Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Fourteen: Fortitude
Loki tapped a finger to the top of Jane's head then shook his own head minutely; there was just enough light from above for Jane to make it out. She got it instantly – "don't tell Niskit that you hurt your head." She gave him a single nod back then turned around toward the ladder.
Loki put tentative hands around her waist, and when she seemed fine with that, he lifted her until she managed to get her feet on the bottom rung. "Go carefully," he said. He really should be going first, but then Jane would have a difficult time getting started up the ladder. She had a reasonable amount of strength in her legs, he'd observed, at least for a mortal, aided no doubt by the time she spent on the stationary bike and the treadmill, but her upper body strength was nothing to speak of. Niskit wouldn't be calling for them to come up if it weren't safe; their presence would only bring further suspicion on her.
Jane reached the top of the ladder with a mixture of relief and fear, and took the hand offered down to her with the same. The hand was bony but the grip was strong, and her gaze flew up the arm to Niskit's familiar face and inscrutable expression. Jane glanced back down, but could no longer see Loki in the blackness below. She climbed up the rest of the way and stood next to Niskit, willing Loki up faster. Niskit, she saw out of the corner of her eye, was staring at her.
"You're very light," the older woman said as Loki finally emerged. "I reckon you've never done a day's work in your life. Be careful you don't let yourself waste away sitting around all day with your face in a book."
"Jana isn't going to waste away. She actually enjoys the occasional sporting competition. She's bad at them," Loki said with a smirk toward Jane as he cast a falsely casual gaze around the room, "but she enjoys them nonetheless."
"Thanks," Jane muttered.
Loki nodded, and turned his attention fully to Niskit. "So. It seems you have a tale to tell."
"None that you need to hear. The less you know, the better."
"Are you still under suspicion?"
"I don't think so. No way to be certain. But I established an alibi in advance. And they've been gone an hour."
"An hour?" Jane echoed. "You left us down there for-"
"I had to be sure they were really gone. People can be such liars, you know," Niskit said with a broad grin that showed her teeth.
"Cease this, Niskit. Jana is frightened enough. She isn't accustomed to such intrigues."
"Really?" Niskit asked, eyes round with exaggerated incredulity. "And you've known Loki for how long?"
"And you hit her over the head with those juice glasses. Sit down, Jana. Rest for a while."
"Sorry about that," Niskit said to Jane with a wince that looked genuine enough. "That was an accident. The investigators were already at the door when I remembered the extra glasses – it was an expedient way to get rid of them…and I was hoping to hit him. But you shouldn't rest here. You should leave now, both of you."
Jane had been about to sit down – she didn't actually feel like she needed to rest and wasn't super excited about hanging out in Niskit's house any longer, but figured the safest thing to do right now was whatever Loki told her to do – though now she stopped and looked to Loki.
"I haven't got what came for. We aren't leaving yet," Loki said in a tone that brooked no opposition. He gestured toward the chair nearest Jane, then took a seat himself on one of the sky-blue upholstered arm chairs in this seating area.
"Loki…"
"If they haven't come back in an hour, they aren't likely to come back in two."
Niskit hesitated, glancing between her guests and the door. "What did your father do to you? Some kind of restriction, you said?"
"Sit down, and I'll show you."
"There's a mark?"
"There is," Loki said with a wary glance around him as he recalled a similar conversation in Brokk's living room.
"Oh, all right," she said, then fixed her gaze on Jane. "Your teacher can be very persuasive. Would you like something more to drink? The cake is still over there," she said, pointing to the seating area they'd first occupied. "I offered it to the investigators, but they wouldn't touch it. Afraid it was poisoned, I imagine," Niskit added with another of those big grins.
"No, thanks," Jane quickly said, stomach tightening, trying to remember if Loki had eaten any of that cake. She had; it was good – moist cake with juicy bits of fruit in it, not the much-ridiculed 100-year life expectancy fruitcake she'd expected.
"Neither of us wants to be hit over the head or drenched in more juice, Niskit. Come, sit."
"I had to offer. Since when are you so straight to the point?" Niskit asked, sitting down.
"Since I found out that you tried to assassinate Nadrith."
"Trivialities," she said, waving her hand in front of her face. "You've heard me curse his weak-kneed father for wasting perfectly good air in his black lungs enough times, and his mother for having lain with such a maggot. Don't look so scandalized, Jana. Our beloved peace-maker king spat on the corpse of my husband, and his son is coated in the same foul stench and has the same lack of respect for-"
"As much as I would love to hear another of these diatribes, and I'm sure Jana is similarly fascinated, you are correct in that we should not unnecessarily waste time."
Niskit stared at Loki, and Jane stared at Niskit, wondering for the first time if the old woman would turn violent. She had just tried to kill a king, and Loki was a mere prince, and one who had just been pretty dismissive in the face of an emotional outburst.
"That was rude," Niskit finally said with an expression somehow combining surprise and whimsy. "Show me the mark, then. You probably deserved whatever your father did. I should leave you that way."
And I should leave you dead, as I originally intended, Loki thought, forcing a tight smile to his face. He pulled the chair's footrest closer and lifted his right leg onto it, then tugged off the boot. Niskit took it from him and ran her finger over the line where it had been sliced straight up the shaft. Thankfully she didn't ask, though she must have been curious. Loki had always taken pride in his clothing, and would never have continued to wear damaged items. He carefully peeled off his sock and tucked it into his boot; Jane, he saw, was looking at the ceiling.
"That is disgusting. What caused it?"
"Asgardian firegrub."
Niskit sat back with a look of revulsion. "He forced you to step on a firegrub?"
"He didn't force me," Loki ground out. "Can we get on with it?"
"Arrogant little wisp. All right. Jana, get over here."
"Uh…excuse me?" Jane said, startled. She was intensely curious, hanging on every word, but really preferred not to get another look at Loki's sole, which was just as Niskit described it: disgusting.
"You wanted a demonstration, did you not?"
"I…"
"She's squeamish. It isn't necessary to involve her. Just let her observe," Loki said, trying hard to keep his impatience in check. Niskit was right; he had not been this impatient in the past. He'd planned for this moment, the removal of this curse, for months, and it was finally upon him. There was no sense in losing his temper, or letting Niskit see how anxious – how desperate – he was for her to accomplish this.
Niskit fixed Jane with an eye so critical she was reminded of Dr. Plank, the biggest thorn in her side from her dissertation committee. Jane swallowed and met her gaze without flinching. If Dr. Plank's judging eye hadn't made her wither, Niskit's wouldn't either. On the other hand, no one had ever suggested Dr. Plank might set her on fire.
"Hmph," Niskit muttered, then ignored Jane and leaned over Loki's foot. She rubbed her hands together, then placed one just over the top and one just over the sole. A couple of minutes later, she looked up with a frown. "Stand. And don't put that mess of a foot on my carpet."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Loki said dryly, standing on his left leg and placing the back of his right heel on the foot rest so Niskit could still get to it.
Jane watched closely, but saw nothing more than Loki standing there and Niskit peering down at his foot while running hands over it and his ankle, eventually to his calf and his knee. She thought of the depiction Loki had shown her of his sound barrier, and wondered what exactly Niskit was doing.
Eventually Niskit's attention spanned the entire length of Loki's body – "Relax, I'm not getting fresh," she said in warning when she reached his pelvis. "Hmph," she said again when she withdrew her hands from his head. "What did you do, Loki?"
Ruin Thor's succession, try to destroy a realm, try to conquer a realm. Be born a Frost Giant. He would enjoy saying it aloud for the effect, all except the last, but that would be foolish, not to mention a violation of his oath to Jane. "Something worse than what you just did, I gather."
"Really," Niskit said with a raised eyebrow. "You didn't do something to Thor, did you? That brother of yours may be an oaf, but if the Frost Giants ever rose back up against any of the other realms, I know he wouldn't roll over for them. He'd put them in their place."
Loki bristled, digging his fingers into his thighs to remind himself to keep his reaction in check. Niskit had said things like this to him many times. She liked Thor, at least in the sense that she thought if he were ruling Alfheim, the conflict with Svartalfheim would have been resolved rather differently. "You might be surprised at the degree of mercy he'd be willing to show them, under the right circumstances," Loki said, smiling coolly to mask the bitterness. That mercy, apparently had been instilled by Jane, who'd tamed Thor, and probably thought she'd tamed him, too. And, he supposed, she had, in some ways, but that time was coming to an end now.
"Well. Hold onto that story so I can pay attention properly. This is going to take a while. The All-Father does not throw seeds to the wind."
"There's a purpose in everything your father does." Loki was sick of Odin's purposes and his seeds. It was time for Niskit to dig up and destroy these particular seeds. He held himself very still for her as he felt the familiar strum and push and pull of energy around him wherever Niskit's hands hovered. He closed his eyes and pictured what he might do to test the removal of the curse. Illusions of himself, he thought. He would fill the room with them. If he could do that with a mere thought, he would know that his control of magic had been fully returned to him. He would also have to test "causing chaos," and that would be harder. Making duplicates, without any untoward motivation, he thought would not trigger punishment. But ninety years into the past on Alfheim, in the home of a woman who'd just attempted to assassinate Alfheim's king, was not the wisest time or place to instigate real chaos or mischief. "Who said I was wise?" he'd told Thor. The memory made him smile grimly. That had been a brilliant plan, really…but wise? Far from it. An image came to mind of burning, smoldering ruins of buildings that bore only a vague resemblance to those he'd seen in New York City.
He winced in unexpected pain, somewhere around his right knee, and the stench of devastation disappeared. "I would prefer to still have my leg when you're done, you know," Loki said, though he tried to soften the words with a smile after the fact; Niskit and he could prick each other sharply with their words, but if he crossed a line with her – a line whose location varied greatly each time he saw her – she could toss him out the door, regardless of the traditional Ljosalf hospitality. And then things would get ugly. Niskit, however, continued her work without looking up.
"Ah," Loki grunted, cutting off sharper words as it suddenly felt like his right foot had burst into flame. He was accustomed to pain in that foot, but not that kind of pain, and not that severe. "If I said anything to offend you, Niskit, I take back every word," he said through barely parted lips, the pain stoking more anger that he knew he could not let erupt.
"Shut up. Can you take more?"
Loki looked at her incredulously. She was looking up at him now with determination and a type of eagerness he'd seen in her before when she was faced with particularly challenging enchantments.
"What's going on?" Jane asked, stepping forward. It was better if she stayed out of this – she was here to make sure Loki didn't do anything to significantly change history – but the woman who'd just confessed to trying to murder one man was now apparently inflicting pain of some sort on Loki. And Loki wanted this badly enough, she knew, that he might not stop her no matter how much she was hurting him.
"Put your hands nearby, Jana, you can feel it. This is serious business. This magic is…it's not just on you, it's in you. Now, can you take more?"
"Yes, if I must. Go on," Loki said, mentally bracing himself. He'd endured worse. And of course it was in him; looking back, he supposed that was the point of his flesh being pierced, instead of merely scarred like his wrist.
Jane put her hands in the vicinity of Loki's right knee and nodded at Niskit as though she had some clue what "magic in Loki" felt like. She'd half-thought she would feel something, but all she felt was Loki's annoyance in the look he shot her. She gave him a little shrug.
Niskit started tugging again, at strands of magic that Loki himself could see only hints and shadows of, designed as they were specifically for him, and for him to be unable to countermand. She may as well have been pulling tendons from his leg. He reached with his left arm to steady himself on the chair behind him.
Jane ignored Loki's leg and tried to keep her hands nearby yet out of Niskit's way, both to avoid raising suspicion about her supposed "feel" for magic and out of some irrational sense of protectiveness – irrational because there was little she could do to physically protect him if Niskit went too far. Instead she watched Loki's face. He'd closed his eyes, and his breathing had turned shallow, then to panting. Every bit of his skin except his head was covered – boots, pants, coat, gloves he'd never removed – but muscles were pulled tight over the pale V of his throat and she knew from how he was holding himself that every other muscle in his body must be similarly tensed.
"If I had any real sense," Niskit began, breathing heavily herself and having to stop every few words for another gasp of air, "of self preservation…I would stop this…and tell you to get…as far away from me…as I could."
"If you had any real sense of self preservation," Loki said, pausing for a breath, "you wouldn't have just tried to murder your king."
"Exactly," she said with a wheezing laugh that turned into a choking cough.
Jane wondered for the first time about Niskit's health, as she steadied herself by gripping Loki's knee while she tried to get her cough under control. Maybe it was just from the exertion, but what if she had some medical problem, and this effort to get rid of the spell Odin cast on Loki made it worse, causing her to die earlier than she should have? Her worried gaze now fell more on Niskit. She didn't know what to think of this odd woman, but she sure didn't want to cause her death. This was such a bad idea, she thought. Why did I let him convince me he had to do this? He'd had reasons, and they'd made sense at the time, but they'd had nothing but trouble since reaching Niskit's house, and she couldn't even remember his reasons at the moment. Loki suddenly hissed, then let out a big breath through an open mouth that looked like there should have been a scream coming out of it. His eyes had opened and she saw his pupils were dilated; and beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead. "Loki?"
Loki's swimming vision settled on Jane and slowly gained focus. She was strangely hunched over near his raised leg, down on one knee, looking up at him with concern.
He had shown no concern for her. He'd put his hands around her throat and squeezed. He'd come to use her, and he'd delighted in manipulating and toying with her – she wasn't a person, she was a means to an end. A plaything. He'd had no concern for the others. On Thanos's collection of floating rocks. On Midgard. On Asgard.
He'd had no concern for anyone else at all, ever since he turned his back on Asgard that night. Even Mother, he thought, remembering the day on Asgard he'd taken Jane to, and his realization that the expanded Harvest Day celebrations had been planned by her solely for him. He'd vowed to himself that he'd protect her if Asgard fell. How will you do it? he asked himself. Here you are on Alfheim, mortal Jane Foster looking up at you with those big brown eyes, Niskit disassembling and incinerating your leg, ninety years in the past…how exactly do you expect to protect her? How do you expect to know she needs protecting? You've thought of nothing and no one but yourself ever since you were thrown from the bifrost. He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment. Fell, he corrected himself. Ever since you let go. His heart thudded so heavily in his chest he could feel its rhythmic beating. You didn't even care about yourself then, he corrected himself again, the thought coming from some other part of him, a part he didn't often care to listen to. He thought again of his mother, his empty promise to her, a vow to a woman he claimed to love that proved him the silver-tongued liar everyone already knew him to be. Jane said something but he didn't hear the words, only saw her lips move, accompanied by unintelligible noise, as though they were underwater.
His cheek twitched as somehow through the excruciating pain he registered something tickling there; the tickling traveled downward and he realized he was crying. Oh, let them see me now! he thought, gaze drifting upward. Let them kneel before me and see me reduced to this! Yes, that's right, kneel before your king. Kneel and laugh! His lips twisted upward and his panting turned to hitching laughter that made his chest spasm with a pain he was only distantly aware of. He looked down at Jane again – she was kneeling, or close enough. Finally, at least one mortal knows her place, he thought, finding the idea hysterically funny. Wouldn't Thor like to see this! She should look angry, he thought then. But she didn't look angry that he'd made her kneel, and she wasn't laughing, either. "Why aren't you laughing?" he asked her through his own continued laughter. "Don't you see me?"
The worry lines in Jane's brow deepened. She didn't know what to say. Loki wasn't making any sense, and he hadn't responded to her question earlier, so it probably didn't matter what she did or didn't say. Tears had rolled down Loki's cheeks, and his uncomfortably out-of-place laughter she'd first taken for sobbing. "Niskit," she said, glancing anxiously between the two of them, "I think you need to stop."
"He said he can take it. If he needs to stop he'll say so."
"But he's clearly-"
"Jana, be a good girl now and shut up, or I'll make you shut up," Niskit said, never taking her eyes off of Loki.
Jane drew in a shuddering breath. There it was. She was completely helpless. Niskit didn't even know how helpless; she thought she was Vanir and had a magic wand of her own. Jane hated being helpless. She tried to think of absolutely anything she could do. If she tried to stop Niskit, somehow she had no doubt that Niskit wouldn't hesitate to lash out physically or magically, and she would gear her attack toward a Vanir, not a mortal, and that would be bad. Loki was still looking down at her like he wasn't in his right mind. She thought about asking him again if he needed to stop, but that was likely to incur Niskit's wrath, and also no more likely to register with Loki than it had the first time. She thought then that maybe she could reach him another way, at least offer him some comfort even if he still couldn't respond. She started to reach for his hand, but quickly thought better of it. In this state he would probably unintentionally break it if he squeezed, which would leave both of them with broken hands. She looked at his leg, then finally rested a hand over the side of his shin and pressed lightly, just enough for him to feel it, while hopefully still staying out of Niskit's way.
"What are you trying to do?" Loki asked, no longer laughing, as Jane's hand touched his leg and the pain fell into rolling waves that crashed and receded with a predictable rhythm that made it easier for him to relax a bit. She was a sharply intelligent mortal, this one, but surely she didn't think a few minutes of watching Niskit work would enable her to use magic. Though it rather felt as if she had.
"Nothing. Are you all right?" It was a stupid question – anyone with eyes could see he wasn't – but it was the one that came out. And Loki slowly nodded his head in response, his eyes with their dilated pupils drifting from hers, as though she'd asked him about something he wasn't particularly interested in. At least he'd responded.
Long minutes passed; Jane wasn't sure how much time had gone by since Niskit started. There weren't any clocks in the room. Unless clocks on Alfheim were radically different from their counterparts on Earth.
"Brace yourself, Loki," Niskit said, her voice jarring in the room filled otherwise only by the sound of heavy breathing. "Hold him, Jana. This is going to hurt."
Jane's eyebrows shot up, eyes wide. "And what you're doing now doesn't hurt?"
"Not compared to what I'm about to do," Niskit said evenly, flaring her eyes briefly at Jane. "Hold him," she repeated.
How? Jane thought. She had no idea what Niskit was about to do but it scared her to the core. And she had no idea how she was supposed to hold Loki up. He was heavier than he looked, she remembered discovering during that fateful MCI drill. She stayed where she was as she looked up and around Loki and wondered what position she should take. She would at least try.
"Just take his other arm," Niskit said impatiently.
His left was still braced on the chair, so Jane kept her right hand where it was on his lower leg, and reached up to place her left arm behind his right, gripping just above the elbow and angling her arm away from his hand so he wouldn't grab onto her and injure them both.
"This is going to hurt," he realized she'd said a few moments after her lips stopped moving. At least she warned me this time. She? He? he wondered then in confusion as the form on his left shimmered and shifted. "I'll never submit to you," he said, voice breathy but strong.
"Funny, that's just what I'd like to say to our new king. Ready? Good," Niskit said without waiting for a response.
Searing pain struck somewhere in his lower body that he couldn't even identify, a lightning bolt that in the next instant charged upward and encompassed his whole body, blocking out the awareness of anything beyond it. His throat seized up and he couldn't breathe. His hands shot up to this throat instinctively.
Jane watched, trembling in fear as Loki reacted instantaneously to whatever Niskit was doing to him. She felt the muscles in his arms clenching up even through the fabric of his coat; he begin to scream – not at all in silence this time – before the sound was almost immediately cut off. When his hands flew up to his throat, easily breaking away from the firm grasp she'd had on his left arm, he began to claw at his skin, leaving behind red trails in which a few small drops of blood welled up. Jane reached up for his arm again, but she may as well have tried to dislodge one of the huge support columns that held up the South Pole's elevated station.
She was just about to stand up fully and try harder when she felt something strange against her right hand, still pressed against his shin, in what she'd hoped might have provided some small measure of comfort. She looked down and around her hand, and saw cracks in the leather that hadn't been there before. And it was cold, she realized, like your hand felt after holding a cup of ice. And Loki was moving a little. She looked up and realized he was teetering, head rolling loosely but still more or less up. She let go of his leg and stood up and grabbed onto his arm with both hands, planting her feet and gripping as hard as she could; she figured it wasn't likely she was going to hurt him.
When his head finally rolled all the way back and his knees buckled, Jane realized immediately that she wasn't going to be able to hold him up even for a second, certainly not from this position. Instead she let go of his arm and pushed from the front so that hopefully he would at least fall in the right direction. Maybe it was coincidence and maybe she'd actually helped, but Loki collapsed awkwardly onto the chair, legs splayed out in front of him, upper half sprawled over the chair at a bit of an angle. His skin looked unhealthy, with some kind of odd blue-gray pallor that would have made Jane fear he was dead if she couldn't see the clear rise and fall of his chest. His face and hair were damp with sweat.
"Loki?" Jane said, bending over him. He didn't react in the slightest; Jane assumed he was unconscious. She pressed the back of her palm against his forehead, like her mother used to do when Jane was sick, and while his skin was cool and clammy, her hand didn't come with the same health assessment abilities her mother's had – one of many human magical powers she assumed must come from giving birth.
She looked over for Niskit, assuming the older woman would be hovering nearby as well, and was surprised – and annoyed – to see her sitting down on the sky-blue chair furthest from Loki's. "What's wrong with him?" she demanded.
"Nothing's wrong with him. He passed out. I'm going to go make some tea," she then announced, pushing herself up from the chair. She looked tired, but fine.
"But don't you think you should do something for Loki?" And tell me what happened? And show the tiniest bit of concern?
"You want me to sing him a lullaby? I finished, and now I'm going to make tea. I'll make him some, too," she said already turning to leave. "How's that?" she called over her shoulder.
Jane took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Finished." So it worked? She hoped he thought it would be worth what he'd gone through. He looked bad. And she wouldn't wish the degree of pain he'd obviously experienced on anybody.
She got down on her knees next to Loki, unsure what she should do. After a pretty nasty burn from some faulty wiring in one of her homemade collectors, Don had made sure she knew all the basic first-aid treatments, but he'd never covered passing out after tortuous magical whatever-you-called what Niskit had done to Loki. Her gaze fell on the place on his leg where she'd kept her hand, her eye drawn to it because of the cracks in the leather, but then she noticed the white spots. They were small, the ones in the area where her hand had been, little pinpricks of white, but lower down they were larger and there were more of them.
She looked up at Loki's face; he was still out cold and she didn't see any reason why she should try to make him come to. Not to mention he sometimes didn't react well to being startled awake. She leaned in then and peered more closely at his leg. The cracked leather, when she touched it, flaked away. Everything had happened so fast at the end, but she could have sworn the area had been cold before. It wasn't now. Below that area, she realized, the cracking continued, but was simply less noticeable because it hadn't been disturbed by her hand. Down around his ankle, with one fingertip, she lightly touched one of the larger white spots, then looked at her finger and rubbed it against her thumb. Whatever it was felt a little fuzzy, like maybe a mold or something. With a spiteful glance in the direction Niskit had disappeared, Jane wiped her fingers off thoroughly on the smooth tan carpet-like stuff on the floor. Neither her fingers nor the carpet were disintegrating or anything, so she figured whatever the white substance was, it probably wasn't too harmful.
Niskit returned then and Jane quickly moved her hand away from the rug. The same tray she'd brought the juice and cake out on earlier was in her hands, this time with three tall steaming cups of tea, several miniature triangular sandwiches on a black bread, and a rolled-up white cloth. Niskit set the tray down on the little table just as before, then sat down calmly, as though Loki were not sprawled unconscious on the chair next to her, as though they were having some kind of tea party or something. It infuriated her, but she was too wary of Niskit, and her position here too precarious, to give her a piece of her mind.
"Don't look at me like that, child," Niskit said, apparently having no trouble figuring out Jane's thoughts. "What good do you think you're doing him, sitting there staring at him, gnashing your teeth and getting angry? Is that helping anything? Here," she said, reaching for the cloth and tossing it at Jane, who flinched but caught it. "Wipe his face. That ought to make you feel all warm and tingly inside."
What is that supposed to mean? Jane thought, but clenched her teeth and stood to bend over Loki, bringing the cool damp cloth to his face. The sweat had mostly dried, and this close she could see the dried salty residue it had left behind. His coloring was returning to normal. She started at his hairline, wiping gently over his forehead, around his eyes, his cheeks, his nose, over his lips, his chin, and then the exposed skin of his neck, where she wiped away tiny beads of half-dried blood. He never reacted, but she had felt the warm breath from his nose, and she could only assume that Niskit was correct and he was basically all right. She had blacked out earlier and she was all right, though the thought made her notice that she still had a bit of a headache.
"Have some tea. You look like you could use it," Niskit said, leaning forward and nudging the tray toward Jane.
Somewhat reluctantly Jane left Loki's side and set the cloth on the tray; Niskit might seem heartless, but strictly speaking, she was right, there wasn't anything more Jane could do for him at the moment.
"Not that one. That one's Loki's," Niskit said when Jane reached for one of the two remaining cups.
Jane bit back her frustration and took the other cup, then took a seat in the chair she'd been in before, smoothing her gown nervously with the other hand, the beautiful rose quartz colored silk Loki had chosen. She held the cup up to her nose, breathed it in, and let out a sigh. It made her mouth water. Honey and mint. A little sprig of mint even floated on top. It wasn't steaming much anymore, so she took a long sip and swallowed. A half-second later her eyes went wide, and then she was lost to racking coughs. Her throat burned, her eyes watered, she felt her face getting hot. "What did you put in this?" she asked as soon as the coughing stopped.
"Mead," Niskit answered, watching her without much noticeable reaction. "Drink up. It'll help you relax."
"I don't need to relax quite that much right now," Jane said, then cleared her throat and leaned forward to set the cup down. "Let me guess: the other one, the one for Loki, doesn't have the mead."
Niskit nodded. "He's never drunk it, not in all the years I've known him. How long have you known him?"
"Uh, just a few months."
She nodded again. "Well, if you want the youths' version, go ahead and drink Loki's. It's not like he's objecting," she said with a casual gesture in Loki's direction.
Jane frowned, glanced at Loki, then went for the third cup. The scent and color were almost the same, a sprig of mint floating on top, but when she took a much more tentative sip and swallowed, she tasted honey-sweetened tea with a hint of mint and no flames licked down her throat. She sighed and sat back in her chair, letting the tension bleed out of her body. She still felt a little warm just from the small amount of mead she'd unknowingly drunk. It wasn't bad, really, the first version, but it had been unexpected and a lot stronger than anything she typically drank – a glass of wine, the occasional beer or silly fruity mixed drink. She couldn't imagine how strong it must be if it were drunk straight.
"Better?" Niskit asked as Jane took another swallow. "I'm not much for mead myself, really, it's more of an Aesir delight of course, though I know you Vanir are quite fond of it, too. But it goes extraordinarily well with some of our Ljosalf teas, especially this white one they grow down in Balandis," she said, tapping her cup.
Jane nodded, then looked over at Loki. "Maybe instead of discussing Aesir delights we could discuss the unconscious Aesir sitting between us. What happened?"
"Couldn't you see it? Couldn't you feel it?" Niskit asked with raised eyebrows.
"Well, yes, of course I could," Jane said, trying to look as convincing as possible and quickly pressing forward. "But I didn't understand what I was seeing and feeling. Loki brought me here to learn something from you, so could you please explain it to me?"
Niskit took a long drink from her cup, then looked up at Jane again. "No. Not until he wakes up. It's his business, and I won't discuss it behind his back, so to speak." Her voice and expression were resolute – Jane knew she wouldn't be able to convince her otherwise. And she could respect the desire to protect Loki's privacy; it was the first time she'd seen something in Niskit that she thought Loki might appreciate, when the woman otherwise didn't seem like much of a friend.
"Okay. But why did he pass out like that? And why is he still not waking up?" And how long will he be out? she wondered then. It hadn't occurred to her before that maybe he wouldn't wake up any minute now, as she'd assumed once Niskit said he was fine. But she'd brought out three cups of tea, so Jane figured that at least Niskit didn't expect him to be out too much longer.
"I imagine he passed out from the pain. He has a high pain threshold, but that would've put anybody on his back. He'll come around, once his body recovers from the strain. Sandwich?" Niskit pointed to the tray.
"No, thanks," Jane said, stomach feeling a little queasy, whether from the alcohol on her empty stomach and the mention of the sandwiches or from the cavalier explanation of how much pain Loki had been in, she didn't know.
"Where did you meet Loki?"
"In a library on Asgard," Jane said. The question was out of the blue, but it was an easy one to answer; she and Loki had agreed on it beforehand.
"Which one? I'm curious where it is that you've done your studies."
"It's not really…it's not a real library, I mean…it's a private collection. What about you, how did you meet him?"
Niskit laughed, and a warm expression that looked liked fondness seemed to transform her into someone else entirely. "If you know him as well as I think you do, then you won't be surprised" – she paused when Loki's breathing audibly changed – "when I tell you he was up to some mischief."
Jane gave a small smile – she would have liked to hear this story, but her attention now turned back to Loki. His breaths came in single long shuddering deep ones followed by several stuttering ones that were close to gasps. He worked his jaw, swallowed, licked his lips, then raised his head, but only for a second before dropping it back against the chair. "Loki," she said, putting her empty teacup back on the tray and standing near Loki again, much as she had earlier. "Welcome back. Are you okay?" she asked nervously. Niskit's lack of concern over his condition wasn't entirely alleviating her own.
Loki steadied his breathing and kept still. Jane, it had been her who'd spoken, he realized a few seconds after he heard her voice. She'd entered his room uninvited again and woken him up. But something didn't feel right… It didn't feel right because he was sitting, or reclining, rather, and his entire body ached from head to toe in a way that no normal physical exertion could produce. He smelled that honey mint tea that Niskit… Loki's head went up as his eyes flew open and immediately found Niskit, sitting nearby on his left. He could see Jane even closer, in his peripheral vision, on his right, and for a moment he had a dizzying sense of dislocation that Jane should be here with him in Niskit's home. Niskit belonged to one lifetime, and Jane to another; they did not belong mere feet away from one another. He didn't dwell on it, though, and the strange sensation passed. "Did it work?" he asked in a low quiet voice.
Niskit glanced once at Jane before returning Loki's unwavering gaze. "It did not."
Jane's mouth fell slightly ajar. She'd thought it had. She looked at Loki, whose eyes had closed again, though his head was still up. All that…for nothing?
Slowly, and with more difficulty than he'd expected, Loki pushed himself up, hissing when the sole of his right foot touched the floor. He lifted it immediately, balancing on his left leg and bending slightly to brace himself on the chair with his left hand as he had before. "Then do it again."
"Loki, I can't-"
"Do it," he bit out in a raised voice before forcibly calming himself, "again."
"You can't do this again, Loki. You didn't see what it-"
"No one asked your opinion, Jane," Loki snapped.
Jane fell silent, swallowing hard over a suddenly constricted throat. Loki looked malevolent, his face pulled taut into an angry snarl. Niskit had just started speaking again when she realized that he'd used her real name.
"Do you like pain, then, little prince? Fine, let's do it again, after I've rested a while longer. But the results will be the same."
"Then you will need to try harder," Loki ground out, jaw tight.
"I'm telling you it's impossible. It simply can't be done. What your-"
Loki planted his right foot, ignored the pain, and charged at Niskit, yanking her out of her chair. Distantly he was aware of Jane shouting at him, but he tuned it out, forcing the older woman backwards, stumbling, until he shoved her into the wall and held his knife at her throat. "What part of 'try harder' do you not understand? You aren't giving up. You're going to do this, Niskit, or I swear to you, I will end you."
Niskit had struggled at first, but there was no question who was stronger and she stopped resisting even before her back hit the wall. Her face was red with anger, her eyes wide and wild. "What part of 'impossible' do you not understand? What is wrong with you? Get your ungrateful hands off me, you arrogant little brat, and do it quickly before I lose my temper."
"Loki, stop!" Jane yelled again, but he didn't even seem to hear her. Niskit had a hand out behind Loki's back, open palm oddly pointing in his direction, and Jane had a mental image of energy bolts shooting out of her hand and zapping him. She didn't know if Loki saw it or not; he was breathing heavily and couldn't possibly be fully recovered yet. He was probably running on adrenaline. If Niskit electrocuted Loki, or did whatever else it seemed like she was itching to do with that hand, he was going down and Jane didn't think he'd be coming back up.
/
Anyone wanting to change their vote? ;-) BTW, I almost titled this chapter "Tea." I like the irony. But I looked up the definition of "fortitude" and I liked its various meanings and shades and went with that. I hope you enjoyed this chapter; I always feel weird to say things like this, but I do think it's one of my faves, for various reasons. The next chapter was written really fast. So fast I don't remember much of what's in it. Ha. You think I'm kidding? Checking now for your teaser/excerpt...
Ah, yes, that's what happens. Previews are hard to avoid being too spoilery, so I'll just say that you'll get some answers in the next chapter to some questions you probably have from this one. Excerpt's hard too, but I think some of you will like this one...
Excerpt:
Loki watched, at first out of the corner of his eye, as Jane let out a sigh and relaxed; she was asleep within minutes. He longed to follow her into darkness, but he didn't dare, for fear Thanos and his lackey would choose this moment to reach out for him and find him in the grip of sleep, vulnerable. He watched as she shifted, head jerking from time to time as it tipped downward. Eventually she shifted in his direction, leaning against his arm, and he held himself very still, but instead of jerking away she breathed deeply and settled her head against him. She seemed to sleep more deeply after that, and Loki allowed himself to relax again.
Response to "LittleRedDot" - you asked some good questions, and I especially enjoy those that make me feel like a "real writer," so I wanted to try to answer, somewhat briefly since it's in-text. Realism is *so* important to me in this story, from the characters (no miraculous sudden "fixes" for characters, etc.) to the events/places/etc. For most of the latter it's tons and tons of research (most of it up front, for the South Pole, but it continues, e.g., does anyone on Earth put alcohol in tea, which seems a little odd to me? Why yes, yes they do.). Amelia Earhart came to Jane's mind probably b/c it popped into mine after seeing Amelia in the news again recently, as "QQuina" mentioned, and then I figured Jane might feel particular admiration for her, a pioneer in a field dominated by men, like Jane. For Alfheim's and Svartalfheim's "Great Fracture," I didn't have any specific conflict in mind but I'm sure I was subconsciously drawing on a lot of things - colonialism and its aftermath in Africa and elsewhere, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Russia's sense that it should retain influence in the former republics, etc. Generally I just put myself "in the head" of the character and somehow whatever comes to mind tends to make sense for that character. / I think of Ch. 113 as the X-Files chapter. Because as many fans felt, the best episodes were the ones where Mulder and Scully were trapped and isolated together...and thus had to talk a lot. ;-) / Ha, I do indeed love it when you and others play detective, even picking up on clues from my profile page that are from a chapter in advance. You did some good detective work!
'Til next time...Ch. 116 might be a challenge...well, maybe not...anyway hopefully it goes quickly! Thanks ever so much to all those still on this ride with me - you just make it more fun!