Winter's Treasures
By Rey
Chapter summary: And when a broken mender does try to mend broken things….
21. Broken, Part 2
A mild commotion broke outside the house, filtering past the various rooms as indiscernible murmur. Loki spared a brief look at the door from his perch on the side wall of the coffin-like box, with Eðlenstr's overly warm, overly dry, limp hand toyed in his own hands; but he otherwise did not spare the possible source of the excitement any mind. Thinking about how to feed his own slowly returning seiðr into the life-support system of the box was more important. He must do it before the Grand General found out about Laufey's death and blamed it on the true culprit: him.
Well, judging from the excitement outside, that day might come sooner than he liked.
His mostly disinterested gaze travelled to Avlar, next, who had been blankly regarding the musical instrument set on the opposite corner of the room since some time ago, while sitting sprawled on the floor before its table-like platform. He could not afford doing frivolous things, now, or he would have tried to entertain the boy with that musical piece he had cobbled together.
He must find a way to extend Eðlenstr's life, if nobody else would care.
So, when someone hurried in and it turned out to be a harassed-looking Koðrati, he finally asked the question he had always refrained from asking before: "Where are the contents of my pocket dimension, Elder?"
"Safe," was the grunted answer, as the Grand General swooped in to scoop Avlar up into their arms. "Why?"
"I need the healing stones."
"For?"
Loki tapped softly at the crystalline material he was perched on. "I heard the priests and healers grumbling about spending so much effort for a 'hopeless case'," he said bluntly, his voice hard. "Tell me, Elder, why did they not consider doing so to me? Why do they never consider giving Eðlenstr some milk?"
He tried to resist, when Koðrati also scoopped him up and settled him at the huge jötun's hip like a small child. But then again, he had been feeding the portion of milk he had gotten with his meals into Eðlenstr's half-open mouth all this time, ice shard by ice shard, and the lack of strength boosted by it shows in his struggle.
"You and little Ava are children," the Grand General said simply. And maybe, to the general populace of the jötnar, or even to Koðrati's mind, the decision was indeed that simple. "Your needs must be met before those of your elders. We have discussed about this before."
They strode into the tiny temporary room Loki and Avlar had been sharing these days, then plopped their burdens on the bed. "Now, littles," they announced in the same matter-of-fact tone, "the outermost patrols have reported the presence of a military contingent heading here. From the uniform, it seemed to be from the Royal Forces, not radical militants stealing pieces from the Royal Armoury, but we must be very careful regardless."
They flicked their hand, then, and the tattered travelling attires Loki knew well from the disastrous journey from the ghost village to this place materialised over it. "Wear these again, littles, and keep yourselves hidden in this room," they instructed, as they dumped the clothing on the bed between Loki and Avlar.
"Little Loki," they continued, pinning the addressee with a sombre look, "please listen carefully, and do as I say, for the safety of your own self and that of Ava. Should the contingent prove to be hostile, I shall send a runner here with the password 'Amma calls'. You must flee Tora with Ava, then, and bring the runner with you as guard.
"The window over there," they nodded at the clear pane of ice set over the head of the bed, "is openable and leads to the open garage. Etta keeps a small skiff there, as you may well know it. Activate the navigation system, even if the skiff proves to be no longer operable – I trust you know how to do so? Then search for Tonder on the system and go there. The way should still be clear for you. We have been patrolling Tora's wide circumference day and night since that day.
"I shall send word to the Capital to tell your dam where you are, and I shall go to Tonder myself to fetch the two of you should Ýmir and the Crown permit me to do so."
Koðrati flicked their hand again, and the travelling pack Ovrekka had made for Loki that long time ago materialised over the travelling attires, bulging with who knew what. They dumped all three things over Loki's lap, then bent down to hug and roughly kiss the top of the stunned Asgardian's head. "I do hope this is a false alarm, little one," they murmured into Loki's bird's nest of a hair, "but we must be prepared for the worst. You seemed to have some military training, somehow, so I am entrusting Ava's safety and your own to you. I apologise for this burden, little Loki. I shall try to make amends to you should we be permitted to have the luxury of meeting each other again after this."
Loki's claws dug deep into Koðrati's unprotected back, but the Grand General did not even shift in discomfort. The huge jötun only moved away after they had received a small, hitched hum of acknowledgement and agreement from the addressee.
"Remember, littles, hide. Do not take unnecessary risks," was their parting command, accompanied by a hand on Loki's and Avlar's head, before they hurried away without looking back.
They had not said a peep about what was to be Eðlenstr's fate.
Eðlenstr had been Tora's Chief of Security.
Eðlenstr had helped – however unwittingly – to uncover the sleeping cells of the insurgence that had been there since the last war – whenever it had been.
Eðlenstr would be a prime target, aside from Loki himself, the Grand General, the healers, the mages, and maybe also whoever headed the civilian portion of this town.
And out of all of them, even counting Loki in his weakened state like right now, Eðlenstr would be the most vulnerable; the hardest to defend, as well.
But still.
Loki dressed himself and Avlar in their respective travelling attires. He dumped the contents of his pack on the cot, then, to be sorted out and added to or removed if necessary.
He was astonished with what the supply consisted of.
The flasks, skins, bottles and vials from his pocket dimension were there, still as full as he had left them, containing liquids and semisolids ranging from general healing paste to strong wine. His stash of non-perishable foods was likewise present, and was in fact added on with a couple of large stone flasks equipped with leather straps, two metal-and-stone containers full of jötun milk made solid, a wooden tub full of strange small pebbles with the look and vague smell of prepared meat cubes shrivelled dry, and a couple sets of eating utensils – a shallow stone bowl and something between a fork and a knife, each.
His writing utensils were even there, additionally wrapped with thick leathers, perhaps for better preservation in the climate unfriendly for Asgard-made things. He did not know what on Yggdrasil would necessitate him writing in a situation like this, or if the jötnar he would encounter were able to read in the first place; but still, the sight and presence of the familiar packets of parchments, quills and ink bottles gave him some comfort – irrational as it was.
What truly astonished him, though, was the return of his precious assortment of blades – his knives, daggers, poniards, and none of them was missing or broken.
And at the bottom of the pack, his container of healing stones lay.
His lips stretched open in a fierce grin, and a low snarl worked its way out of his throat.
He concealed a dozen of his best knives on his person as well as he could, lacking his pocket dimension, arranged the rest of his supplies back in his pack – now with the writing utensils regretably at the bottom – and hefted the container of healing stones in one arm. "Come, Avlar," he told the only other living being in the small niche. "We are staking out our watch in the main room, with Eðlenstr." He swallowed, then forged on, "Let us just leave the pack here. It is close to the route Elder Koðrati wanted us to take, in any case."
Then, his work would begin.
"Look out for any suspicious sound or movement," he had told Avlar once they had been situated.
He had put a hand into the wooden-and-velvet container for the first healing stone, then,
And cursed up a storm, figuratively, when the stone had burnt his fingers, leaving swollen rashes of darker blue on the digits. Fortunately he had had enough caution not to lay the stone on Eðlenstr's chest or something like that.
But now that he was in his æsir form, the stone did not hurt him, although the rashes had transferred, now red against white.
Well, no matter. He had work to do.
His long hours spent beside or on the rim of this contraption had provided him with a more than good enough inkling of how it worked, and paying attention to how the mages had fed their seiðr into it had paid off as well. Now he simply must channel the seiðr stored in the stone through his own body and into the seiðr-sensitive metal panel. The incantation was quite simple, and it barely required any application of seiðr from himself; just enough to kickstart the channeling and then the transfer.
So he began.
The words flowed from his lips smoothly, and the channeling likewise. The transfer made his hand connected to the panel burn, but it was just a small price to pay.
A small price, because the lines of blue light along the body of the coffin-like box were lighting up beautifully and surging clockwise more energetically; and it might be the trick of the low lighting better fitted for a jötun's eyes, but he thought that Eðlenstr's palid skin was gaining a darker tinge.
One stone was spent, degrading into powder in his other hand. He simply reached into the container and began again,
And again, and again, and again, and again….
Somebody patted his shoulder urgently. But the blue lines on the box were thickening, now, and Eðlenstr's skin looked definitely more moist than the sun-kissed-leaf dry it had been. He could not stop! There were still a few healing stones to make use of. And then he was going to haul Eðlenstr – with or without the box – to the skiff alongside himself and Avlar.
His shoulders were shaken, now, from behind. `Danger?` But there were still one more healing stone in the container….
With his parched mouth still enchanting the transfering cantrips faithfully, and with one hand still pushing the healing stone against the seiðr panel on the box, he reached down to his belt and yanked out one of his knives. Pivoting in place without letting go of the panel he had been feeding the seiðr from the healing stones into, he raised the knife to defend himself.
An ice blade met it and locked with it, but did not seek to overwhelm his defences.
`Safe enough. Continue,` his frazzled mind supplied, so he continued.
But then the last healing stone crumbled in his hand, and the last word of the last cantrip fell from his lips in a small croak.
He blinked. He felt very, very dizzy.
The knife in his hand shook, but he did not let go. `Danger, still.`
He lifted his head and looked into the box, assessing Eðlenstr's latest condition.
Or rather, he tried to assess it. `Damn. What am I seeing? Why is everything so dark and shaky?`
The ice blade flicked up. His knife clattered to the ice floor. `Oh damn. The Grand General will be mad at me. We are supposed to flee.`
It was his last thought, before everything fell into numb silence.