This chapter begins on Asgard. If you've forgotten what's been going on there, the last Asgard-based chapter (in the present time!) was Ch. 92 "Grails." That was many chapters ago, but only three days ago.
Beneath
Chapter One Hundred One – Gifts
"Enough!" Thor shouted angrily, and the throne room fell silent.
The members of the War Council, plus Maeva who was present to check and double-check that the area around the throne remained soundproof, looked up at him expectantly. He had no answers. He'd wanted answers from them. Instead he'd gotten arguments. Loud ones. Fierce ones. And now a fistfight between First Palace Einherjar Huskol and another senior Einherjar. Jolgeir generally took on an unassuming air in his professional capacity, appearing calm and observant but detached until circumstances dictated he behave otherwise – in which case the change was instantaneous and unmistakable. Huskol, with whom Thor had much less experience, could apparently be a hothead. It was Jolgeir himself who'd stepped between the two, pushing Huskol back with the force of his chest. So many voices had been raised that Thor hadn't even caught what they were arguing about.
He had never seen so much chaos at a formal meeting. Strong opinions, arguments, yes; the Aesir were, after all, a race of warriors. Nothing like this. How does Father do this? He remembered then – Odin actually had told him how he did this, in part, at least. Before the war began, after he'd sat in on Odin's meeting with Gullveig, the same meeting at which Gullveig's chief of security affixed some sort of explosive device to the wall of Odin's office, his father told him that he would send his advisors away to collect their thoughts, then have them present them the next day so that stronger voices did not drown out weaker ones. Thor had already forgotten. And truthfully, Odin could have told him that twenty times before over the course of his life, and he'd simply never listened. He should have taken more control over this meeting, directed each person to speak one by one, with no interruptions. But he was tired from fighting the other realms, and did not expect fighting to break out among his own people.
It had been three days since he'd asked Tyr to come up with ideas for how to go after Gullveig, "the bolder the better," and begin discussing them with the War Council. He couldn't have imagined how his words, passed on by Tyr to the council, would set Aesir blood aboil. Asgard, those on the War Council included, was angry. And the possibility of going on the offensive, of taking the fight to the enemy, lit them on fire. No blow stung worse than a blow from an ally, and Vanaheim had been the closest of allies. King Gullveig personified Vanaheim. Those on the War Council and in the Assembly knew of the vanity he'd displayed, a hint of smoke always about him that had roared into a blaze in the run-up to war. They knew he'd taken advantage of a peace-time meeting with the All-Father to set up an explosive blast that had taken innocent Asgardian lives. They knew of his fear of his own people turning against him, as Thor and Odin had suspected early on and as displayed in increasingly repressive tendencies that threatened Thor's own cousin. They knew his orders had forced those who'd sworn an oath not to fight against Asgard again to return to battle.
They could capture Gullveig. They could kill him. They could put him on display in front of his palace and humiliate him in whatever ways were necessary until he confessed his vain and greedy designs on Asgard.
They could stage a coup and install Thor as king of both realms. They could install Gullveig's son as a puppet. They could install Gillaug Vedottir as queen – this Thor knew Gilla would never accept, hard as she'd tried to avoid political entanglement like her father, so as not be seen as a threat to Vanaheim.
No one had quite gotten around to how they would accomplish any of these things. First Thor would have to make a decision about which route he wished to pursue. He'd quickly come to wish he'd been more specific with what he was asking Tyr, but then, he'd almost as quickly come to realize he hadn't really known exactly what he was asking Tyr. He'd simply felt the necessity of going on the offensive.
He did know they could hardly tie Gullveig to a post and flog him without ceasing until he spoke whatever words would cease the attacks on Asgard. Anger and frustration led to such suggestions, an occasionally selective sense of honor led to them being shouted down, and the resulting sense of personal insult led to fists flying.
This was the first meeting he'd held in the throne room in his nine days as king. He did not sit on the throne, but rather stood at the foot of the steps with the others. He'd looked at it when he entered, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He did carry Gungnir now – he'd felt he should, given the continuity with his father that it symbolized – but only while in the palace. When fighting he stayed true to the weapon that had been in his hand for a thousand years.
"Maeva, what say you?" he called to the woman standing several feet away from the loose cluster of men.
She looked up at him, startled. "I am not a member of the War Council, Your Majesty," she said. She was here to keep them shrouded, so that neither their voices could be heard nor their lip movements seen.
Thor watched her for a moment, and she him. "You are now." He saw the open mouths on some of those in the room but ignored them. Maeva did not fit their definition of a warrior, but Thor was ready for a new voice, and he knew how critical her skills had been in their war effort thus far. Perhaps it wasn't entirely too late to ensure the strong voices didn't drown out the weak…though he'd heard Maeva and Loki arguing long ago, and he would not precisely call her voice "weak."
"As it pleases you. At the risk of a dislocated jaw," she began, glancing around at the others, "I think that whatever we do…we must not turn the people of Vanaheim against us. They did not choose this war; they merely follow their king. And a growing number of them, small though it may still be, do not even do that."
"We're tracking the prisoners and enemy casualties through our threat imaging repository," Jolgeir put in. "We know of six more Vanir who we paroled upon their oaths, and who returned here. One was captured fighting, two were identified after death, three deserted upon reaching Asgard. The numbers are small, but it may be significant nonetheless. The Vanir do not share our warrior culture…but they are not cowards. They would not easily choose to bear the shame of desertion."
"Unless the shame of breaking their oath to Asgard's king would be even worse," Volstagg said with a nod.
"A terrible choice their own king forced them to make," Thor said. "We can't base our actions on the desertion of three Vanir. Four, including the one I found. But Maeva's point is well taken. As much as I would like to make Gullveig suffer for what he's done…as much as I would like to see him forcibly removed from his throne…we must find a way to strike without making the Vanir truly see us as an enemy."
"Gullveig's dishonor should not mean our own," Fandral said with a certain amount of resignation; he'd been one of those in favor of a coup. Upon becoming king, Thor had asked him and Hogun to join Volstagg on the War Council as well, and he appreciated their presence here as well. He'd considered asking Sif, but he knew she would say yes out of duty and detest every minute of it; like him – like he used to be – she had no patience for such things.
"There is no dishonor in deposing a foreign king who declared war on Asgard, and who killed Aesir even before doing so," Huskol said, voice low with continued anger.
Maeva shook her head. "It isn't a question of honor. It's a question of perception."
"Perception?" First Einherjar Hergils responded with raised voice. "Well, let us lay down our weapons to show them how peace-loving we are."
"I certainly suggested no such thing, Hergils. And if you think perception does not matter in war, then you are a fool," Maeva shouted, and Thor began to worry for her jaw.
"Of course perception matters in war. But survival also matters in war. We cannot simply wait here while they send an endless supply of men. Do you not understand that? We have to do more than defend Asgard with our own dwindling numbers. By the time they've all decided to perceive us as we like, we'll be down to a few women and children sitting on piles of rubble and clutching stones to throw!" Hergils shouted.
The council erupted again, and Thor let the shouts blur into one another as he withdrew into his own thoughts. They were right. That was the problem; they were all right. Few were willing to say so aloud, many perhaps still could not even believe it – for the Aesir were a proud people, sometimes too proud – but the numbers Tyr reported told a harsh tale that sooner or later they were going to have to truly face. Sooner, lest it be too late. Man for man, Asgard's warriors were living up to every bit of their lore, cutting through the enemy, felling far more than they themselves lost, taking injuries and returning to fight again. But no matter how bravely and ferociously they fought, and on top of that no matter how many clever battlefield ploys Tyr or Odin or Thor himself or any of them came up with, no matter what words Bragi's "special advocates" on the other realms spoke, no matter how much food came in from Midgard, no matter how many inspiring speeches Thor gave before or after a new battle began, it would simply not be enough. Not unless something changed significantly.
But even if they did go to Vanaheim and kill or capture Gullveig – the voice of the unified seven realms – they would suddenly be faced with the unwieldy task of maintaining control over the enormous realm of Vanaheim while still defending Asgard as Svartalfheim opened their temporary portals to send in more warriors. There weren't enough Asgardians to do both. And the idea that Thor would be named king of Vanaheim was laughable; he was barely managing to be king of Asgard.
Not to mention, while "bold" had sounded right when he'd said it to Tyr, these ideas all seemed wrong in some way. The same way, really. Vanaheim was Asgard's closest ally, and had been for all of Thor's life and much of Odin's. Many of Vanaheim's citizens opposed the war, and while their reasons were varied, for many it was out of a sense of longstanding partnership, even kinship, with Asgard. Kinship, Thor thought, as the arguing continued around him, ignored. That's the heart of it. We may be angry at Gullveig, but we do not wish to reign over Vanaheim, to conquer it and take its throne, not even indirectly. Vanaheim is our sister-realm. We have long been equals, even if we on Asgard have sometimes seen our own ways as superior. They rely on the leadership of our warriors and on our purses; we rely on their numbers to supplement our own and on their agricultural expertise and production. We are each of us diminished without the other. Taking Vanaheim's throne would be an offense against us both. Melancholy settled over Thor. It seemed this pattern of thinking led straight back to inaction. Yet we cannot do nothing.
Thor was convinced there should be a good idea out there among all these people on the War Council, among his friends. He should have an idea – he was king after all, and he had had a few good ones over the course of this war. Yet when a situation called for true cunning and wit, for finding the fine shades of gray between the black and white, he could not avoid recognizing that it was so often Loki who had those ideas. He sighed and looked back out over the group before him. We are each of us diminished without the other. On several occasions Thor had thought that Loki might be of use here in this war, if he could be trusted, but never before, since things had gone so terribly wrong, had he so longed for his brother at his side.
Thor narrowed his eyes. A guard stood just outside their protected bubble, waving, eyes wandering about, for the people inside were obscured. Thor struck Gungnir against the ground, sending a disproportionately loud clanging sound reverberating through the group. It was the first time he'd done anything with Gungnir other than simply hold it, and it struck him as odd how instinctively he'd done it.
"Maeva," he said as soon as all was again silent. He pointed; she followed his eyeline, motioned with her left hand, and nodded back.
The Einherjar's eyes immediately found Thor and he hurried forward and gave a quick salute with his fist. He then found Maeva at the back of the group. "Can you…?"
She motioned again. "No one will hear you."
He turned back to Thor. "Your Majesty, Heimdall has spotted King Nadrith on Asgard."
/
/
Thor found the battle in question easily enough: a large contingent of Light Elves against a much smaller contingent of Asgardians, regular citizenry on the ground and Einherjar atop the wall and in the tower the elves were targeting. Three such towers had already been destroyed, weakening the net-like shielding that had thus far prevented any large interspatial portal from opening inside the city. Three towers was not so critical a loss, and builders were attempting to rebuild them, but First Engineer Fjolvar had advised that if seven or eight towers were lost, the "holes" in the net would be forced to expand, and at around fifteen lost of the 82 towers, the holes would become large enough for the Dark Elves to send armies through, if they opened portals in the right spots. If thirty or more were lost, Asgard's wall would be little more than conventional stone that the Dark Elves could virtually ignore, sending tens of thousands of warriors directly to the palace doorstep.
The air was cloudy with kicked up dust, which put him at a disadvantage – he could make out little of the Light Elves with their brown cloth and leather attire, but his bright red cape as he flew above them with Mjolnir caught their attention and drew the arrows from several of those who'd been fighting with swords but carried bows strapped on their backs. He dropped to the ground and joined the melee, but his fighting was half-hearted. As much as he wanted to help defend the tower, that was not his purpose here. He worked his way through the enemy army without slowing to attempt to take down all that were in his path.
And then he spotted him. Nadrith and two other elves were steadily pressing an Asgardian back toward the wall, while a fourth elf was shouting something indistinguishable against the noise of the battle. Warning him, Thor thought. But if Nadrith was foolish enough to come here, Thor was not going to be foolish enough to let him leave. One of the other elves and the Asgardian fell before he could reach them; Thor hoped the Asgardian would survive but he did not take his focus off Nadrith, now being dragged away by the elf who'd been shouting at him before. Nadrith's left hand was at his chest while his right gripped his sword when Thor slammed into him from behind, knocking him face-first to the ground. He heard rather than felt pings striking his armor, a few arrows that failed to reach flesh, along with shouts to stop shooting.
"He has the king!" one of them shouted from not far away.
Nadrith had been struggling underneath him, but now he went slack. Thor's punishing hold on his right hand let up, and Nadrith's fingers uncurled from the grip of his sword. He pushed hard against the back of Nadrith's neck just below his helmet, pressing his face into the ground, then wrapped an arm around him and hauled him up.
The battle had fallen silent, almost as though there'd never been a battle at all, but for the bodies and gasping injured on the ground. "Surrender now, and you will not be harmed," Thor shouted at the elves, though shouting was unnecessary. Thor could feel Nadrith's chest heaving harder, and then his prisoner began to speak.
"Will you turn coward because your king is captured? Or will you fight on in my-" Thor cut him off with a hard punch to the jaw, banging the other side of his face against Thor's armored shoulder and leaving him stunned and slack, but only for a moment before he began struggle again. "Attack!" he shouted.
With the first arrow fired toward the tower, Thor spun Mjolnir around then heaved it upward by its strap and launched both of them up and away from the renewed fighting. Nadrith presumably had no desire to plummet to the ground, for though Thor now held him pinned only around his abdomen he made no attempt to get free. They reached a clearing where there was no fighting in sight and Thor started to descend, but well before he reached the ground he let go and watched as Nadrith instinctively pulled himself into almost a ball to try to protect himself from the impact. A snapping sound told Thor a bone had probably broken; when Nadrith tried to get up and his left arm collapsed underneath it he was certain it had. A part of him whispered that he should feel some sort of guilt over this, but the rest of him ignored it.
Thor stepped down lightly beside him. "Why are you here, Nadrith? Have you forgotten what I said I would do if you returned here as Asgard's enemy?"
Nadrith nodded once as he made it to his feet this time. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "I believe you said I'd never leave Asgard alive."
"And yet here you are."
"My warriors" – he paused, spat blood – "fight on a foreign realm. Of course I lead them, and fight alongside them. Would you really expect otherwise? Would you do otherwise, would your father, if the situation were reversed?"
"The situation would never be reversed. Asgard would never attack Alfheim like this."
"No, Asgard never attacks anyone, does it?" Nadrith tugged with his right hand against a leather strap running across his chest, jostling his clothing and sending bits of dirt and stone to the ground beneath him. "A land of peace and harmony."
Thor watched his movements carefully. "I'm not having this argument with you. You know full well that Asgard means no harm to Alfheim or any other realm."
"Jotunheim and Midgard might beg to differ." He grasped another strap and repeated his movements.
"Jotunheim was foolishness that will not be repeated, and it is between us and them. I helped stop Loki's actions against Jotunheim and Midgard. Asgard had nothing to do with the attack on Midgard."
"Since you don't want to argue, perhaps I shouldn't remind you that Loki is an Asgardian prince, hm?"
"Do you seek to delay your death, Nadrith? With tired words?" Thor asked. He would not be baited into discussing Loki. He had not forgotten how Nadrith had insulted him the last time they'd spoken.
"It's true I don't exactly relish the thought," he said, hand still fumbling and shaking away at the leather over his chest. "But now that you mention it, why are you delaying it? You're the one with the hammer. I'm defenseless."
Nadrith glanced up and to his right; Thor turned to see what had distracted him. Before his head was fully turned he registered the increased tension in Nadrith's face and posture as he'd done it and he turned back around to see Nadrith taking off at a run in the opposite direction. Thor didn't immediately react; it seemed a childish and cowardly move. Thor could fly faster than Nadrith could run, and if by some strange circumstance Thor didn't manage to catch him, he was an elf in a deserted area of Asgard and wouldn't be able to evade capture for long.
Then he saw the shimmering silver edges of the portal.
He drew Mjolnir back. He could not allow that to happen.
It was perhaps forty feet away, and Nadrith was over half-way there. The angle was risky, but his shoulder was almost fully healed and his confidence in Mjolnir was absolute. "No more delay!" Thor shouted as he hurled the hammer.
Mjolnir struck its target, and made just half a rotation more beyond Nadrith's shoulder before righting itself and racing back to Thor's palm. The king of Alfheim, meanwhile, cried out, lost his footing, and tumbled forward, spinning around with Mjolnir's momentum and landing on his back. He was several feet short of the portal and no longer moving.
Thor approached him slowly. It was tempting to continue on through the portal and take the war to the enemy right now. But "the enemy" was an unknown – he couldn't know which realm it led to, much less how many of the enemy and what kind of defenses were on the other side. Thor was strong and gifted in battle – but he was not invincible, the lingering soreness in his upper arm reminded him. And the plan was to capture Nadrith, not risk getting himself captured. He stepped away from the portal and crouched down at Nadrith's side. His fellow king's heart and lungs, he found, were working fine. He'd simply blacked out from the pain. His left shoulder was shattered.
/
/
Jane changed behind the curtain of one of the tiny bedrooms in the jamesway again. Taking off the dress made her unexpectedly wistful, almost sad. When she'd found herself in an academic field heavily dominated by men, an unfortunate number of whom were hard pressed to take seriously a five-foot-three young woman, she'd made it a point to never let herself look "girly." She'd never been much of a fan of "Barbie pink" anyway, but pink of any shade, along with other bright colors, for the most part, gradually disappeared from her wardrobe. A naturally-blond friend of hers in the same program of study had actually dyed her hair brown for similar reasons.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd worn pink – or rose quartz, in this case, as she still preferred to think of it. And she hadn't even realized until now, pulling long underwear back on to begin layering up, how nice it had been to walk around in a long breezy gown, exotic jewelry on her wrists, her face made up a bit more than usual. She liked her own style – she liked her own boots without the weird gold metal mesh covering them – but dressing up in something that felt a bit girly was nice, too. There was definitely still a girl inside her, as evidenced by Thor's ability to occasionally reduce her to embarrassed giggles.
She was back in the land of what had become normal, even mundane…or so it seemed now after Asgard. The unoccupied jamesway magnified the feeling. The room she was in was maybe six-by-seven, a bare pale blue mattress on a simple metal frame, a cubby-like plywood desk and shelves and a drab olive green chair that looked like it was from the 50s…and maybe it was. The jamesways themselves, she'd heard, were made during the Korean War. She couldn't imagine living in this room, but she supposed that, like her room inside the station, it wouldn't look so dreary once it had a few decorations and personal belongings in it.
When she was back in bunny boots and Carhartts and all the layers beneath them, she decided there was a bit of comfort in it, too, in these clothes and this rustic glorified tent. It was home – for a while, anyway – and she didn't have to worry about what she said or who saw her, and while "Lakmund" might never have made it to the tip of her tongue, she was quite used to distinguishing between "Lucas" and "Loki." And as unimaginable and intolerable as it had seemed in the beginning, Loki was a part of that home, and that was fine. More than fine, really. Loki might cause her to go gray early, but at least for now, she couldn't regret him being here. She knew she would be the worst hypocrite in the world if she thought that after having one of the most incredible days of her life because of him.
The thought made her realize what a hypocrite she already was. Despite all her worry, despite all her arguments to Loki, it was her who'd wanted to get close enough to see his and Thor's parents. It was her who'd wanted to stay longer. It was her who'd been unable to resist turning around to see young Thor and Loki talking to their parents and being introduced to another prince.
Yet even with an entire day on Asgard and way more interaction than she'd wanted with other Asgardians – she'd wanted zero interaction – here was the jamesway, exactly as they'd left it that morning, now over a thousand years later than where they'd just been in Asgard, down to the Indianapolis Colts sticker someone had left on the plywood "wall" of the bedroom she'd changed in.
Jane gathered up the dress and scarf and bracers and boots and carried them out to the front part of the jamesway they'd opened up months ago now by taking down a couple of those flimsy walls and pushing the beds beck. Loki stood by the desk, waiting for her, she supposed, since changing for him meant only taking off the cloak and pulling on the black Carhartts over his other clothes. He stood, specifically, right behind the laptop. Jane very studiously did not glance down at it or otherwise acknowledge their earlier exchange of mutual threats. She was going to take a leap of faith and trust him that he wouldn't go without her…and hope he wouldn't betray that trust.
"Thanks," Jane said, setting the items Loki had created or adapted for her on the table. He'd responded with a pretty repulsive comment when she'd complimented the dress before, so she figured she'd keep it simple this time. She furrowed her brow at the memory – was that him pushing her away, like he'd done after he'd first told her about his punishment for Baldur's death? Because he didn't like compliments? There was no time to think about it further, because Loki was already speaking.
"It was nothing. I'll change the dress and boots back and return them to you."
"Oh, you know…do you have to? It's kind of formal for here, but I really like the dress. I could wear it for Mid-Winter. I would like my boots back."
"All right. It makes no difference to me. Do you want to keep the shawl and bracers?"
"Can I? Sure, I'd love to. I mean…I guess I won't be wearing bracers for Mid-Winter, but…yeah. They're a nice souvenir of the day."
"I don't think I've ever heard bracers referred to as a souvenir." He supposed he owned some 40 or 50 pairs of them even though there were only a few he wore regularly. He used to own some 40 or 50 pairs of them, he corrected himself. Now it was down to the two in personal "storage."
"They're a great souvenir," Jane said, picking one up and turning it over in hand to admire the vine-like etching. "For a great day," she added, because she realized then she hadn't really thanked him for that. "I'm so glad you picked the day you did. And I know some of it got serious and all…but I had a lot of fun. Really. Seeing you and Thor when you were kids, that amazing parade, trying the sweet logs, just seeing parts of Asgard…I really don't have words for it. And I'm so glad I got to see your mother. Sort of. Her back, anyway. I could tell how much she loves you both."
"Yes, well…I'm glad you enjoyed it," Loki said with a brisk nod. When they returned here he was laughing and feeling relaxed despite the lingering sense of conflict over Alfheim, but now he felt somehow ill at ease with her. At one point he would have thought it was because they were back at the dark, freezing, claustrophobic South Pole, but now he recognized that he felt more comfortable here than anywhere else despite his aversion to the environment. Perhaps it was because of the laptop right next to him. Perhaps it was because she knew so much about him now, both through what she'd seen in the past, and all the things he'd told her. He, too, knew so much about her now, much more than Erik had ever told him in the little time they had. There was something exceedingly strange about the whole thing. He'd sat next to Jane – next to a mortal – for hours in one of his favorite spots on Asgard. He'd heard her cry. She had put an arm around him, of her own free will. And now they were back.
Jane put the bracers into her mini-backpack first, then the dress and scarf nicely folded on top. She reached for Loki's bag, sitting on the table by his right hand, but he reached out and snatched it away first. "I was just going to get the electronics out," she said defensively. He didn't have many belongings here, but the few he did he was pretty possessive toward.
"I'll take care of it. I'll get the data from our trip uploaded tonight. It's been a long day. You must be tired."
"Not really. I guess it'll hit me later, but right now I feel pretty energetic, even after walking all over Asgard. But thanks, I'll still take you up on that. I'm glad you really know how to do all that stuff now. So when do you want to start telling me what I need to know for the trip to Alfheim?"
Never, because you aren't going, he thought in a moment of spite at her presumptuousness. He waited for the feeling to pass before answering. "We can discuss it tomorrow," he said with a tight smile. The wording was important; it neither confirmed nor denied that he was actually going to let her go with him. "Tomorrow afternoon. We should be seen working for a while, to avoid raising suspicions."
"Okay," Jane said with a nod. Bag packed, it was time to get her jacket on and the gear for her head and hands, all the stuff that made the insane temperatures outside actually pretty bearable …unlike what she'd had to walk back to the jamesway in. "You coming to the galley to look for some leftovers first?"
Loki was aware of his empty stomach, but after spending the entire day with Jane practically glued to his side, he thought some space would be best. "Perhaps later. You go ahead."
"See you tomorrow, then. We can work from inside. I do need to get some stuff done. And I can't wait to see the data from today, but I guess we'll have to do some of the work we came here for – well, that I came here for – we'll have to do that first." She gave a wave with her heavily gloved hand and turned to go, before turning back for a moment. "Don't forget to eat something, okay?" Loki scowled at her, which by now seemed not at all scary, or troubling, or annoying, but actually kind of funny. Jane laughed and waved again, then left.
Loki watched her go. With her back to him he could see nothing of her. Anyone could be bundled up in that overstuffed red jacket…anyone extremely short, at least. Even when she faced him, he could see nothing but her eyes, the bridge of her nose, and her eyebrows. "You looked better when dressed for Asgard," he said when he knew Jane could no longer hear him.
He sat down and got the laptop going, then got to work uploading data. Hooking up her devices and activating the relevant programs on the laptop was dull, rote work – even Jane would find it dull, and she was actually interested in what it showed. Loki didn't care. In another lifetime, perhaps he might have, but not in this one. His mind wandered.
They'd talked, off and on, for hours. He'd planned to show her a good time on Asgard, then tell her about the second curse and win her agreement for his trip to Alfheim. So much more had happened than intended. He'd confessed his attempt to save Baldur. Confessed, he thought, what an apt word. He'd told her his version of how Baldur died, his original version. Original, at least, after the more cowardly attempts to deny his involvement, born of terror and a naïve youthful foolishness that somehow it would all just go away and his brother would still be alive and he would not be a murderer. How much I have changed, he thought then, that I was so concerned about one death. Baldur, of course, wasn't just anyone; he'd loved Baldur, though he now knew he had no right to. He forced himself to focus his thoughts on Jane again then, for though his thoughts about Baldur turned as dark as they did about anyone else, he didn't like thinking that way about him. Baldur had been dead and gone for over a thousand years, and didn't deserve to be pulled into the muck and mire that was his life now.
Jane had listened to that story, to how he'd shaped the arrow so carefully to avoid real injury, to what he'd been trying to accomplish with that arrow. And she believed him. No one else ever had. Of course, she'd heard only one side, and only one version of his side, but still, she had enough reasons of her own to distrust him, to doubt him and cast aspersions on his words. Instead, she believed him. And not only that, she'd tried to comfort him, circled her arm around his back.
He thought briefly that perhaps he should have let her keep doing that. It hadn't felt bad. Strange and unexpected, but not bad. It warmed him to recall it, here in the chilly jamesway. Moreso, and in a different way entirely, to then recall how he'd touched her chin in a way far more intimate than was strictly speaking appropriate and she had not objected. Of course, she had probably not objected because she didn't seem to have even really noticed; she was too busy being afraid of destroying history at the time. He had touched her like that to gain her immediate attention, and to create an image for the Einherjar of a harmless couple, rather than someone overly interested in one of their charges. A show put on for the Einherjar was just that: a show. There was no reason a show couldn't also be pleasurable.
He laughed then, as multiple progress bars filled the computer screen, and leaned forward to rest his head in his hands. What heights of delusion I'm capable of now! She had said something about "after the winter," when telling him about the snipe hunt, but that was simply a figure of speech, and part of what was obviously a jest in the first place.
He needed to stop thinking about Jane entirely, stop thinking about this limbo of a present, and start thinking about his future. The problem was, Jane was now connected to that too, at least to his means of securing his future. It was more delusion to tell himself the matter was still open. If he'd learned one thing in his time stuck here, it was that even when he took the time to plan, things didn't always go as he'd intended. If he betrayed Jane's trust – the trust he knew he did not deserve in the first place – and slipped away to Alfheim without her, that would be the end. She would never trust him again. That would be a problem. On top of that, repugnant as it was to admit it, he didn't want to lose Jane's trust. He liked having it, juvenile a sentiment though it was. And if things did not go according to plan on Alfheim? She might call Tony while he was gone, and Tony presumably knew how to contact Thor through Heimdall. In fact, with him away and thus the constant shielding from Heimdall's sight gone as well, she could even call out to Heimdall herself if it occurred to her to do so. Either way, chances were good that his return to Midgard in failure, possibly further weakened than before, would be met by an enraged Thor, along with however many of his friends new and old who managed to make the trip as well.
Jane was right; she was going with him.
/
/
"Your Majesty, forgive my bluntness," Bragi began, "but you have seriously injured Alfheim's king, who is beloved by his people. And it was entirely unnecessary! Had you simply brought him directly back here-"
"I wanted a chance to talk with him alone," Thor said, keeping a lid on his temper. Not so long ago, he thought, he would have exploded at being questioned like this, as he had at his father. "Nadrith and I were once…" Thor blew air out his nose sharply. That they had once been friends was nothing. Now they were enemies. "His injuries are not so severe. The healers are treating him. Shall I summon our First Historian, so that we may learn from all the previous incidents when Asgard has held captive the king of another realm, or another realm has held captive our king?" It was a rhetorical question, of course. There were no such incidents. Not that Thor knew of, anyway, and while history had never been his favorite subject, he felt certain he would have remembered something like that.
"It was done without witnesses," Tyr said, "and he came here on a battlefield. He knew the risk he took. He's lucky to be alive." Tyr paused, scratched his bearded chin, shook his head. "I can't decide if I think him courageous or foolish for coming here, but it is surely a gift for us."
"My father led our warriors when they fought on other realms long ago, as did my grandfather. Nadrith was doing no different." Thor frowned at himself for defending Nadrith, for parroting the man's own words back. "Except he was dressed as a common warrior, to try to escape Heimdall's or anyone else's notice."
"We could call that cowardice…or common sense," Bragi said with a shrug. He sat down in one of the many empty chairs in the Assembly Chamber – it was just the three of them now – and gave a weary sigh. Bragi was a little older even than Odin and Tyr, and Thor was reminded in that moment of his great age and the experience that went with it.
Thor nodded somewhat reluctantly. "His own men had no doubt who he was. He must have led them here many times without our knowledge. He knew I would go after him if I knew he was here."
The sound of hurried footsteps drew the attention of all three men. Jolgeir came trotting in, a bit unsteady on his feet when he came to a halt in front of them. He bowed his head – his substitute for a salute – and Thor put a hand to his shoulder to steady him.
"Thank you, Your Majesty. My balance, I'm afraid…when I run… King Nadrith is awake and his broken bones have been mended, though I'm told they'll require some time to heal fully. He's being moved to chambers in the palace as you ordered."
"Thank you," Thor said, glancing back at Bragi and Tyr.
"If I may add…," Jolgeir began.
"Go ahead."
"I wish to apologize for Huskol's outburst earlier today. He would not tell you so himself, but his younger brother died in battle yesterday, and he just found out this morning. It's not an excuse, but…it wasn't his usual behavior."
Thor nodded, suddenly feeling tired himself. It was another thing he needed to remember. Behind how many flares of temper lay the pain of loss? There was little time for mourning on Asgard, certainly not for those fighting, and not much more for all the rest. "When you see him, please extend my sympathies," he said, the words sounding hollow to his ears. He knew the pain of losing a brother – twice, in fact.
Jolgeir bowed and hurried off; Thor turned to face his chief diplomatic advisor and his chief war strategy advisor.
"Do you know what you will say to him?" Bragi asked.
"I do not," Thor admitted. "I have little desire to exchange words with him again. He remains calm, and I become angry." He's been at this longer than I have, Thor thought, remembering for a moment the succession ceremony he'd attended with his family ninety years ago on Alfheim.
"Then we should think it through. It won't hurt Nadrith to stew for a little while. We have captured a king, Your Majesty," Bragi said, "and we did not even have to travel to Vanaheim to do it. It is a unique opportunity, and we mustn't squander it."
"We must press every advantage, and press it hard," Tyr said.
Thor couldn't help noticing how tightly Tyr's fingers squeezed the grip of his sword, and wondered if, like him, Tyr's instinct for how to deal with Nadrith had little to do with words.
He glanced toward the door, feeling again the horrible pull inside him to be in two places at once. He was needed out there, fighting alongside his people. But time spent figuring out how to handle Nadrith could prove more useful to Asgard than felling another hundred of the enemy.
He went over to the head of the table, pulled out the chair, and sat. Tyr took a seat on one side of him, and Bragi moved from his chair to the one on Thor's other side. Everything they discussed here, Thor decided he would go and discuss also with his mother before going to Nadrith, since she had known him longer than Thor had, and in a different way. For now, the three of them got to work.
/
/
Jane lay on her back in bed, staring up at the constellations on her ceiling, formed from the glow-in-the-dark stars Pepper Potts had sent her. Sleep was elusive. Just a few hours ago she'd been looking up at unfamiliar stars, and when she closed her eyes, she could still picture them, especially the grouping around the Ancestors' Star, and she could hear Loki telling her about them.
The day's events seemed like something out of a fantasy, something that already didn't quite seem real. Except it undoubtedly was. She had the dress and scarf and bracers to prove it.
As she'd gotten ready for bed and got a look at herself in the mirror, she'd noticed further proof of where she'd been in the color on her cheeks and nose and forehead. She was going to have to use powder tomorrow to return her complexion to the same shade of pasty it had been when she got up this morning.
Her gaze grew unfocused and the stars over her head blurred. She wondered what the stars looked like from Alfheim. She hoped that the trip there would go at least as smoothly as today's had, and that she would have a chance to find out.
/
Thank you so much for your continued support - for every comment, favorite, follow, for every chapter read and hopefully enjoyed. (I'm going to go ahead and assume that if you didn't particularly like the story you would have stopped reading some half a million words ago or so.) ;-)
And now straight on to some previews for Ch. 102, most likely titled "Betrayal": Thor takes another stab at talking to Nadrith, but Nadrith doesn't make it easy; Frigga worries over her family and her realm; Wright looks out for Jane...but maybe Loki should, too.
And excerpt:
Nadrith, Thor thought as he reached the bedchambers in time to find the Ljosalf king rising from bed and smoothing down the leather armor he hadn't removed before lying down. Not Loki. This is not about Loki, he reminded himself. Except that in many ways, it was.