Winter's Treasures
By Rey
Chapter summary: True love and loyalty are never intelligent or elegant, nor are they sensical for the most part.
19. Loyalty
The priests – the best mages in all the realm and the most in tune with the land, according to the Grand General – made protests and threw censuring looks that they no doubt thought were covert at Loki for his decision about Eðlenstr, but he could not care less about it. Driven by their duty, those mages kept feeding the life-support system – the coffin-like box with those lines of blue light running along its crystalline walls – with their seiðr in turns. Sympathetic soldiers that Eðlenstr had commanded as Tora's Chief of Security shared theirs, as well, which suggested that they were loyal to that endearing, bumbling oaf and wished her to recover, something that surprised Loki to no end when juxtaposed with the reaction of the priests.
There was oddly no word supporting or against the controversial decision from Eðlenstr's own family, who lived in the bush-forested foothills somewhat near the town.
That was telling enough, and probably the reason why that bumbling oaf – who had had no business being even a tiny village's chief of security with such glitch of judgement – had clung to her "Bump" so.
Loki would like to offer his own seiðr for the effort to maintain the said bumbling oaf among the living, but he could not summon even the slightest spark to his fingers yet. He wanted to avoid spending his waking hours alternatively staring at Eðlenstr's tortured, sickly form and staring at the raised markings adorning his own blue skin, but his earlier plans of vengeance and escape would have guaranteed her death instead of prolonging her life. Avlar was still nowhere to be seen, despite the Grand General's earlier claim that it had been quite a chore to separate the boy from him, but he could only muster a weak curiosity regarding the said boy's whereabout at present. The children's primer and the book about Jötunheim's flora that he had been reading in the library had been handed again to him, but they did not even merit a second look when the Grand General had proffered him those.
He felt so, so empty, useless to boot, not to mention aimless, confused, helpless….
The Grand General nursed him and a very, very silent and still and blank Avlar when Jötunheim's evening fell and dim gold began to tinge the sky. Unlike before, Loki did not react at all to such intimacy, just letting his body have its way with its natural responses, and just distantly acknowledging the boost in strength the milk gave him. In a way, he felt grateful that he had failed to form what he knew now as a nursling bond with the Grand General, unlike what he had subconsciously done with his previous two caretakers.
People ought to be wary of caring for him. He had killed his first caretaker and nearly done the same to the second one, after all. The Grand General should avoid him before they became the third.
He told them just so, once he and Avlar were done nursing and put to bed in Loki's – now expanded – cot.
"And yet I am here," the huge jötun said simply at the end of his explanation, which had been tinged by anxiety despite his best effort to stay neutral. A handwave of a shrug answered his subsequent pointed look, along with a humming tone deep in that thick throat that seemed to indicate amused tolerance rather than anything positive or negative; but then the Grand General seemed to take pity on him.
"The war took so many lives, little one," they explained in turn: slowly, lowly, in somewhat of a non-sequitur, while flicking a brief look to Avlar, who seemed to have fallen into a fitful slumber. "Ýmir lost their anchor afterwards, also, and it has made life here harder for all living things. Animals and plants become scarcer and harder to grow; children stay little in body so long but grow up too fast in mind, and adults die younger, sometimes because of formerly preventable causes. Who would deliver children into such a life? Who could, when we spend so much time just trying to survive? We are still blessed with those children that we have had from before the war, however, so we seek to protect them with all that we have, even to the detriment of our own selves. We have not ceased doing so, until now… and why would we? Children are always treasures in this realm, given how slow they grow and how hard it has always been to produce them for a long-lived race such as ours. You are not an exception to this, little áðkonnar. And would you not agree that hard times call for the best protection for those who seek it instead of otherwise, however costly it might be to the protectors?"
"But… someone… they said people began to have children once more after about five hundred years," Loki parried half-heartedly, allowing his eyes to meet those of the Grand General's from his position: curled up on his side under his ever-present white blanket atop the furs.
"In some places and for some people, it even began as early as two hundred years after the war," the huge jötun agreed. "However, these cases were the exception, not the norm, at that time."
They regarded Loki shrewdly but contemplatively for a long moment, and only then they continued, with yet another seeming non-sequitur, "Ýmir recovered as well and quickly as they could, and so did we, their Children. – Farming for all kinds of food was adjusted and simplified to reduce taxing the available resources, and many who had not thought of taking up such an occupation then plunged into farming projects for the sake of survival. Hunting and foraging was forbidden for a time, except for deepest necessity, to allow the wildlife to adjust to this new, harsher life Ýmir led. That particular edict was withdrawn by the Crown about five hundred years ago, when the realm began to stabilise. Our farms had seen moderate success earlier than that, by two hundred to three hundred years or so beforehand. Only then people began to think about the future, and thus children that might have the chance to grow up happy and well-fed, if ignorant to the former luxury their parents had tasted before the last war."
"You… do not abandon… runts?" unable to help himself, Loki blurted out. He dove into his blanket afterwards, inwardly cursing his weakness for this sore spot.
He was swept into the arms of the Grand General, just so, blanket and all, and cuddled close without a chance to get free.
"Many of us start small, little Loki, especially after the loss of the Anchor," his captor rumbled, sounding unhappy but for a different reason – an unknown reason, fathomless to their captive. "We are like the ice that shelters us, growing slow and sturdy. The people of some Kindreds are typically smaller, also, and our best mages likewise. – Now, who told you this? Did they tell you that you were a runt? Is it why you were taken away from us? From your own mother? Did they truly believe what they said, or did they just tell it to you as propaganda against your own kind?"
When Loki kept his silence, his captor continued shrewdly, with no tinge of contemplation remaining, "Did they know that you had a twin womb-sibling? And that such pregnancy could make the babies smaller, since they have to share the one womb with each other?"
The silence was broken irrevocably by the gasp that escaped him, like after a punch to the gut.
"How did you know?" he breathed, almost wheezing in his shock. `Not even Odin knew… or did he?`
He got cuddled even closer, in response, laid in one arm like a giant baby – in more ways than two. His free arm – that was not pinned under his own body – was fished out of the blanket, then, and one of the Grand General's fingers, with claw barely peeking out from the fingertip, gently traced the marking that encircled his wrist: a pair of double lines running beside each other, twisting into each other twice on the front of the wrist and twice more on the back of it. "Jitya tells much, little Loki, though not all," they echoed their own earlier statement, before adding gravely, "Furthermore, Konnar Laufey was pregnant during the war, and I had the privelege of personally guarding them in many engagements with the rebels and with Asgard, at that time. Their jitya showed that they were carrying twins."
A heavy pause, then, "I was separated far away from them near the end, however, and did not manage to return to their side until some time after the war had been partially lost. I had heard concerning rumours, by that time, and found them searching everywhere in the Capital, when I arrived, even though they were not even a quarter recovered yet from the battles and the birth. – Do not ask me about the fate of your womb-sibling, and pray do so gently to your mother when the both of you are together again. I do not know, and barely escaped alive after asking them that question. They were mad with grief."
Loki retracted his arm into the blanket, and curled into himself the best that he could within the cocoon.
His hands were bloody. The Grand General should not touch them, touch him.
He had murdered his own mother.
His own mother, who had searched for him and his unknown twin sibling.
He had not been abandoned for being a runt.
"Laufey was stupid," he murmured croakily. His voice wavered with either a laugh or a sob, or maybe both.
"They were. I was. We are." There was a similar quality to the huge jötun's gravelly voice, so alien and undignified for one of their station. "But then again, true love and loyalty are never intelligent or elegant, little Loki, nor are they sensical for the most part."
Oh yes, all of them were stupid.