Winter's Treasures
By Rey
Chapter summary: Which one is duty? Which one is care? Which one is manipulation? Which one is humiliation? – For one who is never a child, how does it feel, being considered a child?
23. Angrboða, Part 2
Loki's captor slowed their transport into an eventual halt after a long, long while of nearly constant teasing and needling and speeding against the wind, and he could not be more relieved about it. The hilly view outside showed a surprising amount of plantlife, if just squat, sturdy-looking bushes with purple-green narrow leaves clumped together for protection from the elements, and maybe also over-greedy herbivores, and it was a sight for sore eyes.
The said captor did not immediately exit the transport, however. Instead,four huge jötnar materialised as though from thin air from somewhere behind it – probably hiding at the back of the transport all this time, separated from them by a divider – and scouted out the parameters like seasoned travellers – no, warriors, soldiers – about to set up a camp. The infuriating, yet-unnamed jötun keeping him captive and tortured was not idly waiting for their men to gave the all-well indication, however. They observed the four outside like a general watching over the execution of his will, but they also looked about for themself from their seat, seeming to intently search for something by sight alone.
When the all-well indication came, by way of a hand-sign that Loki nearly did not catch with how subtle it surprisingly was, he was even more surprised to find that the bands of ice that had been tethering both him and Avlar to the huge jötun silently dissolved into crystalline powder, then into nothing. – He was free, then? Just so?
The signaller of the all-well indication opened the door to the left of the steering panel, and the huge jötun – who was actually less huge than the signaller, shockingly, now he could see – slid outside of their seat, bringing their two captives with them. No gratitude or compliment was spoken. Instead, an instruction – nay, a command – was thrown over one shoulder as the apparent leader walked away to the spot they had picked earlier, which was the practically hidden mouth of a footpath among the bushes: "Secure the skiff. Bring the children's packs with you. They severely need a bath."
But still, Loki was not let go. Neither was Avlar, for that matter; but… but….
"I can walk, you know," he remarked in his most casual, indifferent manner, as the jötun brought him and Avlar yet farther away from the transport, which he could see – from beyond his captor's shoulder – now as indeed a skiff: a rather small one at that for jötun standards, painted a subdued but warm yellow, almost the colour of Jötunheim's sunlight, and so very familiar.
"I can tell, you know," was the rejoinder, given – yet again – in the same tone and inflection, if not the wording.
"Tell what?" he gritted out. – That shoulder, not wholely protected by the low-necked, collarless leather vest his captor was wearing, was so, so, so tempting for a not-so-small bite….
"Many things," was the flippant answer.
And then they let a newly awake but still-silent Avlar slide down to the ground, but not Loki.
"Put me down!" – `Of all the indignities–!`
"Ah, my judgement stands uncontested, child. You are one rude little ice shard indeed, so prickly. Did you learn it from… home?" his captor crooned, with a bite of something in their otherwise playful, somewhat mocking words. Then, after a thoughtful pause, musingly and more seriously, they said slowly, "Eh, but you were not this cranky the last time we met, now I realise. You were a timid, terrified thing, rather. Đinyé has lots to answer for, hmm? Including that geas they must have put on you to cloud your identity from our perceptions…. Fié will be absolutely furious…. Not that I can fault them for that. Đinyé has no business clouding your identity from your own dam. Oh my."
And, of all things to do, the infuriating, maddenning, irksome, sly, quirky, quippy git put their arms round Loki and cuddled him close as if to some rag doll.
Loki did bite that tempting shoulder, now, hard.
He earned an equally hard wrap – or so it felt – on his head for that, and barely stifled a groan from the migraine it caused.
"Just for that, little wolfcub, you have lost the privelege to bathe yourself; and that includes both undressing and redressing," his captor told him sternly. "You might want to follow Ava's good example next time."
Loki just stared into the insufferable monster's twinkling red eyes and gave them his best glare, however cross-eyed it was from the new but persistent migraine.
To say that Loki was mortified would be a vast understatement.
His captor had not jested about the threat of bathing him like a baby.
The three of them had arrived at a small, rushing, semi-underground stream housed in a spacious cave, accessible through a small path, and his captor only kept an eye out for Avlar as the boy stripped himself and took a dunking in the rush of icy water, with occasional promptings as needed.
But Loki? Oh no, no, sir; he had lost the privelege that had never been known, let alone spoken about.
Thor and his goons would have laughed themselves sick if they could have seen this: a competent warrior and seiðr user who had never been shy about much, and he was now squealing and squirming madly on the pebbly bank that had been iced over with rough-surface pattern, trying to get away or at least fight back as his unknown – huge – jötun captor, having stripped themself and him and given both a dunking, proceeded to lather him briskly and thoroughly from head to foot with a mild-scented chunk of frozen oil.
Then again, maybe Heimdall was watching, and laughing himself sick on this, believing it a just punishment for Loki having iced him up however many months or years ago.
"Stop it! You are assaulting me!" the beleaguered captive cried out at last, as his captor went south in rubbing and scrubbing the oil.
And, miraculously, the scrubbing hand – quick and well practised in its indifference in cleaning him up, Loki had to admit – stopped just before it reached his – yet alien, yet unexplored – crotch.
"Stop dramatising," came the exasperated, somewhat harsh retort, although the hand now wiping at his cheeks was gentle and not at all brusque as when it had scrubbed him down. "You behave as if I were raping you, not giving you a severely needed bath. Did you not notice the smell all about you and Ava, child? I am not about to present the both of you to Fié in such a state, especially you."
Loki glared, through distorted vision and burning eyes, and made his opinion clear on that regard in such manner.
His captor huffed…
…And simply continued on their way, regardless of Loki's renewed struggle.
"It's as if you never got – or even asked for – a cuddle-bath all your short life, little snowflake," they complained, grunting, when Loki, yowling, attempted to knee them in the groin. "I do hope it's not the case. I will not be able to save my baby from the repercussions, if so, and Fié will be in the right to be extra wrathful."
`This again.` "I know nobody with any of those names," Loki gritted out, now trying to eel himself away to the stream, as his captor attended to his left leg, hugging it close – and half sitting on the right leg – while rubbing and scrubbing it down with the chunk of frozen oil… which, he had to admit, felt pleasantly smooth and fresh and light on his skin.
A thick, sturdy band of ice materialised over his torso, just so, and tethered him firmly to the rough – now splattered with oil – surface of the same make by way of a sturdy ice rope.
"Then I will have to kidnap Đinyé from their workplace and march them to their nar, in due time," his captor grumped, meanwhile, sounding exasperated and aggrieved; and, most important of all, ignoring Loki's demand for them to let go of him. "I shall have you there to placate Fié first, though, so my baby will have a greater chance to live… however angry and irritated I am with them right now. – Ava, don't just sit there, snowflake. Your hair has gotten dry again. Come wait in the water. I will attend you once I am done with this screechy eel." They flicked a glance at the silhouette of Avlar sitting some distance away down the stream, then darted a hand up to tap Loki's nose with the tip of a finger, before resuming their ministration on his leg. "Now, behave, you little brat. We do not have much time. I want to spend what time we have resting, not wrestling you for a bath. Honestly, you are worse than little Fié in a tantrum, and they were five-hundred at that time."
"Who is Fié?" Loki tried another tactic now, distracting himself from the strangely ticklish sensation in between his toes, as the sole of his foot was now being scrubbed down. "Who are you, anyway?" Not the best distraction attempt that he could usually come up with; but, well, he could not think well with the torture going on round his left foot and the sheer surreality of being manhandled into an oilbath, not to mention his lingering exhaustion from before he had fallen unconscious last time, which was not yet shunned away by any kind of sustenance.
A throaty, absent-minded hum answered him, but just that. His captor continued with that torturous, torturously meticulous scrubbing, and Loki's knee began to jerk in response to the tickling sensation, no longer distracted by the expectation of an answer.
He got a reprieve when his captor switched to the other leg. But it was a very short one.
A soft whine escaped his gritted teeth when those damn fingers arrived at the sole of his other foot and lingered there. His attempt to jerk his leg free ended up being just a series of twitchy spasms, and his effort to break free from the ice tether likewise.
And then one finger twisted in the space between his big toe and second toe, and he squealed.
His captor chuckled. "A tough little wolfcub, hmm?"
Loki twisted within his icy confines, glared up at the grinning face of the monstrous git that had been torturing him, and spat out recklessly, driven by frustration and exhaustion as much as confusion, even as he tried mightily not to laugh given the ongoing ticklish sensation in between his toes, "What use do you gain in toying with me in these childish ways?"
Some of the amusement and glee fled the countenance of the broad-faced, shaven-headed jötun, and a pointed look deflected the glare back at the weary sender. "To make you laugh, maybe?" they drawled. "What other use would I have, do you think? If you would kindly recall, little áðkonnar, I haven't bathed your little friend over there yet, let alone myself. I am certainly not in the mood for any weighty conversation at present, being still so filthy and faced with such responsibilities."
"But why–?!" Loki's breath hitched now, as those damn hands return further up his leg and thoughtfully ran along the back of his knee. "Let me go!" – If only he could snap the words out, instead of whining and whimpering them, in the desperate effort not to laugh….
His captor huffed, again. "No fun," they declared petulantly.
And then, just as the ice tether confining Loki to the riverbank dissolved, they captured him in a tackling embrace and cuddled him again.
And then, the both of them toppled into the stream with a huge splash.
Icy water rushed into Loki's lungs, then went back out again, naturally, as if breathing, and he found that he was not drowning, even as his – mad, mad, mad – captor kept him under, scrubbing him down again from head to foot a head's span below the water surface.
When they at long last surfaced, Loki could only stand spluttering and coughing for a while, leaning heavily against the riverbank with three quarters of his body still submerged in the rushing currents, dumbfounded.
"Stop dramatising, little eel," called his captor, who was now somehow – `So quickly!` – some distance away down the stream, lathering a pliant Avlar with oil and applying the same routine they had done to him earlier.
Loki was spluttering on another thing entirely, now.
Not water, but words.
"Dramatising!" he screeched at last, ignoring how his yell echoed damply, quite audible even while competing with the ever-rumbling sound of the stream. "You were drowning me!"
"Did you drown?" was the lazy rebuttal. "Did you find your lungs aching, now?"
His captor did not even give him the courtesy of looking at him. They were smiling fondly at Avlar, cuddling the snuggling boy close while rubbing oil onto the said boy's back.
Cuddle-bath, indeed.
Loki looked away, and did not deign the semi retorical question with an answer of any kind.
Something ached deep in his chest on witnessing such a scene; something that he refused to label, nor name the source of.