THE SHE-WOLF AND THE RAVEN
Chapter 12: Heroes
"When it is stormy weather the Thunderbird flies through the skies. He is of monstrous size. When he opens and shuts his eyes, he makes the lightning. The flapping of his wings makes the thunder and the great winds. Thunderbird keeps his meat in a dark hole under the glacier at the foot of the Olympic glacial field. That is his home. When he moves about in there, he makes the noise of thunder there under the ice."
Ooooo
Loki scrolled through the disorganized chaos that was the Midgardian global communication system accessible on the younger Clearwater's "phone" and his frown deepened. He sought old news reports and anything else he could find surrounding both the dramatic population loss and replenishment and any other events concerning the Avengers. He cursed under his breath in five different languages as the complicated picture began to emerge.
He paced as he raged and argued with the phone, flipping through footage of Sokovia, the following Accords, the battles that raged across Midgard under the Titan's conquest, and the later reports of the Avengers "fixing" things.
"Imbeciles," he hissed as he read. He muttered to himself and paced the room as if that would clear the frustration boiling through his limbs.
"So, the Spider is dead. She was worth five of Stark. And Stark dies the hero while the Captain chooses to retire and court his lady love? Will this realm remain entirely devoid of proper leadership and so continue to squibble and squabble and indulge in lawlessness in the name of 'freedom'? It is utterly absurd.
"By the Norns! When I see Stark in Valhalla, he will wish he travelled to Helheim instead! That arrogant, blusterous, buffoon! How many of the trials of Midgard stem directly from the stupidity of the son of Stark? I should have incinerated him instead of merely throwing him out a window. I would have saved the lives of tens of thousands by ending his life upon our first introduction.
"What good are 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' if they squabble like chickens instead of defending this miserable realm when it is required? The Mind Stone was programmed to tell each of them directly what to prepare for in future and do they heed it? No. Do they use the Mind Stone to defeat the Titan? No. Instead, they tarry around a school yard throwing rocks and quips and glares as if that were enough to prevent the Titan's purposes from reaching fulfillment. I practically served them their salvation on a golden platter and they throw it away in their stupidity. How did they remain ignorant over the nefarious villains in their midst and not only lose sight of the Mind Stone but deliver it straight into the hands of said villains.
"Now, instead of remaining a united front, as they were meant to, they quarreled fought and then refused to speak to each other until their enemy took them unawares. And these are meant to be our saviors? I could find more valor and maturity in an Alfheim cradle.
"At least they were able to find a solution in the end, though far too late and inadequate. I have been remiss in not meddling in the affairs of this realm, it seems."
Loki ceased his monologue to himself and instead turned his thoughts to what had henceforth been avoiding: Thor.
He had found images of brilliant scarlet and flashing smiles after the Sokovia incident and a few after the initial clashes with the Titan-meaning Thor had survived the initial battle-but what of after?
He attempted to seek what limited information he could gather from his enchanted mirror. It's spell work was hardly expansive enough to cover anything other than brief, murky glances, but it could at least provide a framework and answer some questions.
Unfortunately, when he tasked the mirror to reveal Asgard, all he saw was black nothingness-even darker than the Void-and his heart sank. The Bifrost, the throne room, his chambers, the Great Falls, his mother's grave-none of his requests bore fruit until he was tempted to throw the inept device across the room and into a wall for its failures.
Instead, he sought out Thor. This bore more fruit, but little of use. He was shown a dark room where a figure slept on a cushion, covered by a blanket, with a reflection of light bursting into the room as if from a Midgardian television. No more could be seen.
He daren't seek out the All-Father for Odin would surely notice his intrusion. He considered calling Heimdall-but to what end? Ensuring the haleness of Asgard only to be returned to a prison cell?
Casting a tracking spell on Thor would surely prove efficacious, but also could reveal his location. That much exertion of magic would not go undetected. It took little to no magic to shift forms or access his storage, but greater displays would no doubt draw attention to himself. Though still shielded from Heimdall and any other prying eyes, he wished for none on any realm to come to seek him out.
Yet he could not hope to rest until he discovered what fate befell the Golden Prince and the Eternal Kingdom.
In the end, the tracking spell seemed the best option.
For the first time, he paused to wonder if his decision to hide had been the best. If Thanos came…no, when Thanos came…. to retrieve the Tesseract from Asgard, they were unprepared, unwarned. Could they stand up to Thanos, especially if he possessed another of the Stones? Obviously not, for Thanos had succeeded. What had become of Thor, of the All-Father, of Asgard?
It was only as he mused upon these disparaging thoughts that he noticed he was not as alone in his rants as he initially supposed. So caught up was he in his thoughts, he failed to notice the silent presence of the she-wolf in the room with him, her dark eyes fixed upon him. How long had she been an unintended audience of his musings?
He could feel not only her concern but her caution as she considered him.
"You know who is behind all this," the woman said quietly, in a tone more accusing than questioning. He grimaced and ignored her and continued pacing. She emerged from the shadowed corner of the room to grab his arm and he wrenched his arm away.
"Leave me be," he hissed. "I wish to think."
"No. You have been muttering like this for over six hours now."
"It matters not," he said, only then noticing that the day's light indeed was extinguished and night had long since fallen over the small room.
"You know them-the Avengers. How?" she asked. She stood leaning against the wall, watching him.
"Family friends," he answered with a slightly amused twitch of his lips.
"Are they who you are hiding from?"
He gave a humorless laugh and scoffed. "If it was your pitiful human heroes I wished not to find me, I could have chosen any of the great cities on this realm to dwell in and lived as a king without their slightest suspicion. They are no threat to me."
"You say that a lot-'this realm' and 'your people'- as if you aren't one of us. What do you mean by realm?"
"It is self-explanatory. This realm, this plane of existence, this insignificant speck of a planet in this forgotten galaxy, far away from the civilized realms of the universe."
Leah pushed herself off the wall and drew closer to him, her lips pursed in a slight grimace.
"But if you aren't from Earth… No. Not possible. I would imprint on an alien," she said in a huff.
"Alien?" he asked with one eyebrow raised in his otherwise emotionless face. "What a perfectly droll and inadequate idiom. Could you not come up with a more suitable synonym? Perhaps illustrious visitor from another realm? Honored interstellar emissary? Extraterrestrial asylum-seeker? Or, even more preferable-awe-inspiring and majestic cosmic deity?"
"Smart ass," she answered.
He gave her reply a mock-consideration before he shook his head. "I will add that to the list of possible titles, though it is lacking some of the warmth and adoration I hope to be received with."
He was rewarded with an exasperated burst of laughter and the she-wolf rolled her eyes. She called out to him as she saw him turn to leave.
"Come on. You can't say something like that and leave the room. Where are you going?"
"To find answers," he said as he turned to leave.
"Yeah, we really need to work on your communication, oh majestic cosmic deity," she grumbled after him.
"I have been told I communicate quite eloquently," he answered from where he paused in the doorway.
"Communicating well is different from communicating good," she said with a slight frown on her face.
"You, on the other hand, are lacking both in eloquence and grammatical correctness," he answered with an appropriate amount of smugness to ensure he inspired her irritation.
"Shut up. That's not my point. My point is you can talk pretty and manipulate people into doing what you want, but that's hardly the kind of communication that makes a healthy relationship."
"And you would be an expert on those."
'See! You use your words like some people use weapons. The moment you feel threatened you create an impenetrable buffer around yourself to keep everyone away."
"And yet it does not appear to be working," he answered grimly and gave her what he hoped was an indifferent enough expression that she would release him from this conversation.
"Because I'm stuck to you, whether I want to be or not, and I can feel everything you are feeling, whether you want me to or not. So you can keep lashing out at me and making sure we are both miserable or we can try to learn how to make this work better for both of us."
"Curse you, curse this wretched realm, and curse the Norns for so entrapping me in the fates of both." Leave me be, witch, or I will turn you into a toad."
"Back to threats and name calling now, are we? What are you, twelve?"
His glare morphed into more of a smirk. "When I was your equivalent of age twelve, the Han dynasty ruled China, Caesar Augustus presided over Rome, and the foundations for Teotihuacan were already laid."
She opened and closed her mouth once before she rolled her eyes again. "To illustrate my previous point-communication. Typically when someone says they are 'older than me,' I interpret that as, you know, a few decades. If a Cold One is involved, I might add a few centuries. Now, you are throwing out a difference of a few millennia. That's almost as far a stretch as 'a long way from here' being a whole other galaxy. These are kinda important details."
"What precisely do such details change? We are still bound and you still insist on tormenting me."
"Well, for one, it means I can complain about imprinting on the most stubborn man in the universe instead of the most stubborn man on the planet. That's an important distinction."
At that, Loki barked an unexpected laugh and gave her a slight bow. "I shall add that to my list of possible titles," he said and he turned to leave again.
"Where are you going?" the woman asked with a sigh.
"To find my brother," Loki answered in more honesty than he meant to.
"Wait-you have a brother?" she asked, her eyes growing wide again.
"Yes."
"Yet another important detail you failed to mention."
"You never asked."
"Where does he live?" she asked.
"Did you fail to hear me, woman? I clearly said I am going to find him."
"Yeah. I heard you. Where?"
"If I knew his whereabouts, I would hardly need to find him," Loki responded with his own eye roll.
"Fine. We are coming with you."
"You most certainly are not," he answered.
She stood to face him, her face as set as glacial ice and she dared him to contradict her again.
"Yes, we are," she said.
"No, you are not," he answered and he did not tarry any longer in her presence. He left her to grumble after him in the shadows of the now-dark room.
Ooooo
"You know, somehow I never pictured the middle-of-nowhere Norway to be the preferred resting place of extraterrestrial visitors to Earth," Leah said as she shifted the gears on the rented van. She sped up slightly to pass a pick up truck filled with cages of chickens and slowed to go over another bump in the road.
"And in your expert opinion, where would you expect to find such beings?" Loki asked her from the passenger seat. The winding road took them along a steep coast line, ever further up a mountainside far from any other towns.
"I don't know. New Mexico or New York?" she said with a shrug.
"My brother and I have visited both," Loki responded. "Though we have also enjoyed the hospitality of these cold, northern lands on repeated occasions. I think it has been a few centuries since we spent extended stays in these dominions."
"Can we go to New York next?" Sarah asked from the back seat. "Uncle Seth let me watch a movie that took place in New York and the buildings there are taller than trees!" She nearly bounced in her excitement as she spoke. Isaac smiled at her but remained silent and watched the sea, preferring to keep his own thoughts to himself. The three pups ran from window to window, tongues and tails wagging in their own eager anticipation and enjoyment.
"Absolutely not," Loki answered, grimacing at even the thought of returning to the scene of his failed conquest. Sarah whined under her breath to herself.
"Does your brother know we are coming?" Leah asked.
"It would take the element of surprise out of a 'surprise visit' if I informed him of our impending visit."
"Of course you wouldn't tell him. That's not how you do things," she said drily. He considered her more carefully as he felt the wave of nervousness well up within her. She caught his perusal and sighed.
"I don't tend to make a great first impression on people," she explained. "Or a great second impression."
"If it is the good opinion of my brother you are concerned about, let me assure you, it is nearly impossible to gain his ill-favor. For millennia, I have tried and failed to lose his good faith, despite valiant efforts to the contrary."
"So, what you are saying is that if he still likes you even after you've been a jack ass to him, I have nothing to worry about?"
"Your eloquence continues to astound."
Leah exhaled and shook her head. "Right. So, your brother-does he turn into animals, magically create passports and plane tickets, and keep an unlimited supply of invisible knives on him at all times like you?"
Loki let out a huff. "Hardly."
"Anything we should know before we meet him?" Leah asked.
"And ruin your own opportunity for surprise? I wouldn't dream of it."
"Of course not. Why possibly share important details with us when we could remain woefully ignorant?"
"Precisely. It's far more entertaining."
"Are we almost there?" Sarah chimed in. "I'm tired of sitting still."
"Almost," Leah answered. The narrow road grew more haggard and bumpy the farther they climbed.
"'Welcome to New Asgard…Welcome to Tønsberg,'" Leah read from a sign post as they drove past. "That's it."
Leah pulled the van into a dirt lot and parked and they could all get a glimpse of the self-proclaimed "New Asgard."
The small, scattered village that rose from the mountain plateau was not what Loki expected. Simple buildings constructed of planks of weathered wood and stone walls, without a glimpse of gold or marble, was all that could be seen. If the village itself was a far cry from the Eternal City, the people themselves were even more surprising. While he could clearly sense they were Aesir and even recognize the faces of a few, they were garbed in humble Midgardian peasant clothes. They carried their fishing nets, boxes of goods, and tools for menial labor as they meandered about the village. He caught a glimpse of neither armor nor weapon nor finery from the lot of them.
"Let us continue onward," Loki said and he led them forward. As Loki walked through the cobbled street, all movement stopped and all eyes turned to watch him. Then, one by one, the people knelt in absolute solemn stillness, their fists held over their hearts and their heads bowed in reverence.
"Why are they bowing to you?" Leah whispered as she pulled the pups closer to her side and shifted nervously on her feet.
"The prince is alive! The prince has returned!" came a cry from a man to their right which was echoed by others around him.
Leah cleared her throat and he could just make out her grumbling under her breath.
"Communication, Fenris, communication."
Ooooooo
Author's notes:
First off-thanks for all the comments and thoughts. Since I can't respond to guest reviewers via PM, I've really enjoyed all your thoughts on this!
Second, I wanted to move things a long a bit faster and make this longer, but adding the next section this chapter made it much too long…but not adding this chapter was also a bit awkward. So, here you go. The next one will have a lot more happening.
Next, I'm making Loki older here than he is in the MCU because I can and because his age in the MCU doesn't actually make sense in the history of Norse mythology. While the "canon" sources of the written mythology come primarily from Icelandic native Snorri Sturluson's works in the thirteenth century, traces of the belief system are found in archaeology as early as the Roman era and spread as far as southern England, Germany, and France. They remained primarily oral traditions until after the Christianization of the various kingdoms and only then did the legends get written down. Thus, very similar to the myths we have from the Quileute, the Norse myths are very much a product of "salvage ethnography" or the "oh crap, these legends are gonna vanish, we better write them down before they disappear forever." Iceland, as geographically farther away from Rome, was one of the later places to be Christianized-thus the later date for the eddas.
However, if we are going to use the MCU logic of "extraterrestrial visitors came to Earth and inspired the myths," then said visitors need to be older than the myths themselves and thus, a 965 AD birth date for Loki (and roughly Thor) is really late. (The legend of St. Boniface cutting down "Thor's Oak" in Germany is from the 8th century and the Heliand, an Old Saxon reinterpretation of the Christian Gospel in the pagan Germanic worldview-i.e. Jesus, the warrior/wizard, comes to Middle Earth to create a bifrost to heaven, and prove His power over the Norns, Norse pantheon, runes, and forces of chaos- is from the 9th century.) Thus, let's add at least a thousand years onto Thor and Loki's ages so they have enough time for the tales of their might to travel and be established throughout the pagan Germanic hordes of northern Europe before Roman Christianity comes along.
Speaking of "Salvage Ethnography," the story of "Thunderbird" comes from the classic era of American salvage ethnogaphy…thanks to the Quileute (and many other peoples of the Pacific Northwest and Canada) for contributing to the birth of American anthropology: As cited before: Reagan, Albert B., and L. V. W. Walters. "Tales from the Hoh and Quileute." The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 46, no. 182, 1933, pp. 297–346. JSTOR.