30. Dreams
.
At first it was like being yanked upward. The sudden catch of the pull chain on a roller coaster, that violent jolt you could feel in your bones, and it was also sliding, hurtling down a water slide, buffeted by a speed which tugged on your flesh. At the same time, she felt as if she weren't moving at all, the world become a weightless void in which she was the only thing with mass. Her entire sense of gravity was suspended, there was no up, no down, no pull of the earth.
Jane fought against an almost cosmic sensation of heaviness and every screaming instinct of self-preservation so she could open her eyes and lift her head from Loki's chest. Just enough to see.
And seeing was like falling into a light spectrum and an encyclopaedia of satellite photos and a watercolour painting and a model of the circulatory system. A nebula sprang up in her view, engulfed her, and was gone- all in an instant. They soared along a thin vine of lightning which was both all around them and spindly before them like a drawing of a nerve; a twisting rope of stardust and will. Her will. It wasn't pure, wasn't magic, but it was the nearest thing to it in which she could comfortably believe. Definitely the nearest thing of which humanity was capable.
Was that concession enough? He probably wouldn't think so.
All at once they were still, there was an instant of oppressive silence and then a kind of massive rushing in her ears she couldn't immediately identify, her heart was in her throat, the weight of her body felt wrong pressing on her muscles and her sense of balance was completely flabbergasted by the reappearance of gravity. She clutched handfuls of Loki's shirt, still slipping oddly towards the ground until his grip tightened and held her up. Her feet dragged limply and it took a conscious effort to put them under her, to press against them experimentally, waiting for her brain to register the existence of something to stand on.
Starting to find her bearings, she looked up at him and saw his head haloed by the most spectacular night sky she had ever seen or imagined, with more stars than were visible even deep in the desert. Green and pink tendrils of gas cloud wound through it, compact and brilliant with colour here, diffuse and ethereal there, and planets hung in it with a bright shining crystal clarity which had never existed on Earth. Her breath came fast as she stared, tingling springing up over her palms as she longed for something to make this exactly right, the perfect moment. Some way to capture it, to experience it with all the fullness and all the eternity it deserved. A desperate fluttering of excitement and sadness ached in her chest.
Keeping one hand fisted in Loki's shirt for stability, she pulled away to swing around and take in their surroundings. They were at the base of a huge cliff, its glassy black surface glistening wetly with the continuous spray of the colossal waterfalls on either side of the rock face above them. If waterfall was even the word any more when the top curved away into the distance in both directions, an entire ocean pouring over the sharp edge, and the little island they were standing on seeming to be more the exception than the rule. She looked down for the first time, squinting into the blackness and clutching harder when she saw that they weren't so much on an island as on a jetting bit of boulder over an abyss. The mist of the water seemed to roll inward towards the narrowing mass of the planet, repelled by the nothingness of space which was all that was beneath them.
Her brain rebelled and she had to look back at the stars to steady her vertigo. It felt as if she could brush against them, reach out and touch them- almost as if she had, had been them and thought them. Her confusion and terror were made dumb and impotent by the sheer awesomeness of the sight, all other emotion fleeing before the rolling thundercloud of her awe. She tried to swallow the wonder-struck helplessness, tried to find some scientific detachment, to touch earth again- but her scuffed up desert boots were not supported by earth, they were resting in alien soil on an alien world and an infinite canopy of alien stars shone over them.
She yanked at Loki, unable to speak and feeling she was still in very real danger of literally falling over from amazement.
His hand curled around the base of her skull, guiding her upright, helping her find her centre, and she was able to focus on his eyes, studying her with penetrating interest. The water was deafening and she had to half read his lips to make out what he said.
"Everything you'd hoped?"
She grinned at him inanely, only now present enough in her own body to realise she was giddy. She nodded eagerly.
Loki's mouth tugged up at one corner, but his thumb trembled slightly where it stroked the curve of her jaw. This wasn't an adventure for him, he was home and yet would never be home again.
His gaze fell for a moment, his black eyelashes stark against his milk-pale skin. Drops of water glittered in the air, she could taste sea salt every time she breathed. Before she could think of anything to say, he pointed up into the torrent and she followed his finger to where she could just make out the gleam of gold on some kind of structure. A tiny sliver of it was visible, sitting at the top of the rock face some eight hundred metres above them. Her mind skidded to a halt and she turned to stare at him in horror.
He nodded, chuckling at the expression on her face.
So happy to amuse you, she thought, mortal terror making her bitter.
He gave her his back and crouched low, beckoning over his shoulder for her to climb on.
Well, it was certainly a novel way to die. No one could say she went out in a boring or mundane fashion, no one could say her death wasn't fitting to her ridiculous life. Piggyback ride up the side of some physics defying space disc on the back of an alien prince- that had to be one for the books. And, you know, there were worse things. Honestly, if this was it, it was a pretty perfect time for it- at least she could die happy. The inside of the wormhole, for her, was like seeing the face of God.
She shrugged and clamoured onto Loki's back, wrapping one arm under his and the other over his opposite shoulder so she could cling as tightly as a limpet, locking her hands around her wrists across his chest. She tucked her legs around his waist when he straightened up, and he reached down to adjust her hold slightly before jogging up the rocks as spryly as a mountain goat. By the time he was grabbing nigh-invisible hand holds and hauling them up the vicious, past-vertical slope of the sheer cliff, all her exposed skin being pelted with icy spray and the water droplets feeling more like tiny bullets the wetter and colder she got, she couldn't really decide if she wanted to be able to see what was happening or not. So she alternated between scrunching her eyes tight against his back and jerking her head around to stare, so wildly that she feared making him lose his balance.
The sound of the water receded very slightly as they crested the edge of the world and Loki stood to his considerable height. The vista of Asgard spread out before her as she used her legs to push up against him and get a better view. There were tall, rocky islands by the hundreds, shrouded in mist and darkness but their magnificent gold buildings still glistering in the abundant starlight, reflecting the colours of the night sky like a subtle corona. Mountains rose higher and higher in the middle of the water scape, covered in patches of shadow she assumed were foliage, and the focal point of the disc was a towering segmented building which looked like the pipes of a gargantuan cathedral organ. Everything was so vast, so prodigious, it stole her breath. Was she dreaming? Could it really be possible that she wasn't?
Loki's hands covered hers where she gripped her own wrist over his heart. His heavy breathing slowing as he strolled away from the drop, making his way up to more even ground, the labour of the climb apparently forgotten in a few steps. He turned, his head so close to hers that she felt the sweep of his eyelashes against her temple.
"The Realm Eternal, Jane Foster. No mortal has set foot in these hallowed halls in a thousand years." He sighed, closing his eyes as he nudged her cheek with the tip of his nose. "How does it meet with your appetite to sup on wonders?"
They were on another, bigger island, presided over by a tall cylindrical building with a sort of half-dome roof and… things… orbiting it. Things which were floating freely in the air with no obvious means of lift. A spotlessly shining gold-bronze walkway curved away across the dark water towards the pipe organ towers. Forget defying gravity, how was everything kept so clean?
Jane giggled to herself that this was her first really coherent question. She'd been living in the desert too long, she'd had sand in too many places.
"It's a little ostentatious," she quipped.
"Impertinent mortal."
She could tell his heart wasn't in sparring with her right now, so she tried to let a little of her overwhelming enchantment show without losing her shit. "It's incredible. You guys have telescopes, right? I need an optical telescope, a spectroscope, and-"
"We shall see what havoc you can wreak. There is antique observational equipment in the palace scriptorium which you might use without great difficulty. Entry shouldn't be difficult." He bent low to allow her to slide off his back, catching her hand to help her down.
Jane stretched out her stiff muscles, sore as hell both from hanging on for dear life and clenching her whole body in terror. "Antiques?"
"I played with them as a child. You would find little you recognise in the observatory. I am only storing up treasures for you, Jane, I will deny you nothing."
That gave her a pang, but he started striding along the walkway and she had to jog to keep up.
"Obviously, they know we are here," he said, too quickly, "your bridge is not a subtle thing. But Odin would have known regardless and we can play quite a game of evasion if needs must."
"Loki," she said, uneasily, remembering how reckless this whole thing was, "I know I was all devil-may-care, but this is going to be all right, right? You didn't just let me carry you off on a-"
"You seemed so confident on Midgard."
"I wasn't really that confident, I'm just, like, super problematically stubborn and impulsive. And I can't help but believe-"
He froze so abruptly that she slammed into his back and knocked the breath out of her lungs. His arm came around her as he reached back and grabbed for her shoulder, herding her in close, his fingers digging into the fleshy spot above her scapula.
"No," he whispered, hardly audible, talking to himself rather than her. "I was wrong, I was wrong to come here and think I could- I can't see her, but I can't..."
Jane followed his gaze, the very slightly outstretched fingers of his free hand, reaching unconsciously for what he saw. There was a woman approaching along the metal path, her walk brisk but stately, and her progress the measured promenade of someone who knows they are being observed. Shadowed by a good half dozen armoured guards on each of her flanks, she affected a confident, cultured indifference to their presence. She was tall and fair, dark blonde hair piled in an elaborate wreath around her head before pouring down her back in immaculate ringlets set off against the warm bronze of her robe and the glitter of gold embroidery. Some kind of precious gem twinkled from her sleeves with every movement, and Jane could see the edges of an elaborate design embedded in the robe's train.
Jane did not need to be told that this was his mother.
She patted his hand on her shoulder, trying to be reassuring. "Well, it's too late now."
"I shouldn't have come here," he said miserably, his grip going slack and his arm falling away. "Naïve and covetous. I'll never learn."
Looking up at his face, Jane saw only the wanness of dread. "You do want to see her, you always-"
"Of course I wish to see her," he hissed, "I don't wish her to see me."
Oh. A tangle of pain seemed to pull down her throat and through her chest, snagging on her ribs and settling heavily in her gut. Oh. There was nothing she could say.
They stood motionless in an excruciating silence as the Queen and her entourage gradually approached. Jane felt confident that no one was going to have to remind her again that she was dealing with royalty, because she never could have imagined someone so obviously raised from birth to play exactly this role. The proud, upright way she held her head as she walked was precisely familiar, and the solemn magisterial expression was one Jane had seen often on the man beside her.
The Queen's face was pale and very slightly pinched beneath its veneer of noble serenity, her eyes a little too bright in the starlight. She raised her hand, the gesture as delicate as a ballerina's, and the procession stopped.
"All of you, leave us. Captain, fetch His Highness two fur cloaks and bring the horses," her voice was very soft, quavering minutely, but it carried easily. She waited for the soldiers to obey, not watching them as they bowed with their hands over their hearts and turned to go. Her gaze lifted, filling with the sight of Loki, not dead after all; she hesitated for an instant and then said, "My son."
Loki made a tiny noise in his throat which set Jane's fingers twitching in sympathetic anxiety, but his words in reply were icily censorious, "You mistake me greatly in your address, Madame. I am neither a prince, nor you son."
Jane nearly choked on her breath in dismay and frantically tried to decide how much worse it would make things if she were to stick her oar in. She had no idea what she was doing and it felt wrong to interfere, but so did standing idly by.
"Is that so?" the Queen whispered. "It must be that I dreamt I nursed a second babe at my breast, and held him to my heart while he slept, and guided his first step, and taught him there was magic. It must have been another woman who fretted over your childhood fevers and mended your hurts and gave you sweets. No boy mastered his first charm and embraced me and swore an oath to become the greatest sorcerer in the Nine Realms. It was not I who wept until all the pools and depths of Asgard ran dry when my child fell into an abyss between stars torn asunder."
He said nothing. His shoulders trembled with tension.
The Queen's face was bone white, strain twisting at her features, her blue eyes blurred by a flood of welling tears. "Even if you would deny your family, cast yourself off from us forever and cleave instead to such a thin binding as your blood, there too you are the son of a king." Her chin came up, her dignity a sword she wielded, her emotion a buckler. "So I have called you rightly, Loki, Odin's son. You are twice a prince, in your body by your birth and in spirit and character by your family; you are still the child I raised."
Loki faced her, a muscle jumping in his cheek and his breathing ragged, but his posture as straight and unflinching as ever. He was trying so hard, Jane knew, so hard to keep aloof from this tortuous confrontation, to pretend he felt only anger and disdain. He couldn't begin to manage it. He shook his head, but didn't answer her.
"You can deny my womb, but you cannot deny I am your mother," her voice wobbled on the last word. "I once lifted you up when you were helpless, and I would pay a great price to have strength enough to do so again."
Loki laughed, sharply and bitterly, pointedly ignoring the tears his forced grin spilled down his cheeks. "Would you?"
Appalled, though not surprised or angry, the Queen stepped back. Her eyes flicked to Jane, a cloud passing in her expression.
"Forgive me! How rude. What poor hospitality," Loki sang, catching the look and suddenly lifting Jane's hand in mock cheerfulness, edging towards mania. "Jane, you are here privileged to come into the presence of Frigga Fjörgyndottir, Queen of Asgard. Mother, if I may present Doctor Jane Foster of Midgard. Doctor is a human title of merit and learning. Jane has no family, but she is terribly accomplished."
Frigga's head turned towards her and in a moment of Platonic awkwardness, Jane found herself dropping history's most clumsy curtsey and babbling, "Um, hi, Your- um- Majesty? Sorry about… um."
"Mother," Loki's voice throbbed, suddenly low in his chest, hoarse with stress, "please do explain to Doctor Foster our friendly way of life. The esteem in which you hold the fine people who birthed me into the world. The people we were given such cause to love, the temperance which we were so industriously taught in the face of political disagreement with the Elder Race. Tell her."
But Frigga was mute, her hand covering her mouth as she pressed her lips together, as if to hold in an outburst.
"Loki," Jane winced at how pragmatic she was about to sound in the midst of this very personal meltdown, "this isn't exactly the most productive way to-"
"You said you never wanted me to feel different! But how could you- you- not know that I always did? How could you ship me off for years and tell me lies and never lift a finger to help me make sense of...! Where was your compassion, your regret for cold black blood when our very nursery songs sang the joy of spilling it? Why didn't you tell me!"
Frigga shook her head, her words cautious and tender, "You know why. I could not. Your father believed-"
"My father! He knew Odin's measure very well, my father. He saw very clearly from his crumbling throne in his ruined Realm. Why didn't you teach me that a giant could be… wise..." Loki trailed off, stricken by his own train of thought.
The Queen's fair cheeks burned with flush and Jane hoped it was shame. If she was reading between the lines right on all of this history, she sure hoped it was shame.
"Loki," Frigga pleaded, "be patient with us."
"Patient!" he was so incredulous his shout broke over the second syllable. "How long have I lived? How long have I waited and tried to understand? How many years did I ask you why the others were not as I was, why their fate seemed written so differently to mine? Why should I be patient, be pitiful any more- why should I!"
"For the same reason that we have been patient and pitiful. For the same reason Thor was not banished without hope of return."
He sneered, disgusted at the mention of his brother's name. "Because he would be forgiven anything, because he is the favoured and anointed heir."
"For love of you. For both of you."
Loki bowed his head, his eyes on his shoes. "I would once have said that lies do not become you, Mother… how badly I misjudged."
Coming forward with her hands lifted in supplication, the Queen shook her head. "No words can wound me further. I mourned you."
She reached up to cup his face in her palms, brushing his hair back with her fingers as she gave him a watery smile. He stood frozen, staring at her with tremendous misgiving.
"I am punished all my mistakes. There can be no hurt as grave and festering as a child so at war with himself," she paused and visibly gathered her strength to go on, "that he would forfeit the battle."
Loki flinched, his eyes flitting around, looking anywhere but at her, then snapping back to her face as they widened in what might have been guilt. "Thor told you…?"
She stretched up to embrace him, folding her arms around his shoulders and spreading her hand over the back of his head to pull it down to rest against her throat. The sight of her slightly worn gold slippers peaking out from beneath the hem of her dress, one sliding a little from the curve of her heel as she arched her foot to stand on her toes, made Jane want to turn away.
"Your brother lied, but I am his mother, too. It was written in his eyes. And I knew."
Loki's hand very slowly drifted to the middle of her back, hovering between her shoulder blades for a long moment before lightly touching down. His stiff posture still did not relax. "I would not have had you suffer."
Frigga's hold on him only tightened, forcing him to bend another fraction, pulling him nearer, her tone as hard as iron, an old fury simmering beneath the sorrow, "Your death could never spare me pain."
"I don't understand," he murmured into her hair, sounding weary and shocked.
She pulled away to look at him, her face creased with worry. "I am sorry, Loki. I am so sorry."
Apprehension came back into his expression, a page turning and his brain firing up. "Will there be a trial? For treason? For murder?"
"No, no, no, no," Jane broke in, sounding to herself like a skipping CD. She had been giving them space for their emotional stuff, but this was too much and everything was so huge. This huge sky and these huge people with their titanic dramas, humanoid tidal waves crashing through an undefended universe, sweeping smaller creatures along in their wake. And she was feeling very small. "We're not staying for that party, we're not going down- you can't go to- to- the dungeon or whatever. You are coming back with me. You're my ride home, you promised. You promised me."
The Queen glanced at her shrewdly and there were oceans of experience in those eyes, there was a knowing look of such depth and breadth that Jane felt stripped to a kind of spiritual nakedness, the raw core of her being exposed. Was that magic? Some kind of technology they called magic? But there was no hum, no subtle glow, no smell of ozone, no sense of disturbance in the air. That wasn't it. This was something simpler and more terrible, she could sense it, her industrious mind groping towards an idea she wasn't certain she wanted to reach. She was suddenly intimidated by the Queen in a brand new way unlike anything she'd ever felt, and she didn't want to think about it at all.
"I have been most eager to meet you, Jane Foster of Midgard, who has effected such a profound impact upon my sons." Frigga was warm and gracious in spite of everything, her gentle manner dispelling some of the aura of otherness which had frightened Jane. "You cast before you a long shadow."
Wrong-footed by the- pretty obvious in hindsight- revelation that this discreetly imposing woman had been hearing about her and forming Impressions, Jane didn't really know what to say to that. "I, uh, I didn't actually do much. I was just curious."
Loki snorted.
Frigga's admonishing glance had the tiniest shade of a smile. "Indeed. Thor tells me you are an astronomer."
She squinted, holding out her hand and tipping it back and forth ambivalently. "Sort of?"
"Welcome to Asgard, Doctor Astronomer. There is much we must say."