With some reassurance from a reader who's more tech savvy than me, here you go with the next chapter...
Beneath
Chapter Ninety-One – Words
Thor released Mjolnir, and as he waited for its return, he watched another Einherjar fight valiantly, about to deliver a killing blow to a Fire Giant, only to be struck down particularly gruesomely by an arrow through the eye socket. His feet had been on the ground long enough; it was time to take flight again. The clearing in which he now fought was lined by tall oaks with thick leafy branches, many of which were adorned with talented Ljosalf archers. Asgard's warriors, preferring to confront an enemy face-to-face, were for the most part neither well-equipped nor well-trained to counter them. Most of those who attempted to climb the trees to get to them received an arrow or five for their effort, many of them before they even reached the trunk.
Thor had other options.
He spun Mjolnir and let it launch him upward, directly onto a branch occupied by a Light Elf. The elf was still turning his bow toward Thor when he swung Mjolnir hard at the elf's middle, crushing his chest and sending him flying from the tree. In the follow-through of the swing, the hammer crashed into the oak's trunk, jolting the tree and knocking Thor sufficiently off-balance to send him back to the ground; three arrows whizzed by above him, sinking into the tree at his previous position.
He went to the next tree, and the next, from that one taking out two Light Elves instead of just the one, but it was slow, and cumbersome, and the elves were light and nimble and quickly shifted their attention from the battlefield to Thor. Much better conditions for the beleaguered Asgardians on the battlefield, considerably less so for Thor. By the fourth tree, he was struggling even to reach the archer, who leapt and swung and skillfully kept trunk or branches between the two; Thor meanwhile gained two arrows in the back of his right leg. Once he managed to take down this elf, he decided he needed to come up with a better strategy.
He flew from the tree, another barrage of arrows narrowly missing him, and an idea came to him as soon as he put a little distance between himself and the trees, when he realized they truly did line the battlefield. What worked against warriors of any realm should also work against trees. He positioned himself beyond the line, looking down the edge of the clearing, and put the strength of his entire body into the momentum of his throwing motion, releasing Mjolnir to slam into the first tree. The hammer crashed straight through the oak and continued on, splitting tree after tree in half and sending the Light Elves hidden in their branches tumbling and flailing to the ground. Far down the line, the hammer's acceleration finally slowed enough that one tree was merely uprooted and tipped over, and the hammer tumbled off its path to the ground.
Mjolnir responded to his call and raced back to his palm – still his left, though his right continued to improve and it was becoming more difficult to ignore the instinct to use it. In the few seconds while he waited, he watched the Asgardians swarm over the Ljosalf, who were not nearly as effective on the ground and were easily overcome.
Each such victory, when it came, brought a rush of elation and renewed energy and a soaring sense of triumph, but it was only temporary, and Thor had found that he was becoming immune to its effects entirely. Mjolnir's handle sailed easily into his grip and he took his measure of the wider battle, one of many under way across the realm. The Aesir there were not standing around and cheering the end of the rain of arrows down upon them; most had not even noticed. They were too busy brandishing sword and shield, desperately fighting for Asgard and for their own lives. And they were losing. As king, Thor could not avoid the bone-crushingly blunt truth that Asgard's combined enemies could simply bear far, far more casualties than Asgard itself, or the fact that Asgard was beginning to struggle to counter the unending waves of attacks.
Each time he had to pull away to attend the evening's Assembly it pained him more than the last. It was that time again; he was already late, in fact, but had been unwilling to leave the battle with the additional threat of the Ljosalf archers still unchecked. He turned away now, glowering as he always did that he was walking away from a battle, away from his fellow Aesir…for a meeting.
He hadn't gotten far, barely aloft, when he realized Fandral was approaching on horseback. He'd been injured earlier, Thor knew, and was now apparently sufficiently healed to return to the fight. Thor let himself drop back to the ground to briefly greet his friend. "Too few ladies in the Healing Room, Fandral?"
"Far too few," Fandral said with a grin, but then immediately turned serious. "I never even made it to the Healing Room, actually. They've set up tents on the lawn beside it. No more room."
Thor nodded. Eir had reported as much at yesterday's Assembly.
"Your handiwork?" Fandral then asked.
Thor turned in the direction he was looking, and saw the line of felled trees.
"Your natural environment advisor will want to have words with you."
Thor turned back to Fandral and said with a cold smile, "We can plant new ones later."
Fandral pursed his lips and nodded. "You do know you have a couple of arrows sticking out of the back of your thigh, hm?"
"I'll take care of it when I get back for Assembly," Thor said. He'd forgotten them; aches and pains were a constant now for every Asgardian warrior, and Thor was no different. "Fight well, Fandral," he said, reaching up to grasp his friend's arm. He stepped away then, swung Mjolnir, and set off once again for the palace.
"Your Majesty!" Bragi called from the doorway of the main Feasting Hall entrance. "We were beginning to worry you wouldn't make it. Come, come, we have a plan we must discuss."
Thor hurried to the head of the table for what had already begun to seem routine, just three days after having been officially installed as Asgard's king.
"Ah, Thor…you have two arrows-"
"I know. Send for a healer to deal with it properly. We can begin the meeting in the meantime."
Bragi turned back to speak to the Einherjar outside the door; Thor continued on. He settled gingerly into his chair, holding his left leg out to the side to avoid jarring the arrows against the chair legs. Frigga sat to his right, and if she had noticed the arrows, she said nothing.
"You have a plan?" Thor asked to the table at large, loathe to spend one more minute sitting still than was necessary. He reached for a hunk of dark bread and as soon as the Einherjar stepped away from filling his tankard, he took a large draft of ale. Mead he had decided to forgo for the duration of the war; it was meant for merriment and celebration, and there was little to be had of that in Asgard now. A system had been worked out by now, whereby the Assembly met over a meal and speaking with one's mouth full was perfectly acceptable. The kitchen's regular servants prepared the meals, then were escorted away to ensure no repeats of the Vigdis situation, and Einherjar served the food and drink.
Bragi hurried back to his seat, on Thor's left. "We do. It concerns Jormik Sutadottir."
"I'm listening," Thor said, setting his tankard down. He'd asked about her each evening, this woman who was half Aesir and half Dark Elf and had been arrested on Svartalfheim after trying to quietly spread Asgard's messages there. At first he'd suspected no one was taking him seriously that she must be saved, but he'd come to think of her almost as a symbol of Asgard itself, and finally they'd realized that doing nothing for her was not an option. Tomorrow she faced trial.
Law Advisor Finnulfur took a quick drink and cleared his throat. "I will go to Svartalfheim, to the steps of their High Magistrate, unarmed. I will tell them that I intend no harm to anyone, and that I've just learned that an Aesir is on trial for treason. I will tell them that she is not known to us, but that since she is Aesir we have a duty to her, and that we insist that as a civilian she not be harmed. I will further insist that they release her to Asgard's custody."
"And why should they listen to you?" Thor asked when Finnulfur didn't continue. He'd expected a plan involving considerably more weapons and considerably fewer words.
Bragi stepped in to explain. "Finnulfur will present Asgard's position as an extreme – that we must take her to Asgard for her protection. If they won't accept it, then we can present the less extreme position, that she not be harmed, as a compromise. We're hopeful they will accept this."
"You're hopeful?" Thor asked, all his attention zeroing in on Bragi now. "It's been three days, and this is the best you come up with? To hope that they won't execute her because we ask it? Why do we not simply mount an assault and take her?!"
"You know why, Your Majesty," Bragi said, and Thor's temper grew even more heated at what he heard as a patronizing tone of voice – would Bragi speak with such a tone to Odin? "We cannot create any impression that she was in fact working for us. We cannot risk the lives of the others who are still working undetected for Asgard."
"I had another idea, Your Majesty."
Thor looked down the table to see who had spoken.
"No one asked you, Geirmund," Bragi said tersely.
"I'm asking. What is your idea?"
"I go to Svartalfheim in secret, just outside the capital. I slip into the city, disguised with magic as a Dark Elf. I go before the magistrate and claim to be a member of her family, her uncle, perhaps, and tell them that she is completely loyal to Svartalfheim. I beg that she be released to me, and I swear that I will make sure she finds herself in no further trouble."
"That plan is suicide," Bragi said. "You'll just wander in out of the woods claiming to be her long-lost uncle, and you expect them to believe you?"
"We can prepare documents that-"
"The Dark Elves check for illegal use of magic as part of every trial," Maeva interrupted. "You would be tested. The transformation I could apply to your appearance may not hold up, even if the false documents did."
"I have some ability with magic myself. I could fortify the transformation," Geirmund insisted.
"You would only draw more attention to it," Maeva said, shaking her head. "Even an idle enchantment, if it remains in place, leaves a trace which those skilled in magic can detect, if they're looking for it. And they would be."
"Geirmund," Oblaudur began, pausing a moment before continuing, "your idea is creative and bold. But it stands a high chance of failure. That failure would result in your death as well as Jormik's, and risk our efforts elsewhere."
"You think asking politely stands a better chance of success?" Geirmund asked in a raised voice. "I accept the risk."
"Your Majesty, our hands are tied," Bragi said, turning away from Geirmund as though he had not spoken, as though he no longer existed. "If this only concerned Jormik, we could simply use the Tesseract to remove her from their grasp. But if we did that, we would be marking for death every Aesir on each of the other realms, whether they are actually working at our direction or not. Think of how many that is on Vanaheim alone. Your own cousin could be thought an Asgardian agent and executed. Sending Finnulfur is not an ideal plan. But it's the only reasonable one we've got. If the elves make a move to harm him, we can bring him safely back with the Tesseract with complete deniability."
Thor looked down at the food that had been placed on his plate. It was growing cold already, but this was his only chance for a meal today, so he picked up his fork and took a bite of broiled root vegetables. Loki was right. I wasn't ready for this, he thought, looking steadfastly down at his plate and moving on to the gravy-covered meat. I'm not ready for this. Every advisor at the table, whether they were openly watching him or hiding it over bites from their own plates, was waiting for him to make a decision. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Frigga. Were they alone, he might ask her opinion. At this table, he could not be seen crawling to his mother for advice. "No one is ever ready for this," she'd told him shortly before he was given Gungnir.
He put down his fork and drew air deeply into his lungs, enough that he felt his chest straining against his armor. Loki was wrong. No one is ever ready. I would have learned. I am learning. "I appreciate your courage, Geirmund and Finnulfur, but I find both ideas equally unlikely to succeed, and I agree with Bragi that Geirmund's idea is the least palatable because it risks two lives at a minimum. Why must we deal with the Svartalf magistrate at all?"
Geirmund slumped back in his chair, while Finnulfur spoke up again. "It is the only legal means of-"
"We are at war. Why do we have to pursue legal means?"
Bragi looked away for a moment; Thor thought he looked annoyed. Probably he was. "Because we cannot risk the exposure of-"
"Yes, yes, Bragi, I know that. Aren't there other methods? Bypass the magistrate. Go to the jail."
"Attack the jail," Tyr said.
"We cannot attack the jail!" Bragi exclaimed, his exasperation evident now.
"What if we attack the jail disguised as Dark Elves?" Geirmund asked. "As though we were staging a breakout of someone else, and Jormik Sutadottir just happens to escape as well? No one from the magistrate would have the chance to check for magic and discover the disguise."
"That could work," Krusa said thoughtfully, lacing his long thin fingers together. He may be the trade advisor now, but he'd been a fierce warrior in his day, and Thor knew he still possessed a keen mind for tactics.
"It could," Bragi allowed. "We would need full deniability. We would need to actually break someone else out, or several others. We would need- If you choose this course of action, sire, we will need to begin planning immediately. Jormik faces trial tomorrow, and once it begins we may not have another opportunity to reach her before she would almost certainly be executed."
Thor looked around the table and found in the faces of his advisors a new kind of tension. Excitement. Eagerness. Hope. His mother, too, seemed somehow more alive, though he thought he might be imagining it, ascribing his own reaction to her, for she gave no overt sign of her opinion, just as she normally did not when Odin sat at the head of the table. He nodded to Bragi, and ideas began flying across the table, until some half an hour later Huskol and Jolgeir went off to solidify the initial plan and notify the warriors designated to undertake it.
"A word, my king," Heimdall said instead of immediately joining the current and former Chief Palace Einherjar; they would need details on the jail where Jormik was held that only Heimdall could provide.
"Of course, Heimdall."
"Yggdrasil has been groaning intermittently for hours today, the worst I have seen yet. I know nothing more about what causes it."
Vafri, the natural environment advisor, sat forward from further down the table. "We registered highly elastic seismic waves just an hour ago. I assumed it was due to the fighting, but…could it be connected to whatever is wrong with the World Tree?"
"Seismic waves?" Thor asked.
"On other realms it might be described as a minor earthquake, but we don't have those here. What we noted was not significant enough for anyone to actually feel the ground tremble."
Yggdrasil "groaning" was mystical and mysterious and something Thor had left to his mother's discretion; earthquakes Thor understood, if not the scientific terms for them Vafri used. He knew of them from the destruction they left in their aftermath on other realms, having helped with rescues and repairs on both Vanaheim and Alfheim following severe earthquakes there. The last thing that Asgard needed, on top of everything else, was earthquakes.
"It's possible that a disturbance within Yggdrasil could result in a disturbance in the realms that it connects," Frigga said. "Bragi, as you meet with your contacts on the other realms, perhaps you could ask if they've heard of any earthquakes or…seismic waves."
"Or anything about Yggdrasil at all. What if one of the other realms is attempting something with Yggdrasil that would destabilize every realm? Or what if…." Thor paled, picturing the ice-encased bifrost energy arcing in the observatory, and Loki doing everything he could to make sure Thor could not stop it from destroying Jotunheim. The bifrost was the physical embodiment of the metaphor that was Yggdrasil. "Could someone be trying to do to us what Loki attempted against Jotunheim?"
No one responded for a while; Thor knew everyone was feeling his same unease. Armies Asgard knew how to fight, even when horribly outnumbered. There was no way to defend against an attack like Loki's. He had a sudden image of Jotuns screaming and fleeing in vain from the destruction rained down on them from above, and the sense of utter helplessness in it was like an uncomfortable itch he could not scratch.
"I have heard tales of the bifrost's ability to create such effects as we are observing," Heimdall said. Thor thought he seemed reluctant to speak of this, perhaps because he preferred dealing in facts rather than 'tales.' Heimdall's gaze drifted to the side for a moment – to Frigga, Thor thought – before he continued. "But there is only one bifrost, and it remains ununsable. Of that there is no doubt."
Thor asked, but though everyone seemed concerned, no one had any more information or ideas about Yggdrasil, and there were less nebulous matters to discuss. He turned to Tyr for an assessment of how each of the distinct battles being waged across Asgard fared, then to Eir with the gravest of inquiries.
"According to our most recent information, the number of our dead has now crossed 7,000."
The number was sobering. Just yesterday the figure had still been barely over 6,000. The Aesir, skilled and strong as they were, were tiring; their enemies were not. To have lost a thousand in a day in this comparatively small realm was unfathomable.
The usual discussion of tactics and strategy and supply followed, debates descending into arguments born of frustration over how best to defend their realm with a dwindling supply of warriors against a constantly replenished enemy.
As they moved to other topics, few of his advisors had anything new to say.
"And Runa and Nerid both fare well, thank you, Your Majesty," Geirmund said after giving his report, drawing the first laughter of the evening. Each time the Assembly convened, Thor had asked about Geirmund's wife Dagrun and their now three-day-old daughter, and he would have done so again today had Geirmund not beaten him to it.
"It is good to have new life amidst all this darkness, Geirmund," Frigga said. "Please tell her and her mother that she delights us all even though we haven't met her yet."
"Thank you, Your Majesty. You are of course all invited to her Welcoming. I…I'm sure this will all be over by then," he said, his smile faltering at the end. A child's Welcoming ceremony was held at one month of age, and was a large and joyous celebration following a month of near seclusion for mother and child. Thor could not help wondering if the war would indeed be over by then, and if it were, what "over" would mean if they continued to lose a thousand men per day, or worse yet, if the rate of loss rose exponentially. From the looks that passed around the table, Thor knew he wasn't the only one thinking such dark thoughts.
/
/
Jane took a bite of egg white omelet, something she got for breakfast fairly frequently, while staring down longingly at the stack of bacon on Loki's plate. She avoided bacon, but it was right in front of her and smelled delicious and wrestled hard with her will power. Loki apparently could eat platefuls of such foods – he'd been eating more than before in the last few weeks, sometimes indulging rather heavily in various fried foods – and stay just as thin as ever. Today, however, he wasn't doing much more than nibbling. It would be a shame for all that bacon to go to waste, especially given the effort and expense involved in getting it down here to the South Pole.
"Tired of bacon already?" she finally asked, looking up at him just in time to realize he'd been staring off into space.
"What?" Loki asked, though a second later he realized what she'd said. "No, just…not very hungry, I suppose."
"Your eyes were bigger than your stomach today. My mom used to say that."
"Mmm. I suppose so," Loki responded, without giving it much thought.
"Do you, uh, do you have bacon where you're from?"
"Yes, Jane," Loki said, finally fixing his full attention on her, along with a smirk. "Canada does have bacon. Better than this. Meatier. Heartier."
"Well, of course. Since everything in Canada is obviously better than here."
"Naturally," he said with a little laugh, glancing away for a moment. "But this isn't bad. Many times better than those sausage links and sausage patties that I still don't entirely believe contain meat." He noticed how she looked down at his plate, pressed her lips together, moistened them, swallowed. "Would you like a piece?"
"No," Jane said, looking back up at him as he raised his eyebrows in question. "Yes."
"Go ahead," he said, taking another piece for himself.
"Just one," she said, as much to herself as to him. It was still warm, still good. When it was all gone, she resisted the urge to lick her fingers and instead wiped them politely on her napkin. "So how are you doing today? Did you sleep okay?" She'd deliberately avoided asking about sleep earlier, since it was such a standard morning greeting here that it was rendered largely meaningless. After what he'd gone through the night before, she didn't want to ask about his sleep in such an offhand manner.
"I slept-" I slept well, thank you, he'd been about to say. The question came so often here that he never even thought about the answer, particularly given how often the answer was a lie. And it was today, as well. But before the automatic lie could fully emerge, he realized Jane was genuinely asking. And for some reason he didn't want to lie. "I slept a little," he finally said. He didn't want to lie, but neither did he want to bare himself entirely to her again, to admit how nervous he'd been that the sound barrier would fail, and that although The Other had never manipulated his dreams here two nights in a row, he'd also been interrupted for the first time and might have wanted to finish what he'd started, to send whatever delightful little message he'd prepared for the finale.
"Better than nothing, I guess," Jane said, offering up a flimsy smile, wondering if he actually had slept.
Loki nodded, took another piece of bacon. It struck him then how very strange this all was, that he was here, again, with Jane, munching on bacon and offering some to her, chatting about nothing much, as though the night before had never happened, as though yesterday had never happened. She hadn't mentioned the wretched state she'd found him in yesterday afternoon, and it wasn't as though she hadn't had the chance, whether last night on the fringes of the darts game, or this morning over breakfast, when she'd been waiting for him at one of the small tables.
"If you want to take the day off, you can, you know." Jane looked down at the remains of her omelet as she spoke; she had a feeling Loki might not appreciate the offer, if he thought that she saw him as vulnerable in some way, that she thought he needed the day off.
A stream of sarcastic responses flowed through Loki's thoughts, centering around the fact that Jane was not his actual superior, and he did not need her permission to take the day off if he so chose. He found, though, that he didn't have it in him today. There was no hint of sarcasm or mockery in her own words; she even seemed somewhat embarrassed to have spoken them. This was Jane attempting again – for reasons he couldn't fathom after everything she knew he'd done, including to her personally – to show kindness toward him. And he'd already thrown enough of his own mockery in her face for that. She didn't deserve it. She hadn't deserved it the night before last. "Jane…I apologize for shouting at you the other night." He paused for a moment as she looked up at him in surprise, and felt he should say something else. "It was…inappropriate," he said with a frown, aware that these were hardly the most eloquent words he was capable of putting together, but apparently they were the only ones he was capable of putting together in the moment.
It took a moment before Jane could respond. It wasn't the first time he'd apologized, but the word still seemed so incongruous coming out of his mouth, and now it was for something that had happened already over 24 hours ago, something she hadn't brought up at all, but that was apparently on his mind. "You're right," she said when words came back to her. "It was. And it's okay. I mean…it wasn't okay, but…thanks for apologizing. Just…don't do it again, okay?"
"Perhaps you hadn't heard, but I'm not a very nice person," Loki said drily, then went for another piece of bacon. She wanted him to not shout at her again. It made him want to laugh at the inanity of it. He had left piles of bodies in his wake from complete strangers to members of both of his supposed families…and her request was that he not shout at her.
Jane studied him as he ate his bacon. It was more or less his typical droll brand of sarcasm, but she thought he looked sad. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. "Sometimes you are," she said quietly.
"Oh, really?" he responded, pushing his plate away and sitting back.
"You gave me a piece of bacon," Jane said with a slight smile.
"I suppose I could have pointed out how lazy you are, that you had to steal from my plate rather than get up and get your own. If you wish to continue in your sloth, here, have the rest."
"You defended my honor that time."
"You should really stop behaving in such a way that I am required to do so to avoid being tainted by your dishonor."
"You won me a week off of house mouse and dish pit."
"That one was considerably more selfish than you suggest. I won us a week off of house mouse and dish pit."
"You told me about sweet logs."
"Only to make your mouth water and provoke your envy that you could not have one, and those measly little granola bars would have to suffice."
"Okay, you win," Jane said with a laugh. "You don't have a nice bone anywhere in your body."
Loki looked down at the hands resting in his lap, and lifted one up, then pointed to the bone at the end of his little finger. "This one is nice. Once a week or so." Jane was still laughing, but he looked away and his smile faded. That one was Jotun, just like all the others, somewhere underneath illusions and skin and tissue. "Jane…"
"What?" She held onto her smile deliberately, recognizing the serious turn in Loki's thoughts. With Loki, there was no telling what could follow.
"Why did you come back? The night before last."
"Don't you know?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking."
"I figured out what you were doing." She'd thought it was fairly obvious from the milk and cookies, but then again, Loki had really not been himself that night, at least not the Loki she knew, to speak to her so openly and so devoid of anger, much of it without any prompting from her at all; maybe he really hadn't made the connection.
"What I was doing?" Loki asked, wondering if she was referring to the part where he'd felt the sudden need to tell her things he'd never told anyone, or the part where he'd been unable to bear her looking at him any longer and berated her until she fled.
"The same thing I used to do to Erik. I was afraid to let him get too close, because I didn't want to lose him, too. So I tried to make him mad, to hurt him. To push him away. I didn't mean it. It was just words."
Loki felt all his muscles tensing. "That's what you think I was doing? That's why you came back?" He wished Jane were a twig so he could snap her and show her exactly what he thought of her little theory.
"Yeah. That…and you kind of made me mad," Jane said, sitting back, determined not to react to how obvious it was that Loki didn't like what she'd just said…which only further convinced her it was true. She hadn't liked it either when her psychologist had said it to her, and it had taken her a while after that to acknowledge to herself that it was true.
It doesn't matter what she thinks, Loki hurriedly told himself. If one person thinks you're so full of sentiment, if Jane thinks it, it's helpful. It's useful. It only benefits you. He barreled through the uncomfortable knowledge that in some of her words was a tiny kernel of truth. "Erik is harmless. He's a good man. I'm neither harmless, nor good. If I push you away, perhaps it's for your own protection."
"And perhaps it's really for yours," Jane said. Does he really not see it? To her it was now entirely obvious. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she'd broken past some wall – or eaten it away little by little, to run with his "acid" comments – and he reacted as he would to any invader breaching a wall.
"Either way, it's quite the anomaly. No one has ever described me as the protective type," Loki said flippantly, refusing to acknowledge her with any seriousness any longer. It wasn't even true, actually, though probably no one had called him that in a very long time.
"You know…it's okay to need people. It's natural. It's…well, it's human. In the general sense, you know, Aesir, too."
Loki huffed out a breath through his nose. I am neither one. Part of him wanted to tell her, for the pure shock value of it. How much would your words change then, Jane, hm? He remained silent, though. Odd moments and the disorientation of dreams induced from a far-away world might loosen his lips to many things, but nothing would ever pry this secret from him.
"There's this line from some poem or something I've always liked, 'No man is an island, entire of itself.'"
"Your knowledge of your people's literature is stunning."
"What literature?" Macy said, breaking stride as she walked past with her empty tray to stop by Jane's and Loki's table.
"Ummm…English, I guess?" Jane said, looking up nervously at Macy.
Macy glanced between Loki and Jane with confusion; Jane tried to quickly review what she'd just said, hoping Macy hadn't heard her refer to him as "Loki" or some other thing she wouldn't want overheard.
"No man is an island," Jane added.
"Oh, that's John Donne. Yeah, English, seventeenth century. 'No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'"
Jane stared, blinking, for a moment. "Seriously? How do you know that?"
"I have done more than grow vegetables in my lifetime, you know," Macy answered with a laugh. "I was an English lit major in college. Not the most useful degree known to man, but every now and then you can sneak up on somebody and quote some really cool antiquated English at them."
"Most impressive," Loki said with a polite smile, then turned back to Jane. "Jane apparently bypassed those classes."
"Astronomy major, Lucas. I didn't see you quoting John Donne."
"My instructors failed to cover him, Jane. I can't imagine why. Perhaps they simply ran out of time," Loki said with a smirk.
"Okay, well, I'll leave you two to debate the merits of John Donne. I'm going to head down to the Greenhouse. Xbox tomorrow afternoon, maybe?"
"Yeah, maybe," Jane said.
"Yes, perhaps so," Loki said at the same time.
Macy left, and Jane watched Loki as Loki watched Macy. "Hey…Loki?"
"What?" Loki asked, blinking his eyes back into focus and facing Jane again.
"Are you…um, how do I put this? Are you interested in her?"
His eyes flitted back to Macy again, as she disappeared around the corner. "It isn't saying much, but she's somewhat more interesting than…" And then he noticed how closely, how seriously Jane was watching him, and he understood. He couldn't stop the beginnings of a laugh. "I must congratulate you, Jane. You're far more clever than I've given you credit for. You've discovered my true intentions in coming here: to court a mortal gardener."
"Okay, ha ha, very funny. But you should…it's just…she might be a little interested in you, okay?"
"If so then she obviously hasn't gotten to know me very well, now, has she?"
"It's not so far outside the realm of possibility, you know. You aren't…so bad looking. And the way you dress, and you're all with the 'most impressive' and the politeness and…"
"Do go on, Jane," Loki said with a broad smile. "I'm thoroughly enjoying this."
"Really? Because I couldn't tell," Jane answered with narrowed eyes.
"Couldn't you? If I didn't know better, I might suspect you were blinded to it…by jealousy."
"Ooookay. Or not," she said, suddenly uncomfortable with his broad grin and the wicked glint in his eyes, and at a loss for some clever comeback that didn't feel wrong. With any teasing there was a line that could sneak up on you and, when crossed, turn something funny into something awkward. She was still worried about Erik's certain disapproval of a friendship with Loki; even a joke indirectly suggesting there might be something more crossed that line. "We should go."
"You are truly no fun," Loki said, still grinning, while at the same time he wondered if Jane ever had thought of him in that way. It was hard to fathom – he still couldn't even fathom her acts of kindness toward him. But his mind had a couple of times gone to baser places than he'd never wanted it to around her, so was it really "so far outside the realm of possibility" that hers could have done the same? He kept the grin in place through centuries of practice despite the grimace that threatened to take its place. She was right; he should never have said what he did. Friends might tease about such things, but whatever exactly they were, they weren't quite friends, not really. Friends did not have between them the things that lay between him and Jane.
"And you're not the first to say that. Just…just don't do anything to hurt her, okay? She's a good person, and she thinks you're a grad student who lives in Toronto."
"I have better things to do with my time," Loki said, his voice taking on a frostier tone. I wouldn't want to corrupt a good person with my presence, would I? "Though I do enjoy the uplifting poetry she quotes."
"It is uplifting. At least I've always thought of it that way. It means that nobody's self-sufficient, that we need others to thrive. And that everything we say and do affects everybody around us, and vice-"
"I heard the words the same as you, Dr. Foster, astronomy major. I don't think I need any assistance from you in understanding them." "Any man's death diminishes me." He had no intention of discussing this little work of Midgardian literature with her. They would be right back to her stack of papers. Besides, he already was an island, a Jotun in Aesir skin and rejected by both, a part of no continent and no realm. Left to his own devices he would have made himself even more of an island by ridding the cosmos of the cesspool of Jotunheim, and those deaths would have magnified him. Glorified him, no matter what Odin and Thor had suddenly seemed to think about it.
Jane was staring at him, an expectant look on her face; he'd missed what she'd said. "What?" he asked.
"I just said we should get going then. I have to call Tony."
Loki was surprised the word "Tony" had come from her mouth and he'd missed it. But there was nothing to worry about – it was their regularly scheduled call, and she could dutifully and honestly report to him that nothing was amiss, that he was behaving himself, he thought with an eye roll he couldn't help. "All right. Do give him my best, won't you?"
/
/
Dawn approached Asgard, where Thor stood waiting in the Feasting Hall with each of his advisors – except for Eir, who was tending to her duties, Tyr, who was out surveying the battles which sometimes quieted overnight but rarely ceased entirely, and Huskol, who was no longer in Asgard at all. Some of the others chatted quietly in twos and threes. Volstagg, a member of the War Council though not of the Assembly, sat at the table nervously stuffing himself with a side of dried beef, the fresh kind being hard to come by now. Thor stood alone on the long balcony looking out blindly over the ravaged realm he ruled. A few feet away, Heimdall also looked out into the darkness, but not blindly. His sword was sheathed, and the Tesseract glowed in its case grasped by both his hands.
"If you are captured, we won't be able to rescue you," Thor said. It had been drummed into him enough, and he understood it just as well as those who stood before him, but he felt the words should come from him. Even then, if push came to shove, he couldn't imagine actually abandoning them. But a rescue attempt might not be possible, and they deserved to know that up front.
"We understand," Sif said, glancing around at the others – Hogun, Fandral, and Huskol – who each nodded.
Thor gave each of them a final look. They were barely recognizable as three of his closest friends and his Chief Palace Einherjar, each clad in the thick black leather and silver metal armor of imprisoned Svartalf warriors, their physical appearances given the illusion of Svartalf facial features. "Bring her home."
"It has begun," Heimdall said, drawing Thor out of the memory of their departure without him. He hadn't spoken particularly loudly, but his voice tended to carry, and several of the others drifted closer.
Thor knew exactly what was happening on Svartalfheim, where it was still the darkest of night; he'd personally approved the final plan. As king of an Asgard under siege he could not join them; not being at their sides left him restless, though he fought hard to display perfect composure.
He heard heavy steps behind him and turned to see Volstagg limping toward him.
"Miserable to be left behind, waiting, isn't it?" Volstagg said in a low voice once he'd reached him, then leaned against the balcony railing to take some of the weight off his badly injured hip.
Thor let out a slow sigh and nodded.
"They're inside the jail," Heimdall announced. "The guards were caught by surprise but they're fighting back."
It wasn't unexpected. The guards at the main magistrate's jail weren't exactly Svartalfheim's elite warriors – those were busy here on Asgard – but neither were they lacking in training or courage. They wouldn't run from an attack. Thor could picture it all happening – the smoke and chaos, the clashing of weapons and fists, the prisoners freed as quickly as the Asgardians in disguise could open their cells given the resistance they faced from the guards. Jormik would not be freed first; some other person identified by Heimdall and distant from her cell would receive that gift, along with what would be for him baffling signs of affection and camaraderie so that everyone watching would think that lucky soul the target of the breakout. Whoever released Jormik was to surreptitiously pass a message indicating where she should go to be retrieved in secret by Heimdall, and then the others would head in the opposite direction to be retrieved as soon as they could get themselves out of sight. The plan, in the end, was relatively straightforward, and those who undertook it had been eager to do so.
"She is free."
A cheer went up around the room. Thor allowed himself a smile, but no more. He would further allow himself to celebrate with precisely two tankards of mead – the first to smash on the floor when he was done – when all five of his people stood with everyone else in the Feasting Hall. He angled his head around to watch Heimdall as the gatekeeper's gaze lingered on Svartalfheim. It wouldn't be long now.
Heimdall's lips parted for just an instant, and the muscles around his eyes tensed, yet he said nothing. Thor's stomach twisted. Something had gone wrong. Plans rarely proceeded entirely as expected, though, for other people had the frustrating habit of not always doing as predicted.
"Heimdall?" Thor prompted.
"The guards are killing any prisoners they reach."
"Killing them?" That was unexpected. The men and women in the magistrate's jail were not violent criminals; those were held in a separate location.
"I'm sorry, my king," Heimdall said a minute or two later, turning slowly toward Thor and looking at him in that oddly distant way that meant his vision was only partly on what lay physically before him. "Jormik is dead."
Thor's jaw dropped, and then his chest tightened painfully, making him conscious of every breath. "Are you sure?" he asked a moment later, though he felt a moment of disgust with himself for doing so. Heimdall would not have said such a thing if he were not sure.
"I am," he confirmed. "She died quickly. I believe her heart must have been pierced."
Murmurs and shuffled feet and other small sounds were amplified around him. He and Volstagg shared a look, but then Thor stubbornly fixed his gaze out over Asgard. Emotion raged inside him, and he knew he would never be able to conceal it, but he was king now, and he needed to at least control it. "The others?"
"They are well, thus far, and clearing the area. Hogun tried to get to her, but it was too late. It was unavoidable."
Unavoidable? No. It was entirely avoidable. If we hadn't broken into the jail, Jormik and however many other prisoners would still be alive right now. If I hadn't pushed for another plan, if I hadn't sent them, if I had ignored the rules and gone myself…
He felt a presence at his side, then a hand squeeze his arm for some two or three seconds before the presence moved away again. He didn't need to look to know it was his mother, offering her silent comfort, the only kind she could offer, the only kind he could accept.
Seconds dragged into minutes. He had to face them eventually, the rest of the people here. Volstagg was before him, and Heimdall to his left; everyone else was behind him. Slowly he turned, forcing his gaze to stay up and meet theirs each in turn instead of letting it fall to the floor in shame. Geirmund's and Finnulfur's and Bragi's gazes were especially painful, not that the other men gave any sign of it. What would have happened if I'd chosen one of the plans they first presented?
"It was the best plan, Your Majesty," Bragi said. "The best chance for us to get her safely off of Svartalfheim while also protecting those on the other realms."
Thor nodded, slowly. "I'll be sure to explain that to her family."
No one said anything. The others' eyes flickered away from him for an instant here and there, but eventually they all found their way back to him.
He'd said the wrong thing. He knew it. His father would never have allowed himself to display his personal frustration and disappointment and guilt like that. But probably his father would have come up with a better idea in the first place, and never allowed this to happen at all. Odin, he thought, had never made a decision with such terrible consequences, one which burdened him with such guilt. Perhaps one, he thought, an incongruous image of Loki as he let go and fell from the bifrost coming to mind. Perhaps two, he thought, remembering another incident involving Loki, long ago, the condition he'd been in as the years of his punishment for Baldur's death passed, before quickly brushing both memories aside.
Odin would not show his guilt. He would speak some encouraging words. Inspiring words. Thor couldn't think of any.
He turned around again, steadfastly ignoring Volstagg's gaze, and watched dawn breaking over the realm.
/
Well...I never promised it would be an entirely happy story!
For some more great fanart, check out "abracadaver"'s work on DeviantArt (abracadaverff). You can also get there through the favorites on my page (ninepen). I think most readers will recognize this scene.
You have written me many awesome ideas for why Loki could not change Baldur's death. I have many "partial gold stars" to award, I suppose, and one pretty solid one. ;-) You all have so many great ideas you should be writing too, if you aren't already!
Wee advertisement, for those interested, I'm going to post the first chapter of a completed story after posting this chapter. Still have to decide whether to split the second chapter into two, but I'll decide and get it up before long. It isn't my normal style or whatever...seeing as it arose from a couple images from a dream! It's called Surreptitious Entry.
Previews for Ch. 92: Thor deals with what he did not deal with today; Loki hangs with the band; Jane and Loki join the continuation of the Indiana Jones marathon, and some things in the third movie resonate with Loki; Loki's unknown activities are still lingering on Jane's mind.
And excerpt (I had a hard time choosing between a Loki one and a Thor one!):
Carlo rolled his eyes. "Are you sure you don't want to learn the saxophone, Lucas? It might make the nickname more appropriate."
"Perhaps in my next thousand years of life," Loki said with a good-natured smile that the others all returned, entirely ignorant of the fact that he really did have another thousand years of life ahead of him, several, even, assuming nothing unfortunate happened along the way. Not necessarily a safe assumption these days.
