Beneath
Chapter Sixty-Eight – Space-Time
Loki was no stranger to battle. He'd been training for it since he was nine years old, earlier even than other boys on Asgard, because he'd begun those lessons along with Thor, when Thor turned ten. He knew battle, and he recognized defeat. Strategic surrender, really, but on Asgard any form of surrender was defeat.
Before, he had raged against it. Now he was trying to accept it.
It was only strategic. Temporary. Another opportunity would come. Another idea would present itself.
They – Jane Foster and Tony Stark – thought him weak. Docile. Harmless. Tame. He would prove them wrong. But not here. There was nothing to be gained from it here. He hadn't spared Jane when harming her would have freed him, only to bring destruction to this place now when he would still be trapped.
In the meantime, their misperception could work in his favor. He could wait. What need was there, really, to rush? He could waste a few months of his life here; a few months was an eyeblink compared to his lifespan. If he allowed it more fully – and he thought perhaps now he would – Jane would keep him entertained. Tell him more stories about the Aesir and their supposed love of oxen on the dinnerplate, and riding donkeys in Guatemala and developing what Jane called a "crush" on the young man guiding her and her family up into the mountains. It was hardly the worst way he would have to spend a few months.
But no matter how much he tried to sell it to himself, no matter how tolerable he told himself it could be, it still felt like weakness. But is it? he asked himself. To not harm an unarmed woman? Why is this weakness? Should there not be boundaries? He couldn't stop thinking about it, pulling it apart to examine it like something gruesome he could not look away from, a bandage he could not leave in place to hide and protect a wound.
Was strength truly the willingness to do whatever was necessary, no matter how heinous, in order to achieve his goals? What if his goals required hurting Frigga? Would it be weakness to be unwilling to harm the woman who'd kissed his skinned knees and laid cool cloths over his fevered brow? Was that weakness, or basic morality? To be beholden to some concept of morality, wasn't that weakness? But if it were not weakness…was it strength? Strength was the refusal to be a slave to sentiment, was it not? But by that definition he should be willing to kill Frigga, if needed. He should certainly be willing to kill Jane, if needed. But he hadn't even been willing to press a knife into her side in the end. Weakness? Strength? Morality?
Loki's head began to ache with the intensity of the unpleasant contemplation. He hadn't thought much about morality in a long time. And he hadn't questioned his new understanding of strength, the concomitant rejection of sentiment, the rejection of guilt, since he'd developed it while falling through the void, making the acquaintance of Thanos's lackey, and learning of the opportunity he'd be given on Midgard.
He had come to no conclusions when he heard a knock at his door. It was Jane. It was always Jane. He considered ignoring it, but with as bold as she'd become – telling him what to wear and insisting he relinquish control over her communications…and as easily as he'd given in, he thought in frustration – she'd probably just march right in. He opened the door, and for the first time, it wasn't Jane.
It was Wright. "Lucas, hey. I was just about to give up. Just wanted to make sure you knew, we're going to be getting in some playing time tonight. We'll try to start around 6:30, 7:00."
"Oh, ah…" He had forgotten about this. He'd agreed to it when he thought he'd be gone by now, and no one had mentioned it again at last night's party.
"Hey, look, don't feel like you need to impress us or anything. I mean, I haven't really played since college. It's just something different to do, you know? Keep things interesting. You can't just work and sleep and…hang out in your room all winter long."
"You're right, of course," Loki said, wondering if Jane had passed along a set of points Wright was to make with him. "I'll join you, but don't mind if I don't play anything. I've hardly even touched an instrument since my youth."
"What did you play?"
"Oh…a couple of different things. Never a sax, by the way," he added quickly, hoping to forestall further questions about specific instruments since Midgardian and Asgardian ones apparently weren't quite the same. This "sax" or "saxophone" was an excellent example; he'd never seen one before in his life until the one sitting on a stand here at the South Pole.
"Man, that's a shame. Fifty people here and nobody plays the sax. I was really hoping. Well, until you inspire me with something else to call you, I'm still going to call you 'Sax Man.'"
"Understood," Loki said with a smile. He could live with that. It wasn't like he hadn't been called worse.
"Okay, then, I'm headed back to my room to get my gear on – working out at the DSL the rest of the day. Later, Sax Man."
"Later," Loki said back, then closed the door, and it was back to hanging out in his room, as Wright had put it. And as much as he tired of hearing it, Wright was…right. Jane was right. Loki was accustomed to wide open spaces and freedom and simply doing things. More things than he'd wanted to, spending a lifetime beside Thor, who never met an adventure he wouldn't undertake at the drop of a hat. His wardrobe in his old chambers was larger than this room. A moment of nostalgia shook him, saddened him, as he thought about his chambers, their warmth, the fabric and furs and marble and wood, treasured items, many of them just trinkets, really, but things that once held fond memories for him, from over a millennium of living. He thought it unlikely he would ever see any of those things again, but if somehow, someday, he were to rule Asgard again, he thought he would have those chambers razed, along with everything in them. Strange circumstances could return him to those spaces; they could never return him to that life. That Loki, Loki Odinson, lost in Thor's shadow, longing to be what Odin wanted in a son and never managing to succeed – that Loki died in a tragic fall from a shattered bridge.
There was no going back.
But now there was also no going forward.
There was only Midgard, Antarctica, Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, this building raised off the ice, this miniscule chamber. He could not remain in it for six months. It would be little different from a prison cell. Ken's skiing invitation was beginning to sound more appealing, despite the unfortunate environment outside these walls.
Another knock sounded at the door. This time he hoped it was Jane, and not a parade of "Polies" lining up with invitations because Jane had apparently told them all that he needed cheering up.
This time he got his wish. "Good afternoon," he told her.
"Hi. So, um, with everything that happened this morning, I kind of forgot…you wanted to tell me something about Pathfinder last night. Something about the branches? I'm pretty much at a loss for what else to do about it right now, so anything you know about it would be really helpful. Can we go out and talk about it now?"
"There's no need. I was lying. I simply wanted to hear your mythology story in a more private setting." He'd known Jane wouldn't forget what he'd said about Pathfinder, and a lie to cover the lie was easy enough. She need never know why he had really wanted to get her outside.
"Oh, well, okay," Jane said, disappointed. She really was dead in the water on that line of research, and it was extremely frustrating. Though at least now that Tony Stark knew Loki was here, when they left here and she could meet with him in person she would tell him all about Pathfinder, and she felt confident he would put his resources behind safely exploring where the other branches led.
"It's working, by the way."
"Pathfinder?" she asked in confusion.
"No, your diabolical scheme to force me into more activities with our fellow winterovers."
"Diabolical…?" Jane glanced around; Ronny Boyd was coming down the hall from the far end. "Can I come in?"
"You're bothering to ask?"
Jane gave him a withering look. "Who was that waiting in my room with fifteen layers of leather and armor and horns this morning?" she asked in a whisper.
"Point taken. And I was merely jesting. Come in, please," he said, stepping aside to allow her past before closing the door.
"It's a wonder you didn't poke holes in the ceiling with those things," she said, motioning above her head.
"There was clearance. I checked."
"Mm-hm," Jane murmured, noting the slight smirk on his face. She didn't think even that outfit and that helmet would scare her anymore; its shock value was probably gone. "So. 'Diabolical scheme,' huh? I didn't plan that party as a diabolical scheme."
"Of course you did. You've already confessed your ulterior motive. You planned that party to maneuver me where you wanted me to be. Manipulation, Jane. Bravo. I am now scheduled to 'hang out' with your musician friends tonight, and they will surely ask me again what instruments I had lessons on in my youth. Yet as far as I know, you have neither bellpipe nor bonepipe here, so what shall I tell them, hm? Shall I make something up? And then what if they ask me to play it? How do you expect me to get to know any of these people when I can't even tell them my real name? And why would any of them want to get to know me if they did know my real name? If I'd had my way, my real name, to them, would be Your Majesty."
Jane frowned. If that was supposed to be a joke, it was extremely un-funny. "There are plenty of things you can say about yourself. You told me about yourself when you were still pretending to be Lucas. Only everything you said was to manipulate me. So just-"
"Not everything."
"Almost everything, then. My point is just…be honest. As much as you can be."
"About which things should I be honest? The part where I was raised as a prince on another realm outside your solar system? The part where Frigga gave me the throne and I became a king? Oh, perhaps they'd like to hear about my one thousandth birthday. Or when they talk about their travels, I could tell them about visiting Alfheim, or perhaps they might enjoy stories about Nidavellir. If they-"
"If I didn't interrupt, would you just go on like that all day?"
Loki stopped, and couldn't help a smile. "I knew you would interrupt."
"All right, well, didn't you ever have a job or-"
"I was a prince, Jane. No, I did not have a job. Hm, I recant. I did have one job, the same one throughout almost my entire life – keeping Thor out of trouble. I resigned that position on less than favorable terms."
"You can at least talk about having a brother, then. You're not the only person in the world to have to deal with sibling rivalry, you know. And what about…okay, if not a job, then what about a hobby? I mean, what did you do all day in Asgard?"
"Hobbies, hm. I had a few. Destroying realms. Attempting to conquer them. Oh, what about magic? Here you have people who pull rabbits from hats in front of clapping audiences, yes? Clint Barton told me about it. I could tell them about when I first learned to make a duplicate of myself. Now that is an interesting story."
"You're just being deliberately obtuse. Thor told me the things he does for fun. He talked about games and pranks and mountain-climbing and riding horses. When we were talking about horses at breakfast that time a few weeks ago, you could have joined in. But you didn't say anything. And what about complaining? You're good at that. Everybody complains about stuff, you know. Everybody's stuck here, and they may have chosen it, but that doesn't mean it's easy for any of us, that we don't sometimes wish we could see the sun, or a tree, or an animal, or our friends. And the food…I know you hate it, but it's really pretty good, and our chefs work hard to give us creative meals every day. But we all miss having lots of fresh ingredients, you know, not just you because you probably had some personal chef or something who personally plucked every vegetable right before it went on your silver plate. So it's normal to complain about that, a little bit anyway, not constantly. It's like…bonding. We're all in this together, you know?"
Loki waited patiently for her to finish, and was relieved when at last she did. "First of all, I did not have a personal chef. Second of all, Jane, do you think I don't know how to be sociable? If I do not join in discussions here, it isn't because I don't know how to, it's because I don't care to. I can join in political conversations in diplomatic meetings, or tell jokes that would make you blush with a tavern full of drunken peasants."
"Okay, so back to your original question, then. Here we don't have diplomats or kings and queens…once in a while I guess we have 'drunken peasants,' sort of, but we've got a station full of Polies. Surely you can find things to talk about with them. Or were you really just being obtuse?"
Loki sighed. She was right. Obtuse was one word for his behavior. Childish was another. As he thought about it, he was reminded of Thor's incessant whining about all the lessons Odin had arranged for him for the five years leading up to his intended coronation. If Thor had put a quarter of the effort into learning what he was supposed to that he had instead put into ensuring he did not learn a single thing, he would have been a master.
He ignored Jane and walked over to his window. It was habit, nothing more; the window remained covered by cardboard. Have I truly become so much like Thor? he wondered. He'd once played Jane's role, trying to convince Thor to pay attention to the lessons, to take them seriously, to be on time, to at least go to them, and making excuses for him when he so often didn't. As much as he'd resented what Thor had become, as certain as he was that it made him unfit to rule…everyone else had cheered him on, even in his antics. They saw him as the ideal to which all others should aspire. To which Loki himself had once aspired. He thought of Thor's utter, blinding arrogance. Loki had learned how to set pride aside when necessary; Thor had become so convinced he didn't need to that he no longer knew how. "Imagined slights." Well, I stand corrected, Odinson. He scoffed at the memory. I am as arrogant as he now. But how can I not be, amongst these pathetic mortals? He heard Jane shifting her weight behind him. They are not all so pathetic, another voice whispered. He rubbed his brow. Everything was becoming so difficult. Muddied where it once was pure.
"Loki…"
"Yes, yes, fine," he said, turning back to her. "I'll find something to talk about with them. I'm sure there's something I've done in my lifetime that was dull enough that I can discuss here. Going fishing, perhaps. Or shopping in markets."
Jane nodded with enthusiasm. "Yeah. I bet there are some fishing enthusiasts here. And markets…we have malls and stores and…well, I have to admit, lately I've done most of my shopping online, at least when I was living in Puente Antiguo. But hey, we have farmers' markets. I bet you'd like those. All kinds of fresh foods straight from the farm, and arts and crafts stuff, too, if you like that at all."
"Mmm. Yes, probably," he said, but he was barely listening. He really didn't want to get to know these other people. Jane was enough. Jane was more than enough.
"And Loki…those things Thor said, about the things he did for fun? He said they weren't fun anymore, because you weren't part of them." Jane spoke the words quietly, and hoped Loki wouldn't be upset.
Loki gave a short laugh. "I'm not surprised. When he runs afoul of the law for his 'fun' on another realm now, who will get him out of it without ruffling any feathers?"
"How, uh, how often did that happen?" Jane asked, not sure she should even believe him, knowing how in the past he'd gone out of his way to make Thor look bad in her eyes.
"Often enough," was all he was willing to say. It hadn't happened every week, far from it, but it had happened, and it was always Loki who got him out of it, one way or another.
"Well…maybe there's a story or two there for another time," she allowed, but she didn't know how many Thor-is-awful stories she wanted to hear from him, especially if told for the sole purpose of manipulating her. She much preferred the story of the fake bride, when the brothers had worked together and Loki hadn't seemed so bitter, even if it ended with a Thor-is-awful twist. "But Loki…there was something else I meant to ask you about."
"Now is not the time, Jane," he said. He knew from the look on her face that this would be one of her difficult questions about Asgard, or about Thor. The last several days had been challenge enough, and though he'd finally slept, he still felt strangely tired and unmotivated.
"There's never going to be a good time. But please, I really need you to tell me what's going on in the other realms. Tony said Thor told him you might be in danger. And you said…well, I assume you were saying earlier that you were wanted on Jotunheim?"
Loki tensed as soon as he heard Thor's name. "When was this? Why was he talking to Tony? Why did you not tell me this before?"
"It was March 22nd, the day of the sunset. And I wasn't trying to keep it from you, I just didn't think about it earlier. He wanted Tony to find you. But don't worry, we both know nothing good would come of Thor finding out you're here now. Tony promised not to tell him. Oh, well, not that he's specifically hiding it from Thor, he said Thor told him later that he could stop looking for you, or, I guess, he sent a messenger to tell him that."
"They think I'm no longer on Midgard, I'm sure." So of course Thor gave up on ordering his technology-obsessed friend to find him.
"What? Oh, because you were seen there on Asgard? I thought you were pretty much going around invisible."
"Not all of the time. I was seen on Svartalfheim, and I was discovered, I suppose you could say, on Asgard as well."
"Discovered? What happened?"
"I was recognized." He gave a crooked smile. "By a blind man. It seems indicative of my luck lately."
"Hodur?" Jane asked, remembering the myth about Loki and Baldur, and the blind man Loki had given the mistletoe to.
Loki had been about to continue when Jane interrupted with a name he hadn't heard in many centuries. "How do you know that name?" he asked quietly.
"Um…" Now was definitely not the time to bring that up. "Well, he's mentioned in mythology. It says he's your brother and he's blind."
"He's not my brother," Loki answered, marginally relaxing. "Nor is he Thor's," he added for good measure. "But he is…or, was…blind. And it wasn't him, anyway. It was an Einherjar – an elite warrior and palace guard – named Jolgeir. Someone I once admired. Still do, I suppose," he admitted, recalling how Jolgeir had recognized the devastating impact of his injuries but refused to be captive to them. "Though the feeling is not mutual."
Jane listened, then waited, hoping he would continue, even though he had yet again entirely avoided her initial question, which she still wanted an answer to. Hodur it was probably best not to speak of; his reaction made her suspect there may be some truth to that part of the myth. Jolgeir, on the other hand…she was intrigued by the idea of Loki admiring someone. It was the first positive thing she could recall him saying about anyone other than his mother. She wondered what kind of person this Jolgeir was, what kind of person Loki would admire, and what had happened when this person – a blind man – had somehow recognized Loki on his return to Asgard, when he must have been invisible, or maybe disguised in some way.
"It doesn't matter," Loki answered a moment later, pulling himself from his own thoughts and memories.
Jane knew then that she wouldn't be hearing about Jolgeir.
"The point is, they think I've left Midgard, and they probably don't think I would come back here. That is a good thing, I suppose, because yes, Jane, if you wish to know, the other eight, all but your miserable isolated little world, are embroiled in war. And-"
"Eight? But…not just Asgard, Svartalfheim, and Jotunheim?" Thor had never mentioned any other realms' involvement. She wondered if they were locked into alliances like so many nations on Earth had been at various points in history, such that a war between a few necessarily mushroomed into a war between them all.
"Yes. They demand three things of Asgard. The tesseract – do you see what a popular little cube you people dug up from ice? The Ice Casket – the source of the Jotuns' power I told you about, what Odin relieved them of at the end of the Ice War. And one last thing: me."
"Woah," Jane said after letting that sink in for a moment. "So the fighting has never really stopped over the tesseract, the Ice War must be the longest-running conflict in history, and…"
"And me," Loki finished with a winsome smile. "It's nice to be wanted. And as for the Ice Casket, memories are indeed long in the other realms. But is it really so different here? Your people come and go like wildflowers and weeds in a field, but some of your conflicts and rivalries live on in each succeeding generation even though rulers and governments change. Some of the other realms are led by the same people now as they were during the Ice War. Asgard, Jotunheim until very recently. Vanaheim's King Gullveig still sits on his throne, the covetous coward. Nidavellir. Alfheim until not so terribly long ago. Is it any wonder they do not forget what they themselves or their fathers did?"
"No, I guess not. And you're right, I didn't think about that, but we do have some conflicts here that go back in one form or another a lot longer than a thousand years. So who's on Asgard's side and who's on Jotunheim's and Svartalfheim's side?"
"Asgard's side? Asgard is on Asgard's side. I suppose your realm might be technically on Asgard's side, for all the good that will do Asgard."
"But who else…wait, do you mean the other seven realms are all allied against Asgard?"
"That is exactly what I mean."
"Will they…will they be okay? I mean…can they defend themselves against all the others?"
"I do not believe so. Certainly not unless they learn to be far more clever. They have been somewhat creative, I'll grant them that. I came across someone on Svartalfheim, an Aesir pretending to be Vanir, talking about how innocent women had been harmed in an attack on Asgard. The handful of Dark Elves he was speaking with seemed to believe him, and they will not be happy to have supported such an action. But as a rule, the Aesir fight with their muscles, not with their minds."
"So they want the tesseract for its power, and the same with the Ice Casket I guess, but why…oh. Because you tried to destroy Jotunheim. And…well, and what you did here. So they're all on Jotunheim's side now?"
"I don't know how they presented their demands to Odin; I simply overheard a conversation while I was there. But it's all a ploy anyway, a fairly shrewd one. It's really about power and revenge."
Jane nodded, and she wanted to hear more, but as Loki had spoken, a new concern occurred to her. "Do the other realms think we're fighting for Asgard?"
"I don't know what the other realms think. I was gone for a few days on Svartalfheim and Asgard. But the idea of Midgard fighting alongside Asgard…." Loki began to chuckle. "It's so preposterous that I doubt it will have even occurred to anyone. Your realm is universally ignored, I'm sorry to inform you."
"Yeah? Well that might change if they know what we did to the Chitauri. Are they able to travel here?"
"They- No. Well…, Svartalfheim can. Currently only Svartalfheim and Asgard have the means to reach Midgard," Loki answered, the words becoming almost mechanical as he realized what Jane was asking and his own thoughts grew preoccupied with the same questions. He'd always been far more concerned about getting off Midgard than anyone else coming to Midgard, and hadn't really thought about this before.
"So they could come after you. Svartalfheim. They could come after us. All of Midgard. Earth." Feeling unsteady as the ramifications of that sank in, Jane pushed past Loki, pulled his chair out from his desk, and quickly sat down. "Do they know you're here? On Earth, I mean?"
"Not that I know of. But as I said, I don't really know what they all do or don't know. And regardless, as I said, they don't think I'm here anymore. That will be why Thor told Tony to stop looking. As for Midgard…what good would it do them to attack here? Can you give them the Tesseract? Or the Ice Casket? They will concentrate their forces against Asgard." He mostly believed it to be true. There was a chance they could strike against the weak link, hoping to make Asgard capitulate, but much as he might belittle this realm, they were capable of building some rather horrific weapons. He wasn't sure what a nuclear warhead would do to the peoples of the other realms, but he wasn't eager to find out; he knew what just one had done to the Chitauri.
Jane nodded. That made sense. It wasn't precisely relief she felt, for she now feared for Thor and his people, Loki's people, more acutely than she had before, but with the last interplanetary battle here just months in the past, she had no desire to see a new one break out on Earth. "Still, we should call Tony."
"We?" Loki repeated, incredulous. "Just because he knows our little secret does not mean there is any 'we' when it comes to Tony Stark. Your arrangement with him is your own. I have no need to exchange any further words with him."
"But-"
"And you do not need to speak to him of this either. Thor will have told him whatever he needs to know, enamored as he says he is of your world. I will not try to stop you from telling him what you feel you must; I have no real ability to do so. But the things I tell you are for your ears, not his. And if you want me to continue to speak to you of the things you wish to know, then you will keep what is said between us in confidence."
Jane thought for a moment before speaking. As far as threats went, this was a mild one. And, she had to admit to herself, even a reasonable one. "Okay. I won't bring it up. But only because I think you're right that Thor would have told him. Whatever you tell me stays between us. As long as it doesn't threaten anyone else."
"Fine," Loki said. He knew he could expect nothing more. "Now go. I tire of this. Do you not have work to do?"
"I do," Jane answered with a quick nod, then stood again. "I need to have the next set of data from the instruments at the DSL ready to send Sunday morning. Wanna help?"
"No. Perhaps later. When I've grown sufficiently bored here."
"Okay, well, when that point comes, you let me know. I didn't plan on having an assistant, but I got kind of used to having one, and when we weren't driving each other crazy we worked pretty well together."
"We shall see," he said noncommittally, and he and Jane said their goodbyes. They'd not argued once, even over the looming presence of Tony between them now. He'd never gotten angry at her at all, and she'd politely gone about her day. He stood in the middle of his room, drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly in a sigh. How much had changed in less than twenty-four hours. Last night he'd thought he would be on Alfheim by now, Thor finally willing to kill him when the two met again, Jane cursing him as her physical wound was healed, Frigga ashamed of him, she and Odin both ruing the day he'd ever brought a pitiful rejected little Frost Giant into their lives. Then this morning, he'd thought he'd be battling Tony Stark by now, and possibly several of his misfit friends, if they could find a way to actually get here. Now he stood in his little chamber with no one to fight, no one to lash out at, no goal to work toward…. He was bored already.
/
/
That night, Loki arrived in the galley for dinner before Jane, and joined the table that Gary called him over to. Discussion happened to be over beaches when she arrived, and as the winterover residents gushed and sighed, Loki looked pointedly at Jane and joined in, describing his favorite beach. "It's no larger than the galley, hidden behind a rough wall of black rock and accessed through a narrow passage that's difficult to spot unless you're looking. It has peach-colored sand mixed with iridescent dark gray seashells, and the waves are usually gentle and steady. You can go there and feel at peace with the cosmos." He was no lover of the ocean itself, but that beach was a little slice of natural perfection.
"That sounds beautiful. Where is it?" Macy asked.
"Greece," Loki said. He'd studied something of Greece in his lessons, and knew it to have a long coastline, many islands, and thus surely many nice beaches. The beach was really on Svartalfheim.
"I would love to see Greece," Macy said.
Gary nodded. "I've been there a few times. There's a US Naval Support Activity there, on Crete. Some pretty amazing beaches. And if you're into history…"
Loki let the words float past and watched Jane out of the corner of his eye. He did enjoy history. And when he'd studied Greece, the history Gary was speaking of was not quite so distant.
When the conversation turned again, Loki excused himself and made his way to the Music Room, where Selby, Wright, Austin, Carlo, and Jeff, whom Loki did not really know, were already setting up, having left the galley a few minutes earlier from another table. As expected, it was not long before he was peppered with questions about his supposed musical experience.
"My mother had an interest in historical instruments. Regional ones not widely known. I don't even remember the names of them myself," he told them when they pressed him on what he had played. He'd done a little thinking about it in the afternoon, unfortunately past the satellite window, or else he could have done a little research and come up with appropriate names. The best he could do now was obfuscate, since he had no idea if Midgard had bellpipes or bonepipes, the two instruments he'd studied for a time, or anything particularly similar.
"Yeah? What family?" Selby asked.
"Pardon?"
"Wind, strings, key-"
"Wind."
"Single reed? Double reed?" Carlo asked, coming closer with what was clearly a wind instrument in his hand.
Loki blinked once, heavily, delving back in time as quickly as he could. It was so long ago, and it wasn't as though he'd done it for years. "Double reed," he said. On Asgard it was called "twin blade," but he was almost certain these must be the same thing. "One of them, anyway. The other, you simply blew air into the end of it."
"You blew into a fipple? Like a recorder?" Carlo asked.
"Yes, like that," Loki agreed easily. He didn't know what a fipple was, or a recorder. He knew Jane had once said she knew how to play one, or had when she was a child.
Carlo placed his own instrument on a chair and brought another one over from a stand – it was long and black, covered with silver metal keys. "Would you like to try the oboe?"
Loki's eyebrows went up. He shook his head. "I don't think so. I never played anything that looked like that. Both of the pipes I played used simple fingerholes." He took the oboe when it was held out to him, but he wasn't even sure how to hold it.
Selby stood from where he was seated at his keyboard and went over to a small metal bin next to the neglected saxophone. "Here," he said, handing Loki a simple wooden instrument, shorter than the oboe and made solely of wood, no metal in sight. "Try the recorder. I got it made for Jane, but…well. You may as well try to get some use out of it."
He inspected it, brought it to his lips, and blew, covering the first two fingerholes essentially at random; he no longer remembered any actual notes or fingering patterns, and this instrument was rather different from the bonepipe. Still, he managed to create a note, if not a particularly pleasant one.
"Keep it," Selby said. "Play around with it."
"It's not so difficult to learn," Carlo added. "It has a limited range."
"My niece plays the recorder," Wright put in. "And she's eight."
Loki smiled over a tightening jaw. I believe I have just been challenged, Cyrus Wright. "Very well, I think I shall."
The others turned their attention back to their own instruments and discussion of what to play, and Loki sat back in his chair and listened for a while, but soon found himself alone with his thoughts as Jeff established a beat on the drums and they began. He had dreaded this evening, agreeing to it only because he thought he had little choice in the aftermath of the party Jane had arranged. He was quite surprised to find that instead he'd enjoyed their brief conversation. It was its own sort of fun, the challenge of it, keeping up with their Midgardian terminology without having first read through an introductory text and website after website, as he'd done with Jane's physics. And he hadn't minded pulling up those old memories of life on Asgard, even if they too were connected to other unpleasant memories. Musical instruments themselves did not lie, and did not show favoritism. They were pieces of wood and bone and horn with which one made noise. Pleasant noise if one had a little talent, or simply the commitment to practice. Loki had once had a bit of both, but Thor had not, and in those days and many beyond them, if Thor had no interest in something, then Loki had no interest in it, whether Loki really did or not.
He didn't even mind sitting here listening to them play. It wasn't as though he had anything better to do with his time, and there was something rather relaxing about it. Every now and then one of them would shoot him a look, as though he should be impressed at some flourish or key change, or should laugh at a mistake; every now and then one of them said something to him. No one was looking up at him; no one was looking down at him. He was one of them. He'd fought precisely that almost from the moment he'd been sent to this realm. If, for a few minutes, he chose not to fight it, and simply let go, it was not defeat, not truly. Strategic surrender. He could be one of them for a night, or for many nights. It would make the time pass more easily, perhaps. He chuckled. He had an instrument to master now. That would make a certain amount of time pass. Probably not much, though. Not if an eight-year-old mortal girl could learn it.
/
/
Loki remained with the group in the Music Room for nearly two hours, then returned to his chamber when they each went their own way. Other than the deep green bedcover and the cardboard in the window, this room looked exactly as it did when he'd arrived. He had been granted only a few items to bring with him from Asgard: clothing, a gem he still wore even though it now whispered to him of the same betrayal and rejection he felt from the rest of Asgard, a little vial he kept in his satchel though he was certain he would never use it. He wasn't sure what Frigga had really intended when she'd given it to him, if she'd meant those words she'd spoken through the enchantment, but even if she had, things were different now. Those who hadn't already thought him a traitor thought him one now, and if he used this magic to go to his mother's side, he would simply be captured and thrown into prison, where he would find out whether Thor would keep his oath even to someone he believed had sought to deliver Asgard into her enemy's hands.
He'd acquired a suitcase and Midgardian-style shoes and clothing, modern Western-style at least, while in Sydney. He'd acquired a book in Christchurch. Here he'd acquired two more books – borrowed, technically, though returning them wasn't exactly high on his list of priorities – and some more clothing that he'd folded and put away and not looked at since. He still had a few bits of metal and plastic that he'd used in working on parts for Pathfinder travel down in his bottom desk drawer. He thought of those less as something he'd acquired than as pieces of junk he hadn't managed to throw away yet, because throwing things away here was complicated and mistakes resulted in annoyed notes from Paul.
He sat down at his desk with a sigh and thought back on his time since arriving in Midgard. He remembered being deposited in snow up to his knees, tall trees blocking any views into the distance, not knowing where he was, even which Midgardian continent he was on. Meeting Mohsin who missed his family and loved ice fishing and cricket and so kindly left him in a room alone with a computer. Circling the globe to find Jane, not entirely sure what he would do with her once he did. Toying with her and with Selby and enjoying watching them dance on his strings. Sleeping only one night in four or five so he could close the gap between the Asgardian and Midgardian understanding of the cosmos. Reading that book that made his temper flare because it was so basic and yet without it he knew he wouldn't have been able to understand hardly anything Jane said about her work, and he would never have gotten as far with her as he did before she learned his real name. That had not been fun. It had been stressful and difficult and frustrating, especially when he could not pretend his way out of his ignorance and she realized he didn't know something that he should have. He could probably write that book himself now, and better, since he had experienced the physics of the universe in a way neither the professor who'd written the book had, nor Einstein himself, for all his cleverness.
He opened up the first desk drawer that held the three books, and reached under Tennyson's pointless poetry and Sun Tzu's wasted advice to pull out Understanding the Physics of the Universe. He hadn't looked at it in a couple of months. He flipped through its familiar pages, and as much as the words here that spoke to him as though he were a youth again and a rather dull one at that had irritated him before, now he missed those days. He'd had a purpose then. A task to accomplish. A goal to meet. A challenge to overcome. His only challenges now were to engage with mortals in meaningless chatter and learn to play a recorder. Alone in his chamber, the prospect of spending all these months here again seemed daunting.
He lingered at the introduction to the early chapter on general relativity. One of the fundamentals of Jane's profession. He'd read it several times, working through the equations and tensors full of symbols not in use on Asgard, initially having to look up half the words in the paragraph it seemed at times, until he knew what gravitational lensing and the equivalence principle and weak gravitational fields were. Now the words and concepts were clear enough, reminders of a simpler time.
Developed by Einstein between 1907 and 1915, general relativity is a theory of gravitation which generalizes, or extends, special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation to take into account non-inertial frames of reference. Within general relativity, Einstein described gravity as the bending of space-time geometry; recall that special relativity is restricted to flat space-time. The curvature of space-time is directly related to the energy and momentum of the radiation and matter present. Field equations, a system of partial differential equations, represent this curvature, the distribution of matter throughout space-time, and how gravity behaves in response to space-time. General relativity thus provides a unified understanding of gravity as a geometric property of both space and time.
General relativity makes certain predictions that differ significantly from those of classical physics, especially concerning the passage of time, the geometry of space, the motion of bodies in free fall, and the propagation of light. The theory has critical implications for the study of astrophysics. It implies the existence of black holes, gravitational waves, and wormholes. Wormholes themselves provide an excellent metaphor for the understanding of general relativity. A number of questions remain…
Loki paused, looked away for a moment, then read from the top of the introduction again, his eyes lingering on certain phrases. Flat space-time. Curvature of space-time. Gravity. Wormholes. Space and time… He straightened his back. The beginnings of a smile played over his lips. Wormholes. Space-time…
/
Thoughts? ;-)
jacquelinelittle - thanks, and re the hunt, completely agree. And I have to admit I'm not a fan of trophy hunting. Wane Soo-Jin - your PM function is disabled so I couldn't respond, which is fine, just letting you know in case you didn't realize it - and thank you! And everyone - thank you! Thanks to all readers, reviewers, registered or guest, I will say until I am hoarse (metaphorically speaking!), you help keep me going. And going. And going. And...shutting up now. ;-)
Excerpt from Ch. 69, not yet titled (Jane asking Loki a question):
"Okay, so what do you want to talk about?"
He thought for a moment. "Yggdrasil."
