There is a bit of Science Stuff in this chapter. Don't panic. You don't need to understand it (it's not really there for the technical content, but rather the interplay between the characters). Though it is, pretty much, real science.
Beneath
Chapter Seventy-Two – Loss
Breakfast on Tuesday was uneventful, as was the workday that followed it. To Jane, Loki seemed more tightly wound than he had been over the weekend or on Monday morning. Not rude, not particularly short-tempered, just tense. Things she might have said jokingly to him yesterday she knew better than to push her luck by saying today, and conversation stayed minimal and professional. They worked quietly and efficiently from the Science Lab, never really out of earshot of the other scientists. Selby was there most of the day, too, but either he wasn't looking at her as much today, or she didn't notice it as much. When she was ready to stop working for the day, Loki said he wasn't feeling well and was going back to his "chambers." She couldn't recall him ever saying he didn't feel well, other than when he'd lied to get out of cleaning the bathroom, and wondered if Aesir ever got sick.
Loki, meanwhile, was exhausted. He'd worked hard the day before and had looked forward to finally getting a good night's sleep, only to be left wide awake in bed wishing he could rip Thanos's ghoul from limb to limb, followed by Thanos himself. Instead of trying to go back to sleep he'd risen and worked at his desk.
The nightmares came infrequently, and never two nights in a row. Tonight he was guaranteed sleep, and he planned to avail himself of as much of it as he could before tomorrow morning. He'd given Jane her day and gotten nothing from it in return, too tired to bother with properly framing his questions to arouse no suspicion from her or anyone else who may overhear. Tomorrow was his day again, and this he was determined to make good use of.
/
/
"So you're hiding out here, huh?" Jane asked when she found Loki in their jamesway before going in for dinner.
"I'm hardly hiding. I'm simply working out here so I don't have to worry about anyone seeing what I'm working on."
"That's actually pretty close to the definition of 'hiding.' And what exactly are you working on?"
"I told you. Yggdrasil." He'd already decided he wasn't going to tell her about his new theory. The last ideas he'd mentioned about journeying to other times hadn't exactly received a warm welcome.
"Yeah, but what, exactly? I mean, what's suddenly got you interested in it again?"
"Jane, this is what you wanted, isn't it? I've accepted that I'm here, that I'm not going anywhere, and my calendar for this past weekend was fuller than yours. So could you please simply indulge my interest in something I've known about my whole life, only to find out I know very little about it at all?"
"Of course. Sorry, I didn't mean to sound critical. I understand the drive to…well, to understand. And hey, I bet you never thought you'd actually learn something from us…but you did."
Loki's eyes narrowed a bit at that. He wanted to tell her she was being awfully presumptuous, but as soon as the thought occurred to him, he knew the words wouldn't hold their weight. Unsavory though it was, she was entirely correct. He hadn't known of this physical incarnation of Yggdrasil at all; even when it was spoken of as something physical, so much metaphor surrounded it that he'd never taken the physical manifestation seriously. And certainly while he'd known that Yggdrasil connected – in some way – the locations of the Nine Realms in space, he would never have imagined that it may also connect them in time. It occurred to him then for the first time to wonder whether it could also connect a realm to itself in time, as he'd assumed without giving it thought, or whether spatial location had to change along with temporal. Branches would have to loop in on themselves for that to work…
Jane watched as his focus drifted, getting lost in his work the same way she did, she assumed. It made her smile to see it in him. This'll be good for him, she thought. It connects him to us, gives him a reason to respect us, and it connects him to his home as well. It's the perfect thing, actually.
Another minute passed, and Jane decided she could talk to him later. She knew when she was right in the middle of thinking something through that she didn't particularly like being interrupted. She pulled her balaclava back on, then her hat, glove liner, gloves, and turned to go.
"Jane, wait. Since you're here…could I show you something?"
"Um…sure. Yeah." Off went the gloves, glove liner, hat, balaclava. She stepped further into the framed tent, to where Loki was standing up from his chair at the table where she'd left her work laptop. She watched as he rifled through no small stack of papers, getting glimpses of them only long enough to note with interest that they all contained his handwriting. Finally he handed her one page, which contained one equation in large symbols, followed by four longer ones written a little smaller. "What is this?"
"You tell me," he said, not wanting to prompt her reaction.
Jane looked at the equations for about half a minute before setting down the sheet of paper and unfastening Big Red and shrugging out of it, dropping it over the back of Loki's abandoned chair. Then she picked up the paper again and took a long hard look at it. Several minutes passed. "This is a variation on the FLRW metric?"
Loki nodded. He wasn't surprised she recognized it; this was her line of work and he'd long since come to respect her professional abilities.
"You're looking for an exact solution for Einstein's field equations of general relativity?"
"I suppose."
"And this is…what are you doing with the scale factor of the universe?"
He pointed; she nodded. She asked a few more questions, and he answered.
"This one is problematic," she said, pointing to the fourth equation.
"I checked it against energy conditions," he said, going back to his papers and quickly finding the right one to show her.
She went through that page with a frown, and after another minute or two shook her head. "You've weighted the unit timelike vector field too heavily. It's part of the problem with the energy conditions. They're too permissive. They let you accept solutions that are physically unrealistic. And you should work on the momentum vector field some more, something's off about the way you're using it." She moved this page behind the original one. "Did you check if your tensor fields obey Maxwell's equations? Because I think you've got a problem there, too."
"No," Loki bit out, frustration growing. He'd worked hard on these equations. And he'd never heard of Maxwell's equations but he hated Maxwell.
"You really never studied this before you came to Earth?" Jane asked, her eyes still running slowly over the equations.
"Not like this, no."
She nodded. "Wow."
"Wow?"
"Yeah. Wow. This is really impressive."
"You just finished pointing out multiple flaws."
"Well, yeah, but Loki…solutions to the general relativity field equations don't grow on trees. Physicists can spend years working on a new one. And I mean this isn't entirely a new one, it's clearly derived from the FLRW solution, but still…I mean it, this is really impressive."
Loki relaxed marginally. "Accuracy would be more impressive."
Jane laughed. "Keep working at it, then, you aren't that far off. Hey, what's…is that a recorder?" she asked, catching sight of what appeared to be a wooden instrument on the far side of the desk, made visible once Loki had moved all his papers around.
"Yes. I became its new owner since you were no longer interested," he answered, taking the pages back and not lifting his eyes up from the equations.
"It wasn't…that was all just a joke. But now Selby gets kind of freaked out whenever he's around me, which really weirds me out."
"Hm, yes, he's always been rather odd. Perhaps he cheated on his psychological tests."
Jane rolled her eyes at that. "Uh-huh. I'm sure that's it. So, what did you bring it out here for?"
"I'm learning to play it."
"Get out."
Loki looked up at her sharply from his equations. "Oh. Slang, right?" He set the pages aside. He would have to return to them later.
"Right. And, seriously? You're learning to play the recorder? It's for kids. At least that's what I associate it with," Jane said with a laugh. "I was in second grade when the music teacher taught us a couple of songs on it. That's about seven years old."
"Wright challenged me. He insinuated that his eight-year-old niece could play it better than I can."
"Loki, don't get mad, but did you just hear yourself? You're going to learn to play the recorder, and torture the rest of us with it, so you can be better than an eight-year-old? It was all a joke, from start to finish. There's not a band in the entire world that uses a recorder. It was just for fun."
"I brought it out here specifically so I could avoid torturing anyone with it," Loki said through a tightened jaw. Jane might have softened the earlier blow with a compliment, but she'd still insulted him, and now she was doing so again. "It was a challenge."
Jane shook her head. "You've got to be kidding me. Does your ego really need that much stroking that you have to be better than an eight-year-old? There's a game show that used to be on TV, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? That's about age ten. Do you want to go on it, prove how smart you are?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"You're the one who wanted to get me involved with them!" Loki shouted, and watched Jane jump in response. She'd spoken in jest, and he'd overreacted. "I didn't mean to shout, Jane. Do you have a problem with my learning to play the recorder?"
She stared at him a moment before answering. He'd seemed relaxed again today, but she'd made a false assumption about the kind of mood he was in. She was pretty sure if she'd said the same thing to him on Sunday, he would have laughed and maybe said he was smarter than a fiftieth-grader. Today was Wednesday, not Sunday, and Loki had predicted correctly: that mood was gone. "No, of course not. I didn't mean it like that. It's just…if you do it, do it for the fun of it. Not because of some stupid challenge that you sound like you're taking way too seriously. I'm pretty sure nobody was actually expecting you to go out and master the recorder. I can probably teach you how to play 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' if you want."
"Your generosity knows no bounds. Yes, please, I'd love to learn how to play 'Mary Had a Little Lamb.' Oh, wait, what's that? Do you hear that sound?"
Jane regarded him warily. His voice and expression were overly animated, and while he didn't seem angry anymore, the sarcasm was clear, and his sarcasm could be pretty mean. He was waiting patiently for her to answer. "All right. I'll bite. No, Loki, what sound?"
He cocked his head at an odd angle and leaned over, then placed a hand over his middle. "I think it's the sound of my stomach preparing to violently purge all of its contents. You might want to stand back." With that he sat down and ran a finger over the laptop's mousepad.
Jane watched him in silence until he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and quickly lifted an eyebrow. She gave a short breathy laugh out her nose and let go of the rest of her tension, accepting the little look as the truce she believed it to be. "Okay, no 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' for you. You could learn the tune to the Jurrasic Park theme. That would be fun."
"We'll see," he said, not looking up from the laptop he'd brought back to life.
"Loki…since you're kind of taking a break, or you were, I-"
"I wasn't taking a break. I was interrupted. They aren't the same thing."
"I was leaving, and you called me back. So yeah, you're right, they aren't the same thing. You were taking a break. And since you were, there was something I wanted to tell you about."
You are an exasperating woman, Loki thought, and was just on the verge of giving voice to the thought when he decided against it and instead reached around to his left to the other chair and rolled it to his right, where Jane stood. "Please, have a seat," he said with a smirk. "And forgive me for having interrupted your leaving."
Jane shook her head at him. "I forgive you. And you're going to want to hear this, I think. I got a call on Monday morning," she said, then dropped into the chair.
All teasing and the odd co-mingling of mock and real annoyance faded from Loki's face. "From whom?"
"Tony. But he didn't say much, just 'hi, how are you' stuff. Then he handed the phone over to someone else. Jolgeir Rand…"
"Randvidurson?"
Jane nodded. "That's it. He's the person you told me you admired."
"Yes," Loki confirmed with a slow nod.
Jane didn't need the confirmation. The name "Jolgeir" might have been the equivalent of John or James on Asgard, but the way Jolgeir had spoken of him, she had no doubt it was the same man.
"Why did he call you? Why was he with Tony Stark?" If she hadn't said the call had come two days ago, he would've been considerably more anxious than the simple wariness he felt now.
"Something about supplies. He said when the war started Asgard lost a big trade partner, so now Tony's helping them get stuff from Midgard."
Loki leaned back in his chair and let his head fall back a moment, eyes closed. "Food," he said. "I can't believe it never occurred to me."
"Food?" Jane asked, the seed of worry for Asgard and for Thor growing further. "That doesn't sound good."
Loki sat back up. "It's not. Asgard is a small realm, in comparison with the others, and the Aesir are not naturally inclined to farming. They don't produce enough food to feed themselves. Vanaheim, on the other hand, is an enormous realm whose people have an affinity for the land. Vanaheim is Asgard's largest food supplier. Of course, they will have lost all trade with all the realms. But food would be the biggest concern. I can't believe I didn't think of it," he said again.
"Well, it's not like there's anything you can do about it. But Tony, I guess he has the resources to make just about anything happen. I'm glad we're able to help."
For your sake, I hope someone in Asgard is wise enough not to let the other realms know you're helping, he thought, but chose not to say. He saw no need to further worry her. Besides, she was right in that there was nothing either of them could do about it. Or is there? he asked himself. Perhaps with Yggdrasil there was in fact some way to resolve Asgard's food supply problems, even without involving Midgard. But nothing came immediately to mind, and Loki wasn't sure how or if he would want to become involved in that war, anyway. As Asgard's rescuer, perhaps, strong when the rest of the realm was terribly weakened. His thoughts on that were unchanged – he wouldn't stand by while Gullveig or Nadrith or any of the others claimed Asgard's throne. The throne that should be his.
"Anyway, so Jolgeir wasn't actually supposed to mention the war, just ask how I was doing. Apparently Thor didn't want me to know how serious things had gotten. Tony-"
"Thor intended to be less than completely honest with you, did he?"
"Don't start that, okay? I'm not being completely honest with him either. I could have told Jolgeir you were here, and I didn't. We talked about you, though."
"You…and Jolgeir. Talked about me. There must be something broken in the universe." It was intended as a jest, which Loki used to deflect the genuine discomfort the idea gave him. Little mortal Jane Foster should not be gossiping with the man he'd once so greatly looked up to, long before Jane was born, and who now thought him a traitor. These were separate worlds, separate lifetimes, and they had no business intermingling.
"I'm glad I got the chance to talk to him. He said he was your bodyguard, you and Thor both, when you were kids. He said you and he used to be really close. He told me how you found where he lived when you were just five years old because you had a book you wanted to show him."
Loki nodded. He still remembered it, the sense of adventure of searching for him, the thrill of going to the towers where most of the unmarried Einherjar lived and going there alone without the permission that would never have been granted since he was not yet allowed even to leave the palace unaccompanied, the sheer happiness at having found him, all on his own. Of course he had not been truly on his own; another Einherjar had followed him everywhere he went, making sure he was not harmed, and informing his parents of his location once he was safely with Jolgeir.
"I'm surprised he still remembers," he finally said. "Though I suppose from his perspective it was rather a shock."
"Loki…I know you said he doesn't admire you, but he spoke fondly of you."
"Yes, well…who doesn't speak fondly of children?"
"Why did he mean so much to you that you tracked him down like that? I mean, why him? There must have been other bodyguards, right?"
"Yes, of course there were. They were nearby every hour of the day. Well, except for when we evaded them. They were supposed to be nearby at all times. But Jolgeir saved me from drowning not so long before that time that I brought him the book about the Ice War. So I…" It was distressingly difficult to put into words. Whatever Jolgeir was to him then, he was not that now.
"He was your hero," Jane supplied.
Loki scoffed at the word, turning away to peer down the length of the jamesway. Hero. Such a childish term. A childish concept. He had, of course, been a child. "A hero, perhaps," he said. "But it was more than that. Jolgeir was always around, or so it seemed. And to a child's eyes, he was never doing anything, just standing there. He was always…I could always go to him. So I did."
Jane nodded as a clearer picture of Loki's childhood formed in her mind. "Unlike your father. Kings must be pretty busy."
He looked at her sharply. Jolgeir had never acted as his father, not to his recollection, and he hadn't thought of him as a father. A much older brother, perhaps, or an uncle. He hadn't really thought of him as those things, either, just "Jolgeir." But as he thought back, he realized there was truth in what Jane said, and with little conscious thought he began to speak softly exactly what he was thinking. "When I turned five, I was able to go where I wanted in the palace, for the most part. And one of the first things I did was to go see Odin in the throne room. I was turned away. 'He cannot be disturbed, Loki. Now run along.'" He'd attempted it several times, but it was only that first time he remembered with any clarity. Thor had made it past, he knew, because Thor had happily told him all about it.
"That must have been really hard."
"When I was five, yes. But it's not like I never saw him. We all had dinner together often, and other things, too, sometimes. I just didn't understand then why I couldn't see him any time I wanted to. I do now," he said, the words coming out almost of their own accord. He did understand Odin now. He understood that at some point along the way Odin had decided he didn't need Laufey's offspring after all, and then he'd ceased to matter. But the conversation was growing entirely too maudlin and Loki was ready for it to move on. "Was that all he said about me?" He sincerely hoped so.
"Yeah, pretty much," she said with a firm nod. Though she'd asked other questions, Jolgeir hadn't really had any answers, so she figured it was a truthful response.
"Wait, who else was with him? Jolgeir…he can't be doing this on his own. What does he know about trade agreements?"
"No, Tony mentioned two other people that were there…um, Geirmund and…he never said the other person's name."
"It must be Krusa, the trade advisor. Geirmund…I'm not sure who that is. How strange. After all this time, that the Aesir should now go to the Midgardians for help. Stark's already mountain-sized ego must be threatening to explode from all the stroking."
"Maybe so, but does it really matter? It's your realm he's helping. He deserves your thanks."
"Oh, my apologies, Jane. You're correct, of course. I'll send him a bouquet of flowers. Roses would be inappropriate, I presume. Which flower of your realm says 'thank you for sending food to the realm that has rejected me?' And what type of food do you think will be provided? Not the kind that's served here, I hope. It may spoil diplomatic relations."
"Okay, in the interest of our own diplomatic relations, I'm going to ignore everything you just said. How did Jolgeir go blind? He obviously wasn't always blind."
Loki frowned, disappointed that Jane didn't take his bait, and that they were now back to Jolgeir. He should have never mentioned the man. "In an explosion. The same one Thor was injured in, just over a month ago. He lost his vision, and his arms as well."
It took a second for those last words to sink in. She'd already formed a vague image of Jolgeir in her mind, and the image certainly had arms. Then she remembered how Tony had been telling him to press something to hang up the call, then changed his instructions to speaking the command instead. "I'm sorry."
"He'll learn to adapt," Loki said, keeping his tone even. He didn't particularly like thinking of Jolgeir in his current condition. He didn't particularly like thinking of Jolgeir at all anymore.
"You must have really good prosthetic limbs in Asgard."
"Prosthetic…false arms? No," he said with distaste. "Do you use such things here?"
"Of course," Jane said, surprised. "Oh, I guess you use magic instead? Can you…I don't know, regrow missing limbs?"
Loki grimaced. "No. If arms or legs are injured, even badly injured, they can usually be healed. But if they're severed and destroyed…there's nothing to be done."
"That doesn't make sense. I thought Asgard was so advanced and everything, magic and science combined. Here we can make some pretty good prosthetic limbs. I mean, it's not like the real thing, really, but it lets people walk again, or grasp things again…do you mean in Asgard you literally don't do anything to help people like Jolgeir?"
"He should pretend it never happened? It will be a mark of honor for him, a sign of the great sacrifice he's made for Asgard."
"Honor and sacrifice are great, but how is he supposed to get around without either of his arms?
"I told you, he'll adapt."
"He could adapt a lot better with good prosthetics."
"Jane, you are not of Asgard and you have no business judging us," Loki said loudly, not quite reaching a shout. "Them," he corrected a few seconds later in a more subdued voice.
"Okay, fine," she relented. With arms seemed so much obviously better than without arms, but different cultures could have different priorities, and just because the Aesir physically looked the same as humans didn't mean they were. Earth's own cultures, of course, were many and diverse...though she thought probably all of them would go for the with arms option. "I just think he should at least have the choice."
"Then perhaps your Tony Stark has already extolled to him the virtues of these prosthetic limbs, and perhaps he wears them even now. He can do whatever he wants. I don't want to discuss it any longer."
"All right. But…I have just one more question. Please? It's not about…limbs."
"Ask," he said wearily with a wave of his hand.
"This is, maybe, going to sound weird, but, Jolgeir's not…um, how do I say this…he's not dead, is he?"
Loki stared, his annoyance forgotten in his stupefaction. "Is this some form of slang I haven't heard yet? Because I understood every word you just said but failed to understand what you're actually asking me."
"Then I assume the answer is no. According to mythology, the Einherjar are people who died in battle."
"But how could they-?" Loki sighed and shook his head. There was no use attempting to apply logic to the things Jane told him from this mythology. "No, Jane, the Einherjar are not dead. I believe being dead would most likely disqualify an interested young man from service."
Jane nodded in relief. She hadn't thought she'd been talking to a dead person, but…magic and Asgard and Yggdrasil…maybe anything was possible. At least Loki seemed more interested in joking than disparaging again. She could go with that. "So they don't drink mead from goats' udders either?"
His eyes went wide and he couldn't stifle a laugh. "I'm not an Einherjar, so I don't know what they do when they're not on duty," he said, laughing his way through the sentence. "I did want to be one when I was a child, perhaps I could have found out. But I think not. I saw this done once, and I'm almost positive mead was not the result."
"Ew," Jane said, making a face. "Where's the mental soap to wash that image out of my head?"
"You asked. Don't blame me if you don't like the answer."
"Sooo…that thing you said, about making me blush in a tavern full of drunken peasants? No need to treat that as a challenge, too, you know."
"Why, Dr. Foster, did I make you blush?"
"No. You might've made me a little queasy. Which is just perfect timing considering I was on my way to the galley before I stopped in here."
"You should hurry before they stop serving."
"Trying to get rid of me?"
"Trying to get back to work. Someone told me I've made some errors in my contribution to general relativity solutions."
"They can wait 'til tomorrow. Why don't you come in and have dinner?"
"Later. You go ahead."
"Okay, your loss," Jane said, standing. "And Loki? I am really glad I got to talk to Jolgeir. It was…nice. To be able to hear from someone else about you. About what you were like before…before everything that happened here. I mean, I already knew you were more than what…I mean…," Jane sighed and shook her head. "I don't know what I'm trying to say."
"Then perhaps you shouldn't say it," Loki said quietly. He could argue with Jane, he could tease her, he could listen to her stories, he could laugh with her, but this…whatever it was, this he couldn't take. I don't want your understanding, Jane.
"Okay," she said, nodding reluctantly. She took a couple of steps over to stand behind Loki and pressed a hand to his back.
"What are you doing?" he asked in a rush, leaning forward to get away from her touch.
"You're sitting in my jacket."
"Oh, sorry." He leaned forward and lifted himself enough from the chair that she could easily reclaim the jacket.
"I'll see you tomorrow morning?" she asked, pulling on Big Red as he resettled himself.
He agreed, she left, and Loki stared at a blank computer screen for several minutes thinking about Jolgeir and Einherjar and that book about the Ice War and being turned away from the throne room and, much later, a foolish bet lost by a drunken Thor. He could change any of it. Or simply go back and see it again. He could take a video recorder from here and film Thor and the goat and show it to Jane.
He laughed in the empty jamesway. He knew at some point he would have to get more serious about what he would actually use Pathfinder and Yggdrasil for – and laughs at Thor's expense surely wouldn't be it – but at the moment it was still theoretical.
Little by little, though, theory was being replaced by fact. He'd already identified geospatial coordinates in the data generated each time Pathfinder had been used. They were generated by default it seemed, and added to the coordinates he and Jane had first entered into Pathfinder to reach the mouth of Yggdrasil. Like everything else in Midgard's science, locations here could be determined with great mathematical precision; traveling to another location on Midgard should not be difficult. Asgard would require more effort. Asgard did not assign a decimal point to each individual stair leading up to the public entrance to the palace. Such a system could be determined, though, at least roughly. Pathfinder had automatically generated coordinates of zero based on the default arrival point on Asgard – the no longer existing bifrost observatory – and then derived from that coordinates for the two points he'd left Asgard from: further down the bridge, and, not far from the end of the other end of the bridge, the site of the new temporary observatory. Asgard had been his "playground" for so long that it would not be difficult to estimate coordinates for other locations in the realm based on the three he had. With no coordinates at all for any other realm, travel to any of them would be a gamble.
Each burst of data from Pathfinder also included a set of numbers that functioned as a time stamp, he'd discovered with one of Jane's analysis programs, by comparing each use of the device. Jane hadn't noticed it amidst all of the more complex numerical patterns, to his knowledge, probably because she hadn't been looking for it. The time stamp, like the spatial coordinates, was automatically generated. Loki thus needed to be able to program those numbers in to correspond to his desired destination on both the space- and time-axis. He didn't think it would be that difficult, but computer programming was not exactly something he had much experience at. He'd never even seen a computer until The Other had begun sending a projection of him to Midgard in preparation for his assault on the realm.
Loki wasn't worried. He was a fast learner.
He looked back at the sheets of paper with his equations, reactivated the computer screen filled with Pathfinder data.
He decided he would stop for the night, as Jane had. She tended to push herself too hard when she became absorbed in her work, and so did he. But if she could stop for the evening, to get some sustenance and some sleep, to take a break, so could he. He'd been anxious before, staying up night after night to overcome the last hurdles with Pathfinder, unable to bear being on this realm another minute longer, and in his single-mindedness he'd strolled through both Asgard and Svartalfheim blind to the signs of a major problem. Time was of no concern now. He could put aside his work, allow his thoughts to clear, let lingering problems sit at the back of his mind, as Jane had put it, while he thought about other things and let ideas come to him as they may.
The recorder still lay where he'd left it this morning. "Mary had a little lamb," he muttered, picking up the smooth carved wood. He thought back to the music from Jurassic Park, to the tune he'd heard most often in it. He'd found an article online that morning on how to play the recorder, just an introduction, enough, he thought, to at least begin practicing on it. Perhaps Jane was right, that he was overreacting. But he couldn't ignore the smugness he'd heard in Wright's voice. "My eight-year-old niece can do it." And suddenly he felt supremely stupid. If he spent hours a day mastering this instrument and proving himself better than Wright's niece, what exactly was he truly proving? That I am at least as clever as a nine-year-old Midgardian female.
All his life, everything had been a competition; he'd grown up with a competitor even in his crib. Even his brief experiment with musical instruments was a result of competition, of a sort, and his abandonment of it, too, stemmed from competition. He was nine years old, joining Thor in initial training for warriors because Thor was ten, when such training for boys began. Then there was an accident during the training…though as Loki looked back on it, he realized it had not precisely been an accident. Thor was angry with him about something and struck him too hard, and Loki had been sent to the Healing Room. Afterward, Odin and Frigga told him he would no longer be allowed to train with Thor, not until he turned ten himself. He'd been devastated and cried uncontrollably and all his pleas for them to change their mind were for naught. For the next few days, he'd thought it wasn't possible to be any more miserable than when he went home after their lessons and Thor went on to training.
He went through the heavy golden doors that the Einherjar opened for him, a hand over his eyes to hide the tears from them. Four days had passed but it hadn't gotten any easier. If anything it was worse today, because Thor had been annoyed with him when he'd yet again started crying as they said goodbye after their classroom lessons. He knew Thor didn't want him to cry. He knew Thor felt guilty and his tears made him feel worse. But he couldn't help it. He made his way back to the bedchamber he still shared with Thor, dumped his satchel just inside the door, then threw himself onto his bed and buried his face in the pillow.
He heard the footsteps enter the room, felt the bed sink in beside him, felt the hand gently rubbing his back. "Loki, I have something for you. May I show it to you?"
A few sniffles later he rolled over and sat up, his back to the headboard, knees tucked up to his chest, resisting his mother's comfort. He was mad at her.
"I bought it for you today," she said, holding out a rich blue bag about the length and thickness of his arm, perhaps thicker at the bottom where there was a bulge.
He hesitated, reminding himself again that he was mad at her – it was hard to sustain it when he desperately wanted to let her hug him – then reached out for the bag and brought it up close to him. His eyes darted up to hers to find her smiling warmly. He looked back down at the bag. It was sumptuously soft in his fingers, with little diamond shapes in the fabric. He pulled at the golden cord gathering the material at the top, and the bag opened to allow him to peer inside. Curiosity piqued and tears forgotten, he reached in and pulled out a long wooden tube with embellishments – carvings and a band of gold – at one end, holes down the length, and a flared conical shape at the other end with more carvings and another band of gold. He ran his fingers down the different textures of the smooth dark wood. "What is it?" he asked, not taking his eyes off it.
"It's a bellpipe. It makes a terrifically loud noise, and during the Vanir-Aesir War it was used to embolden the Aesir and frighten the Vanir."
Loki looked at it thoughtfully, finding the part where the lips must go, and imagining the mighty Aesir warriors fighting all the more valiantly when they heard this pipe play. Then his mouth fell open, he sat up straighter, and he looked at his mother. "This is what they play at the beginning of the parade on Victory Day."
"That's right," she said with a smile. "The bellpipers always lead everyone else."
A smile spread across Loki's face. He looked back at the pipe, then put his lips around the appropriate piece and blew. No proper sound came out, only a grating squeaking noise. He took it out and looked at it, biting down on his bottom lip.
"You'll have to take lessons to learn to play it, of course."
His eyes went wide. "I can take lessons?"
"Of course you can."
His eyes went wider. "And play in the parade?"
"If you practice and your teacher approves it."
"I'll practice every day! Thank you, Mother," he said, clutching the pipe and crawling over to his mother on his knees to throw his arms around her. She murmured things in his ear, pet names and words of love and praise, and he relaxed against her a while before sitting beside her on the bed. "Did you get one for Thor, too?" he asked, having pictured himself at these lessons and inevitably picturing his brother beside him.
"No, only for you. This will give you something fun to do while Thor is at training."
Loki's smile faded. "But…I want to do it with Thor."
"I know. But you don't have to do everything together. You can learn the bellpipe until you turn ten, then, once you start training again, you can continue with music lessons, too, if you like, and Thor can begin it, if he wants to. He'll have a little bit of a head start in training, and you'll have a head start in playing."
"And we can do everything together again?"
His mother laughed. "Yes, if that's what you want."
Loki nodded enthusiastically, and his mother said he could begin learning the bellpipe the very next day.
He looked at the simple recorder, lacking the physical embellishments of the bellpipe as well as its storied history, at least according to Jane, and melancholy settled heavily over him. How much I have lost, he thought. Even if it was never truly mine…I wish it were. The last thought came out as a whisper even within his own mind, a thought he had tried so many times to will away, and had at times thought he'd succeeded. Why can I not at least still have her? She was a good mother. I disappointed her too often, too deeply. But how could I be other than what I am? How could I do anything but disappoint her? She knew what I was when she accepted me into her home. She should have told Odin no.
He narrowed his eyes, for he realized he had no idea what had happened when Odin brought home a screaming abandoned Frost Giant as a surprise homecoming gift for his wife who was already caring for an infant that was actually hers. Perhaps she did protest. Perhaps she tried. Perhaps she told him that a Frost Giant child could never fit in on Asgard, even in Aesir skin, that it could only bring chaos and destruction and shame. She was a paragon of virtue to have shown me such compassion for so long.
His gaze fell again on the recorder, but his vision blurred and in its place he saw that old bellpipe. There's no going back now. She believes I betrayed Asgard. She has no reason to believe I did not. He blinked heavily, trying to clear his vision, then brought his fingers to his eyes to rub them, and discovered they were wet. Angrily he wiped his eyes and face on his sleeve.
With clenched jaw he picked up the recorder. He would learn the Jurassic Park tune, as Jane suggested. And he would be done with the recorder. Then, perhaps he could make his own bellpipe, or at least something closely approximating it. And eventually, he would change things. Somehow, somewhere, sometime, he would change them so that at least he still had her. Or, perhaps not her, really, but her love. Her something other than disappointment. The red gem on his chest would glow constantly.
Even as he thought it, he knew he was letting a childhood memory have too much sway over him. He knew that tomorrow he would think differently. But that was tomorrow. For tonight he would indulge in this little self-deception. He could even imagine that the jewel was emblazoned with brilliant red this very second.
/
Speaking of the Jurassic Park theme, you may enjoy checking out this gorgeous version of it by googling "Jurassic Park theme on a Weissenborn by Thomas Oliver". Wow. I wish I could buy a copy.
Back to more relevant matters...it's exciting to hear some of your speculations about the story and where it may be headed. You don't know how badly I'd love to spill the beans. Speaking of (not) spilling the beans, thanks so much to "TheNineRealms" for the thumbs up and encouragement post-TDW viewing! And also for letting us know we're going to like this movie, without spoiling a bit of it, you're awesome! As for me, I bought marathon tix a few days ago (Thor, Avengers, TDW) for Nov. 7, which is the earliest we can get in the door here in the States. Super-psyched! Seeing Thor on the big screen for the first time will be awesome too.
Teasers for Ch. 73...which made me hesitate to call this chapter "Loss": Saturday is call-Tony day for Jane, and Tony's really still not cool with the whole hanging out with Loki for the winter thing, and worried about how cool Jane seems to be with it.
Excerpt:
"Well," Jane began, still hesitating, "nothing really relevant. He's worried. The only thing he ever saw you do was…well, lead an alien invasion against Earth. I've seen you play Pin the Tail on the Donkey."
Loki gave a grim smile behind the balaclava. "And you told him about that, didn't you?" Of course she had. What better way to persuade him of his meekness than to describe his participation in a children's game?