Chapter 3 – Calmness in the Storm
Odin walked back into the medical hall that held his son. The tremors that had been happening for the last four days had finally subsided and the people were finally settling down, however only a few knew the reasons why the earthquakes had stopped. Odin looked over to where his youngest was lying down on his back on a medical bed with the hardest magical bindings they could find binding his body down and his whole bed was warded with the strongest force fields the court mages could throw up. There were runes that were shining on the floor keeping his sons magic locked inside. The runes had been completed just that morning, hence the reason for the calmness.
Loki himself looked like he was dead, all his color had drained and his eyes had sunken into his body and it was almost black around his eyes. He had sweated a lot during the last 4 days and even now Odin could see that his clothes had been soaked through. For the last two days healers couldn't even get close enough to help him so he was in the same clothes he was in two days ago, soaked and plastered on him. He looked very very sick and small lying in that bed. He shivered and Odin could feel his magic banging it's self against the invisible walls. It was rather like a mad man throwing himself against the walls, desperate, frantic and insane. Despite the magic not being seen the physical evidence of what was happening was evident on Loki's body.
The only thing that was keeping them safe were the runes on the floor, however they knew it was a matter of days before Loki's magic broke through and then all of Asgard was doomed. In the last couple days they could all see where this was leading. It seemed that something had gone wrong during the procedure and Loki's magic had lashed out and Asgard had answered.
Loki's magic was out of control on a course to explode.
It had been feeding of Asgard's magic therefore making the whole realm unstable. While people only heard rumors about what was happening, the ruling council knew, they had to find a way to control Loki otherwise as he literally drowned in his own magic he would take the entire realm with him. The Allfather had spent the whole morning talking to their alias to see if they would take Asgard refuges. It was the worst case scenario should they not be able to find a way to solve the problem. They were going to have to evacuate the whole realm.
Odin wanted to believe that there was a way that they could save Asgard, as a king his first responsibility was to the realm but if given the choice he would first chose to save his son. He knew that the answer somehow lay with Loki. They needed to find out what went wrong and fix it. The other choice would be what Aegir had been saying all along, some people were not to be separated from their magic and they were paying the price for trying.
The people of Asgard had never been subjected to an earthquake before as their world was maintained through magic. Two days into the panic and shaking the council had came up with a radical decision to the problem and that was to remove Loki from Asgard. Odin's heart had broken as he had came to realize that he would have to give up his son to save his world.
A barren moon that could sustain life was found and they planned to move Loki there and a group of volunteer healers and mages that would stay with the young prince and try to help him. They were to evacuate if there were no other choices. They were to leave him there should his magic explode. The moon would be destroyed but Asgard would have been safe.
They had prepped Loki and pumped him with enough tranquilizers to leave him dead. Odin was not the only one who noticed the intention behind the overdose and he didn't remember ever being that angry! They were punishing Loki, not condemning him to death. They were an advance race. They gave everyone a second chance at life. Besides what was happening to Loki was not his fault!
The healer and council member responsible for making the decision to quietly kill Loki by themselves had been arrested and placed under-guard until a time they could deal with the problem. Odin wanted to point out to them what a stupid decision trying to kill Loki was. The council might have decided that killing Loki might have been their last chance but now the decision would never get made, now that someone had tried to do it.
Sometimes Asgard's laws where more hindrance than a help, the reason why Odin had dealt with Thor himself the moment he had set foot back on Asgard. If Thor had made it back to the palace he would have been made to face the council and that would have taken a long time to sort out the problem and he might have never learnt his lesson. He had told the council that he had used his position to decide quickly to avoid war.
After making sure that Loki was at least alive from the overdose preparations had continued and they had moved him to the Biforst site and made the necessary adjustments for transport. However the moment the Biforst had started they felt the ground that had been gently shaking for the last two days give a shake like it was trying to buckle them off followed by a explosion no one would ever forget.
They had rushed outside to see the great mountain Agri erupt. The screams of the people in the city could be heard from the Biforst site. Asgard had no core, so there was nothing under the great mountain, the fact that it was spurting colorful lava left and right, left no meaning to the fact that this was magical. They had all heard the stories that had been told about the mountain how it had once been a formidable volcano but it had been silent from the moment Asgard became a magical floating rock.
As another great explosion took place, with lava shooting high into the sky from the mountain, also creating a mushroom of smoke everyone with an inkling of magic heard a commending order like it was spoken out loud,
"NO!"
It was short and clipped and with the order the Biforst shut itself down. Leaving those that were there with no misunderstandings, Loki would not be leaving Asgard, they the ruling council had been overruled by Asgard herself, doomed to die with the land if they couldn't find a solution to the problem. Odin was an optimist, he liked to believe that his kingdom was trying to tell them something. They just needed to figure out what.
Now Odin had a few minutes to spare and wanted to see how his son was doing. He walked around the runes on the floor and found the one that would let him through. He said the charm that would grant him access and walked in. Suddenly it felt like he had walked into a storm, a magical storm. Everything within the confined area was loud and you were left the impression of being cold and blown about by the wind.
After the incident at the Biforst things had gotten worse. Healers couldn't get close to Loki, his magic was throwing people back, and they couldn't even get close enough to get any readings. It was either Loki who was unconsciously protecting himself or Asgard that was not letting anyone near. The gentle shaking's of the first two days were replaced by violent bursts of trembling which even made walking difficult. Violent storms had joined in the fun as well. Thunder and lightning had been constant, Thor the 'supposed' god of thunder could do nothing to calm the storms.
It had taken 12 mages to get close enough to place bindings on Loki. And even with the bindings and the wards no one could get close, however Odin was determined so he battled though the storm to his sons bed side. He liked to believe that his son magic on some level recognized him and that was one of the reasons he was being let close.
He walked to the bedside and stared down at his son who struggling to break free of the bindings. Odin took in his face, suddenly he was reminded of a little Loki when he was about eight. He had fallen ill, magically ill because he had tried a spell that was too advanced for him. It was a common problem with magical children, the spell would call on too much magic and then the child would not be able to reel the magic back in. The parents of magical children, who most of the time who were magical themselves, were thought the calming charm, it was simply letting your magic calm the child's wild magic.
That was the first night both Odin and Frigga had stayed up all night with Loki worried sick when they knew both of them must have had the same problem when they were younger. Their worry continued even when the healer had told them that Loki would be fine in the morning and he had woken up like nothing had been wrong.
That wasn't the first time Loki had fallen magically ill, nor would it be the last. Throughout the years he had tried again and again spells that were too advanced for him and Odin or Frigga would spend the night with him calming his magic down. As Loki grew he became embarrassed whenever the incident happened, you needed physical contact to the person for the charm to work. Until Loki was about 12 they had simply found that the solution was to take Loki into their bed when it happened. They would place him in the middle and then Odin or Frigga or sometimes both of them could keep physical contact.
However after one incident when Loki chose to hide rather then come to them they opted to go to him. The servants had found him one morning in a linen closet shaking and delirious with uncontrolled magic, after talking to him about it they had found out that Thor had been teasing him about sleeping in their parents bed and he wished that it would not be so. From then on they had gone to Loki's chambers, Frigga would simply do it by sitting on the bed and having Loki place his head on her thigh. She then would embroider all night gently humming and calming the restless magic that was so uniquely Loki.
Odin had always chosen the option of sitting on the bed and placing his hand on his sons back or chest and running gentle circles, telling him about his day and his own adventures into magic until Loki fell asleep. He cherished those nights, even when he was worried every single time. They reminded him of a new born Loki that he carried around at night. He hadn't been able to spend enough time with his youngest and this was one way of making up for being an absent father. Those nights came to end sooner then expected, Loki hadn't needed his parents after about 4 centuries. It was unusual for a mage, Odin remembered needing his mother on a few occasions even after he became king when he was around 1000. Even now sometimes he needed his wife to help calm him down after a whole day of sitting on the throne and keeping an eye on all the realms.
Odin without conscious thought raised his hand placed it on Loki's chest like he had done so many other times when he was little and he could feel Loki's tense muscles slightly relax under him, it was like he recognized Odin in the middle of the storm. Suddenly he wondered; could it really work? He was saying the simple charm even before he could think about it. He felt his magic reaching for Loki's calmly and suddenly Loki's was reaching for him desperately. It grabbed onto his like someone who was being tossed about in a wild stormy sea and they kept sinking below the waves and suddenly there was a hand and they could keep their head above the water and finally could breathe.
Suddenly it was like the entire room took a deep breath and calmed. Odin knew the moment he cut physical contact the magic would be once again be out of control. Healers started to come over to see what it was that Odin had done, Odin looked at one of them and said, "someone needs to get my wife here," when no one moved, he barked out, "NOW!" and there were people scrambling everywhere to get things done.
Frigga almost flew into the healers ward a few moments later and took in where Odin was, she had been spending all her time here but Loki's magic also pushed her back along with everyone else. Despite not being allowed near she had been here, she had stepped away to help with the preparation of a possible evacuation.
Despite Frigga being closer to their son in every way it had always been Odin's magic that Loki answered to first when he was younger and then others could take over. There was no need to communicate with words between them she understood right away what Odin had done. One of the requirements for the calming charm was that you needed physical contact for the whole duration and Frigga walked around without breaking eye contact with Odin and stepped though the runes, came closer to the bed and placed her hand on Loki's chest as and murmured the charm. Odin felt Loki's hold on him go lax and grab onto Frigga.
Odin reluctantly let go, not that he wanted to, he could hold onto his son forever if he knew that it would help. He just knew that he could get better answers out there. He turned towards the healers and mages that were in the room and barked at them,
"Find out what went wrong with the procedure and what the HELL is wrong with my son!" with that moved out of the ward, he could make some new plans now that there was a little chance that they could find out what was happening.