The Jeep Driver
By Rey

Part 2: The Treatment

Waking up in an unorganic, moving, loudly motorised vehicle is a strange, new experience that Loki cannot decide whether to like or dislike.

His opinion tips towards "dislike" as nausea is making itself known again. It pools low in his stomach but threatens to surge up, triggered by the sharp, somewhat stale air that he has no choice but to breathe in. His head and the back of his eyes throb unpleasantly, as well, reminded by the source of the nausea: the intense desert afternoon that at last defeated him.

On that thought, he opens his eyes a little, cautiously, just enough to allow a thin bar of light to enter, so as not to re-overwhelm himself.

`Oh. Nice,` he grudgingly thinks, as the light proves to be gentle on his well-abused eyes, even though it appears to be still the height of daylight. It remains so even when he gradually opens his eyes fully, and he cannot help but slump in relief.

Ignoring the presence that he can acutely feel to his left, he scrutinises the passing scenery displayed through the viewports before him and to his right…

…Which is no longer recogniseable as anywhere close to the pathetic, pitiful desert-edge village Thor was thrown down into.

His heart thumps faster, louder.

`Where am I? How long have I been unconscious? What happened to make me unconscious? Was it the music? How can I guard against it? What does this captor want with me? Ransom? Information? Did I somehow hint to them that I am the Regent King of Asgard? I did reject their offer to go with them, did I not? Why did they still persist? Are they aware that this counts as kidnapping?`

Then, `Are they even aware that I am no longer unconscious? Their presence feels aware….` His mouth, soured by traces of vomit, dries up fast. His heart feels as though it were beating hard in his throat, now, and also in his ears.

And still, his kidnapper stays silent, even… subdued? `Why subdued? What do they want, really?`

Seeing that he will only run in circles without more information, the hapless captive sures up his will, gathers his seiðr, and looks to his left.

He sees a… large ás-like being seated at the… driving station?… of the loud, slow, land-bound, somewhat confining vehicle, separated from him by a strip of control panel. "Large" as in the proportions of everything, truly, but terribly slim otherwise.

Like a skinny giant. If there is anything as paradoxical as a skinny giant, that is. The stories told by the Jötunheim War veterans always portray the frost giants as huge, hulking creatures….

`Now why do I return to this again?!` his mind berates him. So, with an internal shake of his head, he returns to the observation…

…But the skinny giant is no longer passively bearing his scrutiny, now. They are looking at him eye to eye, in fact.

Loki swallows, as surreptitiously as he can.

The giant is not only skinny, but also dressed in a simple, Midgard-style short-sleeved shirt that looks rather worn. The set of their shoulders and back, however, despite the odd belt that straps them to their seat across the lap and front, similar to their captive, truly reminds Loki of Odin. And the weight in their eyes….

"Who are you?" the hapless second prince of Asgard manages, at last, after several tries that he prays with all his might have not been noticed by his captor.

"Who are you, yourself?" the skinny giant returns, just as softly, though with the confidence that Loki presently envies.

"I asked first, stranger," the captive retorts; trying to smile a little to ingratiate himself, or perhaps to soften the blow a little, or to lighten the dense mood in the vehicle that he has just noticed has stopped moving, he himself does not know. "I distinctly remember that I wished to be left alone, as well."

On that semi-humorous proclamation, the other pair of green eyes, just a few shades lighter than his are, and possessing the same shape and stare, glint with something that he cannot hope to analyse at present.

"Indulge me," the captor murmurs, then. It sounds so much like an edict that Loki straightens up automatically, with a just as automatic "Yes, King-Father" at the tip of his tongue.

The response, which he quickly swallows back, feels like a jagged shard of deep ice.

"We should agree not to give our respective identities to each other, then," he declares, in the same faux-light tone from before, while trying with all his might not to show any hint of nervousness.

The captor neither agrees nor disagrees. Restarting the vehicle, they ask, without looking at the captive, "Were you born here?"

"No. Were you?"

"No."

And the mutual interrogations go on, as the vehicle rolls towards somewhere Loki knows nothing about, passing through various environments in the meantime. It feels as though they were dancing round each other while tiptoeing among a field of deadly traps; exciting, but also pretty tiring and unnerving.

Loki is not surprised, then, that he feels deadened when they at last halt a long, long while after, as the planet's star is about to set for the day. The… parking lot?… that they are carefully entering belongs to a complex of rustic-looking cottages and bigger buildings with many windows, interspersed with lush flower gardens and small woods. The buildings lie along a wide stretch of pale-brown-yellow sandy beach, if not as spacious lengthwise. Three obstacle tracks run along one side of the beach, while a rather large pond with clear water and man-made bed lies on the opposite side. And beyond the thick tideline, an expanse of calm, blue sea lies from horizon to horizon, dotted with colourful boats which are as noisy as the vehicle he is trapped in is.

Seawater-thickened hot air rushes into the artificially chilled atmosphere inside the vehicle when the captor opens the driver-side door. Caught off-guard, Loki reflexively cringes and scrambles to protect himself, traumatised by his earlier embarrassment. Before he can use the chance to also escape the vehicle, however, the door beside him is jerked open and a large, thin, cool hand lands on his shoulder.

Just so, oddly familiar seiðr swirls round him, from head to toe, carrying cool breeze with it that seems to stay and cocoon him, augmenting his own protection… as if both had always existed side by side.

Loki reels.

`So familiar. Why familiar? Did I know them before? How? Where? When? It feels as though it were so long ago. But I learnt seiðr from Mother – no, no, Frigga – only when I was past my first combat trial and I was already four hundred then! And I had learnt from nobody else before that! And this connection is too intimate for a casual tutorial with a stranger! Who are they? How could it be that I was that accustomed to them when I was a little child?`

The restraining belts click open and snap-slithers away, but the hapless Asgardian-raised jötun is too carried away in the déjà-vu-seeming moment and the internal turmoil that it has caused. He only jerks back to reality, as rudely as he has been thrown aback, when his captor scoops him up into… her?… arms. `I am not a toddler!`

He tries to squirm free, but the insane woman seems to be able to predict whatever he tries to do. Instead of getting away, he is pressed snugly flush against her front, and his face is tucked into the crook of her neck.

"Behave well, child. I am getting impatient, and I am sure that you are not yet recovered enough to spend your energy this needlessly," the woman dares chastise him, as she jerks the door of the vehicle shut with her seiðr and… locks it, judging from the beeping and clicking sounds it makes. She is even insolent enough to dangle a treat before him for his good behaviour, namely "ice cream" and playing in the sea, as though he were really a naughty little child made respectable for a formal function.

Well, if she intends to treat him like a child, then he will retaliate as though he were a child indeed.

So he bites the crook of her neck, which is the most accessible exposed skin of hers that he can reach, like he vaguely remembers he did when he was toddling, before the constant remonstrations of Frigga and Thor – though, strangely, not Odin – put him off the habit – no, the instinct.

And, shockingly, not to mention just as strangely, this woman also does not mind it that much. She just turns his head slightly, gently, silently, away from her neck, freeing him to look round a little, then rubs circles on his back…

…Like Odin did, in that dimly remembered time, before Frigga imitated the action.

Loki quivers in the stranger's hold, freaked out and very, very confused.

His captor moves, then, walking with a slow, sure, smooth gait, away from the vehicle which he now can see as something akin to a charriot without any animal tugging it, coloured a sunlight-absorbing forest green. Many vehicles like it are parked in rows on the dark-grey, faintly gleaming, sun-baked surface of the parking lot, which is thankfully empty of living, sentient spectators… presently.

"Let me walk on my own?" he resorts to pleading quietly, earnestly when they are exiting the parking lot through a gate, manned by a youth who looks amused at his plight. "I will not flee you for three days of this place's accounting, as long as you do not harm me or try to influence my free will in any way, and as long as you give me back my freedom of movement."

"And you will answer all my questions without any omission, outright lie, allusions to what is not common knowledge to me, excuses of any kind, and any misdirection?" his captor retorts. "And you will otherwise obey me without a fuss as long as I do not try to influence you in any way?"

Loki slumps. Trying to make a deal with this woman is like trying to make a deal with Frigga. And given the fact that he has regarded Frigga as his mother practically all his life, in addition to the sensations he has been receiving in this woman's company, the comparison is very, very, very disconcerting.

And still, he tries.

"I am myself. Let me be myself for three days, including walking on my own feet, and I will answer some questions from you that I choose myself, in the meantime, without any omissions, misdirections, allusions to things that are unknown to you, untruth, and non-valid excuses."

"I reserve the right to carry you and otherwise take care of you should you need it," is the – very, very exasperating and bemusing – retort, spoken after a thoughtful pause in which the skinny giant keeps moving. "The number of questions that you answer with all honesty is not less than ten for each day, moreover, and you agree not to be belligerent in attitude, words and perception towards me for the duration of three days of this place's accounting. In turn, I shall vow to you that I shall not attempt to influence you in words and attitude unless you are about to do a disservice to yourself and me, for the next three days, and I shall not bar you from leaving should you prove that you have truly recovered past three days."

Loki is very, very, very tempted to bite her again. Especially since he has just realised that she has stalled long enough that his bargain is now somewhat of a moot point. They have entered a much more sentient-populated area, after all, and about to enter what looks and feels like the main building in the whole property.

There are many witnesses to this undignified state of his, and now he has to deal with them instead of this woman.

"Damn you," he hisses, then tries to squirm free more frantically.

On that, unbelievably, his captor lets him slide down, back to his feet, on the polished stone floor inside the building.

But then, she grabs at the tip of his right ear and tugs him along by that ear.

"Ow!" he grimaces. But whatever he says, whatever he does, the damned harsh, demeaning skinny giant refuses to let him go or stop walking with his ear pinched between their thumb and forefinger.

It is good, then, maybe, that he is just a temporary king of Asgard, and she does not know that he is at all a king or a prince. To be marched across a public building by his ear, while being gawked by commoners…!

The woman and the stone counter she is seated behind at the end of their steady path, though…. "Have I shrunk?" the hapless not-ás mutters to himself for the second time, totally flammoxed, nearly forgetting his throbbing eartip. Because she and the counter seem giant-like compared to him, though not compared to his captor, who is… asking for a room to stay for three days? In exchange for entertaining the visitors to the inn's "café" with music for three nights?

`But she said that she wanted to consult with me for a few matters. Why not do it in a more private setting? Without this much hassle? She is kidnapping me, as well, so why put me in such a public place? And she will not be able to watch what I am doing if she is performing at the 'Café', will she? Can I shout for Heimdall as long as we are away from the peasants, then? She seems to be harmless, if I do not 'misbehave', so a few candlemarks in her company is probably doable.`

With that thought in mind, which is slowly but surely hardening into a decision, the stranded, accidentally exiled Regent King of Asgard relaxes a little. It prompts the release of his poor eartip, which puts action to both his own observation and the insane woman's own offer of promise.

Now, time to perform his becst act yet.