Thank you for the reviews as always, they are such an encouragement. In this chapter, to start with, Jane begins filling Loki/Lucas in on more of the things he'll need to know to help with the new project, and they begin working hard at it. And for those of you who've been wondering, page 38 is explained, at Darcy's insistence.
/
Beneath
Chapter Twenty – Mythology
"Are we alone?" Jane asked when she reached the DSL.
"In this building, we are," Loki answered, turning in his chair. He'd kept himself busy going through results from the data analysis software, but really he'd just been waiting.
She nodded and went to her desk, then opened a drawer and pulled out four rectangular metal boxes. Loki had seen them before, when they unpacked all the things she'd had shipped here, but she'd set them aside without comment or particular interest, and he hadn't thought about them since.
"If I'm going to do this-"
"Do what?" Loki asked with the innocence of a child.
"I thought you said you don't like playing games? You know exactly what. 'Challenging my assumptions'? I accept the challenge. These four hard drives contain all the data I have on the bridges that opened on Earth." She looked through them, searching for something he couldn't see from where he was sitting. "One. The first bridge. Not much data, doesn't take up much room. Until a couple of weeks ago it was all I had. So this one also holds the second bridge. Two. The third bridge. Three. The fourth bridge. And four…well, that's different." She averted her eyes and set that one down on top of her desk.
Loki knew exactly what must be on it, and she was right. That one was different. The thought of looking at that data sent a shiver down his spine. Those numbers added up to exhilaration and pain the first time and failure and fear the second time. And regardless, there was no way to replicate the tesseract here, so if she didn't want to share that data it was fine with him. He wouldn't waste his time convincing her to change her mind.
But the three others…a pirate's treasure and then some. Midgard's numbers, but applied to actual, not theoretical, events. Events Loki knew about, even one he instigated.
"I didn't realize there were so many," he said. "And…people came to Earth through each of them?"
She took a deep breath and scrutinized him; she was so transparent Loki could see the struggle inside her – how much should she tell him? How much should she trust him?
"People arrived in two of them, the first two. Then a…a thing came through. It looked kind of like a giant robot but…well, you saw the pictures. And in the fourth, people went back."
"To where? Another planet?"
Again she hesitated. "I'm really not supposed to talk about this."
"Do you really still care what SHIELD says you aren't supposed to do?"
"I- Look, it's not just about SHIELD, you know? Not everything's about them. But...I'll tell you, if you'll promise not to tell anyone else. It's not necessary for the research."
"I promise," Loki answered with utmost sincerity. No matter how many millennia he lived, he would never understand why those two little words – words just as capable of deceiving as any others – convinced so many people to trust. But he didn't have to understand it to use it.
"Good. This is…well, you know. Going to sound crazy. For real this time. Do you know anything about Norse mythology?"
Loki smiled condescendingly – why not? Lucas would smile condescendingly, too, after all. "I can't say that I do. The subject didn't come up much when I was studying astrophysics."
"Okay, but you've heard of some of it, right? I mean, Thor? You've heard of him, at least? Or Odin?"
"Those names sound vaguely familiar," he said, the smile gone. It didn't matter, he told himself. But it was a lie he couldn't quite make himself believe; although he'd gotten better at it, he was still nowhere near as talented a liar with himself as he was with everyone else. He'd spent almost his entire life at Thor's side, and yet the mortals-
"I didn't know anything about all that either. I grew up with Native American mythology, because of my mom's work. And I knew a little bit about Greek and Roman- Anyway, the thing is…it turns out…it's kind of true."
Loki nodded thoughtfully. This was too surreal. He decided he was best off remaining silent at this point.
Jane was watching him, looking a little worried. She continued after a moment. "The people that came through, and the robot thing, they came from a place called Asgard. Like in the mythology. And that's where they went back to."
"Asgard," Loki said, trying out the feel of the word in his mouth as though it were unfamiliar. And in many ways, it was. Home and not-home. Familiar and alien. "So, another planet, then?"
"I don't really know. I mean…I kind of think it's not exactly a planet, or what we think of as a planet, anyway." Her gaze had grown unfocused and downward cast. It seemed she knew only enough about Asgard to know it was not quite the same as Midgard. Perhaps Thor had never had the chance to explain it to her. His chest pulsed in a laugh he tried to stifle. Thor probably hadn't been able to explain it. He'd relished the field trips but doodled his way through their formal lessons on cosmology.
"I don't even know where it's located," she went on, setting aside the mystery she simply lacked enough information on to solve. "I only know that people – real, actual people, not exactly the same as us but not that different either – these people came and went safely from that place, from Asgard, and that proves that stable, traversable wormholes exist and can be directed. And these," she said, holding up the three remaining silver boxes, "might contain information that points us to Asgard's location, among other things."
Loki knew where it was located. In the upper branches of Yggdrasil. He knew where Svartalfheim was, too, in relation to Asgard. Unfortunately Understanding the Physics of the Universe did not mention Yggdrasil or anything remotely like it. He had no way to connect it to Midgardian science. But perhaps her hard drives could provide that connection. "Do you want to travel to this Asgard, Jane?"
Her eyes went wide. "I…no. I mean, that's not my goal. But if we're going to figure out how to generate a traversable wormhole, then it should lead to a place where someone could conceivably traverse it."
"Mmm," he breathed. This planet's own moon was much closer, and its location was perfectly well known. It was a much more logical goal. Yet it didn't seem to occur to her. She must want to see Asgard badly. Missing your beloved? he silently asked her. He wondered then what Thor was doing at that moment. If he was missing Jane, or if he really thought much about her at all. He knew Thor was fiercely protective of her, but he also knew he hadn't yet had to make any sudden disappearances upon an impromptu visit from Asgard. Odin should have woken up by now, and there was no bothersome former brother locked up in the prison, so Thor should be free to visit her if he chose. Perhaps he saw where she was and decided he preferred Asgard. Loki certainly did. He wondered then if Thor missed him. Missed the never-ending entreaties to come home, to be his brother, to remember the good times, to think of their mother, to abandon his plans…as if nothing had ever happened. As if nothing had changed. Everything had changed. Even if he wanted to acquiesce – and in one flickering moment of weakness some small part of him had – it was impossible.
"Well?"
"What?" Loki snapped, forgetting for a moment who he was, who he was supposed to be. "I apologize. I was…just thinking."
"And?" She moved closer, now just a step away, her left hand on his desk, her right still clutching her hard drives.
He thought back, tried to recall what he'd apparently missed, but he apparently hadn't at all heard whatever it was she'd said.
"I asked if you were with me."
"For this project? Of course."
"It's going to take a lot of work. A lot of long hours. There are a lot of unknowns. A lot of obstacles. And unknown unknowns, you know? If this were easy someone would have figured it out already."
"If it were easy it wouldn't be worth the effort."
"There might be…some risk."
"What do you mean?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair.
"When winter's over and we leave here, no matter how far we get…SHIELD will eventually figure things out. If we…if we're successful, they're definitely going to figure things out, and they might not be happy about it. I suspect they're more interested in being able to block bridge travel to Earth than initiate it from Earth. I don't have far to fall, I guess, but it could create problems for your career. I wouldn't want to happen to you what happened to me."
"Proving your theories when everyone scoffed at them, being sent to the South Pole to research them further?"
She smiled, then shrugged. "Okay, when you put it that way…. So, you're in?"
"I wouldn't have it any other way, Dr. Foster," he said with a languid smile. He wasn't worried about his "career," not yet. He was on something of an enforced sabbatical from career plans. And besides, he had no intention of being here when winter ended. By the time those dullards at SHIELD managed to see past their own infighting and notice something unexpected going on at the South Pole, he would be long gone.
/
/
"You're taking all this really well, by the way," Jane told Lucas as evening approached. Selby and Wright had come out to the DSL after lunch and had left just a few minutes ago for dinner. By unspoken agreement she and Lucas had examined current data while the South Pole Telescope techs were there, then switched back to the first external hard drive once they left. They were poring over particle emission data, but the crudeness of the readings from that first event had never seemed more glaringly evident than when viewed immediately after the data Jane had gathered here.
"What do you mean?" Lucas asked without looking up from her computer screen. He'd rolled his chair over beside hers so they could both look at the data.
"The whole mythology thing," she said, glancing over at him. "Most people would kind of freak out, I think."
"There hasn't been time. Perhaps I'll freak out later. Did you?"
Jane shook her head at him. Lucas wasn't going to freak out. Not about anything related to work, anyway. She really shouldn't have been surprised by that. When it came to work he was completely unflappable and completely dedicated, and she was grateful for it – it calmed her lingering turmoil. "Maybe a little," she admitted. "But then, these people were kind of showing up on my doorstep."
"Why yours? Can I advance the timeframe?" he added.
"Go ahead." He clicked forward and her eyes glided over the next set of data. "It all just started as a fluke, I guess. I haven't ever figured that part out. The first person, he…landed, is that the right term? I don't know. He landed near the area of some atmospheric anomalies I'd been observing. Then my friend, oh, my other assistant that I told you about-"
"The political science major?"
"Right. Darcy. She hit him with our car. Not hard, though. Just…well." That didn't bear going into again. "So we kind of took care of him. Then a few days later these other four, friends of his, came looking for him."
"And then they all just left? You haven't heard from them again? Or anyone else?"
"Umm, yeah, they just left," Jane said, choosing to ignore the other two questions. She didn't want to get into the personal aspects of all this with him, and the general public didn't really know who Thor was, unlike some of the Avengers. There were still some lines she wasn't going to cross.
"This is a waste of time," she blurted out a couple of minutes later, pushing herself into a backwards roll and swinging the chair around so she could step out of the tight space at the desk and stretch her legs. "These readings aren't detailed enough. I've already looked at them a hundred times. We should move on to the second incident."
Lucas finally pulled himself away from the screen and swiveled in his chair to face her. "If you don't mind, I'd still like to go through it all. I haven't looked at it a hundred times. It's good baseline data."
Jane sighed and rolled her neck in a slow circle, trying to work out a kink. "Okay. You go ahead. It's starting to all look random to me now. I'm beat," Jane said as a yawn escaped her. Her eyes fell on the clock on the wall. "Oh, no, wait. They've already started serving dinner. Why don't you come in, and then we can take another crack at it afterward."
"I'd rather just stay and work on it now. If I get through the first set of data I'll be caught up with you."
"Lucas, you can't keep skipping dinner. That's not good for you."
"Why, thank you for the advice, Mother. I'll take it into consideration."
Jane rolled her eyes. "At least get something from the leftovers refrigerator. If you get sick because you've been skipping half your meals I'm going to have to report on you to SHIELD," she said.
Lucas drew his head back in exaggerated surprise. "Dr. Foster. Was that…a joke?"
"Nope, not at all," she said, hands on hips, smile on lips.
"Leftovers refrigerator it is, then. I'll be on my best behavior."
"Good," Jane said with a swift nod.
As tired as she was, Jane felt a new surge of energy as she left the DSL and headed back out into the sun and snow for the walk back to the station. If she could joke about any of this already, then the wallowing in self-pity and disappointment stage was over. The only disappointment now would be if she failed to at least make significant progress toward creating a traversable directed bridge. And there was nothing quite like having a new problem before her that needed solving. Part of her wanted to reverse course and keep at it for a while longer tonight, but she'd hardly slept the night before and there was nothing quite like sleep for being able to look at a new problem with clarity. So she continued along the flag-marked path and decided on an early start the next day to dive into the second data set. Nine months was enough time for her original plans, the plans that truly didn't require anyone's help. The expanded plans, however, ironically enough, meant it was quite a stroke of good fortune that SHIELD had provided her an assistant.
/
/
"Father…"
"Yes?" Odin responded when Thor did not continue.
Thor swallowed hard over a dry throat and glanced toward the door. "My friends are now out training with the other warriors. I…"
"You wish to join them."
"I do."
"You are needed here as well, Thor. I depart tomorrow and the protection of the realm again falls to you. Volstagg can lead them," Odin said, his voice firm but not cold.
"I know. You're right. I'll stay." He put every effort into masking his disappointment. He would do whatever his father needed him to do, go wherever his father needed him to go, be whatever his father needed him to be.
"No. You may go. Go, and do what you must, then come to me before you retire."
Thor looked at his father in confusion, but a moment later nodded and bowed his head.
"You're troubled," Frigga told her husband once Thor and then the last of the advisors had gone to prepare for an informal dinner in the feasting hall. She and Odin stood alone beside the table; Frigga was tired and allowed herself to lean against it.
Odin nodded, but remained silent for a long while. It was unusual of him, she knew. When she raised a concern with him, alone, he would either straightforwardly brush her off or straightforwardly explain what was on his mind, depending on his mood and her tone. She forced herself to be patient and wait out his silence.
"He needed this."
"Thor? What do you mean?"
"Thor needed to fight. He still has the blood of a young warrior. He needed to let out his frustration and his aggression. He can't keep them under control indefinitely. He would explode."
Frigga nodded. "You're probably right."
"I know I'm right," he corrected loudly, his voice echoing in the now-empty council hall.
After millennia with Odin, Frigga did not even react to his suddenly raised voice. She knew that having begun the conversation he would indeed explain himself, and he had long since learned that having begun the conversation he would not get away with not explaining himself. So again she waited, but this time not for long.
"I've always known what Thor needed. I may have been slow at times to provide it. Reluctant. But I've always known." His eyes were fixed beyond her, on his chair at the head of the table.
Frigga nodded and looked away herself. That was only half of the explanation. But she already knew what the other half was, had in her own way tried to lead him to it several times, but had never gotten far. Odin was a king and a battlefield commander; he did not like to be questioned.
"I don't think I ever really knew what Loki needed. Not since he was a baby," he said in a voice now close to a whisper.
"He needed love."
She'd spoken calmly, without accusation , but anger flashed in Odin's eye as he lifted his chin.
"I didn't mean-"
"He's always had my love. I treated him no different from Thor. I expected nothing different than from Thor."
"But he is different, Odin. He always has been. Do you remember the apparition I told you about? When they were babies? She said, 'Loki needs all the love you can give him.'"
"And you coddled him over a dream."
"It wasn't a dream! A knife was left behind, don't you remember? I've never forgotten. And I didn't coddle him," she said stubbornly, hoping Odin wouldn't press. Inside was considerably more self-doubt than her bravado suggested. Whereas Odin had tried to treat Thor and Loki as though they were the same person, with the same personalities and talents and abilities, such that one son continually succeeded where another son continually failed – or at least it had seemed so to the younger – Frigga had gone the opposite direction, letting independent Thor gravitate toward his father and trusting him to be fine while keeping a protective – (over-protective?) and quick-to-excuse (too quick-to-excuse?) arm over Loki's chest.
It wasn't that simple; nothing ever was among a family. But when Frigga was irritated with her husband she told herself that he had set one son up to fail, and when she was angry with herself she feared that she was the one who had failed that son. Had not been firm enough. Not clear enough when one of Loki's pranks had gone too far. Too quick to hug, brush aside offenses, and gloss over the gravity of the consequences of his actions. Even after Baldur's death, once the agony had faded to a dull ache, she'd only redoubled her efforts to love away whatever darkness troubled him. One son was more than enough to have to lose. It hadn't always been easy. Maybe it hadn't always been right.
"We spent over a thousand years doing what we thought was best, Frigg. No one goes a thousand years without making mistakes," he said.
"Even the All-Father?" she asked, letting him hook his right arm around her left. After so long together he knew her well enough to appear to read her mind, and she let herself relax into the comfort of that familiarity.
"Even the All-Father. But Loki made his own decisions. His path is his own, even now."
They walked slowly toward the door arm-in-arm. "I long for his path to lead him safely back to us."
Odin remained silent, and Frigga grew apprehensive.
He gave her hand a small squeeze as they entered the corridor, a gentle pressure the Einherjar sentry would see no sign of. "It must first lead him to himself."
/
/
Loki stayed out at the DSL until after 5AM, going over every bit of data Jane had collected from Thor's unplanned journey to Earth. Now that Jane wasn't sitting two inches away from him, it was easier to let himself be distracted by the beginning of that journey, the part that Jane hadn't seen. The part where Thor had spat shockingly venomous words against his father – Odin was objectively old but no one called the All-Father a fool even in jest – and his father had erupted. Frigga could say what she wanted about Odin and his purposes, but Loki was convinced he had simply thrown a fit upon hearing his favored eldest son shout at him so hatefully and defiantly. And then, probably overcome by guilt at having dealt Thor some form of almost-actual punishment for once, he'd thrown Mjolnir after him like a life preserver to a drowning man. We wouldn't want Thor to truly get hurt, now, would we? Can't have him truly suffer.
The bifrost opened under Odin's command, and Thor was flung into its power, hands grasping at air, eyes wide in shock that was mirrored in Loki's. That day could have had any number of different outcomes, and Loki had planned for multiple variables. But he hadn't planned on fighting his way through Jotunheim. He hadn't planned on watching his arm turn Jotun blue. And he hadn't planned on finding himself Odin's sole remaining son.
Of course, he wasn't Odin's son. The shock had quickly faded – Loki was nothing if not adaptable – and he waited for his father to discuss what had happened. Just like Loki knew he did with Thor, from all the times Loki happened to be in the same room as Thor. But nothing had changed. Thor's decrease was not Loki's increase, not in Odin's eyes. Loki had waited while Odin closed the bifrost, but Odin seemed to have not even noticed his other son as he spun on his heel and strode out of the observatory, mounting Sleipnir and galloping away without a glance backward.
Thor was gone and Loki was still in his shadow. He had stood rooted in place and stared out the aperture wondering what was happening to Thor and what this would mean for himself.
And now, as odd twists of fate continued to stack upon each other, he was sitting in a Midgardian facility, claiming the backing of his enemies, and watching shaky video of the end of Thor's journey to Earth. It was thermal video, so he didn't get to see the expression on Thor's face, and the camera was fixed above the ground, so he didn't get to see Jane's political science assistant Darcy strike him with her vehicle – that would have been entertaining – but for perhaps two seconds he did get to see the indistinct image of a man falling toward an unknown fate.
The video was irrelevant. Loki knew what the bifrost looked like. He knew what it sounded like, what it smelled like, and what it felt like. But just before he shut down the computer, he pulled it up and watched it a few more times, drawn to those momentous two seconds of history on which so much else hinged. Not those exact two seconds, Loki conceded, probably more precisely the two following seconds, not to mention other things that had led to those two seconds. But close enough. Loki would not be at the South Pole, sitting where he was, were it not for those two seconds.
The skies were clear and the sun shone low as ever and it was cold. Loki breathed in deeply and let the dry air fill his lungs. He trained his eye on the station and could find no sign of anyone outdoors. He used the Destination Alpha entrance to get into the warmth of the building more quickly, then went upstairs and crossed the length of the building to reach the galley. Breakfast wouldn't be served for another hour, but he hadn't eaten since lunch the day before and he was hungry, so he decided to take Jane up on her suggestion, or rather admonition, and check the leftovers refrigerator. Frozen, thawed, cooked, cooled, re-heated…at least it would fill his stomach.
The galley crew were just showing up to work, and a woman called out a greeting to Loki, who nodded back politely before opening the refrigerator. He found trays of eggplant parmesan and Salisbury steak along with a sealed container of mashed potatoes from dinner. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. The potatoes here were particularly horrible, grainy in some way he couldn't put a finger on, an affront to every potato he'd ever had in his life before this. He poked around at the smaller containers, each with a date and name – this time not the name of the dish but the name of a person. He laughed; fortune was smiling on him.
Selby, Feb. 16.
He grabbed a fork. It really didn't matter what the dish was; if it was completely inedible he could just vanish it away. No, he corrected himself, that would be using magic for mischief. He could dump it in the trash. Same mischief, no magic, he thought. Aren't you proud of how well you're teaching me, Father? He stood near the refrigerator and opened the lid on the plastic container, finding some kind of noodle and vegetable dish. He didn't bother reheating the food and decided the oily noodles would probably go down a bit more pleasantly if he had done so. Nevertheless, he smiled as he quickly chewed. His mother, who had a love of good manners and had long since given up on Thor, would have been horrified that he was standing while eating his meal and using a fork as a shovel. He decided to leave enough for a bite or two in the corner of the container, then sealed it back up and put it exactly where he found it.
Petty, yes, he admitted to himself as he hurried out of the galley toward his room. But still fun. He hoped he'd get to see the expression on Selby's face. Petty, but free of consequences – no magic involved, so no enchantments invoked. If petty was all he was left with to have a bit of fun during the hard work and long days before him, then petty was perfectly acceptable.
He reached Jane's room and would have passed right by it for his own, but he heard her voice inside, which surprised him and drew him to a halt. No one else was in the corridor, so he paused to listen. From the pattern of Jane-silence-Jane-silence he knew she was using the telephone, and when he heard her say the name Darcy he realized with a frown that she was using the internet-based VOIP system to call outside the South Pole.
Because he was able to control her primary means of communication with the outside world, he had worried about this secondary means from the moment he'd learned about its existence after arriving at the South Pole. He could not censor what she said or what was said to her; but for strokes of luck such as this, he wouldn't even know she'd had such communications.
He thought that perhaps if he took the time to peruse the other SHIELD programs he could access, he might locate one that would record internet-based conversations, but as he listened to the nonsensical prattle from inside Jane's room he wasn't sure it would be worth the time required to listen to all that, not to mention the aggravation inflicted.
"No, I haven't read it yet, I'm sorry. / I know, I know. / I know, but- / It's just that- Will you let me finish? It's just that it's weird to read that stuff about him, you know? He's not some mythological deity to me, he's just Thor. Not that he's just anything, I mean, but- / Yeah. / I know! / Okay, okay! Fine, I give up."
The conversation went silent and some muffled noises followed. Further down the corridor someone emerged from one of the bedrooms and Loki immediately resumed walking. That bit had been potentially interesting. Who knew what else she might say? What else he might learn? Perhaps there was a computer program that would convert spoken speech into written text. If so, a return visit to Jane's laptop might be worth the effort and the risk after all.
/
/
"Okay, okay! Fine, I give up," Jane said, exasperated. She pushed back in her chair and reached down to open her bottom desk drawer. A couple of other things had gotten piled on top in the meantime, so she fumbled around until she grasped the book Darcy had sent her. After rearranging a few things on her desk she set the book down and opened to page 38.
"Okaaay," Jane said, taking in the image of one woman helping another woman with some kind of weird headdress. "Tor… såsom?...Freya," she read, pronouncing the first syllable of the second word as sass because she had no idea how a-with-a-circle-on-top was pronounced. "Thor as Freya." Jane narrowed her eyes at the translation. "Thor as Freya? Who's Freya? And what's Thor got…oh."
Upon closer inspection, although the two figures were wearing some kind of ethnic clothing that very much looked like women's clothing, the four arms visible in short-sleeved gowns were not women's arms, especially clearly so on the larger seated figure whose headdress was being affixed, a veil of some sort partially obscuring the face.
"Do I want to know what's supposed to be going on here?" Jane asked, her eyes drifting over to page 39, where an italicized caption pointed over to the image on the left. "Tor såsom Freya, Loke…brudtärna, Thor as Freya, Loke as bridesmaid, 1893, by Swedish painter Carl Larsson. Darcyyyy." Jane rested her elbow on the desk and leaned the bridge of her nose into her hand.
"You have to read the whole thing, but you want me to go ahead and tell you? It's cray-cray."
"Sure," Jane said into her arm.
"Okay. Well, so these bad guys, giants from Jotunheim-"
"Jotunheim," Jane said, correcting Darcy's pronunciation from a jot to a yote sound at the beginning.
"Oh, right, now you're such an expert. Whatever. So these bad guy giants from Yotunheim steal Thor's hammer whatchamacallit, because their king, Thrym…did I say that one right, Brainiac?"
"Beats me, I never heard of him."
"Thrym wants to marry the goddess Freya, she's like the goddess of love or something, and he won't give the hammer back unless she does. And Freya's all like Hell, no! I'm not marrying some pervy giant. So Heimdall comes up with Plan B, which is to put Thor in a wedding dress and try to pass him off as Freya. And his brother Loki, only they don't call him his brother in the story, he dresses up like Thor's bridesmaid and they go to Yotunheim and Thor apparently likes to eat a lot when he leaves home and it's a good thing we didn't have any booze on hand because apparently he really likes to put back the booze, too. Not really bride-like, you know? And Thrym gets all suspicious and Loki keeps coming up with excuses why Thor's eating like…well, like Thor. Maybe it's not the same Loki that wanted to take over the planet 'cuz this Loki kind of acts like Thor's friend."
Jane's head was swimming. It was too early in the morning for this. "They used to be friends, so it's probably the same Loki. Anyway, what happens in the end? Please don't tell me Thor gets married to the pervy giant."
"Uhhh, no. They get the hammer back and Thor turns out to be probably the most violent bride in history and he goes hammer-time on every single giant there, the king and everybody. Everybody dies. It's kinda ick, actually."
Jane sat up straight again, looked down at the picture, and tried to picture Thor wantonly killing all those people, giants, whatever. She couldn't do it. Or maybe she just really didn't want to.
Meanwhile Darcy was continuing, and Jane had already missed part of what she'd said. "And really, are those Jotunheim people that stupid? I mean Thor…he's just so…he's just so Thor, you know? No wedding dress in the world is going to convince anybody with eyesight that that dude's a chick. And the minute he opened his mouth, puh-lease! I guess he could claim to have the world's worst cold. Unless they don't get colds on- out there. Do they?"
"I don't know," Jane answered listlessly. As if she cared right now. Darcy didn't either, she just had a tendency to blurt out whatever thought came to mind. She also had a tendency to forget what she was and wasn't allowed to say. But Jane couldn't be bothered to care much about that anymore either.
"But he did have one thing going for him, at least according to that picture."
Jane nodded. "Uh-huh." Something seemed a little gross about it – pervy in Darcy's parlance – but it was hard not to stare at Thor's chest.
"Impressive, yeah?"
"Yeah." She closed the book. Enough about how well Thor filled out his wedding dress. "So, do you think this stuff is true?" she asked.
"Let's hope not," Darcy answered, and then, unusually for her, did not continue.
"Why? Oh, no, Darcy, what else is in here?"
"Wellllll…so you really haven't looked at any of it?"
"No, I just flipped through it, looked at a couple of the pictures. Did you know there's a painting of Thor in the British Museum?"
"Get out! Really? Wait, does it look like him?"
"Ummm, not really. No. Why?
"That's encouraging."
"Spill it, Darcy. What's in here?"
"Well, there's this long poem, basically people hurling insults back and forth at each other. Loki's doing most of the insulting. That sounds more like evil-Loki. If even half of that stuff in there is true then Asgard is – I mean that place is just one big bunch of skanks. But don't worry, I'm sure it's not true anyway."
"Darcy, why should I not worry?"
"It, uh, it kinda says Thor's married. To that 'Lady Sif' we met in Puente Antiguo."
Jane let her head clunk down on the desk. Much, much, much too early.
"Jane? You okay? You still there? You didn't like pass out or something, did you? I should have told you to sit down first."
"I'm already sitting down. I didn't pass out. And Thor's not married. I'm pretty sure it would have come up at some point."
"Oh, definitely. Thor's not that kind of guy. He's honorable and all that. You shouldn't worry about it. It's really pretty funny."
Sif. The gorgeous confident warrior lady who'd fought that giant fire-breathing robot and put some kind of javelin through its neck. Who Thor had been concerned about. Who was standing right next to her when the robot knocked Thor a block down the street. "I'm not worried. And sure, it's hilarious," Jane said without a hint of humor.
"Oh, lighten up, Jane. Those stories can't be true anyway. One of them says there's a giant serpent wrapped around Earth. If there was I think the astronauts would've caught sight of it by now. And there's all kinds of crazy stories in there about Thor and Loki and a bunch of other people. Wait'll you read the one about Thor's goats. Gross. Oh, and guess what, if you and Thor get married, you're going to be Auntie Jane to a horse and a wolf and that serpent wrapped around Earth and some other weird thing, I forget. Loki is the proud papa. Mama in one case. No wonder he has issues. Oh! And you'll be a step-mother to-"
"Stop! Enough! Okay, that's all I can take of this for one day. Maybe for a month or two or even a year. Quite possibly a lifetime. Okay?"
"Okay. No prob. I get it, I mean, all this has left me kinda whacked, too. I'm surrounded by college boys who've never been outside the state of New Mexico. Can I come visit you at the South Pole during Spring Break?"
"Sure. Don't bother packing a bikini, though."
"Cool beans. Hey, Jane, I'm glad you caught me. I gotta run to my next class now."
"I'm glad I caught you, too. Really. It's…it was good to talk to you."
"You too. Hey, stay warm, okay?"
"I will, thanks. Talk to you later."
"Okay, bye!"
"Bye, Darcy," Jane said. She ended the call and leaned back, running a hand roughly through her hair, pulling at it. She wondered briefly if in all their magic Asgard had a memory-erasing tonic. If they did, she'd gladly take one to cover a chunk of that conversation. She knew she shouldn't let it get to her. Of course those stories were untrue. That's why it was called mythology. Myths. As in, not true. But there was a Thor, and he did have a hammer, and it was called Mjolnir. There was an Odin, and a Frigga, and a Loki, and even a Baldur, whom Jane had first learned about from the mythology before Thor confirmed it.
She felt a headache coming on.
"No," she told the headache. And the mythology. She had a new challenge to work on now, and she would put everything she had into meeting it. Everything else was on hold.
She grabbed the book and shoved it into the still-open drawer, which she closed with her slippered foot.
It was time to get dressed, get breakfast, and get to work.
/
A couple of notes on the above: (1) Loki stealing people's personal leftovers at the South Pole is a true story. OK, not the Loki part. Well...it could have been Loki. As far as I know the food-snatching culprit was never identified. (2) You can find the picture in Jane's book on the Þrymskviða Wikipedia article (second picture). Whatever I know about Norse mythology pretty much comes from Wikipedia plus the occasional chat with my long-suffering Scandinavian lit expert friend...who reminds me she specialized in post-modern lit. (She still knows way more than I do about it!) Oh, and if you're interested in the battle of insults ("flyting"), look up Lokasenna on Wikipedia. (3) While I didn't listen to it or have it in mind, I must confess to having thought about Aerosmith's Dude Looks Like a Lady once or twice during that last scene...and Lola. Poor Thor. (And poor Loki!)
Teasers for "Chapter 21: Breakthrough" (in which there are breakthroughs of more than one type): Loki expands his control over Jane's life a bit more but also pays for it; Jane has a spat with Selby and later opens up to Lucas/Loki about things that lead Loki to think about things he'd rather not; Loki has a dream that brings both bad things and good.
And the excerpt:
"All right. So we have a pattern. Something that clearly isn't a coincidence. But what does it mean?" Loki asked.
"I have absolutely no idea," Jane said, sounding extremely happy for someone who'd just confessed to complete ignorance.
"Then…?"
"I don't know what it means, but I know what it is."
"All right," Loki said, steadying his voice to keep out growing frustration. She was reminding him now of one of his old teachers – one he'd liked, at the time. Times had changed. "What is it, then?"
"That," she answered, touching the tip of her index finger lightly to the screen [...], "is our very first breakthrough."
Comments? Questions? Reviews appreciated! I always respond if the PM option is available.