Winter's Treasures
By Rey
Chapter summary: History repeats itself, for the good as well as the bad. And joy and relief, the twin double-edged swords that they are, can stab so deep….
9. Another
Consciousness, sluggish and sticky and bitter like ahrro sap in late autumn, brought with itself total disorientation. The only thing that registered to the delirious mind at first, with an ample amount of surprise that it did not recognise the cause of but the aching heart knew all too well, was, `I am alive.`
And then, before knowledge of self could sip in, knowledge of the outside world did it: `Light. Warm. crisp. Fragrant. Soft. Sleek. Unfamiliar. Seiðr.` Although, still, none of the information made sense. The pieces were all jumbled, whirling and hopping about like busy little bees in spring.
The mind and heart clicked into synchronisation on the `seiðr` piece, however, once it plopped in. The knowledge and power were instinctive and bone-deep, soul-deep, removable only by death.
And this person was not dead. Not yet. `But why? What happened?`
Seiðr – another's seiðr – prodded at the mind. It recoiled, threw up shields, tried to lash out.
`Déjà vu,` the mind supplied, unnerved. Echoes of recent memories flooded into conscious thought.
The heart fled from it, but the grief the echoes bred enveloped it anyway.
The throat let out a sob, but the mind could not comprehend why.
The humming of a not-so-gravelly voice wormed into the ears as if through deep water. The soft, sleek surface changed into something… comfortable, much more preferable, and sweeping rocking movements soon followed, in time with the tones of the humming, intersperced with playful bounces that jostled him not at all.
It felt heavenly.
The sob died a lonely thing. Instead, what felt like a tiny responding hum built slowly in the throat, sounding a little bit like a long, low coo.
The humming picked up variations, speaking about happy times tinged by known and unknown sorrows, despite the lack of words, and the energetic but graceful movements did likewise. The whole thing felt natural to the bones and flesh and blood, and intimately so to the deepest instincts the self had.
It shielded the mind and soul and heart from the worst, as the memories refused to be denied passage for the last time and broke in.
Just like before.
"Huh. Never thought I would ever become a nurser," came a semi-gravelly, semi-deep-voiced mutter from above, reverberating on the large expanse of muscled chest Loki was pressed against. He was yet too exhausted and heartsick to analyse anything from the words and tone of the stranger, especially after his embarrassing weeping session just now, and his muscled cage somehow felt too comfortable, too cosy to forsake, anyway, so he never even tried.
Instead, his lips were latched round something that he believed and prayed and insisted to himself as not an effing nipple from someone's honest-to-Yggdrasil breast and sucked in the heavenly liquid he had tasted only once before in recallable memory. The thing felt even better now, cooler and truly fluid, sliding swiftly into his gut and bursting outward to rejuvenate his whole self. And better yet, the muscled cage had begun to move again, dancing and prancing gracefully as if to some choreographed piece of music that only the said cage could hear.
Maybe the music from before? Would he hear that again some time soon?
Would this cage ever forget this long, embarrassing episode, when he was once more well and hale?
He decided it did not matter, for the time being, as gentle fingers carded through his hair with infinite care, caressing him from outside even as the heavenly liquid did it from inside.
The body wrapped round him was not as huge – maybe not just yet? – and its form was padded with bulging muscles, if with little to no fat; but still, the experience of being surrounded so warmly and fully by another living being like this was an eerie déjà vu moment that Loki would dearly seek to forget for the pain and useless yearning it gave him. The soft, luxurious furs that formed the bedding underneath him, also one that wrapped his body snugly, did not ground him as much as he had thought it could, too. Instead, somewhat resentfully, he wondered if even just one of these furs had been traded off with food, would it have saved the people in that village?
Would it have saved the Elder Vrelkki that those jötun children seemed to adore so much?
That he himself had owed his survival and comfort to?
Was this one going to leave him as well for a path that he could not follow, when he woke up next time?
A path that he had failed to follow, twice?
"Hey, Bump, you are shaking again. I thought you liked it all? What is wrong?" his muscled cage murmured, surprisingly quite soft and gentle for such a fearsome voice in such a large body. "Want more milk? I am yet too tired to be jigging around, though, let alone chanting the Song, so not those, please." One huge hand rubbed up and down his bare back, while the other shifted his head a little.
And what was undoubtably the cage's nipple was shoved into his mouth.
He shied away from the all-too-intimate contact, spitting the nipple out and cringing. He was not a babe to be placated so!
"Hey! You were a greedy little thing all moon-turn! Now you spite my offering? Whatever wrong did I do to you?" the cage groused. "I am your milk factory, you know, as Elder Koðrati is to your little friend. The both of you were high maintenance for quite a while, especially you, little Bump, and I could not handle two at once, so Elder Koðrati helped."
The cage's nose poked at his scalp, as the top of his head was nuzzled into playfully and rather vigorously. "Well, I did not really mind, actually." The admission, mellower but even more sulky, was muffled in his hair. "I got you for myself for a moon-turn, however short it feels to me. I have more than a thousand years to make up for, after all. Maybe I could have you for a few days more yet, at least, before your amma comes storming in?… Or Elder Anga…." They let out a possibly unfaked shudder at the end.
The feeling of horrifying déjà vu dissipated, fast, but terror of another kind hounded Loki, mixed with confusion and a smidgen of intrigue.
This cage, whoever on Yggdrasil the madman was, seemed to mistake him for someone else. The words they were spewing like through a broken tap unnerved him on the surface with their possessif – paedophiliatic? – tendency, but there seemed to be a world of hurt and longing underneath, focused round that person – the "Bump," whoever that one was.
Could he make use of that weakness so freely shown? Could he step into this missed person's shoes convincingly? Just until he was ready to escape to milder, more tolerable realms?
But then, what did he know about the land itself and the monsters that inhabited it? What did he know about himself, even, in this form?
Because, now that the muscled cage was rubbing the nape of his neck up and down and up and down and up and down, while cuddling him closer and humming a thin strand of the wordless song he had secretly adored, he found himself relaxing bonelessly into the cosy hold.
He could not even shy away when the nipple was once again slipped in between his lips, gentler now, and the fingers that coaxed it inside squeezed it a little.
A spurt of the heavenly liquid – that, ages ago, in another land it felt, had been offered to him through small shards of ice by a gentle care in poverty that had asked for nothing in return – filled his mouth, and he swallowed automatically.
And, before he knew it, his body demanded for more, and more and more and more.
The thin, exhausted-sounding humming stopped soon enough, but the rubbing hand on the nape of his neck never did. It was joined by the other one on his back, in fact, in tender, repetitive circular motions that lulled him ever deeper into peaceful contentment, and then into an unplanned slumber. No thought nor worry bothered him.
No dread for the impending prospect of final separation with a gentle care was there either, when he firstly woke up, nor did the peaceful contentment leave him in those initial moments.
And then, clearly, he heard the dug-dug of a giant heart and the rush-rush of a giant pair of lungs, pressed against his ear.
History did not repeat itself fully, this time.
"Hey, Bump?" his muscled cage murmured into his other ear after a while. "Is there a reason why you are greeting a perfectly good morning with tears?" But there was neither a suggestion nor a gesture – let alone a command – for him to cease embarrassing himself by crying.
So he did not stop, and his cheeks kept being unexpectedly wet.