice of bread. It made him feel highly uncomfortable. Still, he could not deny that it was effective in pinpointing his destination and the settlement that lay along the way, the midway-point inn plus housing supports that Ovrekka had mentioned about.
Well, it was horribly, terrifyingly all too far to reach on foot, all the same. A hulking twenty-five-feet beast in good health might easily cover the distance in one day or two, but he was perfectly aware that he must be one of the smallest creatures in this realm, a six-feet scrawny thing that he was, and one that was getting scrawnier by the day, and his companions were not far bigger than he was; not to mention, they were all battered from all the storms blowing reputedly unseasonally in the open, exhausted already by heartache and the terribly long trek they had endured, and starving.
He dearly, dearly hoped the stories about jötnar being canibals were false, or he would be toast… perhaps literally so.
"Why did you choose this path, Lokyé? There was a perfectly travelable road back there," Avlar whined tiredly as they scrambled over yet another jagged rock formation.
"Fastest route," Loki reasoned weakly. He was starting to regret his decision, now that they had spent half a day scrambling up and down jagged landscape away from the long curve of the road. It was far more tiring than walking on the road itself, not to mention more torturous, given all the sharp stone bumps and needles jabbing and prickling at their skin, bypassing their tattered, thinned clothes. But then, how if Đorkyn and Ovrekka had talked, and the slavers were combing the road even now, searching for the remaining members of their splintered band?
His confidence in his decision as the unspoken leader of their trio was severely tested when "night" approached; a heavy snowfall drenched them, while the midway point was still nearly as far as when they had firstly set out away from the road.
Hungry, chilled, snowed on. It was perfect. He hated it all.
His first memory was that of abandonment, hunger, chill, and snow that threatened to bury him alive. He knew now that it was most likely when Odin had taken him away from the temple, which must have leaked in snow from damage in the war, but the knowledge only made him feel more wretched.
He was unwanted by all parties involved.
Worse, Avlar had just declared that they could not go on any longer and immediately plopped down on the least jagged, most protected spot along their way. Derek silently followed suit, forcing Loki to do the same by way of majority votes.
"Let us talk about good things," Avlar begged plaintively next. "I could do with some cuddly stories."
Derek seemed to interpret their statement, spoken in Allspeak, as literal cuddling. Avlar was soon dragged into the taller jötun's arms, rested against Derek's front, while Derek themself rested their back against a more-or-less smooth rock cliff behind them. In turn, Avlar dragged a highly reluctant Loki into their arms, to settle in the same position. "Much better," they proclaimed, then, with their voice still laden with exhaustion but brighter than before.
And, indeed, Loki felt a little better, less alone, less lonely. He had never truly thought jötun biology and psyche might require close tactile comfort, despite prior evidence. The concept of it was as freakishly and outlandishly weird to him as imagining Odin as a jötun toddler being cuddled by a hulkingly huge Laufey. He had thought he had cherished his physical contact with Elder Vrelkki and Ovrekka because of more personal and sentimental reason….
"What is the first memory that you remember, Lokyé?" Avlar said next, and all the good feeling he had gained by this contact vanished as if it had never been there. He stiffened in Avlar's arms and sought to break free, but the taller… boy – maybe? – tightened their arms instead.
"Sorry sorry sorry," the jötun babbled weakly, sounding scared silly. "I thought it was going to be a nice memory! Forgive me? We can talk about other things. Please don't go away."
"One-two-nine-four, Ava," Derek pointed out with what sounded like sad, disappointed admonishment at the shorter jötun.
Avlar cringed. "Sorry," they whined plaintively, tightening their arms round Loki. "You must have been born at the end of the war, or in the middle of it. So sorry, Lokyé. I shan't ever ask again if you wish it."
Loki gave them a hasty, jerky nod. He wished it very much, yes he did.
Desperately needing to attract the other two's attention to another topic entirely, he retrieved a package of jerky that he had always stored in his pocket dimension in case of emergency, alongside many other items. He had not wanted to touch his non-perishable food supplies while still in this realm, in case he would have had a greater need for it later on, and also in case his companions would have asked too much about it and eaten too much of it; however, it seemed, his tolerance of adversity had hit an all-time low that he was not sure he could recover from if not remedied forthwith.
Thankfully, neither Avlar nor Derek asked about where he had gotten the food, nor why he had not shared it with the others beforehand, and neither did they eat beyond a single, measly strip of jerky each from the proffered package.
Loki gave them each an additional strip for their understanding silence.
The brief taste of food only tortured them more without giving them any visible boost of energy, Loki regretably found out when they broke their impromptu camp the next "morning." Still, neither of his companions complained about it, and he was grateful for their silence, again.
They spent yet another "day" scrambling and trudging through rock formations, ice scree, jabby stone pebbles, and snowdrifts at least twice their size. Loki had offered to store their packs in his pocket dimension before they had set out for the day, and now they were all thankful about the less weight and bulk to worry about.
By the "night," Loki reckoned that they were three quarters the way to the midway point… which was so pathetic he could not hold back a physical cringe on thinking about it.
He might die exhausted and starving out here in no-man's land among jagged rocks and ice and snow and maybe other hidden things. Đorkyn had been all too right. They would all die before ever reaching even the midway point.
He shared the last of the jerky in the oilcloth package he had opened yesterday "night" with his two companions, no longer hording it for a "later" that might never come.
Because even the ward for invisibility and distraction that the three of them had kept up had just dissipated, despite the boost of the jerky as sustenance for energy.
Subconscious danger alarms woke Loki up near "dawn." He had forgotten to erect his usual wards round their camp for the "night," and it was doubtful if he could still have done it anyway; but he had shared various adventures with Thor, and most of those adventures had had a certain amount of unexpected danger in their various points, so his instincts had been trained to notice such dangers even without the help of specific wards.
He leapt to his feet at once and roused his companions, shushing them urgently before they could squawk in surprise and protest at the small balls of energy he had made from his seiðr exploding all over them. "Danger," was all he said, in Ymska, and they were already running when the last sound passed his lips.
With mental acuity as degraded by starvation of the physical and mental and emotional kinds, they forgot that running away from any predator would only incite the said predator to chase them down more eagerly.
Loki was sure the scream would haunt him all his life.
Derek's scream. A child's primal wail, full of horror and terror and desperation – and agony, next, along with the chilling sounds of crunching bones, getting farther behind as the said child had been abandoned without any last look over one's shoulder.
Derek had fallen back willingly, when they had realised they could not possibly outrun whatever chasing them forever. `Shield,` was all Loki could think of, harkening back to the quiet jötun's word that time in what felt like ages ago.
It had been a vow, now he realised with sick certainty, as he and Avlar, hand in hand, flew – almost literally – across the landscape that they would have slowly traversed otherwise, using the time and chance that their other companion had paid for them so dearly. The beacon shone livid blue in his other hand, guiding their way and screaming for help in place of their silenced voices.
They fell unconscious together an indeterminate time later, their energy fully spent, before their bodies even hit the ground. The beacond clattered down at the same time, still shining blue for a moment longer before dimming, with no more seiðr fed into it.