Winter's Treasures
By Rey
Chapter summary: There is, apparently, a very, very inconvenient disadvantage of being considered a child in the society. Going into a battleground one previously thought one knew with this disadvantage in action is very, very inconvenient indeed.
14. Library, Part 1
Being made to walk hand in hand with Avlar through the wide and surprisingly well-kept bustling streets felt awkward, to say the least. It was only made worse when, facing thicker knots of stomping and ambling and hurrying giant feet, the new jötun – who was yet to introduce themself even now – hoisted the both of them up, as if they were little children. Even worse, variations of what sounded like "little soldier and their friend" or "little noble-one and their servant" were cooed or chattered as passing comments in both Allspeak and Ymska and maybe even other untranslatable languages by huge, ugly, alien unknown monsters who – no, which – had no business doting over little ones in the first place.
Loki wished, not for the first time in this supposedly short, supposedly unexcruciating trip, that he could just shift himself to the library. He could barely see anything past the wall of blue-skinned, line-marked, tough-looking bodies, anyway, even when he was perched in whoever-this-was' arms, so he could not even enjoy whatever scenery this place might offer despite the ongoing torture by humiliation. They must be near the centre of the town by now, given the increasing press of… things, intersperced with various other modes of transportation, and a part of him wondered in interest about how near it was from Eðlenstr's house, but he really could not wait for the sanctuary that the library must turn out to be.
The site of the humongous, elegant edifice of gleaming darkish blue and silvery white marked the seeming end of his ordeal, and he gleefully slid down when his holder offered for him and Avlar to once more walk on their own feet. There were thankfully a set of steps running on the middle of the main staircase leading to the huge open doors of the building, dividing it into two, built with small-enough steps to accommodate much smaller legs.
He tried to loose his minder while inside, feeling stifled and naked under all the attention locked onto him and Avlar. But then he clapped his eyes on the numerous shelves looming ahead, full of well-kept-looking tomes and scrolls and even thin, odd squarish devises that must also contained knowledge, and the effort doubled. All of his attempts ended in failure, though.
He really, really wished he could shift himself to those shelves. `This is so humiliating!`
Worse yet, his captor calmly thwarted his new bid for freedom, each time, in all its variants. And in the end, he got carried again while suffering the knowledge that Avlar – the brat who kept sniggering at him – stood free.
And he could practically feel amusement washing down his struggling form, so pitifully small and scrawny in such a hulking giant's hold, from all the eyes watching him from every corner.
He slumped in his captor's arms, at long last, wishing that he were strong enough to shift himself – away from the library, now. As it was, ignoring the heavy, uncomfortably warm sensation that clung to his face, he swallowed his disgust and pretended that he was a small child indeed, burying his head into the crook of the stoic giant's neck and whining softly until all the attention passed him by. Only then did he lift his head back up and look around – really look around, this time.
Past the humongous double doors, he could see that what looked like a spacious foyer was arranged, seemingly as a reception and waiting area, or maybe as a place to peruse the books quickly without too much bother to everyone involved, or maybe even just as a decoration to enhance the edifice's sense of elegant magnificence… which was working, as much as he would like to deny it. It was empty but for the row of – unoccupied – seats in various sizes and make that lined the far wall, and also a large, open stone chest containing what looked like either cushions or piles of furs on the corner that shared walls with both the double doors and the aforementioned line of forsaken seats. The few jötnar that occupied the open room, who seemed to vary in height and built just like those seats, lounged in their own – just as varied – gleaming ice chairs instead, which were furnished with the contents of the stone chest, and they were scattered in various places within the boundary marked by a blue line done in wavy pattern over pristine white floor. Now that he – or rather, his struggles, he very much suspected – no longer interested them, they got back to their previous preoccupations, which ranged from books and loose sheets of paper to books and what looked like personal recorded music players similar to what one could find in the markets in Asgard; and even, on one smallish individual that might be Đorkyn's age judging from the size, a book hovering in thin air and a lapboard on which queerly shaped, colourful stone pieces were stacked together precariously.
Past the foyer, an enclosed lift system stood, chained shut as if already for centuries, beside a smaller, winding version of the staircase that led into the building. Again, jötnar big and small traversed it occasionally, laden with all kinds of knowledge repositories that made Loki resent his demeaning, constraining current placement all the more.
And then his captor moved at last, approaching a long, bluish-cream-coloured marble counter parked on the other side of the stairwell, and his attention was derailed by what purpose such a furniture, manned by a couple of large but slim jötnar with a white sash with delicate, complicated purple scrollwork borders draped across the torso of each, might hold in such establishment. If not for the elegant feel and subtle decorations adorning the counter, by way of delicate carvings meandering all over the vertical piece supporting the top, and if not for the lack of drawers and shelves in place of the said vertical slab, he would have thought the sturdy, spaciously surfaced thing would be a good kitchen counter in a tavern or even in one of the smaller kitchens in the palace he had used to call home; it could certainly hold a good-sized boar plus assorted dressings. Were the jötnar so ferocious in the written accounts and tales, not only in violence and warmongering, that they would need such an expansive piece for consultations regarding manuscripts held in and topics encompassed by sections of this library? And the said expansive piece was manned by two people! In even the palace's grand library back home – no, on Asgard – the receptionist station only held a small desk, which was mostly drowned under stacks of tomes and scrolls hastily dropped by people on their way out or into the library, and rarely manned at that….
His captor spoke with the librarian seated nearer the stairwell, though unfortunately in a far more complex bit of Ymska that Loki had no clue whatsoever about. The other librarian, after a time, skirted the counter and sought to lead a semi-reluctant Avlar by the hand away to the stairwell with a kind-sounding word.
"I will see you again at noon, Lokyé!" the child chirped at last, in Allspeak, before they – he? – vanished completely up the stairs, gently towed by the other librarian. Loki, feeling strangely abandoned, only replied to it with a small, listless, sullen hand-wave from his high perch.
The librarian who had been talking to his minder, seeming to notice his response to the use of Allspeak, switched to the language, then, speaking in a sweet, light tone as if a woman cooing over a child despite the deep, rumbling quality to his?… Her?… tone, but tinged with sadness that Loki could not fathom the reason of, "I apologise, little one. I thought you understood Ymska. We were talking about what you might learn today. Would you like to learn Ymska? I assume you have not learnt its written form as well? Or, if you would like to mingle, there is a craft class today."
Loki gave the floor far below a nod to the first offer and a muttered "Yes," and a headshake to the second one plus a mumbled "No."
And just so, as if it had been the most ordinary thing to do in the universe, his struggling form was carried – still – to the no-less-airy second floor of the building, and deposited by one windowed corner. He could look out through the clear – albeit sadly closed – pane, but the view of all those jötnar meandering under the weak moonlight outside just disheartened him more, so he did not let his gaze linger long outside of the window.
From his – somewhat limited, unfortunately – vantage point inside of this new place, he could see that this level was used mainly for education. Small clusters of jötnar larger than his size and also those who were smaller – far smaller, somehow – were gathered on the floor, talking to each other and doing various tasks under the guidance of a few – adult? – jötnar each wearing the same white sash with purple embroidery as the librarians.
Eyes of monsters who were – presumably – more or less his peers in age quickly honed in on him, most likely given his newness, mode of arrival, placement and size – or maybe, especially, size, if Odin's claim that forever ago was to be believed. It was all that he could do not to try to break open the windowpane and escape outside, even to death by falling a few æsir-standard stories down without seiðr to slow him down and cushion his fall. The view of the outside monsters was more preferable to this, as well.
As it was, he sat stiffly and silently on the large fur pillow he had been deposited on, listening to the librarian and his minder – who had seated themselves cross-legged on the floor before him and to his side, respectively – talking with him in Allspeak about lessons and projects that he might like and knowledge that he was yet to acquire. Confusion mingled with the previous hyper-vigilance and unsettlement the longer the two adult jötnar talked. – How had they managed to offer the children of their kind so many education and social programmes after the war and the loss of the Casket of Ancient Winters? Had that ghost village his journey had started from ever enjoyed such a luxury? Or had it always been confined to just bigger, probably wealthier settlements like Tora? Why would they offer a small child – as indicated by their treatment of him so far – these options, anyway, instead of dumping a preplanned schedule on him like his parents – no, no, Odin and Frigga – had done in his real childhood?
In the end, he ignored the ever-piling internal questions and declared his desire to study Ymska reading and writing, jötun – `Milaðen?` – biology, also local geography and ecology, for each of the five days in the "bright moon-turn" that seemed to be the jötnar equivalent of working days, topped up with beginner class of ice training after schooling each day; all individual to small class or otherwise too packed with demanding activities for small-talks, and all important to his survival – communication, navigation, danger recognision and close combat. The librarian offered him stone-sculpting, bead-working, knitting, painting and dancing on the side, but he demurred. Any spare time that he had, most of which he planned to spend in Eðlenstr's spacious bedroom, could be used to better his Ymska reading and writing, snoop about, and – surreptitiously – keep his physical fitness up to par the Asgardian way. This place was not a holiday site, after all, nor was he in a holiday. He could not afford spending his time frivolously while being surrounded by enemies and yet to escape.
And then, and only then, did the librarian introduce themself, "My name is Lúkra, little one. You may call me Elder Lúkra, or Elder Lúki, but never Eldy Lúki. May I know your name and what you would like yourself to be called?"
"Loki," he said simply, trying not to fidget, trying not to scrutinise the librarian's markings – the kinlines, the jitya his travelling companions had talked about – as if he could discern what they meant. And then, trying to distract himself, he turned to the other jötun – his minder – who sat with stoic silence beside his chair as if a bodyguard or a valet… or both. "Might I know yours, Ma'am?"
"What a polite little soldier," grinned the librarian, cooing, and Loki had to fight to tamp down the cringing reaction to that adoring proclamation. He had never even thought such a deep and gravelly timbre could make a cooing tone!
He was soon distracted by the heated muttering his minder spewed forth, thankfully.
"That youngling. I thought they already told you my name. Now I wonder if you even know their name. Honestly. I have no idea how Lékonnar Voðen has not been corrupted by that child in all their friendship thus far. Konnar Laufey should perhaps have chosen a different companion for them."
"Konnar Laufey must have had their reasons, Ma'am," the librarian – Elder Lúkra – smiled, mirth evident. "It is not really our place to question the Monarch, is it?"
"Not if you do not wish to go to the Capital and speak personally with them, or challenge the Monarch in Holmganga," the yet-to-be-named jötun huffed. Then, addressing Loki, they continued, "I apologise for the tangent, little one. My name is Koðrati. You could call me Elder Koðrati or simply Elder," he paused, then, "or Ma'am, if you would rather call me thus," they finished with amusement thick in their gravelly voice, a shade lighter than the librarian's and possessing a sterner quality in it.
"I am the Grand General of Konnar Laufey's military forces," they explained further, without prompting. "However, since the end of the last war, I have relocated myself here under the blessing of the Monarch, to help teach new blood and forget about wartime for a while. – Ah, actually, I have to leave to oversee the training of new recruits presently, little Loki, but we might see each other again during your ice training in the afternoon."
They gave his narrow shoulder a pat, then beamed ferociously down at him. "You have the good beginnings of a good soldier, little one, if indeed you would like to choose a military career later on. But do not be too hasty in deciding so. Choose your own opinion and keep to it, after you have heard all the advice others offer you." They ruffled his already messy hair, afterwards, and finished with, "You only have to concentrate on studying right now, little one. Leave the future to the future. Promise me you are not going to make trouble for Elder Lúkra while you are studying with them? I might bring you to one of my cadets' drills some time if you do your best to study and not make trouble for Elder Lúkra."
Loki nodded sullenly, silently seething on being treated like a child all the time, even by apparently a military general – the highest military general on Jötunheim, according to the introduction. On Asgard, he had been past this treatment more than eight hundred years ago! The high military personages there looked down at him for his seiðr and evasive tactics, yes, but they had never spoken to him as if to a little child anymore past his successful first combat trials at age four-hundred.
Well, but then again, a three-thousand-year-old æsir would have been long settled into their productive years, about to enter early middle age and all the trappings that went with it, while a three-thousand-year-old jötun would be just at their age of majority, according to his travelling companions; barely adult enough for a responsible marriage and the like, if it were on Asgard, though Odin seemed to have deemed Thor ready for kingship by that milestone.
Where would an almost-one-thousand-and-three-hundred-year-old be placed, then, in jötun society, if not the two-hundred-years-to-majority like on Asgard?
What a confusing mess.
And why in the Nine Realms had that grand general included some tangential advice about his future? An implicit threat? An inane meandering? A self-serving toadying? A gift in exchange for a later favour?
`Damn. I do not need this now.`