Beneath
Chapter Eighty-Five – Lessons
Loki rose early, donning the navy blue sweatshirt and pants that he'd allowed Jane to pick out for him in the little store, the "Polemart," as he'd heard it referred to for some reason. He didn't give the clothing a second thought; he'd worn both the green and gray set and the blue set several times now and found them practical, and even tolerably comfortable now that he'd broken them in and gotten used to them.
"Early" was 4 AM; Loki had never slept. Much like eating and drinking, Aesir – or, Loki supposed, all the peoples of the other realms – could function for longer periods without sleep than Midgardians, and while sleeping every night was still preferable and very much the norm, it was hardly uncommon for Loki's thoughts to keep him up all night.
A kernel of an idea had sprouted and grown into a concrete plan. A real use for this incredible new ability to travel through time, and he felt thoroughly invigorated by it. Full of energy and hyper-alert despite the sleepless night, he continued thinking about it even as he ran hard on the treadmill, gripping the handles and pushing the machine to its limits. And the best part was, he'd already done all the preparation. Under the circumstances he would create, his preparations would in fact be overkill in the extreme. He had planned for being wanted, but he would go to Alfheim when he was still a prince, when no realm sought his capture. Alfheim, not Svartalfheim. Not Brokk.
Loki smiled coldly and ran faster. He would see Brokk again, but only once he was in full command of magic and free of the curses. Past, present, future, it didn't matter. It would end the same way regardless: with Brokk's death. And Brokk would receive none of the mercy Loki had shown that Vanir warrior on Asgard.
The machine was now at its fastest setting and at its steepest incline, so Loki gripped the handles harder in an effort to somehow push himself harder. There was something strange – sterile, false, surreal, wrong – about being back in this quiet scientific outpost in the frozen wilderness. Yet at the same time he couldn't deny there was a kind of relief in it. It was familiar, predictable in its rhythms of life, safe – a place of peace dedicated solely to the pursuit of knowledge. The closest thing he had to a home. He had never relished battle as Thor always had. He'd trained for it, though, all his life, and participated in it many times, if on a smaller scale than what he'd observed on yesterday's journey. He'd felt the excitement of it, the way one could be pulled into it body, mind, and soul. He'd left in the middle of it yesterday, something he'd never done before. It weighed on him. When he closed his eyes, he could smell the dirt and sweat, hear the dull clanking of metal and cries of the gravely wounded, see the exhaustion and blood, feel the life draining out underneath his hands…
Loki stumbled as the handle in his right hand snapped off.
Well, he thought as he shut the treadmill off and came to a stop, I suppose that's enough running for now, anyway. He examined the damage to the equipment and found a bolt had been pried loose from how hard he'd been pulling at the handle. He looked around and found the bolt several feet away on the floor.
He was crouched on the ground, still trying to repair the damage to the bolt, when Brody came in, towel around his neck, wearing a sleeveless shirt and short pants.
"Lucas, what, did you break the thing?"
"It just came off," Loki said quickly. He didn't know how likely such an occurrence might be, but he hoped it was at least more likely than completely impossible.
"You break it, you buy it."
"Oh, ah, yes, of course. I'll pay for the damage," Loki agreed easily. There was plenty of blank paper in the Computer Room.
Loki did not expect the towel that suddenly snapped across his back. He straightened, every muscle tensed, and he squeezed the handle bar so hard he could feel it beginning to dent beneath his fingers; he made himself relax his fists, then carefully set the bar on the floor. His instinct, which he managed to keep control over, was to turn the bar into a weapon and strike back against the man's jaw.
"I'm pulling your leg, man, nobody's going to make you pay for that. Gary can probably fix it. Don't worry about it."
Loki nodded, attempting a smile. "Of course. I'll let him know." He picked up the satchel he'd left nearby on the floor, stood, and started toward the door.
"You're going? You should stay. I'm going to put Braveheart on. They'll never take our freedom!" Brody suddenly shouted in a voice that differed considerably from his own manner of speaking. "Gets the blood pumping, the legs peddling, the arms lifting."
"My blood is pumping well enough already, thank you. I'll leave you to it."
"Slacker," Brody called as he inserted the disk into the player and Loki turned to go.
In the bathroom, Loki stripped out of the clothes he'd actually managed to work up a sweat in, showered, and changed into silk slacks and the white button-down shirt with brown and green stripes he'd become rather fond of. The dirty clothes he bundled under his arm and took back to his chambers. He sat down at his desk and got to work drawing out the oils from the fabric, but found it slower than it should be and, like yesterday, eminently frustrating.
He stared at the door a long while, until he'd sufficiently set his pride aside, then strode down to Jane's room and knocked.
Jane looked over at the door from the e-mail she was typing out to Darcy. It was 6:30; it had to be Loki. She saved the draft and closed the laptop before going to the door.
"Good morning," Loki said, hair slightly damp and curling a bit at the ends.
"Good morning. How'd you sleep?"
"Fine. And you?"
"Good. What's up?"
"I have a request to ask of you. May I come in?"
Jane stepped aside and Loki came in and closed the door.
"I have been handling the cleaning of my clothes in my own way."
She nodded slowly. "I kind of figured that. I've never seen you in the Laundry Room."
"It has steadily become more difficult, without the services of an actual launderer," Loki said – true, if misleading.
"So you don't…handle the cleaning yourself normally?"
"Of course not. We have…there were servants who took care of the laundry."
"So…going down to the Laundry Room to do your own laundry is beneath you?" Jane asked. And if that was the case, Jane was fully prepared to rectify the situation.
"Being forced to exist in the place, in these circumstances, is beneath me," Loki bit out, more from the unpleasantness of this specific situation than from any actual bitterness toward the South Pole at this particular moment. "But no. I would launder my own clothing a hundred times over before I would perform dishpit duty again. However, I don't know how to use your machines."
Jane laughed; Loki's face reflected anger and she quickly stopped. "You figured out astrophysics in a couple of months. I think you can figure out a washing machine."
"Of course I can figure out a washing machine, Jane. But I presume they have them in Canada and the rest of the developed parts of your realm, do they not? Should Lucas Cane not know how to use one already? I don't wish to be observed in the process of figuring it out." Or to ruin the few articles of clothing I have during trial and error. He'd seen the machines while cleaning the floors in there and surreptitiously looked them over a few times, but there were many different settings to choose from, and Loki had no idea what speed the clothing should spin at or whether he needed an extra rinse or a pre-rinse or any number of other options available.
"Mm-hm. I see. So you want me to do your laundry for you, then?"
Loki wrinkled his brow. Jane, handling his clothing? It was an uncomfortable thought, and yet… "That wasn't what I meant…but…would you?"
Jane gave him a mocking frown and raised an eyebrow.
"Fine, I didn't want you to, anyway," he said with a frown of his own. "I wanted you to show me how to use the machines, when no one else is in there. That is my request."
"Okay," Jane agreed easily. "I'll help you, because that's what…because that's what friends do for each other," she said, averting her eyes after stumbling over the words. Loki had once told her flat-out that he didn't want her to be his friend, when she still thought he was Lucas, but more than that, it bothered her to think of Loki that way. It felt disloyal to Erik and Phil and Jocelyn and Mari and Dr. Schäfer and everyone else affected by what Loki had done here. But philosophical arguments were one thing, and what was staring her in the face was another. Loki asking her to show him how to do his laundry was staring her in the face, not Loki ordering her to bow down to him or attempting to conquer anything more than a lone washing machine. "But don't get any ideas about me standing in for your servants, okay? I'll show you how, and if you have questions later just ask, but I'm not doing it for you. Just so we're clear."
"Oh, we're very clear, Jane. You're far too impertinent to ever make a good servant. You wouldn't last a day," Loki said with a smirk, choosing to ignore Jane's reference to "friends." He didn't know if it was simply a set phrase devoid of real meaning, or if Jane did think of them as friends – that was rather hard to imagine – but what Jane thought was of no import. She was, for the most part, an acceptable companion for the time being, and if she wished to call that "friends" she was welcome to.
"One of my professors called me impertinent once. I told him he was disrespectful and asked if he called his male students 'impertinent' when they disagreed with him."
"Rest assured, my dear, I would apply the term to as many of your kind as deserve it, regardless of your gender."
"He told me he would, too, and he was full of it. You, I actually believe, strange as it is to say that. You want to give it a try now? Sunday's the busiest laundry day. We might get lucky on a Thursday morning. If anybody's in there we can try again later, and if we get interrupted, we'll just…talk about something else. Pretend we're waiting on a load to get finished."
"Better to be done with it," Loki said. It was still awkward, but he was relieved that at least Jane had not continued laughing.
"Okay. Go get your laundry, and I'll finish up the e-mail I was writing and I'll meet you down- Hey, you're pink again," Jane said, stepping closer and noting the extra color on Loki's nose.
"The gym," Loki said, leaning back away from her a little. "Hence the need for laundering."
"Ah. Got it." Loki left, and Jane sat back down to finish up her e-mail to Darcy. "I'm going to have some stories to tell when I leave here that you won't even believe," she typed out before clicking send. It was hard to really picture herself telling this to Darcy, though. Or to anyone, really. Some things, sure, but there was a strange sense in which they really were living on a small island instead of a continent, securely walled off by water, and some things belonged only on this island at the bottom of the Earth.
Loki was already there when Jane got down to the Laundry Room on the first level; two of the white front-loader machines were running, but no one else was there. "Okay, what have we got here?" Jane asked looking at the pile of clothes on top of the long table in the center of the room. "Sweatpants, sweatshirt. I'm glad you're using them."
"They're convenient," Loki said with a nod.
"Wow, this is really stained," Jane said, pulling out one of his dark shirts that she assumed were Asgardian. She wasn't sure what the original color was. "Is that blood?" she asked with a grimace, holding it now between the tips of a finger and thumb and trying to recall if it was the same one he'd had on when he came back from Asgard with half a sword protruding from his back.
"Yes," Loki said, snatching it out of her hands. "I don't need you to examine and comment on every article of my clothing. I only need you to show me which settings to choose on this machine."
"Okay. Lesson one: the settings depend on the type of clothing you put in. And those pants…are those silk?"
Loki frowned and gave Jane something very close to one of those looks she'd once insisted he cease giving her. There was something unnecessarily personal about her sorting through his clothing. "They are," he said when it became clear Jane wasn't moving on until he answered.
"You're not going to like this, but you're going to have to hand-wash those. And anything else that's silk. I can tell you how to do it. And your stuff from Asgard…what's that made of?"
"I have only a few tunics here, and they're so damaged already it won't matter terribly much if they're any further ruined. I don't know what to call the material. It's a blend of several types of fiber." Loki was beginning to regret bringing everything down here; it wasn't as though everything actually needed laundering right away. But everything would, at least until he could get to Alfheim.
Jane nodded, and told Loki to take out everything made of silk, which he did. She spotted his white dress shirt and had him take that out as well. Just as she was beginning to explain the different functions on the machine – it was a lot fancier than any washing machine she'd ever owned, and it had taken her a few minutes of playing around with it to figure it all out herself – Elliot, one of the Clean Sector scientists, came in. They talked about weekend plans while Elliot got his load of laundry going, and Jane mentioned Part 2 of the Indiana Jones marathon on Sunday. Elliot said he might come for the third one.
"How about you, Loki?" she asked once Elliot was gone and the door closed.
"Indiana Jones? I don't know."
"The third one's good. The fourth one's kind of weird, but I liked it. You should come."
"Perhaps. Do you know Braveheart?"
Jane wrinkled her brow in surprise as she nodded. "I saw it a long time ago. Most of it, anyway. I missed a lot of it with my eyes closed behind my hand. Mel Gibson, before his mid-life crisis. Why do you ask?"
"Idle curiosity. Someone mentioned it."
"We might have it here, if you want to see it. Once was enough for me. Too violent for my taste. But it's a fun movie, you know, little guy taking on the big guy. It's loosely based on historical events. Maybe…thirteenth or fourteen century? Something like that. Wow. When you were already a few hundred years old. That's just weird." The door opened. "But, yeah, it's a pretty good movie. It won a bunch of Oscars."
"What won a bunch of Oscars?" Austin asked, carrying a white laundry basket over to one of the machines that had stopped running a few minutes ago.
"Braveheart," Jane answered.
"You've never seen Braveheart? We're going to have to fix that. They'll never take our freedom!" he added in a subdued shout.
While Austin tried to pin Loki down to a day to watch the movie, Jane suddenly had a guess about why Loki had asked about it. "Do you know what the movie's about?" she asked when they were alone again.
"I gather it's about someone trying to take someone else's freedom," Loki answered drily.
"Yeah. Well, honestly, I don't remember much of the details, and history was never really my thing, but it's about one group of people, the Scots, led by a man named William Wallace, and they're fighting for freedom from another group of people, the English."
"Given what I've seen of your movies thus far, William faces seemingly insurmountable odds, but then with his wit and courage and…conviction he defeats his enemies and wins his freedom. Am I right?"
"No, actually. I think he has some victories along the way, really it's been a long time since I saw it, but in the end he's captured and executed in a really awful gruesome way."
"No happy ending? I must admit, I'm surprised. So much for his struggle for freedom."
"He died for his ideals. And he inspired others to continue the fight. I think the point was that some things are worth dying for."
"Freedom isn't one of them," Loki shot back. "It's an illusion."
"Erik told me about that speech you gave, when you first came to Earth. How you wanted to make us free from freedom. How freedom is a lie. What was all that about?"
"We shouldn't talk about this," Loki said. He had no desire to get into an argument with Jane at the moment. His laundry sat sorted and ignored.
"Why not? We've talked about everything else. I want to know what you meant."
"I think it's quite clear. Your people clamor incessantly for freedom. And what good does it do them? Does it bring them happiness? Prosperity? Peace? Your realm is divided, and even now it divides further. Do you wish to each be your own king, your own queen? The most powerful person in your group of one? You can declare that your freedom is absolute while you starve in the anarchy. However you choose to define freedom, once you have it, does it change anything? We are all what we are born. We all have a destiny. Freedom is just an idea, prey that deceives you into chasing it even though it can never truly be caught. Why waste your energy?"
"If you'd won then, in New York, and everywhere else, you would have shown us the error of our ways and united us all in bowing down to you and happily giving up our freedom?"
"I would have made you recognize the fallacy of having freedom in the first place, so you could stop striving for it and live your life in peace."
Jane wrinkled her brow and shook her head, trying to follow what Loki was saying and finding she really couldn't. "Do you really believe everything you're saying? Because frankly you sound delusional."
Loki grit his teeth for a moment, but then let it go. "Well, now that that's settled, could we please see to my laundry?"
"All right, all right. But seriously, did you really mean all that? Or was it just part of making an entrance? You wanted to sound…I don't know…" "Crazy" was all that really came to mind. She thought maybe "impressive" or "deep" or just plain "scary," but really it all just sounded crazy.
"Of course I meant it," Loki said as the door began to open again. "And I am no more free than you," he said quietly, before Paul entered. He considered it further; he wasn't sure he would have said that at the time, though it was just as true then as it was now. Or was it, he wondered, thinking then of Pathfinder and the ability to change time. "Perhaps a little more," he added.
Jane gave him a quick look, unsure what to make of all that, but turned her attention to Paul, who was moving his laundry into the dryer. They chatted briefly, and Paul left.
"Far be it for me to be rude in the face of your generosity, Jane, but can we please get on with the laundry now, before Elliot returns for his clothing or someone else comes in?"
"Since you're being so polite about it," Jane said, then went through all the settings on the machine and when to use them. It was a surreal experience, really, explaining things to a grown man that even an older child would know from exposure if not from experience. Loki synthesized it all easily, though, as she'd known he would, and the fact that cold water was their only option here simplified things further. She doubted he would ever have to come back to her with questions.
They had two more interruptions while she was trying to explain how to wash and dry his silks, and then they were done.
"Loki, where will you go when we leave here?" Jane asked as he went to the table and gathered up the items that hadn't gone into the washing machine.
"Somewhere warm and humid," he answered automatically.
"Austin's going to Bali. I bet it'll be warm and humid there."
"Perhaps I'll ask if I can join him," Loki said. He wasn't being serious, of course, and Jane didn't seem to react as though he were. "Will you be returning to Puente Antiguo?"
"I really don't know," Jane said, a little uncomfortably. "I'm not entirely sure what I want to do after all this. I thought I wanted to get back into academia, but now…maybe I'm better off working with SHIELD, much as I hate to say it. If I'm really going to put Pathfinder to the test, figure out where all those other branches go, it's their kind of resources I'm going to need behind me. Anyway, the first place I'll go is California. Tony invited me to use his place there. Warm, sunny, ocean views…paradise."
"Except for the disagreeable aura of Tony Stark."
"He's stuck to his word, hasn't he?"
"Because he doesn't wish to be killed."
"Loki, don't start. Tony…" Whatever Jane had been about to say slipped from her mind entirely when she remembered something Tony had told her during their sat phone call yesterday. "Um…so…Tony happened to mention that you can make yourself look like other people."
"Did he?" Loki asked, looking with disguised longing at the door. Tony had never witnessed such a thing, nor had anyone else at that time; Loki hadn't been interested in disguising himself. Which meant Thor had been sharing information, unfortunately, and that information was now trickling back to Jane. How regrettable, he thought, that they're getting along so much better now. It was so entertaining watching them trying to kill each other.
"I'm not going to ask if it's true, because I already know it's true, but…will you show me?"
No was on the tip of Loki's tongue, his automatic answer to all such questions from her. But then he reconsidered. It would do no harm. It might even be fun. "Go stand in front of the door. I don't want any surprises."
Jane's eyes lit up; she couldn't believe he was actually going to do it. She hurried over to the door, and when she turned to put her back to it, she gasped and jerked back, banging her head into the door.
"Are you all right?" her own voice asked, in Loki's accent.
She nodded slowly, staring straight into her own brown eyes. It was like looking in a mirror, except the reflection wore its own expression, reminiscent of one of Loki's smirks. Her face, her hair in the same low ponytail she now wore, her navy blue shirt with the blue-and-white plaid flannel over it, and then…Loki's legs, appearing beneath a fuzzy irregular kind of blur, in a rough diagonal from his left thigh up to the right side of his chest.
Loki followed her eyes downward and frowned in Jane's face. "Creating the entire body demands much more effort. I thought this partial demonstration might suffice," he said, and hoped she would not know enough about his abilities to doubt him. He was pleased with the voice, even if he didn't bother with trying to mimic her speech patterns – it was much better than when he'd briefly taken Jane's form back in McMurdo.
Jane stepped slowly forward until she was next to "herself" again, reached out a hesitating finger, and touched what looked for all the world like her own shoulder, albeit a bit higher up than hers. It was solid, no shimmering away in translucent green and gold. Even the fabric of the flannel felt just like hers.
"I'm real, Jane. Not like the illusion of the orange I showed you."
"Then…what is it? I mean, how do you do it?"
"It's just a matter of modifying the structure of the underlying particles, and then allowing them to revert to their natural state," Loki said. Or to their unnatural state, Loki thought, for when he reverted to his own form, it was not truly his natural state.
"But how do you… Wait. Go ahead and revert back to your natural state now, okay? Because this is really, really freaky. I didn't expect you to make yourself look like me."
"Doing what others expect you to is exceedingly dull," Loki said, this time using Jane's accent and a wicked grin. "This is much better."
"Loki, come on. Somebody could-" Just as she was about to say it, the door opened and Jane turned to see Ken and Olivia walking in with a bucket and mop and a second bucket full of cleaning supplies. It was Thursday, the second house mouse day of the week. Jane whirled back around, but it was Loki facing her again, back in his own striped shirt.
"You guys need a few minutes to finish up?" Ken asked.
"We were just leaving. Go right ahead," Loki said, putting an arm gently to Jane's back and urging her forward, in case she was in some kind of stupor from the rapid changes. Her first step hitched, but then she seemed to recover and exchanged quick greetings with the other two before they left the Laundry Room.
They went to the galley, and Jane hurried to get ahead of him and grabbed one of the smaller round tables for them. Loki looked rather pleased with himself and it irked her somewhat, but if she could just wrangle a few more answers from him it would all be worth it.
"Our second day free of house mouse duties," Loki said after dropping into the seat across from her.
"Yeah. Thanks again for that, by the way."
"You're welcome. How can you eat that?"
"Grits? They're good."
"They're revolting."
"Luckily no one's forcing you to eat them. So will you tell me how you do that? Change your appearance?"
"Jane…"
"Loki" – Jane's head snapped up and away from him, but no one else seemed to have overheard – "Lucas, please. What harm would it do to tell me?"
Loki took a bite of sausage and chewed slowly. It was true that it would harm nothing to tell her, he supposed. It was also true that he had no way to really explain it to her in the first place, as he'd already told her. By the time he swallowed, he'd figured out what he would say. "Lift your fork."
Jane's eyes went wide for just a second; she hadn't believed he'd actually give in, but then she realized maybe he still hadn't. Regardless, she quickly did as he said, holding it up and out as though she were going to feed a child.
"How did you do that?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's a simple question. How did you lift the fork?"
"I just did it."
"Mmmmm."
Loki wore an expression like one of her professors who'd never come right out and tell you you'd said something he thought was stupid, but just sit back and give you a look and wait for you to figure it out on your own. "Oh, come on. You know what I mean. My muscles…I don't know, contracted and flexed, because of electrical impulses sent from my brain through my nervous system."
"I see. Tell me how you generated those electrical impulses and caused them to travel to your arm and compel your muscles to contract and lift the fork."
Jane put the fork down on her plate and slumped back in her chair, deflated. It only lasted a moment though, and then she was sitting up straight and leaning forward again. "I can't. It's something you learn to control from infancy, like muscle control in general. But you can also learn to control muscles as an adult. A grad school friend of mine did an experiment where he spent hours each day holding a foot up and concentrating until he could move each of his toes independently. Science geek, don't ask. So are you saying it's like a muscle that you have to learn to control?"
"That's a vast oversimplification, but the analogy is not so far off. You need a certain…spark for it, or perhaps, a sense that it's there, that this particular 'muscle' exists, before you can learn to use it. Even then, most never really do."
"So it's a talent, or a skill. Like being a great musician, or an athlete."
"I suppose."
"Could humans learn to do it?"
"I highly doubt it."
"But you don't know for certain."
"I have learned that few things in life are certain. Perhaps none."
Jane frowned. Life in a world where nothing was certain would be difficult. She wanted to press Loki on this further, but he was answering questions about magic that he never had before, and she didn't want to get sidetracked. "Did you go to some kind of magic school?" She had to stop herself from adding "like Harry Potter," since she figured he wouldn't have any idea who that was and didn't want to get distracted by having to explain it.
"Magic school," Loki repeated with a short soft laugh. "No. I had a few tutors here and there. But I was destined to be a warrior. I am a warrior," he said, thinking of what he'd been doing just yesterday, the memory dampening his unexpected interest in this conversation. "It was not particularly encouraged that I substitute training in magic for training in battle. Except…except for Frigga."
"Your mother? She encouraged you to learn magic?"
Loki nodded tersely. "She knew I was good at it. Jane, if you'll excuse me now, I wanted to have a few minutes on the internet before we start work today."
Jane sat up even straighter. "But…but you've hardly eaten anything. We've still got plenty of time. There's no rush."
"I've said all I care to on this matter. And I've also eaten all I care to of this…food. Where shall I meet you?"
"Um, okay then. Let's go to the DSL today, at least for the morning. One of the devices out there was giving me some weird readings yesterday and I want to check on it."
Loki nodded and started to stand.
"Lucas, wait. One more question, please?"
"All right," he said with a frown that he hoped communicated that he was through indulging her curiosity for the day.
"You, uh, you haven't been going around looking like other people, have you? Like me?" Jane asked nervously. It was the first question she'd wanted to ask, really, but she'd been afraid that if she started with this one, she'd never even get the chance to ask how he did it, much less actually get an answer.
"I have no need to. And believe me, I have no desire to, either. This form is the only one I care to wear," Loki answered resolutely. And if the first part of his answer skirted the truth, the last was perhaps the most sincere thing he'd ever said in his life. "I'll see you at the DSL."
Jane nodded and watched him go. She'd wanted to somehow extract a promise from him that he wouldn't do so in the future, either – it was a dangerous ability – but she supposed what he'd said would have to suffice. It wasn't as though she could force Loki to promise her anything, and it wasn't as though she had any means of ensuring he kept such promises either. Still, Tony was right; she'd have to keep this newly discovered ability in mind. Loki masquerading as her was an uncomfortable thought on many levels. Loki masquerading as Thor, or SHIELD's Director Fury, or the President of the United States or some other world leader, that was a truly frightening thought.
She thought maybe she should have asked him if he could go poof, too, but figured that after she'd explained what "going poof" meant, he'd just say "Don't be ridiculous, Jane," and laugh.
/
...The chapter in which plot was supposed to happen...but did not. ;-) I hope you enjoyed it regardless! I had fun with it.
This chapter's shorter than average, so here are responses to guest reviews. You can of course skip this if you want to get to the "regular" end-of-chapter stuff, but if you were wondering what's up with Selby you might want to take a look at the below for a reminder (I bold-faced it):
"Guest" (Feb. 14) - here you go, and thanks!
"Polka-Dot-Sally" - Yes, if you imagine things staying basically as they are now, I could totally see this leading to tension between Thor and Jane. Thor hoped for a little understanding from Jane on Loki...not for them to wind up pals hanging out for months on end developing their own in-jokes and shared experiences.
"Guest" (Feb. 13) - that's some 65,000 - 75,000 words per night, whew! And thanks!
"Guest" (Feb. 12) - Selby's paranoid because of the e-mail Loki sent him (looking like it's from SHIELD), and Jane's the only person he's talked to about that so he assumes she must have told someone and blames her. (Jane, of course, has no idea about this.) The e-mail can be found in Ch. 42 "D-Day." (It would freak me out.)
"kyermehtar" - That's some 200,000 words a night! You all amaze me with your speed reading. Re the booze, Loki has a risk-taker streak. He likes bold moves and accepts the risks that come with them. You're right, Tony hasn't noticed the missing booze. Alcohol inventory wasn't his top priority in the chaos. He may never notice it. Or he might. ;-) As for your other ideas...hmmm...some good ones there...I can neither confirm nor deny. Love what you said about Loki in NZ. I was really expecting someone to call me on him being kind of out-of-character there! And thanks for commenting re the Pole! And thanks also for the warm wishes.
"Jenna789": See above for some of what's up with Selby. Of course, there could always be more to it. You're probably right to be concerned - Loki really doesn't like Selby, which is hazardous for one's health.
"Guest" (Feb. 9) - Thanks!
"jaquelinelittle" - Loki's known there was a problem there even since New Zealand, but he was in a way in denial about it. Now he's faced up to it and preparing to deal with it. Loki sees a shared destiny between him an Thor, sons of enemy kings raised together, and thinks their end must come down to the two of them. But at a subconscious level, perhaps he just didn't want Thor to die. Though after what he observed that may have changed. Still, he probably already does have a copy of the evil overlord mistakes list. ;-) A scary thought, had the Dark Elf succeeded. Raises a basic question of succession, too, which I almost got into at one point in here but changed my mind.
"Guest" (Feb. 5) - See above for some of what's up with Selby. And isolated locations like this are indeed ripe for horror movie motifs...but I neither confirm nor deny.
"Guest" (Feb. 5) - In strange little ways, yes, they are growing fond of each other. And awww, thanks!
"This Guest" - Thanks so much! It was my goal to write this as realistically as possible in terms of character development, so I appreciate that. Also thanks re Thor, yes, he's an individual in his own right, and he's matured a lot from the things he's experienced recently, though still with room to grow. And ah, yes, there are a couple of things in there most everyone has probably missed...but don't worry, we'll get there! Glad you're enjoying it, thanks!
And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...thank you all for your support and your patience with the delay on this chapter. I will be disappearing from here for a few more days sometime in the near future, so again, if you are one of those who regularly checks my profile page for updates on this story (I usually update it every day, sometimes more than once per day), and you don't hear from me on there for a while, never fear, this story will continue to the bitter (happy?) end.
Previews for Ch. 86: Loki runs an internet search and gets a surprise; Jane makes a decision Loki doesn't like; ninepen wonders if she already titled a chapter "Tension" (yes, too bad).
And excerpt (ach, sorry, I couldn't really find a decent one):
Loki grit his teeth and was glad that Jane could not see the mild panic he'd probably failed to entirely keep from showing on his face. "Why do you want to bring it back here?"