Chapter Four – The Girl and The Engineer
A/N: We'll meet more of Ilmr's family in this chapter! I'm trying to introduce them somewhat slowly as there's seven of them. More Hillevi –and Tony Stark makes an appearance!
pixelerrante: I'm glad you found this sequel! There's a lot of new things - environment and characters - I hope you enjoy!
This chapter will start from Ilmr's perspective before switching to Loki and finally back to Ilmr for the end of the chapter. All perspective changes are indicated by a double page break. Lyrics in this chapter are from Lorde's "Glory and Gore".
There's a humming in the restless summer air
And we're slipping off the course that we prepared
But in all chaos there is calculation
Days. That first night seemed to drag on for days, to Ilmr. She was glad to find that her practice had not been for naught – she made few missteps. She could still fight with Loki beside her as if they had not missed a day of sparring in their clearing in Asgard.
When first light finally crept over the horizon, their enemy vanished. They had not lost so many, this time. And though the enemy was near impossible to see in the darkness, their unnatural, bright eyes gave them away.
Inghard was wrong that they were difficult to kill. They were harder to see, certainly, but she was awash with dark, dark blood as she trekked back towards the palace with her contingency. Their enemy died just as easily as any other foe. There were simply more of them.
She looked forward to the arrival of the Man of Iron with Fenrir and Vidar later in the week. Tony Stark had refused to stay behind and she could not deny him; any assistance offered she would accept. She was hesitant to bring either Fenrir or Vidar into this fray, but she had no choice. They had both been well-trained and seen battle. Fenrir was now large enough that he had to wear his collar indoors at all times, far too large for even the high ceilings in Stark's tower.
"Whoa."
It was the first childlike utterance Hillevi had loosed and the first indication Ilmr knew of the girl's return with Loki from their practice. It was likely Loki had silenced their approach. Equally likely, however, was Tony Stark's chatter that was almost too quick for her to hear herself think, much less anything else.
Ilmr turned with a smile at Stark's speechlessness at the sight of the girl. Hillevi was clearly taken with the two huge hounds and seemed for all the world not to notice or care for their growling.
They had grown again or they had worn their collars entirely too much in the last months in Stark's tower. Both Fenrir and Vidar appeared glad to be free of the confines of Loki's magic and finally their true sizes.
"Hillevi, I would like you to meet our hounds, Vidar and Fenrir." Ilmr gestured to each in turn before turning to the Man of Iron. "And this is Tony Stark."
They sized each other up, the small girl and the engineer. He was more impatient.
"Did someone seriously let you two have kids? And why didn't you say anything about her?"
"We did not have a child, Stark." Loki's voice came from behind them as he shrugged off his greatcoat. Ilmr watched Hillevi smile at Loki's scarce contained annoyance. "We have adopted her from Ilmr's late brother."
Stark tossed an arm out in Loki's direction. "You can't be serious. Him? He got the parenting vote? The God of Mischief and Lies? How is Earth possibly considered the backwoods of the universe?"
"Really?" A second childlike utterance from Hillevi, this one far more adoring. "Mischief and lies?"
It seemed her existence on the fringe of the family had parlayed into equating sorcery such as hers and Loki's with trickery and deceit. Ilmr was not entirely surprised.
Ilmr smiled sweetly at Tony. "She seems to think he will suit just fine."
"She's like three!"
Hillevi turned her dark eyes on the Man of Iron. "I am five." She narrowed those eyes, peering at the orb in Stark's chest. "What are you?"
"Human."
"Midgardian." Hillevi looked back towards Loki at his voice.
"I did not realize they looked so…strange."
At that, Loki loosed an earnest laugh, the sort Ilmr had not heard since his imprisonment. Stark shuddered at the sound. Hillevi, she noted, merely smiled.
"Mr. Stark is peculiar. The light in his chest is unique to him and by it, he remains alive and a particular suit he has created is powered by it." Ilmr watched Hillevi glance back to the light at her explanation.
With little more than a nod, the girl turned her attention to Vidar and Fenrir. The former was growling low, the latter silent but alert. Truly her father's daughter, Hillevi strode to Vidar first without hesitation and touched a hand to his enormous paw. At this first contact Vidar growled himself quiet and sat watching her quietly instead for several moments before looking to Ilmr.
With a single nod, Ilmr commanded: "Guard." Moments later, he slid carefully to lie down beside Hillevi.
Loki's voice came from behind and to the right of Ilmr. "Fenrir, guard." Fenrir too would look after Hillevi, but now that he was finally sure she was no threat, he bound over to her and in his gigantic, puppy way, nuzzled her. Even centuries younger than Vidar he was nearly the same size. Ilmr was glad of the care he took in snuffling the girl, who seemed even smaller standing between the monstrous animals.
It was then Ilmr noticed Stark looking between them as though they'd all grown an extra appendage. "What is wrong with you? They might step on her and not know it. Oh my god. Who thought you'd be good parents?"
"My father." Hillevi's small, muffled voice came from where she'd buried her face in Fenrir's fur. "He's dead. I belong to Ilmr and Loki now."
Stark set his lips in a thin line, his expression approaching disapproval as he turned his gaze away from the child. "Nice."
"If you have nothing constructive to bring to our attention, Stark, I would request you visit your chambers." Ilmr gave the Man of Iron a sweet, sweet smile. "Westward down the hall and the third door on the left."
Wagging one finger, Stark picked up a red and gold suitcase that was likely a compact version of his suit and showed himself out.
"Are they for me?" At Hillevi's question that sounded innocent but by no means was, Ilmr turned to see her curled up between the two hounds.
"No. Vidar belongs to me, Fenrir to Loki. They will protect you, however."
Hillevi thought that over before nodding. "May I have one?"
With a small smile, Ilmr agreed. "Someday, yes."
"I believe I am right about her, you know."
It was several hours later when Hillevi's nursemaid returned to look after her that Ilmr and Loki returned to the battlefield with their hounds in tow.
"Oh?" Ilmr could not see Stark. After briefing him on what they had learned their first night, he wisely if begrudgingly kept all lights on his suit off and painted over the light in his chest.
It seemed as though the Einherjar –because they had been correct in that, at least- had as much trouble finding them in the pitch dark. That's what had done earlier parties in: their use of light to see the enemy. It was harder this way, but at least if the enemy was no less accurate, it did take them longer to find their prey. Not much longer, granted, but enough so that Ilmr and her contingencies could begin to even the score.
"She is a gifted telekinetic. She will be able to move mountains when I am finished with her." He smiled slightly in the dark, teeth gleaming in the dull moonlight. "And I have much faith that I mean that in the most literal sense."
Ilmr felt herself smile wide at that. "Between your training and mine, she will truly be a terrifying force on this battlefield."
"Enemy ahead, five hundred yards. Looks like a good size group." Stark had fitted both she and Loki –and her generals, with earpieces. With the use of his night vision he was able to see their enemy without use of light.
With elf-quiet tones she heard her generals give their orders and their various battalions, where orders were passed on in gesture to those non-elven soldiers, before the near-silent shift into position. Giving Loki a smile, Ilmr stepped up closer and prepared for battle.
It was exhausting, though they had gotten a quarter of a day's rest. The Einherjar, true to tales, were near tireless. When they were able to slay one, it appeared to evaporate in mere moments into nothingness. The only dead on the battlefield by daybreak each day were their own. The dark figures Ilmr had seen upon their arrival in Vanaheim had not been the enemy, she realized, but burnt bodies of fallen Vanirian soldiers.
It was nearly an hour after midnight when Ilmr heard Loki snarl beside her and, with a quick flash of a dagger, slay one of the Einherjar. Before it could evaporate moments later, Loki cast out a blue hand and froze the fallen enemy. In a third blink of her eye, he vanished the creature into the folds of his armor.
Good. They would be able to study their enemy.
...
"What the hell is that?"
With a barely-contained roll of his eyes, Loki turned his head slightly to the sound of Stark's ever-irksome voice.
"One of the Einherjar. Dead and frozen. If we are able to examine one of these creatures, we would know far better how to battle them."
The sound of scurrying feet and more deliberate steps immediately behind reached his ears and Loki turned fully. He had never found the idea of a child appealing and that had yet to change. He was, however, beginning to feel a kinship with the small, strange girl that he and Ilmr had taken under their purview a fortnight before.
"No, I mean, how did you—"
"—Wow!" Hillevi was typically very reserved, as much as he had been as a child, if not moreso, but each time something had crossed her path that she had true interest in, she had been unable to contain her excitement.
"Whoa, hey." Stark shifted to hide the body from view. "You shouldn't be in here."
With the quirk of an eyebrow, Hillevi scurried past him and clambered onto the tabletop where the body was resting, kneeling next to it's head.
"Do not get too close, it's far too cold for you to touch." To keep it from evaporating before they were finished with it, Loki had kept it so cold only he was able to handle it.
"She should be here, Stark. She is my charge and I brought her here for the purpose of watching our examination. I would have her first experience with these creatures be one such as this, not on the battlefield in the dead of night with them shrieking and snarling all around her."
Loki took note of both Stark's disgusted look and his silence. Without giving him more than a few moments to speak again, Loki began examining the creature. Much to Hillevi's apparent delight, he allowed one hand to become it's naturally unnatural blue and on one finger, grew a knife-sharp blade of ice with which he began cutting into the frozen creature with ease.
"Can you teach me to do that?" Hillevi's voice was wonder-filled as she stared unblinking as Loki worked.
He was not sure why he felt any sort of kinship with this strange girl. Her similarity to himself as a small child, perhaps. Or perhaps because of her question: much like Ilmr, she did not fear what he was. Did not seem to factor it into her interactions with him in any way.
"I fear I cannot. It is not magic, Hillevi. It is what I am. The magic is my Asgardian face." He waited until she was looking at him to continue. "I am a Frost Giant, by birth."
Hillevi had heard of his kind, it seemed, for her eyes went wide. Whatever she had been told, however, did not appear to have made the same impression it had on most others. "Can I see?" She sounded delighted. As though she had wanted nothing more than to see one such as him for herself since she had first heard of them.
Ilmr had been one of a very few to have seen him in such a form. It had been several years since that moment. In that time, much had happened.
He still despised what he was, that much he knew, but he had begun to use it to his advantage; Tdenas' words ringing in his head each time: whether you claim them or not, that is what you are. I could deny my heritage, my Trillet-ness, but I would be no less what I am for it. It seems a waste of time. He had been unable to deny the truth or rationale in the words.
And so, he nodded. "Yes." He cast a glance to Ilmr who nodded. She would alert him should any approach. "Be sure you do not touch me until I say you may."
He watched her shift back on her heels slightly in anticipation before allowing his magic to fall away and reveal his true skin: brilliant blue and scarlet-eyed with clouds of cold air rolling off his skin. His markings, he knew, were dark blue and bold from the torture of the Titan.
Eyes wide and bright, Hillevi took several small, sure steps closer.
"Holy shit, you never told me you moonlighted as Nightcrawler. This explains so much." Stark had taken a step back but did not make an effort to still his tongue.
Before Loki could do more than glare, Hillevi had cut in. "May I touch your skin now?"
He was unsure if this was the fearlessness of her father or the aunt that had adopted her, but it was clearly in the blood of some of Egil's descendants. He nodded, holding a hand to her. "You may."
She turned his hand over in her own far smaller ones, marveling at his strange fingernails. "You're so cold."
"Yes. Where my kind hail from is a barren, frozen wasteland. Frost Giants have a magic of their own in their ability to manipulate water and snow and ice."
"May I touch your face?"
"No."
For all that he had grown and accepted in the years since discovering his heritage, Loki labored under no illusions that he was comfortable with that much. Only Ilmr had been allowed to touch his markings twice. Once out of necessity when she helped to mend his injuries and the second time had only been recently in an unusually quiet moment they had shared.
"Loki." Ilmr pitched her voice low and urgent from where she stood several paces away.
With no more than a nod, Loki called his magic back and he looked himself again by the time Inghard swept into the room, several of Ilmr's siblings he had not yet met in tow.
"I did not believe it when I heard it." Inghard stopped next to his sister who gave him a look that could only be described as long-suffering indulgence.
"Believe, brother." A sibling who bore much resemblance to Ilmr, in both his copper-colored hair and distinct lack of elven ears had spoken. He was shorter than Inghard, but made up for the half-foot difference in the broadness of his shoulders.
"Tyr." Ilmr moved a hand in Loki's direction. "My husband, Loki."
A wide grin spread across his features, much to Loki's surprise. Both Inghard and Calder had allotted him little more than aloof pleasantries. "It seems I have one brother who is not the fool my others are."
Loki returned the smile with a small, wary one of his own. "No indeed."
"His flattery often leads to many requested favors." Inghard glared down at his younger brother.
"I prefer to think I'm efficient." The smile had turned sweet and Loki made a mental note to ask Ilmr if she had neglected to tell him of a twin.
Ilmr's last as-yet-unnamed brother scoffed. "Does your sloth know no bounds?"
"And Orvar." Ilmr smiled. "My family's answer to Volstagg, though far more gluttonous, if I do say so myself."
Loki would have found that hard to believe had it not been for the sheer size of this last brother's waistline. As with Calder, brown hair brushed his shoulders. Also similar to Calder, it seemed there was nothing elvish about this brother; Loki had never met an elf that looked thusly. He took after his eldest brother and, in all likelihood, his father's side of the family.
"Yes, lovely. How did you come about this creature?" Inghard snapped, clearly unhappy having to ask his question a second time. Being ignored was not a pastime of his, apparently.
"The Man of Iron, with his suit, was able to capture one before it evaporated. He has been able to keep it cold enough that it will not disappear before we are through with it." Ilmr supplied, gesturing to Stark.
For all his bumbling idiocy, Tony Stark could read more subtext than he liked to let on, and he smiled wide, too humbly to be humble. "It's a new feature on the suit. Great for ice cream in the summer. Or capturing Houdini's bastard children."
"And how do we examine this creature without losing it?" Inghard gave a smug smile and Loki saw Ilmr's lips twitch minutely. Her brother was going to attempt to outwit Stark. Loki would have given him the odds if he didn't know Inghard's arrogance outweighed his intellect.
Stark rolled his eyes in such a way that Inghard looked to be restraining himself from launching at the mortal. "Why do you think I called the sorcerer in? I can keep it frozen while he voodoos us some results."
Inghard cracked his jaw and said nothing.
"Great!" Stark clapped his hands together once. "We'll report back with results. For now, I'd like to ask for some privacy. Science and magic both require concentration and you," he motioned to the three brothers in their presence, "are all kinds of distracting."
Ilmr nodded to Stark and Loki before turning to her brothers and, Loki imagined, gave them a most withering look if the speed with which they took their leave without protest was any indication.
After several moments of silence and a gesture from Ilmr, Loki encased the room in silence before he spoke. "You may come out now, Hillevi." He noted the girl's disappearance when Ilmr had said his name initially and was not surprised to find that she materialized next to him on the table where she had been seated initially.
She met Loki's eyes. "I dislike them."
He nodded. "I'm not fond of them myself. Do they know you are familiar with invisibility?"
At that, Hillevi smiled wide and mischievously. "They think I'm good at hiding."
Loki laughed. Again Stark shuddered and Ilmr and Hillevi simply smiled. "There is much I will be able to teach you."
"Can we go back to the part where you're blue and she's Sabrina?" Stark interrupted. "Seriously, is that what you really look like? How much does everyone else hate it that we're keeping it a secret?"
"Even the smallest are at least a foot or two taller than I am." Loki smiled. "Though not nearly so kind. And yes. Were they to know, it would be…" he thought for a moment for the right wording. "I believe the Midgardian colloquialism is witch hunt. Though this would end in a rather literal lynching."
Without batting an eyelash, Stark changed the subject, looking to Hillevi. "And what about you, girlie? Are you going to Hogwarts or something?"
Hillevi scowled. "You're only funny if everyone else understands you."
Stark smirked.
"Who taught you that you could make yourself invisible?"
"No one. My father discovered I was able to vanish but kept it to himself. The others are too stupid to see it."
Stark looked to Ilmr. "You're sure she's not your kid? She's super snarky and magical like him and she looks like you."
"Njordr too had red hair."
"So you, her dead dad, and what, your twin brother?" Stark had taken note as well, it seemed.
"Tyr is no twin, though we are the closest in age than any of the others, a mere ten years apart."
"Any others to meet? I feel like I should meet a wizard and a Balrog next."
"Two sisters. Who you might meet once we are finished here." Ilmr redirected Stark.
With a nod, Loki began again to cut into the body of the creature.
...
Once Loki had dissected the creature to his satisfaction and Hillevi had peered at its innards to hers, Ilmr brought her away to begin training her.
Though her chambers had been emptied of her possessions before she had left for Asgard to seek a place in the realm's forces, she still had many things hidden around the palace that she had been unable to carry with her or bring for practical purposes.
One such item was the wooden practice sword Anleifr had gifted her when she was little more than Hillevi's age.
"This was mine, when I was your age, and I gift it now to you. We'll begin with basic positions and movement. Once you've a good handle on those things, we'll add some form. After that, we'll begin sparring. From there, it's adding new forms and practice. Much practice. If you wish to be of use to yourself on the battlefield, you will practice as often as you can."
Hillevi's eyes had widened so much Ilmr suspected the girl hadn't heard much of what she'd said. She was proven wrong. "I will. The nursemaid leaves me alone frequently. Practicing in secret should not be a problem."
"Which nursemaid is this?"
Hillevi shrugged. "When can we begin sparring?"
Ilmr smiled slightly. She would allow Loki to pull the information from Hillevi. The girl had taken to him rather quickly and Ilmr was inclined to let her take her time trusting each of them in turn. It would bear out.
"If you practice each day, within a few years you will be ready to face our foes. By the time you are twenty, I would imagine. If you do not, you will likely not be ready until much later."
Hillevi narrowed her eyes. "Twenty? But I am only five!"
"Yes. And if you wish to be the best, each and every movement must come as easily as walking. That will take time."
"Who taught you?"
"Our eldest brother, Anleifr."
"Father spoke of him, sometimes."
"I see."