Winter's Treasures
By Rey
Chapter summary: It is a metropolitan, jötun-style, viewed from the wrong end.
Chapter notes: The name and most of the layout of the city – whether it is shown in the chapter or not – have been borrowed with permission from SofiaDragon, from her story Jotunheim, on Archive Of Our Own. The rest are either canon bits or mine.
Author's notes: My apologies for the long, long wait for this chapter, folks. Familiarising myself with the layout of the city took time, and other concerns as well as other fics distracted me. Hopefully you'll still enjoy this one, even after so long. And hopefully the quality isn't too disappointing, either.
27. Tonder, Part 1
The tiny, civilian-grade skiff was a sputtering mess by the time it glided drunkenly over a genormous glacier, after passing through the cave-tunnel shortcut, a brief one-sided airborn fight with another skiff – definitely owned by the "rebels" and military-grade – some distance from the place it had exited from, and a spot of disagreeable wind. Loki himself was no better, having had to command the unfamiliar vehicle – whose condition was increasingly worse – for so long. He had even ended up changing its colour and shielding it with the seiðr that he really did not have any to spare in truth, simply so that it would be less of a target until his company could get to relative safety.
"Relative safety" meant "anonymity to the greatest extent," he had decided when that fourth enemy vessel had ambushed him nearly out of nowhere. So it meant going to Tonder, since Útgarð was both too obvious a choice and, somehow, smaller than the former, as seen on the beacon-generated three-dimensioned map spread over the skiff's control panel.
The beacon had also directed him here. However, thus far all that he could see was only the greenish blue glacier carpeting down the steep, bald, jagged mountain slope, with no sign of habitation by any kind of lifeform anywhere. Gliding downslope only presented him with some stunted trees and bushes with purplish green little leaves, straggling and struggling on the dull grey rocks and boulders on either banks of the glacier.
Was the beacon wrong? Did it actually only present what was in its hidden records, not real-time places? Maybe the city had moved or been ruined after the last update of its records? Or maybe the lack of the Casket of Ancient Winters had automatically disabled the self-updating feature of the map in the beacon? But if so, what about his journey with Avlar to the halfway village and–.
"Avlar? How did you come here? Why did you leave Eðlenstr?"
Because yes, the now-unspeaking boy had somehow materialised behind the pilot's seat, pressed against the seat-row behind it but not sitting. Loki himself was only aware of the new presence because the said boy had just given him a soft pat on the shoulder. He had not been aware of how exhausted and preoccupied he had grown, to be so ignorant of his surroundings….
In reply, the boy flapped a hand, as if shooing away a pesky smoke or flying insect. – Was it a "No" gesture? Was it a "Forget it" sign? Or even a "Yes" indication?
Loki scowled tiredly. In a better time, in a better reality, he would have heartily welcomed the chance to learn languages, including bodily expressions and gestures, even those of the frost giants. But right now, he felt totally wrung out, mentally as well as physically and emotionally. Trying to decipher the gestures of an unspeaking child was just yet another chore he could really do without.
"Have you ever gone to Tonder?" he asked instead, hoping that a yes/no question would help the both of them, since he wasn't about to pester the boy to talk unless the situation was dire – direr than this.
Mercifully, to that question, instead of trying to communicate further with gestures, Avlar hopped onto the long, padded bench that served as the pilot's seat beside Loki. The boy pointed at the sprawling shape on the map that was Tonder City, then, with his other hand, pointed at something outside of the window.
It was a particular patch of plant-covered boulders shaded by a huge, sturdy overhang, which was in turn populated by lots of greenery. It was located farther away from the bank of the glacier, amidst what looked like a huge, well-cultivated patch of land.
`No,` Loki amended himself, then, when he forced his flagging mind, eyes and seiðr to just concentrate. `It is a road leading into a cliff and out of it as well! It was shaded by the plants and the escarpment!`
He grinned, relieved and even somewhat excited.
The grin melted off of his face in the next moment, however, because the skiff's engine chose just then to fail.
"Go back!" he shouted, even as he struggled to aim the nose-diving vehicle with his remaining store of seiðr. To the place – the road – Avlar had pointed out, because he did not know where else to go, and everywhere was the same in terms of hard impact with the unforgiving land, anyway. "Leap out when I tell you! Take Etta with you if you can!"
He was half-way successful.
The first thing that Loki was aware of once he regained consciousness was the extreme physical and mental exhaustion and depleted seiðr, again. It was quickly followed by the acrid smell and taste of fumes clinging to his nasal and mouth cavities, respectively, and made him aware that he had closed his eyes at some point, or been unable to keep them open.
And then he realised that, during all that had transpired, he had not let go of the shielding that had kept the skiff incognito. `Oh, good. I am still safe.`
But it was also depriving him of potential outside assistance, which his body protested fiercely about. And he got to know it just now, through all the throbbing aches and stabbing pains and persisting sores. `Owwww.`
Trying to get out of the wrecked skiff just made the severe discomfort more acute, but worry about the fate of Avlar and Eðlenstr hounded him too much for him to steal some more moments in the same position that he had found himself in. Besides, if they were still being pursued, staying for too long at the site of a wreck, however camouflaged, would just invite more trouble that he was not sure he could deal with.
He found that he was not sure he could deal with the strong probability of his companions not surviving, either, as he beheld the squished back end of the skiff, unsupported by his unconsciously upheld bubble of cushioning seiðr.
`Oh, Norns, please,` he could not help praying. All his efforts thus far would be for naught if he ended up the only survivor of this latest calamity anyway.
He told himself that, at any rate. Because he could not – would not – let himself feel anything right now, or he would…. `NO!`
He gathered all the – pitiful – scraps of seiðr remaining in him, then swept the ball of power out in a – more-or-less – controlled burst, to return to him a possible life status in the radius of the skiff.
Well, and to wake up Avlar, as well, if the boy was yet alive, but he could not – would not – allow the thought to take root in his mind.
He actually collapsed and briefly blacked out in sheer overload of emotions, because of that, not only the shock of the further depleted seiðr, when a black-clawed, silver-lined blue hand slowly crept out of the wreck just as the information that he had sought filled his mind.
He had never thought that he would ever cherish the sight of a living frost giant in his vicinity.
For some reason, the Grand General had thought it wise to include Eðlenstr's colourful array of paints among the writing tools. Loki, seated by the skiff alongside Avlar and Eðlenstr's life-support container to share the last slivers of its shielding, frowned for a while at the assortment that he had managed to salvage from the skiff. But then he went on with his inventory, unwilling to waste more time pondering it.
He figuratively struck a vein of priceless gemstone, all the same, when he unearthed a slip of paper from under the packet of paint tubes.
"Child, the wards which had shielded you from recognition fell away when you briefly left your body. Keep yourself anonymous with what you have hear. I trust that Etta taught you about shading. Use the knowledge to keep yourself and Avlar safe. I shall see the both of you in the Capital should Ýmir and the Crown permit. Destroy this note after you have read it, so that nobody will find out about the disguise. Take care that you return your markings to normal before you meet with your dam."
He did not recognise the handwriting. (Then again, he had never exerted much effort to recognise many things in this realm, which he was rueing ever so slightly.) The message, likewise, seemed nonsensical. He had greater and much more urgent problems than his ignorance of who the note writer had been, at any rate.
And the first, most apparent problem was the "shading" that the note had talked about but not elaborated, which Eðlenstr had actually never taught him.
Still, there was a silver paint in the collection, and grey, and black, and various shades of blue, and Eðlenstr had indeed taught him how to mix the paints, apply them to various surfaces, keep the results more long-lasting and natural….
`Hmm. Hide in plain sight. Very well. I suppose I can be Avlar's sibling for a while. Maybe I should disguise Eðlenstr as well, make it more probable that we were siblings travelling here to try to get… her… helped, or looked after, or get us a better transport to Útgarð.`
He showed Avlar the note and the packet of paints, then had the boy help him paint all over his body, matching the boy's own markings, according to what Eðlenstr had taught him about painting. Avlar looked disturbed all the while, and rather reluctant, but Loki could only give him a shruggy glance in return.
After all, if there had been any other choice in the first place, the former second prince of Asgard would have gone far, far, far away from here. Not trapped in his accursed runty jötun body, and not towing an unspeaking frost-giant child plus a mostly lifeless adult frost giant after him, either.
Before the skiff's shielding failed altogether, both ambulatory skiff-wreck survivors abandoned their wrecked transport and dove into the humongous tunnel that apparently connected the outside with the city, slipping among the crowds. They respectively dragged and pushed Eðlenstr's life-support container along on its hovers, away from the soon-to-be-highly-visible target of attention as fast as they could without attracting attention themselves. Neither had enough strength to do it alone, Loki knew it well.
Besides, the joint effort freed up time and concentration for him to look round, especially since he had managed to convince Avlar to lead their little procession, citing that it would be more believable for anyone who saw them that the "elder sibling" should lead. Thus, as they were slipping into the tunnel in truth, he noticed that the road into and out of the cliffside was truly huge, even for the standard of a full-grown jötun. After all, he did not feel hemmed in at all, while they were navigating the fast streams of such giants going into and out of the city, unlike what he had experienced in the streets of Tora.
And then he realised that the city was actually underground, not just heavily walled, because the crowds did not just go into and out of the tunnel, but also upwards and downwards inside of it. Intersecting the road they were on, there was another road that spiralled away to both aforementioned ways, just beyond the pair of what might be guard stations and barracks that flanked the "tunnel's" entrance at either side.
There was nothing that triggered a sense of claustrophobia, fortunately, as they proceeded farther into the cliffside, following the more-or-less straight road on which they had come in. This road climbed slowly but surely up in long ramps, interrupted by level landings only when it branched to either side, creating smaller roads and alleyways in-between buildings.
But unfortunately, there were things – strong food scents, to be exact, half of which were familiar to him – that triggered immense hunger in him. They ambushed him from either side of this main road, as buildings started to turn from being utilitarian and defence-oriented to commercial, and he could not have prepared himself against them. Dizziness, nausea and sudden muscle weakness toppled him onto the smoothed stone of the road, even as his sight blurred and his stomach gurgled.
It took Avlar some time to notice his absence, but the boy was most solicitous when coming to his rescue. The grumbling and ranting of the passers-by who were forced to skirt them, however….
Here, they were nothing; he was nothing. And, while it was logical that a big, busy population like this would not recognise or even care for a pair of runts towing a big box, and it was indeed the desired result for the sake of their safety, it still scorched his heart. `How low have I fallen….`
The feeling was only more emphasised when, with apparent difficulty, Avlar managed to bring both his limp body and Eðlenstr's unwieldy mobile life support to the side, to the front of what sounded and smelled like an eatery of some sort.
They did not come in.
They could not come in, for lack of money – or, barring even that, useful-for-the-jötnar, non-suspicious, non-essential goods to barter with – for some meal and lodging.
And soon enough, as more and more patrons of the eatery went out of the establishment and noticed them, they were sent away with a few bright-red, carved stone coins each.
Like homeless beggars shooed from respectable establishments in Gladsheim, in one of their luckier moments, as he had observed since childhood.
Now he found how utterly unpleasant being on the wrong end of the shooing was.
Hunkering in a small side alley to hurriedly and stealthily eat a little of their own dwindled rations only made it worse.
Being pursued by a few equally hungry – and most likely greedy – giants much bigger than they were for their rations and packs topped it all off.
`Loki No-man-son: homeless, runty, weakling beggar extraordinaire.`