Summary: The war between Jotunheim and Asgard draws to a close, but thanks to a horrible twist of Fate (or perhaps not), the nameless runt of Laufey-King is not discovered by Odin and so begins a remarkable journey of life that should not have been. Jotun!Loki AU. Set pre-/during-/after Thor/Avengers Assemble. MCU-verse only.
Warnings: ANGST! Loki-whump! Language, adult situations, violence, child abuse, dub-con, sexual assault (also of a minor), substance abuse, one abortion scene (sort of), slavery, sex trade (maybe), some mild original character/Loki M/M pairings.
Comments: This is not a slash fic. Sorry. It's Loki-centric, although I definitely show the rest of the Avengers and etc. Please review! Constructive criticism welcome.
Disclaimer: I do not own Avengers. Marvel owns it. I do not get paid for this piece of work. Sadly, but understandably. LOL.
Hello everyone! I'm super sorry about the long wait. I know that a few of you enjoy reading this fic and you guys have been so supportive... but life and writer's block happened. Luckily I have a good 'Net friend, a few encouraging reviewers (old and new) and a good BFF (who sat through an hour of brainstorming and detail setting to get me out of the writer's block). Thanks to everyone who's making this happen.
Thanks to: Fullmetalsoul0062, Kesshichan, wbss21, zippy zanny, vincent 1875 and InsolentKatt.
This chapter is shorter than the recent ones... I'm sorry. T_T The good news is that I will get out the next one really quickly if my writer's streak is still with me.
Flashbacks ahead.
Distortions In Time
[Bitter Desolation, Incandescent Harmony]
Chapter 66
Loki: The Low Road II
Can you hear it – the sound of distant singing -
the sound of the Voices, the sound of Life.
Stand still, sit now and listen.
It is the sound of the Voices, the sound of Life.
Come, people of Norad, who travelled far,
to hear the tale, to know the lesson.
This is the fate, the circle of all living things
to live the story, to know the lesson.
We are the earth, the soil and rock,
planted, unshaken like great trees and mountains.
Here we have rooted ourselves in this Realm,
founded, most certain like gold whota and grey bollen.
We are the life, the growth and springtime,
yes, we are the Norad.
Thus we have travelled and made all things our own,
thus is the fate and the burden of the Norad.
[...can you hear it?]
[...between the silences...]
[...the beat of the drum...]
[...the crackling fire...]
[...the sing-song of the l'gon...]
Long, long ago, when the worlds and the Realms were young, when the distances seemed immeasurably vast to most races still struggling to come to understanding of life, the sages tell, a race rose up – strong and adventurous. At a time when inter-system travel was in its early stages for most races and beings, these short, yet hardy folk found within their community, ready young minds most cunning and able. So gifted, their domain spread not only to planets within their home system but to the greater galaxy beyond. Sharing their knowledge and selling their much wanted technology, these beings, known as the Noradians, reached across the Spindle Galaxy of the dimension later known as Midgard.
The Spindle Galaxy, to some. Known perhaps, they say, as the Fen'chi Galaxy to many who began their lives within it. So populated by the Noradians, it is no surprise that, in time, they would reach beyond their own environs to further and further lands, remote places far from their home. To Midgard's own galaxy, which the Noradians called Mye'hyoi Peyt.
Myeh'hyoi Peyt. There, they found such planets as would support their space-faring captains – colonies of fair farmland, lush grass and open fields. There, they discovered strange stars and alien peoples. There, they heard of tales concerning worlds which lived in another time and space entirely. There, they learned the power of magick and came to fear those who wielded such things so ably. There, they learned of the Protected Land - So'shah, they named it – and heeding the words of the Lizard Folk who arrived one day in great grey ships through, they said, a vast Void and the spaces between to the worlds of the Norad.
And so, the Sages of Asgard wrote, the race for survival began in earnest. Many creatures died in the battles for resources and, in the end, the Noradians lost. Not entirely – but from the final War of S'kyt'ar, the Skrull established themselves as the ruling class...
Until the Kree and the Chitauri arrived.
Thus the tales speak of the Norad Empire and their people. Thus it is told.
[...can you hear it?]
[...between the silences...]
[...the struggle...]
[...the voice...]
[...it is calling...]
"Last night," Loki said, finally finding a gap between Nesta's almost frantic chatter. "Last night, you spoke of an ancient people... a blue-skinned race."
"Yes..." Nesta sighed then, no doubt realizing that his intense crew mate would not be so easily deterred.
"You called them... Phyll-"
"Phylloxian. After the Noradian word for the colour 'blue', for their skin."
"From whence did they come?"
"No one knows... it happened a long time ago, Kol'la. A long, long, long, long, long time ago... so long ago even we cannot tell the time in our language."
"I see..."
"But there are some..." Nesta hesitated, uncertainly.
"Some?" Loki found himself leaning forward, pushing away his breakfast bowl of unsavoury gruel to pin his companion with a hard look. "There are what?"
"There are some who know the Tales..."
"Tales?"
"Yes... The Ra'ska'yeh o Phyllo'xia. The... the Tales. The Tales of Phylloxia."
"You can tell them to me?"
"Me? Alas, no. Only the l'gon may speak of them. Only they remember." Nesta wrinkled his head. "Our people are not gifted – only with cunning, with words... and with memory."
"Memory..."
Loki thought of the visions he had experienced walking through the mists of Meerauk and stifled the shiver which ran down his spine. The ghosts of the past and the Jotun, Miot'vithr. What he had spoken of that day...
Now that you know... your heritage, your abilities... the power which flows in your veins, knowing that you may unmake what was made and make what was unmade. Knowing the Casket of Winters calls to you, its Other-Soul... Knowing this, what lies in your heart for Jotunheim?
Knowing the Casket of Winters calls to you, its Other-Soul...
...its Other-Soul...
I will not soon forget.
The Bifrost crackling with power and the ice of the Casket spreading outward forcing the beam downward on the dark land. Loki shuddered, suddenly feeling nauseous.
Knowing the Casket of Winters calls to you, its Other-Soul...
"Yes, memory," Nesta nodded, seemingly not paying Loki's stillness any heed. "I can not speak of such things, not a Noradian such as myself, but perhaps... how can I say it... they see – and in the seeing, there is knowing; and in the knowing, there may be sharing; and in the sharing, there is understanding."
"Another Phylloxian saying?"
"Um, yeah." Pause. "Yeah."
"Perhaps, I could visit a l'gon."
"You could visit a l'gon," Nesta repeated thoughtfully. "There is one on my home world – V'slozh'noi. We all it Veh'slo, for short. On Veh'slo, there is one who could aid you, could perhaps bring you to that time, could share with you such knowledge as they have. Her name is Myerah and she is l'gon."
"If it is no trouble to your people," Loki said carefully, searching for any trace of worry or anger or suspicion on Nesta's open, sallow-toned face. There was none. "I would be honoured to hear the story of the Phylloxian race."
"It is a tragic tale," Nesta sighed. "They were enslaved, they left. That is the sum of it... but, you know, there are other things on Veh'slo."
What other things there were, Nesta would not say, only shaking his head uncharacteristically somber. Then, he smiled and the mood of the small room lightened as their attention was drawn to the datapad at Nesta's elbow. Sharp, high-pitch beeps sounded through the ensuing silence as the screen lit up in its usual bright white, revealing a short message from the Captain, calling all the crew to the ship.
The Tro'watal, having released its cargo now had stowed away in its hold a new shipment of refined bars of metal, bound for a variety of planets, including Veh'slo. Dropping off Nesta and any other Noradians who wished to stay there for a time, another group of Noradians would join the ship for the second round of deliveries before returning to Veh'slo for its next run to the Shen'grid. The seemingly eternal cycle of life, Nesta said, as the flower blossoms, grows, dies and begins afresh.
Not all flowers can bloom forever, Loki wanted to point out, but he refrained. It was impossible to squelch Nesta's high spirits on a regular day, much less in the face of the man's return home to his family. The exiled prince, feeling more dour and alone than ever, held his tongue and hid in his rooms until his night shift came around which entailed, as usual, a lot of walking about the ship and triple-checking the cargo holds and main power and data cables.
[...can you hear it?]
[...between the silences...]
During the 'night hours', the silences aboard the Tro'watal hung heavily. As Loki walked down corridor after corridor, quickly and quietly, surrounded by grey and black grates and metal walls and thick doors and bundled wiring, he felt a need to break the quiet with something – anything – the clang of his boots on the grated flooring, the clatter and creak of doors opening before him, revealing more passages equally empty and silent. Pausing at the fifth way-station by the Oxorbal Generator, Loki slipped his datapad into his pants' side pocket, plugged in his hand-held stabilizer machine and double-checked the power rates and generator's emissions.
He stood there. Watching the numbers scroll past slowly, followed by rising and falling moving graphs.
He stood there, back to the wide windows and the pale, enthralling light of the generator, and found some comfort from the distant voices of the stars.
[...can you hear it?]
When finished, Loki turned, slung the stabilizer on his back belt clip, sauntered over to the windows and leaned forward, elbows propped upon the railing to watch the slowly swirling currents of power which were caged before him. Alluring.
Leaning his forehead against the window, Loki shut his eyes and listened to its siren call – a distant, thin, high voice. The kind of Voice he had long been missing. A familiar friend, he thought, and now missing from Jotunheim... perhaps forever.
And it is your fault, bringer of death, whispered that ever dark side within him. From nothing, come nothing, and what came from darkness, returns there also.
"No," he whispered to himself.
No.
[...the drums of war...]
[...are calling...]
With that, all once again fell silent – inside and out. Until he heard the tell-tale quiet step of leather boots on metal and the soft breath of someone behind him. He did not turn. Just from the hard tang of ozone, grease and an odd scent of scrub-bush mixed with the absence of sweat betrayed their identity.
"Captain," he said softly.
"Kol'la." A pause and then the Captain joined him, her elbows resting beside his, eyes trained on the generator before them. "Fancy finding you here... you have been... strangely absent since I last saw you."
"I have been busy."
"Yes," she sighed then, "I imagine so. Still. I didn't expect to find you here." A pause. "Not like this at any rate."
"Like what?" Loki asked, a little sharply.
"Like the pluggers... pressed against the glass." Captain Mal'myrn said slowly, ruminatively, eyes far away. "Standing on the edge... lured by the light..."
"Like moths to a flame?" He laughed, then sobered at the image which rose in his mind's eye – fragile wings crumbling to ash with the whole world about him. "Most hold that light is an omen of warmth... and growth. Life."
"'Lured by the light indestructible, lured by the darkness inevitable' – that's a Phylloxian saying for you to mull over. 'It's all the same', they said. It all ends the same." A beat. "In death."
"Death," echoed Loki softly.
"They're not wrong. I've seen it before – ejecting themselves into space, into the path of long-armed flares, into the hearts of stars... The Tro'watal has seen such a thing before and may yet again before its last run."
"What happened?"
"Popped open the escape hatch, the one 'round the corner. We use it from time to time for the repair of the struts, you know, the ones which secure the generator. So, we didn't miss O'xol for several hours."
A moment of quiet thought followed, of memory. Then the Captain exhaled a hissing sigh.
"We checked the logs, the databanks, the holovids – saw the whole thing... ejecting, drifting, then swallowed by the light and the energy of the generator. That's when we found his stash. And the crazed logs he typed into his datapad," she grimaced then and added bitterly: "All there for those who could see it. Only then."
"You did not," hazarded Loki, detecting within her story, within her quiet words a heavy burden, some kind of self-condemnation.
"I was his..." Another pause as the Skrull Captain searched for an adequate word before adding lamely, "captain."
And something more, Loki thought. Undoubtedly.
"From that day forward, I vowed never to allow pluggers on board – and above all, those who hide it, who lie to me-"
"You may search my quarters," Loki said evenly in reply to her unspoken threat and question. "You will find nothing."
"Hm. But that is no surprise. It is well-known that many enhanced beings with higher levels and abilities in magick can naturally tap into what the pluggers seek. Do not some mages and seers seek death in the wake of Enlightenment?"
Mal'myrn's question brought to Loki's mind another time and place – a Realm now so far it seemed impossible to imagine its very existence. A shadowy library on Alfheim in the King's palace and the warning words of a wiser elf.
...it is difficult to say – for certain... for they do not return, those who fall to the Shadow... and those who remain are driven mad by it or turn to acts of evil in obedience to those dark urges... or they take refuge beneath the sheltering boughs of Yggdrasil. We all choose, you understand, in the end. However, they understood the process better – or perhaps see it clearer...
"They were the first," Loki had guessed. "The first to cross the Void."
"Indeed," Elethed had replied gravely. "For some, to face their fears; for others, to succumb to them."
...it is a fearsome thing...
...the mystics, are those few Elves, Light or Dark, who tie themselves ever closer to Yggdrasil's magickal stream of Life – and thereby tap into the dangerous knowledge that may one day tear the soul apart…
...kind-hearted, clear-eyed Hluti...
...the Well...
The Well. At the memory of sipping from its clear, cold waters, imbibing of the very soul of Asgard itself, Loki shivered. What visions he had seen, he would never forget for his long life, nor would he be able to fully speak of it. Something so sacred as to be utterly beyond the most golden words.
The Cosmos – full of colour and fantastic things and Life and possibilities. The Void – black and filled with nameless things and Death and inevitability. Eternally battling. And there he stood, as he always had, upon on the edge – but not as his Vow had stated. Never as his Vow. Never would he be able to fulfill that promise. I am a liar, he thought, as he gazed into the Abyss. And always shall be. Ever shall my back be to Valhalla and the Light and ever shall I face this emptiness.
...the Well and the following realization...
What destruction would such power wreak in you… and the mystics as such were ever bound to solitude and wandering… Few are left… but some works remain, surely…
...for the Spaces Between span vast distances through the Dark, which even the armies of Hel and our other Kin also fear to tread. This Dark is empty, if tales are to be believed. Yet, some aver that they have heard the Voice of the Dark, the Voice of the Dark that whispers in the night. It craves all things, these mystics say, for it is eternally hungry. It is calling...
"Sometimes," Loki finally broke the silence between the two of them.
"Sometimes?"
"Sometimes," Loki repeated. He met her eyes then, red steel meeting red. "Standing on the edge, you said. You have to face forward and look out across the abyss."
...LITTLE ONE...
Standing on the edge of the desert-like ice shelf, feet planted firmly, dwarfed on either side by two thurblakulfr, the ulfrbarn braced himself into the wind. Black hair whipped forward like a tattered flag and bright, red eyes stared out over the short expanse of ice before him. Behind lay the Svelshelf – a vast plain of frozen cold beneath one's feet – rising to meet the blue horizon and the great cold suns edging up over the world as it seemed. And before him… a few steps forward and his toes hung slightly over the edge of the Svelshelf and the rocks below it which hung downward. Downward. The ulfrbarn felt it – the pull – the nothingness calling – the Void –
This was the edge of his world.
...LONG HAVE YOU LOOKED...
Headed out toward the stars, it lies – a bridge which spans the places of What Is Seen through the spaces of What Is Not. A physical bridge and a metaphysical bridge all in one – the Bifrost. Long and thin it stretches from the heart of Asgard's great capital, beneath the palace, down the centre of the city and out to the far-reaching expanse of Asgarthaharr and beyond. Perched on the edge of the sea, the Bifrost ended with the gold and bronze dome of the Observatory.
Staring down, green eyes gazing wide-eyed into the Abyss, Loki, in the face of such destruction, could not help but wonder what it was he saw. He saw Dark, he saw the Void, yet at his back and all about the winds of magick buffeted like the wind. The Heimsrsal of Asgard howled and shrieked.
...LONG HAVE YOU HOVERED ON THE EDGE...
...ON THE BORDERS...
Stone paving. A road. An ancient road.
Utangard and Innagard. The Citadel of the Pale Moon. The Tower of the Cold Suns.
An ancient road now leading to nowhere. Leading to the Void.
Now they stood at the edge, the two of them, gazing down in the Abyss which swirled about lazily. The worlds, the Sages had said, are filled with colour and light and the energies of magick. However, the Muthr'a'Ginnung is cold, is death, is worse than death – it is nothing. Looking down at the black hole which had been for so long feeding off the giant Realm, Loki thought he knew now what had threatened his dreams.
All those years, listening to the Voices of the Void, he thought. Hearing it in my dreams, feeling its cold breath drift across Utgard and creep into the shadows. Gnawing away at my thoughts... it was here... all the time... I merely did not wish to face it, the reality of it, the reality of the fact that I was destined for it.
This is the road to Innagard.
...OF MY WORLD...
...YOU ARE MINE...
"You cannot turn your back," Loki shivered then, clasping his lightly shaking hands together to force his betrayed emotions down. "You must not turn your back on it. It is there... always has been, perhaps, waiting to swallow us whole. Some, some may stand on the edge and, facing forward, warn those who do not heed the call of the Fates."
-0-0-0-
Captain Mal'myrn turned her head then, slowly, the muscles on her pale green forehead knitted together in a frown. Leaning back on the rail now, she studied her new and still mysterious crew member's suspiciously blank face. The man's darker tinted lips were drawn flat and tight and the muscles around the edge of his sharply defined jaw bunched and jumped with tension.
"And in staring into it," Mal'myrn asked softly, "what will one lose?"
At those words, his red eyes – such vivid red gems – slid sideways to meet hers. Brilliant red, she thought, hard like stones, guarded as strongly as the Emperor's palace on Tarnax II. Yet, beneath... beneath, such powers, so leashed – like the fire mountains of Muspelheim. Such fury, such... power. And beneath that – beneath it all – what truly lies in his heart? A frightened child, perhaps. Or a yawning appetite for power. I suppose few will ever truly know.
She laid a hand on his pale blue one. It was cold and firm with spare muscle and bone beneath the blue skin. The top of edged lines running along the back of his hand peeked out from underneath the edged black cuffs of his grey jumpsuit. Slightly raised, Mal'myrn knew and, judging by the slight involuntary response – a light shudder which ran down Kol'la's frame – sensitive.
Such a rarity, to find something so precious, so beautiful, she thought with a tender smile which fit her hard-boned face a little oddly. Her lips parted as her longer tongue tasted the air now filled with the faint scent of rising desire. And yet... even here... familiar territory.
"Ca-" Before Kol'la could go any further, Mal'myrn placed a finger on his lips.
"We will reach Norad soon," she leaned forward, her long tongue flicking his ear lobe. "Then... there..." She drew back and flashed him an impish grin, baring her sharp even white teeth. "We shall... talk."
With that, she drew back, giving his hand one last squeeze before turning away and striding down the hallway toward the Module.
Behind her, the air seemed to vibrate with tension – with want.
She did not look back.
[...connections...]
[...the threads...]
[...the warp and weft of fate...]
Two shifts later, while Nesta and Loki and their motley crew slept, the Tro'watal lit down on the waiting launch pad of V'slozh'noi.
[...worlds so bound...]
[...collide...]
[...such is Fate...]
[...a slender hand guides the shuttle...]
[...thus Doom is woven...]
I know that some of you haven't been expecting the route I'm taking so far with Loki's time between Thor and the Avengers - but I do have some dark times coming up eventually - it just has to develop adequately and before those times come, there's some other details setting up stuff I need to achieve. I hope it's enjoyable regardless.
Thanks for reading!
Let me know what you think~
-KI
Information on Levels of Mage/Magical Abilities
Level 1 – Eno'sa
Level 2 – Eno'tho – Thanos
Level 3 – Eno'frei
Level 4 – Eno'ah – Elven Mages/Odin
Level 5 – Eno'ko – Asgard/Jotun/Any Other Healthy Realm Mage/Prince Loki before Odin caps him
Level 6 – Eno'yul – Sharda'aa/Regular Mage
Level 7 – Eno'vee – Uncollared Kol'la
Level 8 – Eno'mah – Collared Kol'la/Current Prince Loki post-Fall
Level 9 – Eno'lei
Level 10 – Eno'sanai
Numbers (for this quadrant):
0 - nai
1 - sa
2 - tho
3 - frei
4 - ah
5 - ko
6 - yul
7 - vee
8 - mah
9 - lei
Alien Glossary:
'auzha – fucker
bollen - boulders/monoliths
chi'iano – a radioactive piece of rock similar to uranium
cho'ai - lover
Dou'ma – idiot
Eno'Keshi'ko – the system of Eno, a type of magical level measurements
Fen'chi Galaxy – Andromeda Galaxy
gan'ga'war – steel balls
iz'kyr – a kind of frozen stone powder which is used as a narcotic for some species
kalo – a kind of purple-red fruit, similar to a pomegranate or dragonfruit
Kholathan – Safety Belt/Protected Zone
kol-sava'atha – a titanium-rich ore
l'gon – storyteller
Morning-star - a mace
myech'myena - shape-shifting
Mye'hyoi Peyt – Milky Way
n'ch'nka – a kind of cow
oma'auzha – mother-effer
oto'oa - big sister
pu'lotni – plutonium
pye'nee - a kind of bird
Ra'ska'yeh o Phyllo'xia – Tales of Phylloxia
r'senk'ne – a kind of deer/cow hybrid
Shen'grid – the Protected Zone
So'shah – Earth/Midgard
tro'watal – perseverance
udji'oo – a drug, like opium
whota – wheat