._.
Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Seventy-One – Tide
"My name is Agnar Styrson. I hail from Himblik, on the eastern coast of Lafidheim, where I am a field tender for several groves of fruit trees. I am a loyal Vanir. I gladly answered the call to fight on behalf of my king, and fought in six battles on Asgard before being taken captive."
"Pay attention!" Loki whisper-shouted to Maeva's oldest brother Modulfur, who was glaring at him instead of concentrating on his task, which happened to be Muspelheim. Maeva's brothers had been pulled away from battle for this and weren't happy about it; they were mollified when they learned the importance of what they were being asked to do, but when they realized who they were being asked to do it with,they chafed with impotent anger, unable to protest in front of Thor.
"-offered furlough, to return home in exchange for my oath that I would not raise arms against Asgard again. I preferred home to prison and saw no harm in it to Vanaheim, so I freely gave my oath. I stood in the Asgardian throne room, hidden by magic along with the rest of us who'd sworn, most of us Vanir because most of the warriors came from Vanaheim, and I can attest to what was said there, when King Gullveig did not realize that we were present. He spoke callously of innocent lives lost in an attack on the throne room before the war even began, and he brushed aside as inconsequential the blood we shed and the lives we lost fighting the Aesir. It bothered me deeply, but I am unaccustomed to overhearing private conversations in a throne room, and I did not think to judge my king for words spoken to a king we are at war against.
"Then not one week after my return to Vanaheim, I received a summons to report to the local warriors' hall. I reported it as a mistake, and I was told it was not a mistake. I argued, I said I had given an oath. But I was told that I had experience, that I had proven myself a capable warrior. I said, 'But our king knows of our oaths. I will raise this to the eyes of the Lafidheim Seers.' And I was told that I could raise it as high as I liked, because it was our king who ordered the recallings. Then I was threatened with the loss of my post and my home if I did not submit myself."
The voice paused, but Thor waited. He had reviewed each of the statements that had been selected, and knew there was more.
"It shames me to say it, but I was afraid, and I relented. I was sent back into battle but my heart could not embrace it this time. Every second I stood on Asgard with a sword in my hand, I felt the weight of my oath. I fought not half an hour before the sword was too heavy to lift. I threw it to the ground, and myself on the mercy of the Aesir. When the second furlough was offered, I refused, because I did not want to be ordered to break my oath a second time." Another pause followed. "I have never before been ashamed to be Vanir."
Agnar's was the third and final Vanir statement chosen for the broadcast, each of them among the few who had permitted not only the use of their names, but of their images, as well. Every visual display system, across the realms, that Asgard could access had shown those images, in addition to the even more widespread audio. The end of Agnar's statement was Thor's cue to continue.
"We have twenty-eight more statements with similar accounts, willingly provided by Vanir captured a second time on Asgard. We do not display them all merely for want of time, but to any who are able to contact us and request it, we will make the rest available. I say this to all of the people of Yggdrasil, but especially to the citizens of Vanaheim: the Aesir know well the courage and integrity of the Vanir people. Agnar need not bear any shame for them. He was coerced into breaking his oath, despite his sincere efforts to avoid doing so. That shame lies instead on King Gullveig. Asgard does not presume to know his motivations for the sullying of his own people's honor" – Thor had to pause to take a breath, and caught Loki rolling his eyes; it was Bragi, he'd learned, who had insisted they not lay out their own thoughts on that and instead allow the Vanir and others to come to their own conclusions, and Loki had disagreed but acquiesced – "but we do know that such actions are not typical of the Vanir.
"We have learned other troubling things, things which most of you are unaware of, things which we know that Gullveig is one of perhaps a handful who is aware of." It was Loki who had insisted that Brokk not be mentioned, and on this matter it was Bragi who had acquiesced. "A young woman, a youth not yet even of age, mistreated and driven nearly mad in order to be coerced into using her position to spy on Asgard. The intentional targeting of our food supply, to push even our children to the brink of starvation in an effort to force us to surrender instead of defending our realm.
"And for what purpose? What do you, the peoples of the other realms, stand to gain from these unconscionable actions taken in your name? Will it outweigh your loss? King Gullveig has led you in this war, and everyone has paid a price for it, the Vanir especially so." Not literally everyone, as Thor had pointed out to Loki and Bragi – the major weapons craftsmen on Svartalfheim and Nidavellir were no doubt doing quite well, for example – but he had been assured that this was "rhetoric" and not deception, and it was Vanaheim they most needed to convince. "Vanir farmers and food distributors are suffering, and the Vanir bear the brunt of a massive loss of life. But each realm has suffered disruption of trade and, far more costly, unnecessary loss of life.
"It is Gullveig who has led these deplorable acts. Jotunheim, as you now know, has already decided to follow him no longer." Thor had begun with that – "Begin and end with your strongest arguments; that is what they will remember," Bragi had told him in their discussion of the prepared remarks – and now he was moving into the end. "I bring you now a statement from King Nadrith Ljosalf, whose attitude toward this war has also changed."
Glad of the short break, Thor took advantage of the glass of water Bragi had thought to have sent for him to moisten his throat. He was no stranger to public speaking – he had plenty of experience telling tales in the Feasting Hall or a tavern, and more recently he'd become very familiar with giving encouraging talks to his warriors and other citizens – but reading words already written by someone else – or even himself – this was a skill he'd never developed. He'd actively avoided it in the past, on two occasions simply not showing up to give some speech his father had assigned him. Standing here in this cavernous empty chamber, speaking not to people but to magic-fueled transluscent screens that hadn't been used in centuries, was harder still.
"Any problems?" he asked Loki and Maeva over Nadrith's words. He had retrieved Farbauti's written declaration from his mother and taken it to the Ljosalf king, finding him subdued and detached, reading about architecture and ready with a draft of a statement – a man now resigned to an unexpected, undesired outcome.
"They're trying to block it, and I'm trying to prevent that. Disturbing me isn't helping," Loki said without looking up from the screen of the old transmission interface, the one routed to Vanaheim.
"Alfheim was also trying to block it," Maeva chimed in. "But they just stopped."
The others didn't note any problems, so Thor took another drink of water and listened to Nadrith, who was confessing with genuine-sounding humility and contrition that he had made a terrible miscalculation. Nadrith, he thought, knew how to give a speech.
"…that I chose to trust Dark Elf emissaries, and to follow Gullveig's lead and commit Alfheim to a war against Asgard. Given everything I have learned since, I now know that I placed my trust in the wrong hands. I ask Alfheim, in the strong and capable hands of my brother Halith and my sister Saltra to cease all attacks on Asgard, to no longer accept direction from Gullveig or anyone under his command, and to meet with me in person as soon as it can be arranged, to remove any doubts you may understandably have that I speak my own mind, free from outside influence. Although I lack authority beyond Alfheim, I further ask the rulers and honorable people of the other realms to follow our example and end their attacks and their allegiance to Gullveig as leader of the alliance against Asgard. I look forward to the end of these tragic hostilities, and to my return home, so that together we may mourn our losses and celebrate the upholding of our integrity."
Nadrith knew how to give a speech, and how to cast himself in the best light possible, but the best light was still not complimentary. He had admitted that he'd sent Ljosalf warriors to battle – and a great many to their deaths – in error. Thor couldn't imagine that Alfheim was erupting in "hup hup's" now.
"King Nadrith referred to other things that have come to light – the involvement of a madman called Thanos, from outside Yggdrasil, a being who desires all of our deaths, and who seeks the Tesseract to help him achieve it by speeding his passage to our realms and adding to his might. He manipulated Svartalfheim, and from there he duped you all," Thor said. Unlike Nadrith, he did not wish to lay blame at Svartalfheim's feet. Svartalfheim and its quartet of rulers had fallen for a deception laid out for them by Brokk, the same as the other realms. "He sought revenge against my brother Loki because Loki did not give him the Tesseract after recovering it on Midgard; thus he was made a war prize," Thor said, carefully not looking Loki's way. It was a perfectly "Loki" wording, entirely true while painting a rather different picture from what had actually occurred. Loki hadn't written this, though; Bragi had – Thor had asked. "And he sought to have the Tesseract removed from the most secure location in all the Nine Realms. We see in this a hidden plot, a secret plan from beyond the Nine to make the Tesseract more vulnerable to theft. With Jotunheim out of the war, you fight only for the transfer of the Tesseract to somewhere Thanos can more easily gain access to it. This is sheer folly. Who among you, with the possible exception of Gullveig himself, stands to gain anything from keeping the Tesseract on Vanaheim?
"Good people of Yggdrasil, Asgard has had the Tesseract in its possession throughout this war, yet we have not used it to attack you. We have taken King Gullveig, yes, but we have done so merely to make a point, and we will return him to Vanaheim, unharmed, as soon as this message is complete. We have chosen not to attack your realms and instead only to defend our own, despite all of Gullveig's efforts to provoke us into attacking and to cast us as an aggressor. Asgard has not made war or incited violence against any of you, yet now we all suffer for the war Gullveig has forced us all into. We do not want war with Vanaheim, or any other realm. We wish for peace, among us all. We wish for trade. We wish…" Thor looked up from the page he read from, to Loki, who was focused on his own task and not looking back at him. "For brotherhood," he finished. Thor had hoped Loki had written that part, but of course it was Bragi.
That was the end. A strange ending, Thor thought, but Bragi was firm in his belief that Asgard could not be seen as attempting to dictate the other realms' actions. His was merely to lay out the facts, and not to call for particular responses to those facts. But it still didn't feel like a proper ending. Loki was looking at him now, and from the tightening around his eyes so fixed on him, Thor suspected Loki knew that Thor wasn't, in fact, finished.
"We are, each of us, brothers and sisters, not by blood, but by being a part of Yggdrasil. We are different, yet we are bound to each other unlike any other realms outside the Nine. We have not always agreed on everything, but we have shared in each other's celebrations and sorrows, as among any family or friends. Losing a friend is painful. Trying to restore a broken friendship…is no easy task, and there may be more missteps along the way. But the task is a worthy one. One that I…one that Asgard is ready and willing to commit itself to, no matter how long and challenging the road. The destination merits the effort. Will you join us?"
/
/
Loki ignored Thor, as though once he'd turned his focus back to maintaining and strengthening the signals to Vanaheim, he'd ceased listening and never heard Thor suddenly improvising in only the most important speech he or any Aesir would likely ever give, as though he'd not noticed that Thor was talking more about him and their "broken friendship" than about the Nine Realms. Loki, however, was perfectly capable of doing more than one thing at a time. He performed his self-assigned task, he listened to every word Thor said, and he cursed Thor's foolishness throughout. By the end, he wouldn't have been surprised if Thor completely forgot the point of his speech and launched into another heartfelt argument for enduring brotherhood. When it was over, though, Thor took a breath and turned not to Loki, but to Bragi.
"I should have said that Asgard will not pursue recriminations."
"It was implicit; there was no need," Bragi reassured. "You could spend the rest of the day thinking of more things you could have said, but what needed to be said was said."
"Your arrogance knows no end. You stand on the edge of defeat, and you speak of not pursuing recriminations."
Thor turned to Gullveig, flanked by his friends – he'd tried shouting his own message over Thor's in the beginning, but the sound amplification system was not so crude, and only Thor's voice and the other intended messages were carried. And then he turned away again. He had nothing to say to Gullveig. The oddest thought flitted through his mind then – he had more hope for the future of Asgard's relationship with Helblindi or perhaps Farbauti, from Jotunheim of all places, than he did for the future of Asgard's relationship with Gullveig, from Vanaheim.
Thor thanked Maeva, her brothers, and the other four who had assisted in ensuring their message was transmitted, then dismissed them.
Loki replayed Thor's final words, briefly doubting himself, but he concluded that his interpretation was accurate, that Thor had indeed been speaking with double meaning. He realized then that he was impressed – albeit reluctantly – that Thor had been able to come up with that, on the spur of the moment, and had somehow not entirely lost track of either meaning, and had not fallen to a fit of sentiment afterward. It was disconcerting. He was accustomed to Thor being predictable. Of course Thor hadn't quite been predictable since his time on Midgard; Loki certainly never would have predicted Thor's uncompromising and in the end drastic defense of Jotunheim.
Thor watched as Loki's contemplative look turned sour, but before he could say anything Loki was turning away, approaching Heimdall and exchanging a few quiet words with him. A moment of silence followed, then a nod from Heimdall. Thor considered going over and inquiring, but neither man looked angry, and even Loki's ever-present smugness was minimally on display. Perhaps he would regret it later, but his spirits were buoyed and he decided to let it go. Loki was on his way back to the group now, and Thor signaled to his friends surrounding Gullveig, but Loki planted himself in front of them and turned to Thor.
"I brought him here. I think it's only fair that I escort him back," Loki said with a broad smile, careful to neither overplay it, or – less obviously – underplay it, as both would arouse suspicion.
Thor eyed his brother, already edging out Fandral to take up position beside their second captive king. Surely you're not still seeking to amass praise, are you? Or perhaps you wish to make some display of yourself on Vanaheim? Thor couldn't really muster up the desire to care if he did; there was no real reason not to allow Loki this, as long as he didn't sabotage their efforts. But as Loki himself had pointed out, Loki had no motivation to sabotage this and every motivation to ensure it succeeded. "You'll take him right back to where we got him?"
"Right back to Vanaheim."
"And you'll return here immediately after?"
"Of course. I have lingering business here. Vanaheim has nothing to offer me at the moment."
"All right. Asgard owes you for what you've accomplished. Escort him if you wish."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Loki said with a proper bow, just enough of a mocking edge to it that Thor – and few others – would see it. Sif did, he thought, from the glare she gave him, which he ignored. "And Your Majesty," he said now to Gullveig as the others stepped back. "I am pleased to escort you back home, where I'm certain your citizens will have a few questions for you."
"And I will have answers. You have overplayed your hand, all of you. My people will not fall for your tricks," Gullveig said in a huff.
"We would not dream of trying to trick the Vanir," Loki said. "We do trust that they recognize truth when they hear it."
"Especially when they hear it from their own people's lips," Thor put in.
"Let's get you home, Your Majesty," Loki said with a none-too-subtle nudge to his back.
Further away, near the door so that the Tesseract could be quickly secreted away in an emergency, Loki and Gullveig came to a stop in front of Heimdall. "You shouldn't lie to him, my prince," he said quietly.
"Who's lying?" Loki said with a smile just as Gullveig's head whipped around to face him. "If you wouldn't mind, Heimdall." Loki wrapped an arm around Gullveig's as he sputtered out the beginnings of an objection, but the old communications chamber dissolved into pure light before he could draw much attention.
Perfect, Loki thought in those few seconds of sluggish haze immediately following arrival. A commendable job, Heimdall. They stood on a raised platform in the middle of an intersection of two wide boulevards, a handful of stunned people a few feet away from them also on the platform, and beyond them what looked like thousands, filling the streets, surrounding them. The site of the largest protest on Vanaheim, if Heimdall had stuck precisely to Loki's request.
"Good people of Vanaheim," Loki prefaced as soon as he'd unwound his arm from Gullveig and put a few steps' distance between them. Gullveig, meanwhile, was glancing around him, probably searching for a friendly face. And not finding one. "Asgard is please to return your king to you, without any harm having come to him. King Thor and Odin All-Father send their sincerest regards," he added, in case anyone here thought he was acting as a renegade outlaw instead of as a fully sanctioned agent of Asgard. "Just before we came here, I noted to King Gullveig that his people would surely have many questions after the information Asgard has shared with you. And he assured me that he would have answers for all of your questions. This is a fine opportunity for that exchange to take place. As Asgard does not wish to interfere in your affairs, then, I will leave you to it. Heimdall, when you are ready." He turned to Gullveig, angling his head so no one else would see him. "Farewell, Your Majesty," he said softly, over a wolfish, cold-blooded smile. It was fitting.
/
/
Jane approached the jamesway feeling light, despite the two thick-walled boxes she carried, both of them filled with smaller lighter-weight folding boxes. Sue had helped her find them after lunch, and while they were collecting them they'd actually talked about something other than Loki or Thor. Sue thankfully hadn't pressed her on why she needed all these boxes, either.
She struggled with the door and then with getting through it, and when she made it past the little entryway vestibule she stopped cold. Even coming out here laden with boxes, which she slowly bent down to set on the floor now, she'd been picturing the jamesway mostly as it had until recently been – basically empty. A table and two chairs. Her work laptop, a few small piles of spare parts left over from when she and Loki had been working on probes and RF switches and various other things. The first few miniscule rooms running the length of the oversized tent "demolished" by their removal of the flimsy walls, a couple of bare-mattress beds left visible after those spaces were opened up for her and Loki's work area.
She'd forgotten the sheer volume of junk – what at least looked at first glance like mostly junk – lying around, despite the efforts the Asgardians had made to clean it up and organize it. She'd forgotten the bloodstains on the nearest bed, and the bloody blanket that had been tossed aside and abandoned. She didn't even have to close her eyes to picture Loki lying unconscious on that bed, looking blue, much more like she'd somehow thought "aliens" would look, probably thanks to Hollywood, than the Aesir or even the Light Elves she'd met. Odin sitting with Loki leaned against his chest, hand pressed against Loki's wound, the perfect image of a loving father that wavered when the sound was added. Frigga hovering, Eir examining…Jane herself in the moment she'd realized the significance of Loki's strange appearance.
Well, she thought, forcing herself to continue on toward the bed, he's gone now, and you have a job to do. The blanket was a thermal one, and Jane wasn't sure if it could be washed. Even if it could, their washing machines were cold-water only, and set-in blood stains might be hopeless. Set-in alien blood stains, she reminded herself. Loki's red blood was alien, too, of course, but it looked the same as a human's. The blue stuff, though, who knew? She would try. For the mattress she had even less hope, but decided she'd bring out a container of hot water tomorrow and try scrubbing at it. In the meantime, she folded the crumpled silver blanket and placed it atop the biggest stain on the mattress, hoping maybe it wouldn't be as distracting that way. She wasn't going to sit around worrying over Loki any more than she had over Thor since Asgard had gone to war, but she figured it would be a lot harder to avoid if she had to see his blood every time she looked in this direction.
She took a few steps into the central corridor, pushing aside the curtain to take a peek into the first intact bedroom. "Should've brought more boxes," she said to the empty room. Empty of people, but full of books that definitely hadn't been here before Loki's magic closet had emptied itself out. She stepped in and picked one up from the stacks on the blue mattress. The black leather cover looked like something out of a European aristocrat's prized collection, although neither cover nor spine bore any writing. She opened to a random page, about a quarter of the way into the book. There was still no writing, but in the center, spanning both pages, was a faint image of what looked like a field of wheat, kissed by sunshine. Jane closed her eyes, then squinted, and no, she wasn't imagining it. The wheat was also moving, swaying subtly in a gentle breeze. She thought of her simple sketch of the Asgardian sky out beyond the broken bifrost, and Loki's "corrections," animating her stars to move to the correct positions. He'd said he wasn't finished. She wondered if this book was his work, and what her drawing might have looked like had he actually this was amazing. And he said he wasn't an artist, she thought.
Resisting the urge to keep looking through the book, she closed it and placed it back on its stack. If she started this out by examining every one of Loki's things, the winter would end before she got through it all. Loki had said he didn't want it, but even if he didn't change his mind, it couldn't stay out here for anyone to stumble across and poke through, and by the time summer came someone definitely would, because this jamesway would be occupied.
She left the books, and didn't bother checking whether the other little rooms had been similarly filled with the contents of Loki's hidden closet. She would get done what she could before dinner and volleyball.
Her laptop would have to go, she thought, sitting at the table with one of the folding boxes pulled into shape beside her. She remembered frantically jabbing at the power button while Loki was bleeding out, desperate to get him help on Asgard, not yet aware that a likely power surge from Pathfinder had destroyed its circuitry. Pathfinder, too – its shattered, smoldered remains – would have to go. No one else ever needed to know about that. No one else could know about that. Bad enough that Tony figured out she'd used it for travel through space. So, she was down her best piece of equipment by far, along with the best research assistant she'd ever had. No offense, Darcy, she thought, though she was pretty sure Darcy wouldn't take offense. Well, at least not until she provided the name of her best research assistant ever. She pictured Darcy freaking out. Then she pictured her just staring at her calmly in stunned silence. Darcy was hard to predict sometimes. But probably she would freak out. She was clearly freaking out in the e-mail she'd sent Jane after hearing about the earthquakes. Jane smiled fondly. She missed Darcy and her special brand of crazy. She wished she could tell Darcy about Loki; she thought Darcy might actually understand. Maybe, Jane thought as her gaze fell on the stacks of papers on the table. But the whole thought of who she was going to be able to tell what, and when – if ever – was overwhelming, and she didn't have to figure it out now.
There were a lot of papers, enough to easily fill the box she'd readied, and then some. In the context of over a thousand years of life, it wasn't really that much, she supposed. It was like the junk drawer in Erik's kitchen that she used to try to clean out and organize for him from time to time, usually when it got so full it couldn't be closed. Loki's Special Storage never got full, she assumed, so who knew if it ever got cleaned out?
She picked up the nearest stack, the one she'd been paging through earlier, and tapped it against the table to straighten it, then placed it carefully in the bottom of the box. The second stack got the same treatment, but from this one a narrow strip of thin paper fluttered to the floor outside the box. Strange as it seemed, it looked like a receipt. The kind that came out of cash registers. On Earth.
Jane chuckled as she bent over to pick it up. She hadn't seen a receipt when he bought a cloak and some shirts at that little hut on Alfheim and charged it to his past self; it was probably from Sydney, for those fancy clothes he'd bought. Probably didn't want anyone to realize that every item of clothing he owned – except for the leather pants and a few simple shirts – had been bought at the same time and place. Her brow knitted in confusion when she looked at it, though, for it wasn't from Sydney. It was from a place called "Camila's Floral Designs," in New York.
Just as she was wondering with dark humor if Loki had taken time off from plotting to conquer Earth to pick up a nice bouquet, the word "Books" in bold font, right below the bar code, caught her eye. Surprise didn't have time to take hold before her eyes fixed on the words below that. Surprise didn't begin to cover it. Roses by Many Names.
It didn't make any sense at all. There was no way on Earth that was a coincidence. The obvious conclusion was that Loki had bought the book that was even now stuck under a pillow on her bed. But she'd found it in her room the day of their arrival. And even if somehow he'd managed to sneak it in there, maybe with some kind of magic, he couldn't have known then the personal, emotional associations roses held for her. Her eyebrows went up and lips parted with a sharp intake of breath. Time travel. It was the only possibility.
She searched for the date on the receipt and quickly found it: May 8. The day he'd been at Tony's Manhattan skyscraper. Sometime right before or after that, he'd gone to a florist's shop and bought her a book. A book that by then he knew would have a special meaning for her; she'd told him that she wished she'd taken the time to learn more about roses from her mother. But instead of bringing it back, maybe wrapping it up and sticking a bow on it, maybe a card, no, not Loki – instead he'd gone back farther in time, probably to February 9, the same day they'd arrived here but just a little earlier in the day to be sure the book wouldn't be found and removed by cleaners. He'd placed it in her desk in secret, knowing she'd find it there on probably that same day. Maybe he hadn't been certain actually – he hadn't put a lot of thought into the effects of time travel – but if it was just a test, he'd never asked her about it to confirm it had worked. The fork. Of course the fork. The fork that rhymed with New York, that he'd checked on the existence of at some later point in the past. The fork was the book, bought in New York, and he hadn't checked on its existence, he'd placed it in her desk drawer. For her. And never mentioned a single word about it.
Still on the desk, set carefully atop another pile of papers to the left, was her drawing of Asgard's sky with Loki's magical partial corrections. That one he'd intended to give her, once he'd finished. The book, in contrast, had been meant to remain a secret, it seemed. But why? Jane wondered, puzzling over it. They hadn't been particularly close at the time he bought the book, so why would he want to buy her something then at all, much less something so personal, so thoughtful? And then it clicked. Not only had they not been so close then, but at that precise time, when Loki had gone back to Tony's tower, things had actually been extra tense between them. Tony had just sent that video, Jane had just lost it at the look of glee on Loki's face in it and later called him a sick freak, and Loki's explanation hadn't exactly been brimming with apologies. She pictured the book, thought about the evenings she'd curled up with its lush photos and cultivation tips. That was Loki's apology, she realized. His own version which avoided responsibility or culpability or regret for his actions, yes. But she knew he regretted that she'd been so hurt and upset by it. That was a while ago, of course, and their friendship had since grown and Loki's attitudes had evolved. The book was an early gesture from Loki, and in typical Loki fashion it was no small thing. Personal, yes, thoughtful, yes, caring…and entirely unacknowledged. He'd delivered his apology well before the incident that had prompted it, and she'd been enjoying it ever since. She gave a quiet laugh. It was kind of ironic, really – she was pretty sure there'd been times when she was angry at, frustrated with, and maybe even scared of Loki, when she sought refuge in the book he'd bought her, and it gave her a measure of peace and comfort, and a sense of connection with her mother. Some of that had happened even before he'd gone back to buy it.
Well, now he has to come back. He has to. Maybe Loki didn't want to acknowledge it, but she did. She had to thank him.
She sat back, lost in thought, shaking her head at all the ironies. At how Loki was a walking contradiction. Tries to destroy Jotunheim and wishes he'd succeeded, tries to set himself up as the first King of Midgard over a family feud, but makes Asgard's stars dance for you and buys you one of the most thoughtful, sweetest gifts anyone's ever got you. Jane used to find his contradictions irreconcilable, as though he were two entirely different people. But devastation of the degree Loki had experienced, finding out you'd been born not to the family you'd thought for a millennium was yours but instead to their mortal enemies – of course it changed you. Pushed you off your course. Made you say and do things that weren't really you, but some shattered, angry, hurt version of you. Jane understood that, because she'd been there. She'd never been as outright mean to anyone – anyone who didn't deserve it – in her entire life as she had for a few months in the year after her parents' death, most of which landed on Erik.
It wasn't the same thing of course. Jane had grown up surrounded by academics, who tended to do their lashing out with words, usually big ones with an unnatural proportion of Greek roots. Loki liked words, too, but he had grown up among warriors, and somehow Jane felt certain that conflicts among them were usually worked out with fists and weapons instead of words. Jane had fallen into the loving arms of Erik, who she'd already thought of as an uncle, who loved her and wanted only the best for her, whose patience with her dark phases was endless and who had encouraged and supported her as she got past the dark phases and grew into a strong, confident woman. Loki, she thought with a grimace, had fallen into the decidedly less loving arms of Thanos. And maybe they'd gotten along great at first, though Jane couldn't help thinking that Thanos must have been delighted with the dark phase Loki had been in, and nurtured it. He'd gone to great lengths to make it clear to her that he'd been all for attacking Earth…but he'd also told her that it hadn't been his idea. And when he failed to conquer Earth and hand over the Tesseract, Thanos wanted revenge. Her eyes widened. Thanos wanted him handed over to Jotunheim. Thanos knew. His most closely guarded secret, and Thanos knew. It wasn't just that Thanos knew Loki hated Jotunheim, as he'd already admitted; Thanos knew that Loki was Jotun. It was surely the most personal, most humiliating revenge that could be taken against him. "Not even the tiniest bone in the tiniest overgrown finger on Thanos's hand is nice," Loki had said.
Jane shuddered. Loki had been safe at the South Pole. Now he was out there, she thought, looking down at her sketch, trying to figure out how to win a war, with Thanos eager to use Loki's worst insecurities against him in revenge.
She shook her head again, this time at herself. This was impossible. She couldn't be out here, where she and Loki had spent so much time together, where they had laughed and shouted, shared discoveries and sorrows, where she had seen more blood than she ever wanted to see again in her life, where she was literally surrounded by Loki's things, and not think about him. She had boxed precisely two stacks of paper in what had probably been nearly an hour. But it had to get done. She smiled. So he did say he didn't know how he was going to do it, but still, he was determined he was going to win that war in two days. If Loki can win a war in two days, I can box up his stuff in two days. Okay, one day, she corrected herself, since one day had already passed. You've got this, Jane.
She picked up the receipt she'd left in the newly cleared area of the table and leaned over to drop it in the box…then changed her mind and placed it in one of the many pockets in her Carhartts. Loki might end up throwing all this in a magical Asgardian trash can. The receipt, Jane thought, didn't belong there.
/
/
"What do we do now?" Fandral asked once Loki had returned and rejoined them in the long-abandoned communications chamber, its screens blended back into the smooth white walls.
Thor looked around at their small group: his brother, his closest friends, Bragi. Each of them looked anxious, most of them fidgeting. It had been a long time since they'd stood around doing essentially nothing, neither fighting nor planning to fight nor supporting the warriors who were fighting. Thor realized he was just as uncertain as Fandral, and as everyone else who seemed to be looking to him for answers. Except for Loki, who was neither looking to him for answers nor looking anxious. Thor studied him, frowning. His brother appeared more relaxed than he'd seen him in some time, and wore a hint of a smile that at least seemed to be entirely unaffected. "Heimdall?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," the gatekeeper said, approaching the group with the Tesseract again sealed in its case.
"Do the battles continue?"
"They do. In four separate locations," he answered before identifying each location. Heimdall paused, watching a particular point of interest for a moment. "A portal is opening at the one to the northwest…where Light Elves and dwarves are attacking…no one is emerging. They are withdrawing. And on Svartalfheim, a fight has broken out around the user of one of the talismans, between Light Elves and Dark Elves."
Thor took a moment to enjoy that news, while reminding himself that while it was encouraging it wasn't definitive. Three other battles persisted uninterrupted, and there hadn't been time for the rulers of the other realms to react, so whatever was going on with this one battle and that one talisman, it probably didn't reflect any official decision from above. Then he turned to Heimdall again. "And Gullveig? What is he doing?"
Heimdall's response did not come as quickly this time. "He is attempting to address difficult questions."
"From his advisors?"
"From citizens who were massing to protest his actions."
Thor exhaled slowly, and just as slowly turned to Loki. And said nothing. He waited. But his patience had never come close to matching Loki's. "What did you do?"
"I prevented him from hiding himself away with his advisors and only addressing his people once they had fabricated artful denials and explanations for everything you just announced."
Thor responded only once he was sure he could control his temper. "You were supposed to ensure he wasn't harmed."
"The protest was entirely peaceful." Loki smiled. "I checked." His smile grew as he quite incongruously thought of Jane.
"Heimdall?" Thor asked without elaboration, after several seconds of staring at Loki with clenched jaw.
"The protesters are angry and there is a great deal of shouting. But no one is behaving violently. Guards are approaching and will reach him in…perhaps ten minutes."
A few more tense seconds passed. Thor drew close to Loki; the others backed away, Fandral only with an insistent nudge from Sif.
"You should have told me," Thor said quietly, little more than a whisper.
"You would have ordered Heimdall not to allow it," Loki said at just short of normal volume, deliberately displaying nonchalance.
"Yes. And you should not have pulled Heimdall into your conspiracy."
Loki managed to keep a snort of laughter to little more than a sharp exhale. "Your father once told me that Heimdall has discretion in following orders."
"Your father, too, Loki," Thor said, then shook his head as though he could clear it from this ridiculous argument. "You cannot keep doing this."
"Doing what? I told you I would ensure you were happy with the outcome. Gullveig is safe, and is being forced to publicly confront his misdeeds. What is it about this that displeases you?"
Thor took a moment to pull his thoughts together. Loki was right; he wasn't displeased with the outcome. Loki made it sound logical, good, wise, just as Loki always – nearly always – knew how to do. It wasn't really the outcome that was needling at him. "You are undermining me as king. When you deceive me, trick me…when you do this in front of others…you make me look weak."
"Ah. So this is not about me. This is about your pride," Loki said, expression turning smug.
"No. This is not about pride. This is about a people's need to have confidence and trust in their king, especially in wartime. That is what you undermine."
Loki grit his teeth, anger blooming…but then fading before it took firm root. Thor had, perhaps, a small point. He couldn't quite make himself see it entirely from Thor's perspective – he couldn't quite make himself entirely try – but he knew what had happened to him when he'd lacked the confidence and trust of key people. Whatever damage he may have done to anyone's confidence and trust in Thor, it didn't come close to approaching that scale. Still, he understood, reluctantly, what Thor was saying. But he decided that it would behoove Thor to understand, as well. "Gullveig did not instigate this war. It was not his creative inspiration to name me as a war prize to be gifted to Jotunheim. But he agreed to it, and he placed himself in charge of it – with an overabundance of eagerness I have no doubt." Loki dropped his voice to match Thor's volume. "This was personal."
Thor swallowed, chilled by the ice in Loki's voice. This entire war had felt personal, with Gullveig's indictment of Odin's character, honor, trustworthiness, reliability…and by extension, his own, all of which Nadrith had echoed. But it was Loki alone who had been singled out for punishment, though he had never wronged Gullveig or Vanaheim or any of the realms who declared war against them, except for Jotunheim. It was Loki who would have been made the sole casualty of the war, had Asgard chosen to capitulate from the beginning. "The real reason you did this was…to humiliate him? Out of revenge?"
Loki let his expression fade to neutral. "I rarely do anything for a single reason."
Thor wondered if he was supposed to find some deeper meaning in that, or if Loki was just being cryptic to irritate. "I concede that this has all been particularly personal for you. But Loki…will you concede that you should stop tricking me like that?" He glanced over Loki's shoulder to the small gathering, waiting and at least acting like they weren't trying to listen. "Right in front of others?"
"Fine," Loki said, satisfied with the addition. "I'll trick you only in private."
"You know that's not what I meant," Thor said over another angry huff. Loki took words as he pleased, willfully ignoring the speaker's clear intent. But as Thor thought over what Loki had just said…he decided he could do the same. His expression cleared and he broke into a smile. "I look forward to these times we will spend in private."
Loki glowered and faintly shook his head. There was really nothing he could say, though. Thor, he thought, had actually just legitimately won a bout of verbal sparring. Verbal sparring and rhetoric were one thing, of course, and reality something else. He had no plans for any "private time" with Thor other than what might be dictated by circumstance beyond his control. And, verbal sparring aside, he'd just informally agreed not to undermine Thor as king. It was galling, really. Loki should have been king; when he was king, he'd been undermined by Thor's friends at every turn. And yet, galling as it was, the anger was still no more than a small burn in his chest instead of a raging inferno. These thoughts he had sometimes, of what should have been following Thor's banishment and Loki's accession to the throne, they were – they once had been – like digging fingernails into wounds to add fuel to the flames, kindling his ire and hardening his resolve.
Before he could drift too far in that train of thought, and what it said about his fingernails or his wounds or both, Thor was calling the others back over, confirming with Heimdall that three battles were still underway and issuing orders, and sending Sif and The Warriors Three back to the fighting. Perhaps, he thought, he was less bothered now by the thought of Thor as king because he had for most of his life not been bothered by the thought of Thor as king – only Thor as king when he so clearly wasn't ready for it and the time drew near. The Thor that stood before him now wasn't quite the same man who'd dragged him off to Jotunheim and started a war over a childish insult. Of course, Loki himself wasn't quite the same man, either – the understatement of the year, Loki thought, as the mortals would put it.
"The war continues, Bragi," Thor said. He'd thought Loki might come back with some sharp response; it had taken him a while to realize that Loki's silence meant he'd actually won that bout. "What do you advise I do? We cannot know for certain that this will work, and even if it does, we don't know how long they'll keep attacking us in the meantime."
"As long as they attack, we must defend," Bragi said to Thor's nod. "But…I might suggest that you position yourselves at the battle near the tower, and take the most clearly defensive role you can. You might also try warning them, that this war will end soon, that they should retreat, wait to see what will happen before they throw their lives away for a war that their rulers may have already decided to put a halt to. Take care not to insult them in anything you say."
"You can kill them," Loki put in, only half paying attention, "just don't insult them." They played a waiting game now, and Loki could only hope that the wait was very short. He had done all he could do.
"You disagree with Bragi?" Thor asked.
Loki sighed. "It was a jest." And you once would have laughed. He remembered then Eir telling him, as sharply as Eir ever spoke, that jests about this war were not appreciated. And he knew better. He really did. But he had not been invested in this war as they had, and his empathy for Asgard in it had waxed and waned over time, and at the moment his concern was rather less for Asgard than for himself. He wasn't going to apologize, but he thought he could make an effort to be less dismissive of the aspects of all this that had nothing to do with him. For the vast majority of his life Asgard had been his home and he did not desire its wholesale suffering, much less its defeat and subjugation. "I agree with him entirely," he added, giving a slight nod to the old advisor.
"Will you join me then? We can both go to the tower."
"You never give up, do you?"
"So that we can present a united front. If you're standing freely at my side, surely it reinforces the idea that you will not be surrendered to Jotunheim, and that Asgard stands strong and firm."
Loki considered it. It didn't take long. There was logic in it; he had thus far not been seen fighting for Asgard at all, even if he had done so once, albeit very briefly and with deep regret immediately after. If he were seen fighting for Asgard now, it could have real impact on the enemy warriors. And while he didn't crave the distraction as he had before, the physicality and single-minded focus necessary for battle might be beneficial.
Horses were sent for – Thor could have gotten there faster on his own but the image of the two supposed Odinsons arriving on pounding hooves together would be more effective – and within minutes Loki was blinking back an emotional reaction at the sight of Lifhilda being ridden to him. Even though, in the scale of Lifhilda's long life, not much time had passed since Loki had last ridden her, he had not expected to see her, to be running a hand along her neck now. She was aging, nearing the end of her prime, but still strong, steady, fast, reliable. He leaned in toward her, not quite brushing his forehead against her neck, and breathed in her familiar scent, then quickly hoisted himself into the saddle, feeling self-conscious. "Something is not quite right," he said, pursing his lips.
Thor looked his way and bit back an annoyed response, though he couldn't keep the impatience from his expression.
"Ah, yes," Loki said, picturing exactly what he wanted before making it happen. Thicker leather, more chain armor, a cape that grew out from the extra layers of leather atop his shoulders, and finally, his helmet. In truth it wasn't actually all that practical for fighting, but it made him look fearsome, as well as instantly recognizable. Even if, in this case, it was nothing more than an illusion. "Let's go," he said with a dark smile.
/
Is the tide turning on Asgard? And for Loki? (And how 'bout that new Ragnarok trailer? LOKI! Hee hee hee.)
Quick responses to guests: "Priscila" - Loki wanted that out in the open rather than simmering in hiding...and he's not opposed to a bit of rubbing of faces; Guest (Jul15) - Yes, all that for sure, and I would add excitement. And occasionally really hard work; "pimpernel" (the scarlet kind?) - Ha, that's funny, like inversion of the place of fanfic and the place of film. :-) I myself sometimes forget to separate out "my" Loki analysis from movie Loki analysis - they diverge at the end of Avengers so they aren't really exactly the same after that. (I read that in earlier drafts of "Thor," Baldur was actually in it, isn't that weird?!) Thank you thank you; "AuroraBorealis" - Thanks! Loki can have soft mushy *moments*, but IMO that's not his core, and I never wanted to find some redemption by *no longer being Loki*. So thanks for that.
Previews for Ch. 172, maybe titled "Rubble" (mostly because I haven't used it yet, I think the dictionary may soon be running out of nouns I haven't requisitioned for titles): Battles, of various incarnations, don't always go exactly as expected.
Excerpt:
The Einherjar looked up over the stone straining his muscles and registered surprise when he realized it was Thor standing beside him. "Your Majesty. Only one."