Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Six – Intruder
Loki vanished, her words vanished, the jamesway vanished, everything vanished. Jane wasn't sure if she herself had vanished or not. She saw only white, like an incredibly bright light that somehow didn't hurt her eyes. She heard nothing, smelled nothing, felt nothing, not even her own body. At first, it was just weird. Surprising. Curious.
And then it got scary. She had no idea what was going on and she couldn't ask, or struggle against it. Or beg or plead. Or cry. As it continued – for how long she didn't know – she would have welcomed pain, because pain would mean she could still feel, she still had a body.
This wasn't death, surely, but she didn't know what it was. She wasn't on Asgard, at least as far as she knew, and this wasn't helping Loki. She wondered where she was and what had happened to her. She desperately longed to scratch her head. Not because her head itched, but because the need to confirm that she still had a head to scratch and a hand to scratch it with and nerves to feel it all was approaching maddening. She remembered then something of what Loki had said, about what happened to both him and to his "friend" Brokk, about Thanos scooping up drifting souls, and her mind revved up into full-scale panic even as she tried to tell herself she was being irrational, that if Frigga had given this to Loki, it wouldn't deliver him back to Thanos.
Suddenly she felt her legs holding her weight again and fears of distant beings faded as she focused on assessing her physical condition. This didn't feel like Pathfinder travel; there was no weakness or nausea. Her hands flew to her head and pressed hard in lieu of scratching since she found she still had her gloves on. Her other senses hadn't fully kicked in yet – the whiteness of her vision at least now had texture. Where am I? she thought, but was too nervous to try to say aloud. She reached out an arm in front of her, and her hand brushed something hard and cool, though she wasn't sure what, perhaps a wall. There were voices she realized, not the kind that meant she'd lost her mind in whatever had just happened, but real ones. She just couldn't hear them well enough, as though she were underwater. She thought maybe they were coming from behind her.
She felt pressure on her arms then, one immediately followed by the other, and more noises, closer. Someone was there, holding onto her, trying to turn her around. She lifted her feet to allow it, but found it more difficult than expected. The pressure tightened, the pushing grew more insistent, the voices louder, and something like a weird case of really strong vertigo kicked in and Jane felt herself falling.
/
/
"Did you hear that?" Frigga asked, just as Maeva stood up, drawing the dagger from her hip, answering the question for her. It was a muffled shout; she was certain she hadn't imagined it. On either side of the heavy double doors were swords – fully sharpened ones, not the ceremonial ones that were mounted on many of the walls in these chambers. Sword now in hand, Frigga stood back, while Maeva placed a hand and an ear against the golden door.
"All of the enchantments are secure," the younger woman with the braided light red hair said quietly.
The doors then burst open and Maeva stumbled back while Frigga readied her stance.
"Your Majesty! Are you all right, my queen?" Huskol asked, his own sword at the ready, eyes darting about the large sitting room at the entrance to the royal chambers. A second guard whom Frigga also knew appeared behind him.
"We're both fine. What is going on out there?" Frigga asked.
"There was an intruder. Right outside your doors."
"How did he get that far?" she demanded, raising her voice even as she lowered her sword.
The two men exchanged a glance. "We don't know," Huskol admitted. "One minute it was just the two of us, and the next…she was simply there. Right in front of the doors."
"She?"
"Yes, my queen. A woman. We apprehended her, demanded answers of her, but she collapsed before speaking a word."
Dark magic, Frigga thought immediately, exchanging her own glance with Maeva. She had to have conjured vast amounts of it to have gotten past so many layers of magic. Only the final layer had barred the entry she'd obviously been attempting; the exterior doors practically sagged under the weight of the enchantments placed on them. "Where is she now?"
"I ordered the guards at His Majesty's doors to take her to the Healing Room and keep her under heavy guard."
"Thor's? But what if it was all a ploy to draw the guards away?" Frigga asked. Thor was certainly able to take care of himself, but anyone could be caught unawares. He'd already nearly met his end once on the battlefield.
"He's not in his chambers; he's out fighting. As soon as his guards have delivered the woman, they'll return to their post."
"Weapons?"
"We searched her but found none."
"She is from which realm?"
"Uncertain. She appears Aesir or Vanir, but…rather short, and oddly dressed. Perhaps what she wears is a part of her magic."
Frigga had never heard of such a thing, but enchantments could be bound to virtually anything. She looked to Maeva, who gave a slight shake of her head. "The timing concerns me," Frigga said to Huskol. "What if this woman is a Vanir spy? I'm going to go see her myself. Maeva, I want you with me; this woman is probably dangerous in ways that don't involve weapons. We'll finish what we were working on here later."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Maeva said. "Though I hope you won't mind if I keep my dagger in hand anyway."
"Not at all, my dear," Frigga said, pointedly adjusting her grip on the sword she carried.
/
/
"Has she said anything?" Frigga asked as soon as they reached the chamber they'd been led to. Eir was barely visible, behind a near-wall of Einherjar with swords drawn. Upon closer inspection, when they turned at her voice and bowed, Frigga realized that every single one of the Einherjar must be injured and recovering; several leaned on canes or braces, and several more were missing part or all of a limb. Jolgeir was there as well, the only one missing two limbs. The Healing Room was no longer specifically guarded; its patients provided their own security. She nodded her acknowledgement and they turned back around, blocking the form on the bed from view. On the floor were a few bloody bandages and articles of clothing; this space had obviously been recently cleared to allow for secure examination of a dangerous patient.
"She has not," Eir said, slipping between two guards to approach Frigga. "She hasn't regained consciousness. And I'm not sure why. Would you care to see, Your Majesty?"
Frigga nodded and the Einherjar parted, clustering against the walls. It was indeed a short woman, straight brown hair, pretty face. Her clothing looked vaguely like something a laborer might wear: sturdy black overalls, blue checkered shirt with a white shirt underneath it peaking through at the top. On her hands were black gloves and on her feet were odd-looking white boots. Frigga's gaze went back up to her face and lingered there. There was something about her…
"She appears normal," Eir said.
"She isn't?" Frigga asked, beckoning for Maeva to come forward and examine her.
"Not entirely. The scans are flat. As though she weren't even alive, or just barely. But when I listen to her breathing and to her heart, everything sounds nearly normal. That's not the strangest thing, though. Try to remove her glove."
Frigga looked up from the intruder to Eir in curious confusion. Slowly, carefully, she lifted the woman's hand in hers, and with her other hand pulled on the glove at her wrist. There was some give, but the glove wouldn't move past her wrist. She pulled harder, after a moment placing the hand back onto the diagnostic table and pulling with both hands. The glove wouldn't budge.
"It's that way with everything. Her boots have strings I can't untie, these clasps on the overalls can't be undone, and I can't unbutton her shirt. I've never seen anything like this."
"Magic?" she said, feeling for that now instead of the odd unnatural-feeling material of the glove. It was there, buzzing all around her, she realized, even as Maeva nodded.
"It burns. It's strong, and…jagged? As though it were done improperly."
"I'm really not sure what to do, Your Majesty," Eir said after they'd stood there in silence for another moment. "There's obviously something wrong, but I can't identify what. She may be the only one who can tell us. I tried waking her, but nothing I did had any effect."
"This could be a disguise," Maeva said. "Not her true form. That would explain why the imaging is abnormal, and why her clothing can't be removed."
"And the head-to-toe magic," Frigga said with a nod. Not her true form. It could be done, of course. Loki was adept at it, had learned to do it as an adult, had done it instinctively as an infant… Her lips parted and her eyes again fell on the intruder's face. "I've seen her before," she whispered, body stiffening with renewed wariness.
"Where, my queen?" Huskol asked immediately. "Do you know her?"
"I…I met her. A long time ago, in my chambers. Loki and Thor were both still babies, Loki a newborn. She…I thought she might have come to hurt them. Or specifically to hurt Loki. I even wondered if she might be a Frost Giant in disguise."
All around her as she spoke, positions shifted, lax postures straightened, and at the words Frost Giant every armed Einherjar drew his sword back a little further, ready to use it. The reticence to use their swords against women was long gone, and Frost Giant outweighed the fact that she did not wear a warrior's armor.
Frigga, too, drew back, though she didn't move far from the bed. "But that never made sense. Nothing about that incident ever made sense. After a time, no one except me even believed it had really happened."
"Jolgeir, did you check for her in the records?"
"Yes, of course. We got the results just before you arrived: no matches. But…we only went back a thousand years," he said. "Search security repository from a thousand years ago and going back to the beginning of the Ice War," he ordered. A translucent white rectangular outline on the wall above the woman's head appeared, signifying the ongoing search.
"Something isn't right," Frigga murmured.
"This woman made it into your chambers, when Loki and Thor were babies? What did she do?" Maeva asked.
"Nothing. Not really. She didn't make any threatening moves toward them, yet she was already very close to them and she had a knife. And she mentioned Loki by name, when we hadn't even announced his birth yet, much less his name. And there were guards on every floor; she couldn't have gotten in there except by magic, just like now. But I don't know why she…" Frigga shook her head, leaving the thought unfinished. She'd never understood anything about that woman's visit. She was certain it was the same woman now, though. "She looked very much the same. She had on white boots then, too, and black pants. But she wore a thick short red coat." She stopped again and rubbed her head for a moment, trying to picture how the woman had looked so long ago. There was something about the red coat, too.
"This has to be a disguise, then," Maeva asserted, palm to the intruder's forehead. "This woman surely can't be much over a thousand, yet she looks the same now as then?"
"If she hasn't hurt anyone despite the opportunity to do so, or at least to attempt to do so, perhaps she's here to warn us of something," Jolgeir said.
"There's a match," Huskol said, drawing the others to peer at the enlarged rectangle on the wall. "The potential threat repository."
Frigga glanced between the two images and the woman on the bed. One image was of the woman's face, looking nervous, perhaps even afraid. Without a doubt the same woman who'd somehow appeared and then before her eyes disappeared from her chambers, the same woman who lay unconscious before them. The other showed her from more of a distance; here she appeared Asgardian, elegantly dressed in a pale pink gown and silk shawl, golden bracers, hair brushed to a shine. Jana was the only name listed in the record.
"I remember her," Jolgeir said, stepping closer and leaning in at the head of the bed. "This is my report," he said, pointing to his name in small letters on the record. "She was with this man," he said, pointing to the much taller figure next to her, face turned away and hidden by a cloak. "He said…she lived in a small village and rarely came to the city. It was Harvest Day, that one year the pipers and lines participated. She was looking at me and…I don't remember exactly why I stopped them. I think something just seemed off. Later they came very close to the princes, and to you and the All-Father," he said, nodding to Frigga. "But neither of them acted with any hostility or made any sudden moves, and I saw no weapons on them. The man bought them a snack from a vendor, and they drifted away. I kept an eye out for them for years afterward, but I never saw them again."
"You checked for iris recognition, I assume?"
"Yes," Jolgeir said. "No matches. But that only means she hasn't been judged guilty of a serious crime on Asgard."
"She wore Asgardian attire this day," Frigga said, pointing at the screen, "yet a decade earlier, and again today, she wore…what is this? I didn't see anything quite like this in New York, but the clothing does remind me of current Midgardian attire. She can't be of Midgard herself, though."
"This one is made of cotton, though it feels a little strange," Eir said, slipping a finger under the edge of the overalls. "This," she continued, running a finger over the collar of blue-and-gray checked shirt, "I'm really not sure about. I don't think it's a natural fiber."
Not a natural fiber…like that piece of red material! "The red coat," Frigga said aloud. "She was wearing a red coat the first time I saw her. And Jolgeir, Huskol – do you remember the bit of red fabric that was found on the bridge a couple of months ago? It was a synthetic fabric, like this woman's shirt. Perhaps she was with Loki then, too, when he was on Asgard."
"You believe this woman tried to help him steal the Tesseract?" Huskol asked. "Or…Jolgeir, are you certain it was only Loki who crept into your chamber in the Healing Room?"
"It's impossible to say for certain I suppose, but Loki is quite stealthy and she would have to be even more so to have- Your Majesty."
Distracted by competing thoughts, Frigga was confused by Jolgeir's self-interruption, but when she looked up from the woman on the examination bed to Jolgeir and saw everyone looking toward the door, she understood that he hadn't been addressing her.
Thor stood just inside the door of the crowded room where patient-guards had told him the intruder who'd made it to his parent's chambers was being held. A woman, they'd said. It called to mind the invisible would-be assassin, and three other traps seemingly set for him that he'd avoided. In none of those instances had they captured anyone alive, so they'd never learned who exactly was behind the attempted assassinations. This time, he thought, I will get answers. But as he looked through those assembled – his mother, Eir, Maeva, Huskol, Jolgeir, a dozen other wounded Einherjar – he had glimpses of a body lying prone…and not moving. His heart sank. For someone to have come so close to penetrating the most heavily protected space on all of Asgard and surely in all the Nine Realms, to capture that someone alive and still gain nothing…it seemed emblematic of this entire war. A step back for every step forward, their extraordinary efforts doing nothing more than staving off the inevitable. "Is she dead?" he asked gruffly.
"No," Eir said. "Unconscious."
Thor's eyebrows went up in surprise and relief and he started forward, the Einherjar making way for him. In the next instant he saw her face, and he forgot to exhale. Impossible, his mind whispered.
"Do you recognize her?" Frigga asked, transfixed by the shock on Thor's face.
"Yes, but…" Impossible. He dropped Mjolnir and ran the rest of the way to the bed; his mother stepped aside. "Jane," he whispered, bending over her and tracing fingertips gently down her pale cheek. There was no response at all, not even a flutter of her eyelashes. His heart surged to see her again, to be this close to her and not just hearing her voice through a Midgardian device, but alongside that warmth surged icy fear. Beyond the fact that Jane was unconscious, something was clearly wrong in this whole situation.
"Jane Foster?" Frigga asked, understanding Thor's shock now. This could not possibly be the mortal Jane Foster; she hadn't been born yet a century ago, much less a millennium.
"How did she get here? She was outside your door?" he asked, not taking his eyes off Jane, lest he miss something. He ran a hand now over her forehead, and with his other took her limp hand in his. Smudges were left on her face where he touched her – he was dirty from the battle he'd just come from – and he hated that he'd marred her in this way. Reluctantly he straightened, though he kept her hand firmly in his, unwilling to let her go entirely yet.
"She was," Frigga said.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand how this could be Jane Foster. She was on Midgard. I spoke to her. How could she be here? And how could she have been here so long ago?" Jolgeir asked, inclining his head toward the security report, still displayed on the wall above the bed.
Thor looked up at it for the first time. "That's Jane," he said immediately. He would know her face anywhere, even when it appeared in places he would have thought impossible. "But…Jana? What…" He saw the date then, rubbed his eyes with his free hand, and looked again. The numbers, even more impossible than Jane's presence on Asgard, hadn't changed. "I was eleven years old then."
"She made it through every level of protection in the palace, except for the very last," Jolgeir added.
He shook his head. "Jolgeir's right. Her people have their own magic, of a sort, but they cannot travel to other realms, and few of them live to celebrate their centennial. Still…this is Jane. But what's wrong with her? She's pale, but otherwise she looks well. Why doesn't she wake?"
Eir was explaining the peculiarities she'd observed – and Thor was trying just as futilely as Frigga had to pry off Jane's glove, when Odin entered, Gungnir sounding heavily on the floor.
"Frigga, you are well, then?" he said after giving her a quick once-over. She may have been in the Healing Room, but she did not appear to be here for healing. "They told me an intruder reached our doors. Is that her?" he asked, noting how Thor cradled the woman's hand.
"It's not who they say it is, Father," Thor said, carefully placing Jane's hand back by her side and approaching his father. "She is not an enemy. This is Jane Foster, of Midgard. We don't know how she came to be here, and there are other things that defy explanation. And there's something wrong with her; she won't wake."
"She's abuzz with magic, Your Majesty," Maeva added, "but it's nothing I'm familiar with. There may be something wrong with the magic, too."
Odin listened to the reports from the others with narrowed eyes, studying the images on the screen. "You said this woman studies the stars?" he asked when they were done.
"Yes," Thor said, vaguely surprised that his father remembered it. In the beginning, he'd spoken of Jane to his parents and friends often, until he began to suspect that his wistful recollections, laughter at shared jests, and effusive praise had grown tiresome, not least to his father, who expected him to focus on his growing duties instead of a woman he could not even reach anymore.
"And you told her of Yggdrasil?"
"I did, yes. Though I suppose little more than the stories you told Loki and I as children," Thor said with a raised eyebrow. He wasn't sure what this had to do with Jane lying here unresponsive, but more than that, he was truly surprised now to realize that apparently Odin remembered everything he'd told him about Jane.
"Jolgeir, you're certain this is the woman you saw then?" he asked, gesturing toward the images.
"I am not certain, Your Majesty, not by my own memory. It was a few moments, a long time ago. But I trust our records, and they indicate a verified match.
"I saw her, too, and I am certain," Frigga said.
"Where?" Thor asked, just as Odin asked, "When?"
Frigga began her story again, the one she'd been pondering and hadn't mentioned again since before Thor arrived. "This is the woman I told you about, all those years ago. The woman in our chambers, with the knife, beside the cradle. The one you came to believe I'd imagined, despite the fact that she left the knife."
"The knife appeared to belong to an Einherjar. I thought… It doesn't matter now. I'm sorry I doubted you, my queen. I don't any longer," he said, eyes fixed on the mortal. It was an impossible tale, yet he believed it now without reservation. And he feared they had only scratched the surface.
"Mother…what cradle? What are you talking about?" Thor had never heard anything about a woman – Jane?! – appearing here beside a cradle.
"Your cradle. Yours and Loki's, when you were just babies. I'd left-"
"No. None of this makes any sense. Jane doesn't carry knives or any other weapons. And she could not have been-"
"I know," Frigga interrupted. "She could not have been there, and yet she was. She cannot be here, and yet she is. Obviously we're missing something." Is she not truly Midgardian? Could she actually be Aesir or Vanir? And what magic could she have obtained, that allowed her to make it through all those layers of magic, to appear right outside my doors? Right outside my doors…
"She could not have done this on her own," Odin said.
"She's a brilliant physicist, Father. If anyone could find a way to-"
"She didn't do this on her own," Frigga said breathlessly. She had felt under the collar of the woman's shirt, found the filament chain, and gently pulled; in her hand now rested a brilliant finely cut red gemstone.
"Frigga, what have you done?" Odin asked in a soft voice that failed to mask the undercurrent of anger, as everything began to come together. He knew exactly what that gem was, and what it could and could not do – he had watched the enchantment's emplacement with his own eye, and given her the necklace as a gift to mark the addition to their family of a second son, whom she'd accepted with barely a second's hesitation. He didn't need to have the magic examined to know that it was no longer what it had been. And Frigga had put it around Loki's neck right in front of him. "I would not have banished him!" he remembered her shouting at him after he'd sent Thor to Midgard. She'd been furious. This time she'd had time to prepare. No wonder she'd never pushed him too hard about the details of Loki's punishment. If Loki ran into trouble, instead of learning from it he could simply use his secret way back to Asgard – apparently, back to Frigga. But Loki hadn't used it. This mortal had. And that worried him. It was time to go to Loki now – he should have gone already – but the mortal's presence made him think something had perhaps gone wrong.
Thor, in the meantime, knowing nothing of this necklace except as a trinket his mother had given Loki to remember her by, felt rage boiling up within him. "What has he done to her?" he demanded, speaking over the beginnings of Frigga's explanation. "I know where she was. That" – he said, pointing at the red globe Frigga had let rest atop Jane's chest – "means that Loki found her there. Father, you must allow me to return to Midgard. I know where to find him, and I'll find out what he's done to Jane. I'll pry the answers from him," he vowed as Mjolnir flew reassuringly into its home in his palm. "If he sent her here like this as a message, I've heard it well." What a fool I've been! he thought. I even imagined them one day meeting and perhaps becoming friends! His heart has rotted and turned black.
"Now is not the time," Odin said.
"I cannot allow him to-"
"Thor, Loki hasn't done anything to her," Frigga interjected. "I believe your brother is in trouble."
Thor glanced back down at Jane's still body, with the clothing that was like an extension of herself, irremovable. "Loki is in trouble? Look at her! Look at her," he repeated a second later, more quietly. "I should have protected her. I should have insisted she come to Asgard. Or provided her with her own guard. He did this to provoke me. I knew he would seek her out. I knew he did seek her out. But I was certain he hadn't found her. I was certain he could change." "Sentiment," he heard Loki spitting out with utter disdain, just before shoving a knife into his side. "He has gone too far."
"Don't say that. We don't know what's happened. But if you know where he is, then we have to go to him," Frigga said. "We'll bring Jane with us, and Eir, and we'll all get our answers together."
"I know where Jane was. Loki must be there, too, and I'll be very glad to go to him," Thor said, making no effort to hide the meaning behind his words.
"I know where Loki is," Odin said, cutting Frigga off, "and I will go to him. I was on my way to do just that when I was informed of the intruder."
"What?" Frigga said, stunned yet again. "Odin…the ravens? Already?"
"Ravens?" Thor echoed.
"There's been no word from them. You deal with the mortal," he said, gesturing broadly at the room, "and I will deal with Loki." It was a pronouncement, a command he had no intention of debating, and he turned to leave. He had lost too much time already.
"Odin," Frigga said, hurriedly crossing the room and taking her husband's arm, "if I'm right, Jane needs to be returned to Midgard, and a clock may have begun its count. The magic that brought her here wasn't meant for a mortal's use. And whatever has happened to Loki, I am going to him as well. Eir, I want you with us. Maeva, too."
"I'm going, too," Thor said, speaking over Eir and Maeva's replies of agreement.
"You most certainly are not. You are king, and you are needed here."
"And you aren't? Any of you? I'll stay only long enough to see Jane is taken care of and Loki is subdued. It's my fault this happened. I didn't take a risk seriously enough and she is suffering for it. But I thank you for reminding me that I am king, Father. I'd forgotten for a moment. I'm going." He held his father's eye a moment longer, then strapped Mjolnir to his waist and bent to scoop Jane carefully into his arms. Odin was physically blocking his way.
Odin frowned. Undercutting Thor in front of an entire roomful of people was unacceptable. And at this stage, they weren't going to win this war simply by both of them being out there in the thick of the battle. They'd only lose it a little sooner. Perhaps the assault on Vanaheim would have to be pushed earlier. "All right," he agreed, watching as Eir and Maeva moved to follow Thor. "Maeva will remain here."
"But we may need her to-"
"Frigga, Maeva will remain here."
She glanced between her husband and Asgard's head magic wielder. Maeva's head was down; Odin's expression said that he would not back down in this. Frigga nodded. "We should hurry."
Odin nodded and finally made it out the door, Frigga at his side, Thor behind him with the woman from Midgard, and Eir behind them. His wrist still burned. They did need to hurry. It had taken much longer than expected, and the mortal's appearance on Asgard and the sightings of her over a thousand years ago – in his own bedchamber no less! – suggested that Loki had strayed far from the expected course, that perhaps he had found a way around the enchantments after all. The pain in his wrist suggested otherwise, though, that things had finally come full circle. Whatever had happened, Loki was now in a vulnerable condition among the people of Midgard, who may fear him or try to do him harm. Their experience with those from beyond their realm was mixed, and they would not know what to make of a Frost Giant.
/
/
When he woke, face partly smothered against something, the pain in his chest instantly reminded him about what had happened. He was hot, and he thought if he could get up and off whatever he was laying up against, then the heat would be more bearable and his lungs would fill more easily. He got his left hand under him and pushed; his right wasn't of much use. He rolled himself over, and in the burst of bright pain that followed he forced himself to sit up. The struggle to get air lessened but just barely; breathing was still maddeningly difficult, marked by croaking and wheezing that sounded horrible even to his own ears. The movements, the drive to keep fighting, were purely instinctive, instinct trained into him over the course of a lifetime. When knocked down, get back up. When beaten, regroup and fight again. When in pain, let it motivate you to fight harder.
All this was forgotten when he looked down and saw a blue hand resting on Jane's arm. His. His blue hand. Awareness surging through him, he yanked his hand away from her and stared at the offending thing, that had so casually rested upon Jane. He looked back at Jane, at her slack features, lying on her back on the floor at his left. He remembered what he'd seen happen to her, but not how he'd wound up on the floor, half on top of her. Did I hurt her? he wondered. He wasn't sure.
With slow, laborious effort he dragged himself away from her toward the table that held the laptop, and past it to the side of the jamesway where he could rest his back against one of the thin metal support beams to which the insulation and canvas were secured. Where he could not accidentally touch Jane.
He held his left hand up in front of his face; his vision shimmered. "This is his true form. He is despised for it by those who claim to love him." It's not. It's not, he told himself, scratching at the hand, at the blue covering it. He barely felt it so he scratched harder. "Loki Laufeyson," Thor growled, staring down at him. He scratched harder, watched blue blood appear instead of blue skin disappearing, and remembered having done this before, right before Thor pushed him off the bridge. He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering the fall, the fleeting moment of peace in it, wanting so badly to escape those eyes fixed on his…but he hadn't been pushed, and Thor had never called him "Laufeyson."
He opened his eyes again, both hands cradled in his lap, palms up. "I don't want…to be this," he sputtered out, aloud. You told me I wasn't cursed. What is this if not a curse?! he thought, eyes catching on the raised red lines marking the scar on his wrist. The hammer. Thor's symbol, but before that, a symbol of the ruling house of Asgard, even of Asgard itself. Why would you take me? "I thought you could unite our kingdoms," he heard Odin answer, staring down at him from on high, as though he couldn't even bear to draw near. So you dressed the monster in sheep's clothing, all my life? You knew no amount of magic could change what really lay beneath. He stared harder at the hammer; had his gaze been made of fire he would have burned the mark off with a look. Why? Am I your possession, that you must show your claim on me? "You are my son." I am Laufey's son. "And your death comes by the son of Odin." Laufeyson. Odinson. No One's Son. "If you aren't worthy of a name, then I'll call you Nothing." "As you wish, Loki Odinson."
The memories came one after the other, overlapping and swimming together. His right hand closed over his scarred wrist, covering it. In the beginning, it had so enraged him he could hardly bear to look at it, the visceral anger bubbling up in him even beyond the near-perpetual anger he'd been in then. It was a humiliation, a permanent reminder of his failure, his defeat, the incomprehensible enormity of everything he'd lost. Now, as his palm pressed down against it, all he felt was the loss. He could drown in it. He was drowning in it. And it was all he had left of who he was, who he had been. "Loki Odinson-" "Loki Laufeyson!" "Loki Odinson," Odin had insisted. "I place upon the mark of your heritage." My heritage. My heritage. The phrase replayed again and again in his mind. Why would he say that? Why?! It had seemed a taunt at the time, a cruel mockery meant to rub in that this – his realm, his home, his family, his position, his very name – had in fact never been his heritage. He pressed as hard as he could against the scarred wrist, gripping and clinging to it even as he wished to squeeze it right out of existence.
He looked Jane's way and warm tears slipped down his cheeks, but they weren't for himself. Jane wasn't moving. He hoped desperately that she would survive this, that he hadn't destroyed her life as he had so many others. He was going to die here, that much he knew. He hadn't wanted to die alone, but better that than dragging Jane along with him. Whatever exactly had happened to her, there was no one on all of Midgard, much less at the South Pole, who would be able to help. He began to drift with the thought, when with a sudden stuttering breath that brought about a coughing spell that felt like being stabbed in the chest a dozen times over he seized on one word from it. Midgard. But on Asgard… He couldn't get to Asgard, and he couldn't get Jane to Asgard. But, he thought as his breathing became even shallower and more desperate, he could get a message to Asgard. If Heimdall would still listen to him. If Heimdall still lived. If the loss of all his magic meant that the shield hiding him from Heimdall was gone. There were many "ifs." Loki didn't dwell on them. He had nothing left to lose.
"Heimdall," he rasped, voice weak. "Heimdall," he tried again. He didn't need to speak loudly, but he did need to speak clearly. "Do you hear me? Please," he began and for an interminably long time could not continue due to utter lack of breath in his body. "Ask them to send…send someone for Jane. Thor's Jane. As soon as…possible. Not for me," he added, upon sudden fear that Heimdall would look at him and think it was a ploy to gain aid for himself, or some kind of trick to overpower whomever they might send. "For Jane. For Jane," he repeated, vision dimming as his burst of energy evaporated.
/
/
"You gave Loki an exit from his punishment," Odin said as they strode quickly out to the relatively secluded area where Heimdall should have already arrived, with the Tesseract. Its use was more dangerous than ever now, when the shield over the city had been breached three times and continued breaches were all but guaranteed. They needed to be close to the fortress of the Weapons Vault, but free of areas of magical enchantments and the resulting decrease in control over the Tesseract, and for security Heimdall preferred to go to a new location each time he used it. It was waiting for them near a small shallow pond ringed by weeping willows.
"I gave my son a means to reach me should he truly need me."
"You must have known how dangerous such magic was. And you did this without informing me."
"Yes, I did, to both. I told him it could only be used once. He knew it was only for an emergency. Which tells me there has been an emergency, and that he needs help. And you know I don't like them being sent off alone like that, with no means of contacting us."
"Loki could have contacted us any time he wished, simply by calling out to Heimdall. Instead, he hid himself within an hour of arriving on Midgard."
"Of course he did. He's proud. And he's angry. He didn't want to be watched. But if he really needed help…I thought he might be willing to come to me. Now. What did you do?" Frigga asked. She hadn't forgotten that Odin had said he was already on his way to go to Loki, yet it wasn't Hugin and Munin that had found him.
"I ensured that I would know when the time had come to go to him."
"The time? What time? And how did you know it? And why didn't you tell me?"
"I emplaced the enchantments, Frig. I know when the one on his foot has run its course." They were entering the park now; Heimdall was on the other side of the pond waiting. A streak of red appeared overhead; Thor had regained some common sense and listened to Odin's "suggestion" to issue instructions for the leading of Asgard and its warriors in the unprecedented absence of the entire ruling family, even if only for a short time.
"What course?" Frigga demanded. She knew the basics of what Odin had done: an enchantment to ensure he did not harm the Midgardians, and an enchantment to punish him for inappropriate use of magic. "Running its course" for the second meant Loki would no longer be able to use magic. But for the first…death? Odin had been convinced it wouldn't come to that, that Loki would test it in some small way, find Odin to have spoken true, and refrain from at least directly harming them. Frigga, in darker moments, hadn't always been so certain, but she clung to Odin's reassurance. If he was trying to reassure her now, he was failing miserably.
"He's lost all use of magic. It's all been stripped from him. All of it," he emphasized with a heavy look.
It took a few more seconds for that to click; that magic had been a part of Loki from his infancy, and Loki had never even known it was there. Frigga nodded her understanding. Loki was now in his native Jotun form and unable to do anything about it. Whatever he was experiencing – and she couldn't imagine it was anything good – the emotions were surely volatile. He could lash out at others…or they, fearing a blue-skinned being they had never seen the likes of before, could lash out at him. No wonder Odin had already been on his way to meet Heimdall. No wonder he refused to allow Maeva to join us, she added with a quick glance behind them. Huskol – who had insisted on accompanying them to the pond – walked beside Eir; they were talking quietly to each other, and did not seem to have heard the exchange. Eir had known what lay beneath that deepest layer of magic from Loki's second day on Asgard, while Huskol had never known. Nor had Maeva, although she had been the source of numerous conversations between her and Odin, when it looked as though Loki and Maeva might one day marry.
"And I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry," Odin said after a moment.
"You mean because you didn't think I'd approve of letting that happen."
"Yes, that too. And why exactly did you not tell me that you'd changed the magic on that gem?"
Frigga didn't answer; she'd known Odin wouldn't approve of that, and she knew that Odin already knew it, too. There was no time for further discussion or explanation, anyway, for they'd reached the far side of the pond and stood under the largest weeping willow, where Thor had alighted moments before, gingerly managing Jane and Mjolnir both.
"Midgard's South Pole," Thor was explaining to Heimdall, who was unlocking the Tesseract from its shielded case. "It's a small research post, precisely at the southernmost point of their world, on the same continent you sent me to the last time I saw her. It's entirely covered with ice. Can you see it?"
"There's no need to look, Heimdall," Odin said before Heimdall could answer. "The Tesseract will know exactly where to send me, and Thor, Eir, and the queen with me."
"And you're certain it's safe for Jane?" Thor asked again, vividly remembering Tony Stark's collapse and bloody nose upon his arrival on Asgard.
"My control over the Tesseract has improved each time I've used it. I will ensure that no harm comes to her, Your Majesty," Heimdall answered with a resolute nod.
"She'll be fine, Thor," Frigga said. "And if there are any problems, Eir will be with us to see to it immediately. But we must go now; we've wasted too much time already," she urged. She didn't think Jane would suffer any harm at all from this travel, but they didn't have time for her to explain why. "Heimdall?"
"I have found him myself as well, just where you described," he said with a nod to Thor. "He no longer hides from my sight. And you do need to hurry, Your Majesties. If you will all link hands."
Frigga's heart chilled with fear at whatever Heimdall had seen, but she wasn't going to delay things further by asking. In just a few seconds, she would see with her own eyes.
/
Guest Oct. 20, so you're saying I've spoiled you for other fanfics? Ha. What a compliment! It's hard to find stuff you like, but I think a good tip is that anyone commenting on Ch. 135 of a story you like probably has at least some similar tastes - checking our their stories and faves will save some time should you yearn for something more!; "Deirdre," the Pathfinder thing on SHIELD is hilarious. I don't get TV here, but I found a way to watch it online...though I'm at the beginning of Season 2. Though I highly doubt they got the name from me, hey, it's a fun thought!; "GuestLokiLover," I suspect the movie just wasn't going to show us tons of Loki's emotions and personal issues and so forth, because the movie is ultimately not about him (though we Loki fans see it through that lens), but about the Avengers forming a team - they had a lot to fit in and frankly I think we were lucky with how much we got of his inner workings (compare A2 where they decided to cut even his tiny appearance!). So I'd say, we saw what we saw, but there are lots of moments we didn't see, and we can fill those gaps in as we like. Loki's rage against Thor, I don't have a short answer for that one, but why he wanted to fight and defeat him in "Thor," I'd say is part of it is him wanting to prove that he's "the worthy son". Also, Loki is king then and Thor the heir has come back, Loki would *have* to defeat him to maintain his legitimacy (or would feel like he had to), which has already been questioned by Thor's friends. But a full answer would be really long!
Warning: I *may* move to having two chapters in reserve from this point, because the writing becomes COMPLICATED and I'm more worried than usual that I will skip something critical, and I really hate to make significant changes (ie, adding or substantively modifying conversations!) after posting it on here, I don't think it's really fair to you, the readers. If I do this, [ducks to avoid hurled rotten eggs] it will mean a delay as you wait for me to finish *two* chapters instead of one.
Previews for Ch. 137 (maybe "Gathering"): Welllll, let's see what happens when we throw all these guys together in the same little frozen corner of Earth.
Excerpt (wee little one to avoid getting too spoilery):
"Jane? Jane, dear, wake up. You need to wake up now," Frigga said, letting go of Thor's hands and taking one of Jane's. "We need your help, Jane. Do you hear me? Loki needs your help. And so does someone else here. Jane?"