Beneath

Chapter Sixty-Two – Traps

As soon as Loki felt gravity return, he reached out to levitate, to prevent the fall and alight on the broken bridge. But gravity did not return normally; no fall began. Instead, Loki felt himself pulled slowly, inexorably, toward the bridge. He felt the pressure equally all over his body, and found himself unable to resist it even in the slightest, his magic entirely ineffectual. When he stopped struggling against it, his eyes swept down the bridge and there, at its first intersection, stood two Einherjar, where none had stood before, not since Thor had destroyed the bridge. He felt his feet touch ground, and the strange pulling sensation ceased, but when he tried to move he found his feet may as well have been fused to the bridge's surface.

As he stared incredulously down at his boots, his heart racing because he had planned for all of this, he heard a ram's horn once, then as he looked up and saw two Einherjar approaching, one with a horn to his lips, he heard it again. Loki knew what that meant, from prior unpleasant experience. It meant his presence was known. It meant others were coming.

His hand went to his satchel, hidden underneath his leather surcoat, then back to his side. That was meant to be the next step, just as the first time. Turn off the transmitter that would allow Pathfinder to pull him back in five minutes. He hesitated, losing precious seconds. The Einherjar were still a long distance away and approaching slowly.

He looked down again. The bridge was broken, weakened. With Thor's first blow its fracture had become almost inevitable. He reached out to manipulate its surface at the basest level, to turn it to something malleable, something that would release him from its grip. But magic already overlaid the darkened crystals; they thrummed with an unfamiliar energy. He grew angry and tried harder, but the results were no different.

Think. Think! he screamed at himself. He conjured balls of flame in his palm. He'd never managed to make them very large, but right now he didn't need large – he still wanted to have two feet when this was over. He hurled one down beside his right foot. The bridge's surface glowed, but he could detect no disruption in the magic that shouldn't have been there. He tried it again and again and again, one after the other, two at a time. His boots were scorched and he felt like he might as well be standing on hot coals, but still his feet would not budge.

He looked down the bridge. The two Einherjar were no longer advancing, but when he widened his view to look beyond them he saw why. Other Einherjar were on the bridge now, running, quickly nearing the original two. From the northeast, four winged cavalry approached by air, while from the northwest an unmistakable streak of red and silver approached, faster than the horses.

Thor. Of course. It's always Thor. It will always be Thor. Until I finally break free of him. Of Asgard. Of this blasted bridge!

He bent over again as panic started to rise in him. Feet. Boots. Loki's eyes widened as he wondered if it could be that simple. Perhaps it was merely his boots holding him firm against the dull crystals. He wrapped his hands around his knee and just below it and began to pull, to tug, to yank with all his strength, but the leg remained firmly ensconced in the boot, firmly attached to the bridge.

Thor had stopped on the bridge, talking with the two Einherjar whom the others were now pushing past. As he watched, Thor suddenly shot into the air again and was now approaching rapidly.

Loki reached behind him and silently drew his sword in his right hand, the dagger he'd fashioned from the blade taken from his back in his left. Powerful magic held him fast, magic perhaps even augmented by the tesseract. Thor flew toward him – Thor, with his greater strength, with Mjolnir, with his ability to move about freely while Loki stood rooted to the bridge. There was no way to escape. No way except to go right back where he'd come from. Again. He'd lost track of time. It seemed an hour had passed but it had to have been less than five minutes. He only had to survive that long…

Unless Jane had turned Pathfinder off. "For good," he'd confirmed for her. Or unless the arc reactor powering Pathfinder wasn't strong enough to remove him from the bridge. Not this again! He needed to be able to hold off Thor at least long enough for Pathfinder to trigger the devices on his wrist and snatch him back. And if that wasn't going to happen…then things were about to get very, very difficult.

A sword and a dagger would be nothing against Thor. He carefully replaced the sword, then the dagger, then smoothly drew two knives. If he hit Thor with one knife after another, he might be able to slow him down, to stun him at least. If enough knives went into the right place, maybe he could even stop him. Maybe he could grab hold of him and take him as a hostage.

But there was no more time for such ideas, because then Thor was there, his feet touching down just a few steps away. If it weren't for the lack of focus of Thor's eyes on him, he would have thought Thor could see him despite his invisibility. Instead, his former brother kept glancing down at the bridge at something – probably some sort of marker beneath Loki's feet identifying his location – then looking up and around. Loki saw his left fist clenching and unclenching and came close to laughing. "You never could stand to have to confront something that didn't stand conveniently before you waiting for a blow from your hammer, could you?" Loki taunted, knowing Thor wouldn't hear him. It felt good to say it before this imbecile who'd ruined his plans again before they'd even begun.

"What is it, Thor?" someone shouted in the distance. Fandral, Loki thought, though he could not see beyond the bulk of Thor's frame mere inches away from him now.

"I don't know," Thor called back, his eyes seemingly fixed on Loki's for a moment before they again flickered around. "But I'm going to find out." With that he unexpectedly swung Mjolnir around in a broad horizontal arc and Loki ducked so quickly he nearly lost his balance to avoid having the bones in his left shoulder shattered.

Thor took a step back, peered again at the area Loki occupied, looking lower this time. Loki didn't know if he could duck that low with his feet planted flat on the ground. He drew his hands back to loose his first two blades, but before he could do so light blinded him and he felt the pull back to Midgard.

/


/

Thor jerked backward, pulling Mjolnir away as well, when a light flashed so brilliantly right in front of him that he was left pressing his thumb and fingers against watering eyes. When he forced his eyes to open, the brightly glowing yellow tether points on the bridge were gone. He kicked out tentatively over the area with his foot, but there was nothing there.

He glanced over his shoulder; shouts behind him that had accompanied the flash gave way to the sounds of hooves and feet and wings. He'd told them all to stay back, for if this strange phenomenon presaged another explosion, there was no use in anyone else being in danger.

He looked down at the bridge again, nothing there but the same lifeless crystals. Perhaps that was all that had ever been there. But there had been two tether points, spaced appropriately apart for two feet. Could it be…? he wondered. Loki? But this was not Loki's magic. Loki had never appeared and disappeared with a flash of light. He would have thought it unnecessarily dramatic. Whose magic is it, then? Thor asked himself before remembering that in fact, the Einherjar who'd fought an invisible thief in the observatory reported a bright flash of light right before they lost the would-be thief. He had no more time to ponder it as questions poured in from the crowd gathering behind him, his closest friends right up front on horseback. He had no more answers to their questions than he did to his own.

/


/

Loki felt his weight come down on his feet again, then the bite of the cold. He held himself still for another second, then his hands whipped forward, finishing the motion they'd been about to begin, and hurled the knives far ahead of him into the ice. He took a deep, shuddering breath. Had his five minutes been up a few seconds later, his hands might have been severed. And Thor's eyes might have been gouged. Severed hands were unlikely to be repaired. Thor's eyes might have stood a better chance, but he might have been blinded for life. An image of blind Jolgeir flashed through his mind. Then an image of blind King Thor sitting on the throne of Asgard, his palace protected by blind Jolgeir. It was preposterous. If he'd blinded Thor beyond a healer's abilities to treat him, Asgard would have been fresh out of heirs. A king without one eye could still lead his men in battle. A king without either…

It was too bad he hadn't, in a sense. It would have been poetic, a rare accomplishment.

It made his stomach clench and his hurried steps back to the jamesway and out of the severe cold unsteady.

He threw open the door to the old insulated tent and jumped as Jane let out a startled gasp. He shouldn't have been surprised. It felt like he'd been gone an hour or two, but it had been just five minutes. Of course she was still there. She gave a nervous laugh and started walking toward him. And then she didn't stop. He shrank back from her, suddenly afraid she intended to embrace him for some reason. But she kept coming and her arms didn't go out and he realized what had happened only when she walked right into him and screamed loudly enough to call Odin from his Sleep and thrashed backward in a tangle of jerking limbs until she ran into a chair, lost her balance, and fell to the ground.

At any other time he would have laughed, and laughed heartily. Now he merely frowned and flicked his hand in the air, making himself visible.

"Loki!" Jane said in a breathless voice after another gasp. She scrambled up even as he stood there still staring down. Gathering her scattered wits about her and marveling for a split second that while it had just about scared the heart right out of her chest for a moment this magic stuff really didn't actually seem all that weird anymore, Jane looked Loki over closely for signs of stab wounds or other unpleasant things. She didn't see anything, but with him, who knew? "What happened this time?" she finally asked.

Loki finally lifted his gaze from the floor where she had been to meet her eyes. "I can't leave here. I'm trapped."

"What…what happened? It didn't work?"

"It worked. They've done something to-" He stopped himself then, remembering that as a rule he did not answer her questions, did not want to give her the impression that she had any right to know anything that happened anywhere but right here in her own little realm.

"What? Sit down. You don't look well." Jane turned around and picked up the chair she'd fallen over and rolled it over his way.

He did feel lightheaded. He lifted the strap that held his sword in its sheath and shrugged out of it, laying it carefully on the ground as he sat.

"They did something to…?"

"To the bridge. It pulled me in and I couldn't break free of it. Something changed. They-" Loki's eyes narrowed and anger bubbled up in him so quickly it threatened to explode into something violent he would regret. "You." He clenched his hands into tight fists but kept them carefully at his sides.

"Me what?" Jane asked nervously. The change in his expression, in his whole posture, was obvious. He'd been clearly rattled before; now he was completely focused…on her. Without conscious thought she took a step back.

"You changed things. They saw your probe. They turned the bifrost into a trap. Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

Loki suddenly stood up and Jane took another step back. Dressed like this, he looked closer to the man who'd commanded a Stuttgart crowd to kneel and threatened to kill an old man to enforce it than the Loki she'd gotten used to. But he turned away from her and started pacing down the dark narrow jamesway corridor, between the tiny bedrooms. "Maybe they saw you from before, when you left me on the bridge. Maybe they saw me there, or they figured it out, and-"

Loki stopped and spun around to face her. "We were invisible! Did you bother to make your probe invisible before you sent it?"

Jane flashed him a look of indignance. "You know I can't-"

"You didn't think, Jane, you never think. I told you you shouldn't have done this. Are you sabotaging me on purpose?"

"Loki, get over yourself! All I did was send a probe through Yggdrasil, the same as I did twice before. You didn't have such a problem with it then. In fact, you were out here helping me do it. And as far as I know you never made it invisible."

"I didn't know Asgard was at war then!"

Jane shook her head and buried it in her hands for a moment. Loki had come quite close to her again by now, close enough that when he shouted she could feel his breath. "I don't…I don't understand what the problem is. What do you mean you were trapped? You went there to defend-"

Loki's jaw tightened and he spun on his heel and started pacing the other direction again.

"You didn't go there to defend Asgard. You were never supposed to be able to leave here." She had suspected – more than suspected, really, concluded with certainty would be more accurate – that he was lying to her about his task on Earth being to return to Asgard with Earth's technology, but it hadn't ever quite occurred to her before that maybe he wasn't supposed to be able to leave at all.

"It's called punishment, Jane," he said after a moment, before turning back and stalking toward her again. "This is my punishment. Banishment to Midgard, bound and shackled and forced to hide and pretend I'm some weak, pathetic, useless mortal, so that I can learn something like my beloved older brother. There's nothing for me to learn here. There's nothing for me to do here. I've done everything already. Everything. I've planned, I've prepared." His eyes had grown unfocused, near the end, sinking into his own thoughts and frustration, but then he remembered there was someone else here to direct his anger at. "Three days. Thor was here for three days before his whining traitorous friends brought him back in direct defiance of my order. I was the king of Asgard, then, Jane, I was. Now I'm stuck here. Shall I search for muons or mop floors or shovel snow or throw darts all winter? And after that? At Odin's mercy until I've learned my lesson?!" Loki shouted, his face contorted into an angry sneer.

The jamesway, filled with so many of Loki's shouts, suddenly fell silent. Jane stared at him wide-eyed, trying to keep her breathing under control, hoping he'd be able to keep his temper under control. She'd known he had a lot of anger. She'd known he was mad at Thor. But she'd never heard anything quite like this from him. This was Loki being brutally honest. And it was kind of scary. He was angry about a lot more things, and at a lot more people, than she'd ever realized. She had a sudden image of a volcano under unimaginable pressure and finally erupting. Still, he wasn't making any moves toward her other than his pacing. If she chose her words very carefully… "If what you really want is to go back to Asgard, why don't you try going there and apologizing. Asking for forgiveness."

"Don't you think I've thought of that? They know better than to trust me. They would never believe me."

"Well, I meant, uh, that you should mean it. Be sincere." Jane kept her voice quiet, matter-of-fact.

Loki rolled his eyes. "'Be sincere.' About apologizing? What have I to apologize for? What happened here? What an inflated idea of your own self-importance you have. Jotunheim? They deserved it. And Thor started all of that anyway, but no one is demanding he be handed over as some kind of war trophy."

"What? What are-"

"It doesn't matter," Loki cut in, cursing himself for what he'd let slip, for all the things he was letting slip now. "All that matters is that I am not going back to grovel. I'll go back free, with my future in my own hands, or I won't go back at all. And for the moment" – he paused to take a deep breath and slowly release it – "that means I'm not going back. You'll have the pleasure of my company for a little longer after all, Dr. Foster."

"O-okay," Jane said, nodding her head. "We can make that work," she continued, reassuring herself as much as him. She'd begun to think he'd be there all winter anyway, so now maybe he really was. Except…what was all that about traps and war trophies? "You just…you can go back to the original plan. You'll, um, work with me. There's way more work than what I can manage on my own now, with all the data from Pathfinder on top of all my other equipment." Yeah, Jane thought, still nodding, we can make that work. I can make that work. For the safety of everyone here. For Thor.

"The original plan?" Loki repeated with a short laugh. He pictured himself holding Jane with a blade to her throat, making Thor bargain for her life. Setting fire to the station and creating his very own Mass Casualty Incident, only to play the hero and rescue its inhabitants. A half dozen other scenarios that had once seemed eminently plausible, only the lack of reasonable expectation of ultimate success holding him back. "You wouldn't like the original plan."

The look on Loki's face was so dark Jane shivered. "Okay, maybe not the original-original plan. Maybe not your original plan."

"I'm not going to serve as a mortal's assistant. I did it before only because it furthered my goals. Your work is your own concern now."

"You're going to need something to do while you're here. And we…hard as it is to admit it, for either of us, when it comes to astrophysical research we do make a pretty good team."

"All you want from me is to ask about Asgard. About him. About the other realms. I am not a travel guide."

"That's not-"

"I'm going back to the station now," Loki said, taking a sudden turn back toward the door. He glanced down at himself though and realized he would first need to change. He was supposed to be wearing Big Red, not a long leather coat. He started to bring out his suitcase, then decided he really didn't feel like changing and instead waved a hand down his body and watched as his surcoat morphed into an image of Big Red. His leather boots remained leather and he smoothed out the illusion at the knee; if anyone asked…he would simply ignore them.

"Loki…," Jane began – she had a hundred questions and no idea where to begin.

"Can you not just once let things go? I said I'm going to the station. I need to…to…"

"I know. You need to think," Jane said, letting things go. I let things go constantly. I'm always afraid of pushing you too far. She wondered if he really didn't see that.

"I'd really like to not think for a while, actually."

Jane nodded blankly, wondering desperately what was going on on Asgard. Loki seemed to be in a worse mood each time he returned. At least this time he hadn't dripped blood all over the floor for her to clean up.

/


/

Thor went to one knee before his father on the throne, along with Maeva, the Warriors Three, Sif, Hergils, Tyr, and Bragi, then all rose and Thor recounted what happened on the bifrost. "Even though whatever it was that came here escaped in the end, we owe Maeva our gratitude for the snare she managed to set around the bridge that proved something did come to the bridge, as well as for successfully shielding us when we watched over Vigdis's meeting with Brokk. Our presence gave Vigdis enough courage to complete her task," Thor said with a nod to the reddish-blond-haired woman on his left. The tactics may leave him with a bitter taste in his mouth, but Maeva had taken a risk in using a wisp of the tesseract's power both because the tesseract was hardly a tame power source and because it was a target, and she had also taken a risk in joining them on the meeting with Brokk, when they could not have counted on him not noticing their presence without her. She had done her job well and without complaint, though he knew both efforts had drained her.

Odin began to speak his acknowledgement of Maeva's contribution, but the words washed over Thor in a haze as the past and present mingled for a moment. How many times did Loki shield me? And our friends? Not with invisibility, but with smoke or fog or some other creative means. How many times did Loki's knowledge of magic teach me, or protect me? And how many times did I stand before this throne and proclaim it for all to hear? It was the latter question that made his chest tighten and his breath stutter.

Did I ever? Surely I must have… But he could not recall a single specific occasion. He wondered why it was so easy for him to single out Maeva's critical contributions, but it had apparently not been the same with Loki. I am older now. I have grown. I remember to think of others…I am less selfish. His thoughts latched on to the word "selfish." Was I selfish toward Loki? He didn't think so. He recalled being happy for Loki when he succeeded in something, when he mastered some new skill. But then he recalled also how he himself had basked in his father's praise and attention, and as he grew into a man…there had sometimes been a sense of competition with Loki. Of course there was competition. We were brothers, close in age. We competed in everything. But not to hurt or belittle each other…

He'd known, of course, that his father wanted them to be skilled warriors, that he thought magic should come after the sword, not instead of it. But he had always supported Loki and his achievements with magic, even if he hadn't done so as openly as he perhaps should have. Then he remembered blowing up at Loki that one time he'd let him make him invisible and gotten caught. Then he remembered the day of his intended coronation. "Some do battle, others just do tricks." It was only a jest…

"…so extensively as I have since this war began," Maeva was saying when Thor again became aware of the conversation around him. "Creating illusions the size and scale of one of our grain silos, doing so nine times, and in such a way that the illusions hold without my active control, is an immense undertaking. I will of course gladly give my last ounce of strength for Asgard, All-Father, but if I am to keep up this pace of effort…I'm afraid I will require assistance."

"Can your two brothers not assist you?" Odin asked.

"Like the rest of the men, they prefer to be outside wielding a physical weapon against the enemy instead of engaging in the invisible manipulation of energies and structures."

"You cannot ask a warrior to leave an active battlefield for these tricks of light," Fandral said, inclining his head.

"I cannot?" Odin questioned calmly.

Fandral gulped. "I didn't mean, Your Majesty, of course, what I mean to-"

"We can send word throughout Asgard that we seek volunteers skilled in-"

"We can do no such thing," Tyr insisted, interrupting Volstagg. "How many others like Vigdis are out there? Citizens who are vulnerable, young, naïve, easily tricked and intimidated? We cannot let it be widely known that we seek individuals skilled in magic. We cannot tip our hand that we are turning to…creative strategies."

"Maeva, you know who has the capability to do what is needed. Make a list, and discuss it with…discuss it with Bragi. Bragi can then approach these citizens privately, quietly, and determine if they can assist us," Odin instructed.

"Father, can Jolgeir not undertake this task? Bragi is busy with a thousand other duties, and Jolgeir seeks ways to be of use."

"If he is able, yes. A good suggestion. And Lady Maeva, if your brothers are un-"

"All-Father!"

All eyes turned to the far end of the throne room, where a tall slender figure race through the length of the great hall. The man was not attired as an Einherjar, the glint of armor was minimal, and not a single tone from a single ram's horn had been heard, so Thor waited for the man to cross the distance without particular concern. As he came closer, Thor recognized him as Vafri, the natural environment advisor.

"All-Father, forgive me," Vafri said as he slowed to a walk, breathing heavily. "Something…something strange has happened. The rivers…the Sekin, the Vina, and the Gavmul. They've stopped flowing."

"How so?" Bragi asked.

"Rivers do not simply stop flowing," Volstagg said, while others murmured agreement and questions.

"I don't know. I first heard one report, the Sekin, but I thought it was an exaggeration. Simply a lower than usual water level. But then this morning someone brought word that the Vina's flow had slowed considerably. I went to investigate and when I reached its banks I could see the river bed. The water was no more than ankle deep and nearly stagnant and the fish were flopping about and dying. I came back to the city to gather supplies to try to go track the source of the problem, and just as I reached the city, less than an hour ago, someone brought me word of the Gavmul. The same thing. The water moves slowly and is incredibly low."

"These rivers all have their source at the same place in the foot of the mountains, the Eilif Springs. Do you recall the location, Thor?"

"Yes, Father." It had been a long time, but he'd studied the springs in geography lessons and journeyed there many times, from a class field trip with Loki when he was younger to long hikes with Loki and all their friends in their youth and adulthood. And if he were to somehow forget the exact spot, all he had to do was follow one of the rivers, and the sound of water crashing over rock. "There was probably a rockslide in the mountains," he said, recalling that such a thing had happened a few times in his life. "I can go there and crush the rocks to clear the springs' path."

"Go immediately," Odin said. "But have care. Do not forget we are at war. If you find a rockslide, do not assume it resulted from natural forces."

Thor nodded, but thought it unlikely that any of their enemies would bother with the effort that would be required to cause a rockslide massive enough to so thoroughly block the Eilif Springs, a massive series of underground springs that gushed out of the gray stone in hundreds of locations, ultimately forming the Sekin, the Vina, and the Gavmul. He suspected half of a mountain had to have collapsed to cause such a blockage.

"Vafri, find Fjolvar, and instruct him to send builders and engineers after Thor, if the area is safe," Odin commanded; Vafri quickly bowed and took off at a run again.

"Take this," First Einherjar Hergils said, lifting over his head the strap from which dangled his ram's horn, and handing it to Thor. "You can warn them off if there's danger."

"We'll join you, Thor. We can take winged horses," Volstagg said.

"You may go, Volstagg. Not the rest of you. The journey is long, and I cannot have so many of Asgard's champions so far away."

Thor bowed, and saw Volstagg do the same, then turned to go. "Don't let the war resume without us," he said under his breath in friendly warning to Sif, Hogun, and Fandral.

"We wouldn't dream of it," Fandral answered, while Hogun inclined his head and Sif flashed him a wide grin.

"I hope the boulders are taller than men, Volstagg," Thor said as the two hurried out through the porticoes.

"Got a little frustration to work out by beating some rocks into submission with Mjolnir, do you? Sadly, I have naught but my fists to shatter the stones."

"The stones will see you coming and flee the riverbeds of their own accord, my friend. Care for a faster ride?"

Volstagg grumbled but held onto Thor and the two set off across the sunny afternoon sky.

"You could do this yourself, you know," Thor said later, the ground rushing past beneath them, the mountains in the distance growing steadily larger. "I have a friend on Midgard who flies with the assistance of a metal shell.

"Thank you for reminding me, Thor. I wouldn't want to forget what you've told me a dozen times already," Volstagg said in mock severity. He was hardly capable of true severity.

"His armor is faster than Mjolnir."

"Of course it- It is?"

Thor laughed. That part he hadn't seen fit to mention to anyone. His ego had still been a little bruised, he'd been upset about learning that Loki had intended to go to Jane, and there had been little time for storytelling anyway. Now was the perfect time, he realized, and he told Volstagg of Tony Stark's challenge and victory. They were still laughing, Volstagg picking up where Tony left off in his teasing, when they reached the spot where the bed of the Sekin, or what tiny trickle remained of it, began.

He and Volstagg wandered for a few minutes along the banks; there was no sign of a rockslide, but it would take time to scout the entire area, the headwaters of three major rivers and the vast system of springs themselves. The bed came to a V here, where water should have been gushing up and out from the spring and pouring down from dozens of waterfalls, most no larger than a spigot in a bath but a few large and pounding onto the rocks below, around which the water would form rapids. The silence was eerie, without the water crashing down and surging forth. Just the constant crunch-crunch of pebbles shifting beneath their feet. Even the large bluewing birds normally found here had apparently abandoned the place, no doubt seeking rivers where fish still swam and other small prey still congregated.

Thor gave a shiver and realized he could see his breath. They were just in the rocky foothills, but still the land here was at a higher elevation than back in Asgard's city and surrounding villages, and the air was usually cool.

"We should check the Vina's headwaters," Volstagg said. "There's nothing to see here. There's simply no water. Perhaps something has blocked the springs themselves."

Thor nodded. He knew little about rivers. He knew how to fish in them, how to scout for locations to ford them on foot or on horseback, how to use their water for drinking and cooking and bathing, how to track the game that also relied on their water. Springs and river formation…he'd probably been daydreaming about something more exciting during those lessons. But if there was no blockage here…then he didn't think checking the Vina would help. A blockage on the Vina wouldn't explain why the Sekin wasn't flowing. "Do you think the springs could have run dry?" he asked as they paused by the light gray rockface, cold and slick with trickles of water.

Volstagg gave a hearty laugh and wrapped an arm around Thor's shoulders, readying himself for a quick lift from Mjolnir. "This is the Realm Eternal, Thor. Springs do not run dry."

/


/

Loki wandered the station's main corridor in a loop through the first and second levels, a hunter prowling without prey, an archer with tensed bow and no target. The thoughts didn't stop coming. Trapped. Stuck. All the planning. All that preparation. Wasted effort. What now? Trapped. Stuck. Cursed. Restrained. Tethered. Bound. Again.

Perfectly composed on the outside and exchanging minimalist greetings with those he passed, he was reeling, screaming, raging on the inside. He needed it to stop. He wasn't ready to deal with this. He thought about occupying himself with company, but the only company to be found here was mortal company, and in this moment he hated the mortals as he never had before. He'd never hated them before, in fact. They were nothing to him, and so far beneath him as to be unworthy of the energy required for hatred. An ant had no quarrel with a boot, and a boot felt no hatred for an ant – it either ignored the ant or stepped on it and continued walking. He'd sought to rule them – king of the ants! he thought with sarcastic contempt – because Thanos wanted him to…and because they were important to Thor. For other reasons as well, perhaps, but not because he hated them.

Now for the first time, he feared he risked invoking Curse Number One if he were alone with any of them, or if any of them should say much more than "Hey, how's it going?" to him.

His eyes caught on the door sign that read "Quiet Reading Room." Another chamber he hadn't entered since Jane's tour. It was, in reality, a small library. He braced himself for what he might find – it was early Sunday evening, and most of the station's residents were not working. When he opened the door, one head looked up at him – that of the red-headed Paul, the station's "wastie." A revolting name for a revolting job. Paul's sole responsibility, as far as Loki could tell, was dealing with trash and posting irritating lecturing messages all over the station about paper towels and plastic and chicken bones.

"Hi, Lucas, how's it going?" Paul asked.

"Fine. And you?" he answered, his eyes skimming idly over the bookshelves to indicate he did not wish to engage in conversation.

"Good, yeah. It's a nice quiet evening at 90 degrees South, hm?"

"Mmm," Loki responded, approaching one of the tall black metal shelves. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Paul shift his position, crossing an ankle over a knee and sinking a little lower in his chair, his attention back on his own book. Acceptable, Loki thought, satisfied Paul had no interest in talking to him any further. The chamber was situated to provide a modicum of privacy, tall black bookshelves arranged around small grouped seating areas, with individual chairs scattered throughout. It should be easy enough to immerse himself in some Midgardian drivel, if he could find the right subject matter.

Where he stood at the moment was apparently a travel guide section. Loki had once loved travel guides. Thor had never wanted to know much about a new place before he went there, preferring the adventure of leaping into the unknown and figuring it out as he went. He prizes ignorance, he thought with derision. Loki preferred to know where he was going, to understand why a place was the way it was, to know which locations offered quiet, which adventure, which a good meal, which danger. To Thor, Loki's way took the fun out of an exciting journey. To Loki, Thor's way was foolish and invited trouble. They'd often squabbled over it before traveling somewhere together.

But these travel guides…Australia, East Coast Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Spain and Portugal, Italy…the mortal world, all of them. Earth. Midgard. What other travel guides would they have here, after all? He had been to Australia and New Zealand. Germany, Canada, the United States, other places many centuries ago. He had no intention of visiting them again, or any other location on this realm.

But what would he do when the winter season here ended? At the end of October, flights would resume, weather permitting, and the station could be evacuated while every Avenger, SHIELD, and every nation's army lined up to eliminate the threat he did not even actually pose to them. Jane would not protect his identity past winter.

He didn't want to stay anyway. He hated it here. The constant cold. The constant darkness. The red lights. Looking back, what had made it bearable, at times, when she was not deliberately vexing him, were his conversations with Jane. And that was hardly something he could sustain himself with. It wasn't something he wanted to sustain himself with.

He may be metaphorically shackled, but he was still Loki. He could find a way to slip away from Antarctica. Take the form of another, forge more travel documents, create more money. The mortals wouldn't be able to stop him, even if they found out he was here. He would get himself on the first flight out, even stow away invisible if it weren't too crowded to make that practical.

But what if he were stuck on Midgard for years and years, decades, centuries? What if he were abandoned here, even forgotten? What did they expect him to do with the rest of his life? Fall for some mortal woman as Thor had done? Settle down in some village dressing as one of them, get some sort of job here? It was preposterous and he couldn't even picture it.

And what if Odin decided to recall him to Asgard, or send Thor after him? He would only be brought back to face more judgement, to pay for his supposed treason, his complicity in Jotunheim's and six other realms' war against Asgard. As if I would ever ally myself with that realm of savages, he thought, remembering the severe Jotun landscape, the crumbled buildings they'd apparently never bothered to repair, the brutish appearance of the Jotuns themselves, the blue skin, the red eyes, the dark markings, the ridged brow, bony protrusions on the chest…

Loki abandoned the travel guide section. As he moved on to the next section, he remembered there was actually a book he'd been curious about, the one that contained the quote from Tennyson that both Jane and he had appreciated, "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Ulysses, by Lord Alfred Tennyson. He'd finally looked it up not long ago in an idle moment, and now he wondered if this tiny library might have it, given its loose association with Antarctica.

The books were organized according to some sort of system, and Loki was soon scanning quickly through them. Something else caught his eye and distracted him before he could find what he'd been looking for. The unexpected discovery threw him for a moment, but then he slid the book out, opened it up to a random page, and ran his finger down over the words. He'd come across this book many centuries earlier in the form of a hand-copied manuscript in a bustling trade town in northern Europe, on one of his last visits to Midgard before Odin had declared it entirely off limits. He'd been intrigued by the title, The Art of War, for he'd never thought of war as an art, and then as now he'd opened it up first for a look at a random page, then for a quick skim of the beginning. He'd been impressed at the writer's wisdom, even more so at his ability to state complex concepts in simple terms. Thor would one day stand at the head of Asgard's army, and decide whom, where, when, and how to attack. The book contained solid principles for how to do all those things and more. It had taken just minutes for Loki to decide that this would be his gift to Thor for his one hundredth birthday, even though that milestone was still years away. It had given him time to prepare it, to learn how to preserve the parchment the words were inscribed on, to commission a new cover and binding for it to his exact specifications. He'd thought Thor had liked it; he knew he kept it on a display shelf in his chambers.

With Asgard at war now against seven realms, Loki wondered if Thor had bothered to consult this book at all. There was an entire chapter on dealing with spies, he recalled, perhaps containing some useful advice for how to deal with Vigdis. He refused to concern himself with Asgard's war, but if he could not take his own revenge upon Brokk, then perhaps Asgard could find a way to use her against Brokk.

He kept The Art of War in hand as he moved on, finding Ulysses in a collection of poetry by Alfred Tennyson a few minutes later. He took both books over to a gray easy chair that had no others in the immediate vicinity, settled down, and let the world – all nine of them, in fact – melt away.


/

A few quick responses to guest reviewers! Guest 8/23: Thanks! And no, Thor didn't know at that point who Loki's birth parents are. In my head Odin told him that part the next day. I have no plans to write it, but who knows. Guest 8/21: Thank you! Warriors of Valhalla: Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the scene with Frigga; it was painful to write! And luckily (?) Loki did not have much time to miss Jane, ha! Though he did think of her already while traveling through Yggdrasil. Candy flaps: Thanks! I aim for a complex Thor, one who definitely loves his brother, but who isn't perfect, and thus reacts as he does to finding out Loki is Jotun (which I think is the only natural way to react under the circumstances, and certainly doesn't negate his love). jaquelinelittle: Thanks! Honestly that "He's adopted" line is the hardest line in the movie for me to deal with, because I don't think Thor would really say it. But I have worked it in, actually, (took a while to figure out how!) and it will be dealt with down the line. So yes, even though he's thinking what he's thinking here, he did also say that line to the Avengers. As for those words on the page...stay tuned!

I meant to mention on the last chapter, I've started putting up a new story, written "on the side," called The Memory Casket. You can find it from my profile page if you're interested.

Teasers for Ch. 63 "Winter": Thor and Volstagg investigate further; Thor has a crisis of conscience but little time to deal with it; Loki's and Jane's morning gets off to a...rather unusual start.

Excerpt:

Loki kept his head turned away, toward the bare patch of wall where he'd thrown darts on the evening of the sunset. His eyes, though, slid toward Jane for a moment. He'd told her far, far too much already, and now she was pouring her acid deeper than ever before. But he could hardly bring himself to care anymore. "You speak of the past. The past should be left where it lies."