Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Forty-Four – Appearances
Outside, Odin and Thor were talking quietly; Jane still felt as though she didn't belong in their conversation, but there was nothing else around that she could pin her interest on. She walked slowly – excruciatingly slowly, so slowly she felt foolish – to Thor's side, looking up at the undulating green aurora that had grown brighter, trying to prolong the short walk as much as possible. They'd stopped talking by the time she got there. Thor was smiling at her, Odin watching her with no particular expression, really, nevertheless managing to look intimidating and disapproving.
"You can speak in front of Jane, Father," Thor said, holding his arm out for Jane to come alongside him.
"I barely know her. You believe I should discuss things in her presence that not even the full Assembly of Asgard has been informed of?"
Thor looked down at Jane, his arm now wrapped around shoulders. "I trust her."
Odin said nothing, merely raised an eyebrow a fraction.
Thor swallowed, hand tightening over Jane's shoulder. His father didn't need to say anything. He knew what he was thinking, that Jane had never taken any oath of loyalty to Asgard or its throne, and that he, too, had not known Jane for long. His father didn't understand what he'd endured on Midgard, how much Jane had come to mean to him, and how quickly. He was right, though, in that on Asgard their plans were not discussed in front of others, even others cared for dearly. They were not on Asgard, though, and Jane didn't even know anyone from any other realm.
"That's okay," Jane said after a tense silence. She ducked out from under Thor's arm. "I'll, uh…I can go wait in the next jamesway. Just don't forget about me there, okay?" she said, throwing a smile toward Thor.
"Never," he said, watching her go with a heavy heart.
Jane glanced back when she reached the next jamesway – on the outside it looked the same as hers and Loki's – her gaze lingering not on Thor, but on Odin.
/
/
"Your brother wanted to see you. Your father told him no," Frigga said without preamble.
"He's seen enough of me already," Loki glowered.
"And your father knows that."
"I've seen enough of both of them."
"He isn't so easily avoided. And eventually, you'll have to deal with Thor again, too. But one thing at a time, hm? Jane's been telling me what it's like living at the South Pole. I've enjoyed hearing about it. It sounds as though you've truly made a life for yourself here."
"I've been stuck here for months. It's not as though I've had a choice."
"Of course you have. No one forced you to play card games or throw darts or whack piñatas."
"What exactly has she been telling you?" Loki asked, somewhat mortified both to hear his mother speak of such things, and the fact that she knew about them when Jane said she'd not told her about what he'd done here.
"I heard about those things from the other residents here, actually. Although Jane had to explain what a piñata is."
"Ah," he said with a modicum of contrition. "'Whacking' piñatas, however, was not entirely voluntary. Jane forced me into it, when she arranged a surprise birthday party for me."
Frigga looked at him in confusion. "But you haven't had a-"
"She lied. Told them it was my birthday. Precisely to force me to spend time with them."
"I see." Frigga thought it over further, then laughed. "I see," she said again.
"What do you see?"
"Why you became friends. She has a streak of mischief in her, that young lady."
Loki shook his head. "If that's so, then how do you explain that valiant, righteous Thor became friends with her?"
"Oh, Loki, you know Thor's always enjoyed a good turn of mischief, too. He's just not as inventive about it as you are."
"Regardless, Jane believes strongly in her ethics and principles. She is no mischief-maker," he said, rather more soberly now. He shouldn't have said what he did about her lying. Jane may wish to share the blame for time travel, but he would still protect her as much as he possibly could, and he could start by ensuring she was painted in the best light possible.
"Perhaps not, but she is clever." Thor had said so many times, in those early days after the bifrost was broken, when he was mired in emotion over Loki's presumed death. His face had lit up only when he spoke of the mortal woman who, so they'd thought at the time, was probably lost to him forever; even then, his joy and boyish enthusiasm warred with grief over her loss, right along with his grief over Loki. Frigga shook off the memories; it had been a trying time for all of them. "And it sounds like her plan worked. Though I'm confident that if you truly did not wish to participate in those activities, you would have found a plausible excuse not to. Wright said you joined a band of musicians," she added, her expression relaxing into one of pleased pride and millennium-old memories.
"I did not join a band," Loki said, frowning at the thought that his mother had been talking to Wright.
"Jane confirmed it. Was she lying again?" Frigga asked with arched eyebrows. She knew it was no lie.
"Jane is not a liar," Loki quickly insisted. "She was…incorrect."
"And?" Frigga asked for a moment.
Loki made a frustrated noise. He'd been trying to hold back, to not get into some long conversation with her after having initially intended not to say anything to anyone, just as he had when he'd been dragged back to Asgard in shackles, but he supposed he may as well give up all pretense of that now. "I learned the rudiments of an instrument that Jane learned as a child. I learned it…as a challenge."
"Because if Jane learned it as a child then you had to prove you could learn it at least as well? Is there such competition between you?" She hadn't had that impression, but she knew she'd barely scratched the surface of the months Loki had spent here and the people he'd spent it with.
"Not…it wasn't her. It had nothing to do with her. Someone else. Wright, actually. His niece."
"Ah. And you took that as a challenge."
"Don't start, Mother. Please."
"All right. But I can't help that I know you so well, and there's nothing wrong with embracing a challenge. I didn't mean it as criticism. Jane said you were going to play with them, though. At a Mid-Winter gathering?"
"I learned a couple of tunes. I was actively discouraging them from trying to involve me."
"And they were actively trying to involve you?"
"Yes," he acknowledged with a sigh.
"You always had a knack for creative pursuits. You picked up the bellpipe quickly."
"That was a millennium ago. I hardly think it has any bearing."
"Of course it does. You apparently picked up this Midgardian instrument quickly enough, too."
Loki decided to let it go – it was a pointless argument after all; in his mother's eyes he could remain a musical genius, if that was what she truly wished to think. The image of a Frost Giant playing a bellpipe came to mind, and it was both laughable and perverse; ages ago, Aesir bellpipers would have directed their warriors where to attack the Frost Giants. "Don't tell anyone about all this," he finally said.
"By 'anyone' I presume you chiefly mean your father?" Frigga asked, continuing without waiting for the unnecessary confirmation. "I can't promise that, Loki. He's my husband and your father, and…these are the types of things that he needs to hear. I suppose at least they're the types of things I would like for him to hear. To know how well you've done here."
"Because I learned the rudiments of a musical instrument?" Loki asked, incredulous. Am I doing so well? he asked himself. It didn't much feel like it at the moment. Dearest father, I must congratulate you. You have rehabilitated me with your wonderful plan, and I am now just as obedient as Thor and quite content to clothe children's nightmares with my own flesh. "No," he said, interrupting his mother. "I don't care to hear it. Apparently I'm the only one it's acceptable to keep secrets from."
Frigga blinked once in surprise, then stared. She wasn't used to such bitterness from Loki being directed at her. Its sting was like being slapped. She swallowed, took a deep breath as she let the fact that it was deserved sink in. "All right. That's fair. We have repeated ourselves with these secrets, and they haven't done our family any favors. I didn't know that Odin had planned…this, and he didn't know what I'd done to the gem." And in the least fortuitous confluence of events, that could have resulted in unimaginable tragedy, she realized. "The wrongs you committed against Jotunheim and Midgard would never have happened had we not first wronged you by keeping the truth of your birth from you. Perhaps now we have finally learned our lesson."
Loki looked away from her, fixing his eyes on an inconsequential spot on the other side of the jamesway. "Had we not first wronged you." It was as though a burden had lifted from his chest. A few simple words. No begging, no pleading, no tears, no fond memories, no attempts at emotional coercion. Just a simple acknowledgement that he had not acted in a vacuum. He wondered if Frigga had said such a thing before. He couldn't recall it, but he'd been too busy dismissing everything said to him in those weeks after his return to Asgard to absorb much of it.
He turned to her again. Many, many burdens still bore down upon him. None of them were glorious. "Did you think I would never find out? What changed? He told me he meant me to be some kind of pawn to unite Jotunheim and Asgard. Did he decide I was unworthy even of that lowly role?"
Frigga gave a frustrated click of her tongue, wishing there was some form of magic that would allow him to see inside hearts, to know that he was not thought of that way. "Have you asked your father?"
"I'm asking you."
"All right," Frigga said with a reluctant nod. She was perfectly willing to speak of these things with him, but she thought it would do him more good if he spoke with Odin instead. Then again, she realized with that thought, perhaps it was better this way, as Loki was more receptive to her, more willing, perhaps, to genuinely consider her words. "Your father sees everything as though from the throne, a part of defending and leading a kingdom. His first question in all things, at all times, is, 'Is this what is best for Asgard?' This is simply part of who he is. Perhaps he must be this way to be the All-Father, I honestly don't know. I've never really known him to be any other way. I know that at times it makes him seem calculating and unfeeling. He is calculating. But he is not unfeeling. He feels deeply, Loki. He learned early on, though, in the very beginning of his reign, that his feelings…that he would have to restrain them, sometimes to push them aside entirely. Perhaps he grew too skilled at that."
"Mother, this isn't-"
"Shush. You asked me a question. A series of them. Please allow me to answer. I wasn't there that day on Jotunheim, and we only discussed it a few times, over a thousand years ago. But I can tell you what he told me then. He took you because you were crying, alone, abandoned. Because he longed to hold his own infant son who he hadn't seen in many months, and you needed to be held. Because you were a symbol of peace and life and something beautiful coming from something ugly. And, yes, once he learned who your father was, your first father, he thought you could be raised as an Aesir, but prepared to take Jotunheim's throne, as Thor took-"
"You never prepared me for any such thing. Father always tried to keep me away from Thor's training for the throne. And what would you have had me do from Jotunheim's throne, anyway? Subjugate them all to Asgard's will? To Thor's will? I would have been a puppet moving to the commands of Thor's fist."
"No. No. I would never have agreed to that. To raise a puppet, as you put it. I told him I would raise a son, nothing less. It's what he wanted, too. Yes, he had additional plans, he always has his plans, but you were so young, so young when he abandoned that idea entirely. We loved you, Loki, as our son. Both of us. You were no longer a symbol or a plan, and never a puppet. A son."
"Why? Had you forgotten what I really looked like?"
Frigga looked away, shaking her head. Loki, she thought, would never understand, no matter how many words she or anyone else spoke. Perhaps it was asking too much to wish for him to. His questions, though, now that he was asking them again, deserved answers – and more than what she'd given him the last time he'd asked, when her attention had been divided between Loki's discovery, Odin's health, and Thor's sudden exile and uncertain fate. "I'm not sure Odin would want me to tell you this, but…perhaps it will help you to know it.
"We had just celebrated the five-year anniversary of the end of the Ice War, and you had just missed most of your own birthday, stuck indoors with another illness that Thor had caught a few years earlier and you had managed to avoid at the time. Odin was agitated during this time. The day after Victory Day celebrations, he left early in the morning for Jotunheim to meet with King Laufey and renew the pledge of truce. We did that every year, for a short while. I didn't see him again all day, and I began to worry. Heimdall assured me he had returned safely from Jotunheim, but he would tell me no more than that. Finally that night, I found him sitting in our library in the dark, crying."
Loki listened with rapt attention. Odin never cried. He couldn't recall seeing tears in the man's one eye in centuries, not since Baldur's death, and he couldn't recall seeing them before then, either. He felt as though he was eavesdropping, spying on a private moment he never should have seen, but unable to tear his eyes away. Part of him wanted to disbelieve it, but something told him – something perhaps still naïve and foolish in him – that his mother would not lie about this now.
"I went to him, and he wouldn't let me touch him. I sat down across from him and waited, and eventually he began to speak. 'Everything has changed,' he said. Those words I will never forget, because they frightened me badly. He'd just come back from Jotunheim, you see, and for years I lived with the fear that they would somehow discover that you were with us and try to take you back. So I asked him what he meant, but he said no more for some time. After a terrible wait, he told me he had gone to your chambers as soon as he returned from Jotunheim. It was early and you were alone, in your bed, sleeping, a book of children's stories open over your lap. I had been reading it with you earlier – you could already read it all on your own, but you liked it when I read it," she put in, getting lost for a moment in her own tale.
She took a quick breath and continued. "He said he placed a hand to your head to change you back into Jotun form."
At this Loki drew back. "He's done this to me before? I don't remember that."
"You wouldn't. Nothing happened. He tried harder and harder, everything he knew to try – cooling you, trying to undo the magic he'd used to keep you in your Aesir form. He said you shivered from the cold but did not change, and then your temperature rose rapidly and you began to writhe as though in pain. He realized that his power was sufficient to keep you looking Aesir, but it was insufficient to undo it. He brought forth the Ice Casket through Gungnir, and found that if it touched your skin its power was sufficient, but even then it was only superficial; it didn't revert you fully to Jotun form, and as soon as you were no longer in contact with it, you shifted back to Aesir. You woke up then, in pain and drenched with sweat. He called for Eir and he left, unable to speak to you or even look you in the eye."
By the end Loki was nodding minutely, the point of this tale coming into focus. A plan gone hopelessly awry, a child so useless he could not even be reverted to his birth form to carry out the king's design. "Those plans no longer matter." "He was ashamed of me. I couldn't be of any use to him after all. That's why things changed."
Frigga shook her head firmly. "No, Loki, are you even listening to me? Don't you see? It was time. It was time to start preparing you for who we thought you would be. We let you join Thor for his lessons when you were still four because both of you were happier that way and there was no real reason not to allow it, but you had just turned five then. You would have begun your own studies soon, instead of simply continuing with Thor. We would have identified additional tutors for you from other realms, and they would have taught you about Jotunheim, as much as possible anyway. You would have been prepared to rule there as a Jotun, with respect for Jotunheim, but also with love and respect for Asgard, and for her king. You would have been told the truth. And when you were ready for it, your father would have presented Laufey with an opportunity he could not refuse: relinquish his throne to the son he'd abandoned, and that son would bring their Ice Casket home, repair their land with it, and ensure it was never used for aggression. Asgard and Jotunheim would have become allies instead of enemies."
Loki's head spun with this imagined alternate timeline of his life. It was too much to take in. He would have had a throne before Thor. Of course, Thor's would have been in Yggdrasil's crown and Loki's would have been in its bowels. The course of his entire life in the balance at the ripe age of five. But then, really it had been from the moment he'd been abandoned on the ice and the king of Asgard had somehow stumbled across him.
"But when your father went to Jotunheim that day…he realized that when he looked at you he wasn't asking himself first 'What is best for Asgard?' He didn't want to raise you only to send you away to a realm that you may never truly accept, having been accustomed to life in Asgard. Or that may never truly accept you. He didn't want to treat you as a pawn, or for you to feel you'd been treated as one. And he saw that as a weakness."
Loki snorted a laugh. A weakness to not treat your so-called son as a pawn. Indeed.
"Yes. Thor was raised for a throne, destined for it from the moment of his birth; no one asked him if he wanted it. I believe in his mind, you were no different from Thor in that sense. Or at least he believed he should see it that way. So he immediately set out to do what he believed he must. And he sat in our library crying in the dark because he was overcome with shame that he'd tried to force a change on you that your body could no longer accept, not as it once did. And that he'd tried so hard to do it, to push his own feelings about it aside, that he'd caused you pain. And at the same time…," Frigga began, then hesitated as she realized telling Loki this part could prove a mistake. But he already thought the worst of Odin. Surely this could not make things worse. "At the same time he was also ashamed that he was betraying his duty, because with this plan there would be real peace between Jotunheim and Asgard, not merely lack of war. Without it, all they needed was another means of travel and time to regroup, and the likelihood of renewed war was high. But when he looked at you, 'What is best for Loki?' came before "What is best for Asgard?' And after that night…that was the end of whatever plans he had for uniting Asgard and Jotunheim through you. We never spoke of it again. You continued your lessons alongside Thor. You were raised to be a prince of Asgard and Asgard alone."
"'What is best for Loki?'" Loki echoed, honing in on that phrase above all the other things that were so hard to imagine. "'What is best for Thor?' perhaps. I don't remember any evidence of 'What is best for Loki?' And if this is his idea of what is best," he said, sweeping a hand down his body, "then I'll pass."
Frigga sighed and sat back in her chair. "You asked me what changed, and I tried to answer as best I could, to help you understand. I'm not trying to justify the choices he made, or that I made, but you choose to see only the worst. Only the bad and none of the good. That is the path to an unbearably unhappy life, my son."
Loki shook his head. He no longer doubted her love for him, but at this moment talking to her was almost as frustrating as talking to Odin. "You wish for me to understand you; I wish for you to understand me. When I look back, I can't believe any of the good. I look back and I see ruin. All of my memories are spoiled, tainted. Because it was all a lie. And if some small part here or there wasn't a lie, how am I to know the truth from the lies?"
Frigga sat up again and looked closely in Loki's eyes, so unfamiliar and yet so very, very, achingly familiar. Earnest and seeking. Guileless and open. Though he looked nothing like her, this was her boy. She felt the prickling of tears and blinked a few times to hold them back. Loki didn't need her tears. "I hadn't realized that. I'm glad you told me. I think I understand what you mean. We undermined your trust in everything and everyone, not least your family. And yourself."
Myself, Loki thought. Trust in myself? He wasn't sure what she meant by that – others may think him a liar but he wasn't responsible for this one. He saw Jane's indignant expression then. "You may not know who you are but I do and you aren't that. Who they are has nothing to do with who you are." He remembered trying with increasing desperation to destroy that mistletoe plant and finding his every effort to prevent Baldur's death thwarted amidst increasing certainty that he was just as much a parasite as that cursed plant. He'd often thought himself "not good enough" compared to Thor, when he wasn't too busy thinking instead that he was better than him, but he'd never thought such harsh things about himself before finding out about his true origins. He'd certainly never thought himself a monster. "You aren't that," Jane had insisted. "We undermined your trust in yourself." He thought perhaps there was some truth in that, but it was a lot to take in on a day when he wasn't sure how much more he was capable of taking in. And he wasn't willing to speak to his mother of such things.
"I wish that I could somehow change things for you," Frigga said after a moment. "I wish that I could fix it, crumble a stone over it, kiss away the pain," she said with a short, breathy laugh. "No mother ever wants to see her child in pain, whether she gave birth to him or not, and no matter how old he is. When you hurt, I hurt. It will take time to trust again, time I hope you'll allow. Where you look back on who you are, and on who you are to us, and see only lies…they were never lies. That we are your family, that you and Thor were the closest of friends, that we love you. I hope at the very least you trust how much I love you."
"I…" "The pipers and lines are walking in the Harvest Day parade, just like in the Victory Day parade." "You were kind to me," he said, looking away and swallowing back his emotions. "But how can you say that when you're looking at this face? You can't tell me it makes no difference."
"I love this face," Frigga said simply, willing her truthfulness to be evident to him.
"I had hoped you were through lying to me about all this," Loki said, looking away in irritation.
"I'm not lying, and I'm hurt…and offended that you would say so. That you would refer to anything I say about my love for you as a lie."
Loki sighed and looked away again. He'd been better off not talking about any of this. It was a barrel of pestilence that never should have been opened. A box of Pandora, he thought, only vaguely remembering what Jane had told him about that, and not entirely certain he was applying the expression to the right context. "I'm sorry," he finally said. "I didn't mean to offend you."
"Apology accepted," Frigga said with a swift nod. "I understand your reaction."
"But then why…why would you say that you love this? This face is hideous. And it's the face of the enemy," he added, remembering that Jane wasn't bothered by his appearance, but also that her people had no collective memory of the hordes of Frost Giants that had descended upon her realm, decimating land and people.
"It's the face of my son! The enemy has no single face. Do all Jotuns look exactly alike? Your face is yours, my son's, not that of some collective enemy. And I love it because it's yours. I look into those red eyes – yes, they are strange to look at, I'm simply not used to it – and I know that my Loki is looking back at me with them. How could I feel anything other than love?" She reached out with a gloved hand to touch his cheek.
Loki flinched away but her hand followed him, brushing over the perfectly symmetrical lines that curved down over his forehead, and after a moment he settled, though his neck was still stretched away from her.
Frigga moved her hand up to the top of his head; where his hair was gone a few raised ridges ran from the top of his head down toward his back. "You didn't have these when you were a baby. I wonder if they're formed as Jotuns grow, like an Aesir infant's skull grows together." She placed her hand then on his arm, atop the bed, and felt how his muscles tensed. "You can learn to control this, you know. The cold."
His eyes went up from her hand resting on his bare blue arm to find her smiling at him. He did not smile back.
"You can. You must be able to. The Frost Giants used to interact more with the other realms. There were trade fairs and official visits. They didn't go around giving everyone frostburn every time something changed hands."
"Then…I'm to remain like this?"
"Oh, no, I didn't mean to give you that impression. I'm certain your father doesn't mean this to be permanent. But I don't think it will be the same as before, either. I'm not sure that would even be possible now. You'll be able to control it, I suspect. So if you wish to master what you're capable of in this form…you can."
"Take a good look at these red eyes, Mother, because once he's changed me back, I assure you you'll never see them again. I have no wish to master anything about this form or to wear it for a single second longer than I must."
"That doesn't sound like my boy."
"Have you lost your mind?" Loki asked, eyes wide and well aware of it. Let her get an even better look. "Do you imagine that I would ever wish to look like this? To be this? I asked him, after Jotunheim, if I was cursed. I thought…perhaps it wasn't true, perhaps this wasn't really what I was. What is this, if not a curse?"
"Loki…I understand that it seems that way to you now, but it's no more a curse to be born to one group of people than to another."
"Truly? Then you would be just as happy to become a Frost Giant? I'm sure Father can work up an impressive long-term disguise for you if you'd like," he spat. He was also well aware of the nasty tone of his words, and felt a pinch of guilt over them even as he spoke them, but he couldn't hold them at bay, either. No matter what she might answer, he knew the truth.
Frigga held Loki's gaze though she wanted to look away. Now would be a lovely time for an interruption, but none was forthcoming. And Loki deserved answers to the difficult questions, too. She took a deep breath. "No. I wouldn't." Loki, at least, didn't look either hurt or further angered. If anything, she thought he looked like he'd won something. Like he felt vindicated. And perhaps he did. "Believe me, Loki, I don't mean to minimize this, or to dismiss your feelings. It would be a challenge for anyone to deal with this. And ask a Jotun if he'd like to be made to look Aesir, to be Aesir. I suspect he would be horrified. We must look like…like flat and smooth adult-faced children to them, our skin dull shades of dreary colors. But what I meant to say is that I remember a young man asking why he shouldn't be allowed to use all of his skills in battle, why the things that made him unique could not also be put to good use."
"Which young man might that be?" Loki asked drily. He knew that she meant him, in fact, but didn't immediately remember saying such a thing.
"You. When you spoke before Finnulfur about your Trials."
With the context, he remembered it well. But she, he thought, should not. "That was ages ago. And you weren't there."
"It was recorded, my boy. Highly restricted, because of who you are, but I have access. I watched it…more than once…well, after we thought you were dead. You argued quite well for one so young. You convinced me."
"I had no idea what I was doing," Loki said, shaking his head, thinking back on those days, so inconsequential in the long run, really, for something that was at the time the worst thing he could have imagined ever happening to him. "Wait…you're saying…you think I should learn how to use this form in battle? Mother…you've been away from your training for too long. They train you how to kill Frost Giants. If I appeared like this alongside Aesir…I would be dead before I had any opportunity to attack the enemy."
"That's not what I said, and not what I meant. No, of course you couldn't take everyone by surprise like that. I'm merely suggesting that, in time, perhaps you should consider learning to take advantage of all possible skills. 'More skills' is always better than 'fewer skills,' isn't it? Didn't you argue something like that? I know it wouldn't be your choice, but this form is a part of you. So why not be able to put it to use?" Loki looked like she'd just told him that poison was good for his health, so she smiled and let it go. "But that decision rests with you, and no one else."
Loki rolled his eyes, no longer caring if he looked juvenile doing it. "Every decision here rests with Odin. I can do nothing more than sit here and wait for him to make it."
"While that's not entirely true, I understand what you mean."
"Do you? You say you love this face, and perhaps there's something special about a mother and you actually do. But you are alone in all the Nine Realms. On Midgard they already despise me, and would only despise me more if they saw me like this. On Asgard and Vanaheim they would strike me down without a word, never mind that the Vanir and the Frost Giants are technically 'allies' now; I guarantee they aren't fighting alongside one another. On every other realm, they might not kill me on sight, but they certainly wouldn't trust me, and if they put my name to this face, well, that would be my end. And on Jotunheim…I am the harbinger of doom. You say he won't leave me like this permanently. How long? How long will I be forced to remain in this form?"
"I don't know the answer to that, Loki," Frigga answered, again working to keep her emotions under control. It hurt to see Loki like this, and to know how much it hurt him. And she wanted that answer, too. "Have you asked him?"
/
/
"We had a good conversation, I think," Frigga said when she rejoined Odin and Thor outside; Jane, Thor told her, had chosen to wait in the neighboring tent.
Odin looked at her with skepticism.
"We did. Did you ask him about all the things he's done here?"
"I did not. What did he say?"
"I wish you had heard what Jane and I did inside the station, about all the activities he's participated in, and how he's helped Jane with her work. You should ask him about it."
"Exactly what work has he been helping with?" Odin asked, wondering what Frigga may have learned about time travel.
"Things they call dark matter, dark energy, neutrinos…certain types of energy particles that interact around Einstein-Rosen bridges."
"What are Einstein-Rosen bridges?" he asked impatiently. Do they permit time travel?
"Jane believed the Rainbow Bridge might be one of these Einstein-Rosen bridges. She was searching for proof of their existence," Thor put in quickly, glad that his father was finally showing an interest in her, and even his mother was more engaged in the subject than she ever had been before.
"Einstein-Rosen bridges have until recently been a theoretical means of travel over long distances, through a kind of bending of space," she explained, holding circled fingers up at her sides, then curving to meet in the middle of her chest, as Jane had shown her, first with fingers, then with a piece of paper. "It drastically shortens the actual distance needed to be traveled."
"How did Loki help?" Thor asked, remembering as his mother spoke why Jane's work had come up. Loki had long been the more scholarly-minded of the two of them, but he was fairly certain that Loki knew nothing more of dark energy and dark matter and Einstein-Rosen bridges than he did.
"I don't know precisely; Jane is a builder of sorts, and I think they carried out mathematical analysis of the information her creations gathered, with the help of devices they call computers. Ask him about it, Odin."
"Perhaps not about that, not just yet."
"Ask him about something, then. Something neutral."
"Loki does his best to ensure that no subject is neutral."
"I would like to talk with him. I have many questions."
Odin and Frigga both turned to Thor; after a moment, Odin said, "No."
"Father, everyone else has spoken with him now. I would like the opportunity, too. I know I didn't…react well to him earlier. It was a shock, and I suppose I hadn't accepted where he came from as much as I'd thought. I'll do better this time. I swear to you, I will look at him as my brother."
Odin considered it. "No. You will have your opportunity. But this cannot continue indefinitely. We need a resolution. I need to speak with him again first."
"Don't just speak. Listen. Really listen," Frigga urged as Thor turned away with a heavy exhale and a few flicks of his wrist sending Mjolnir on short swinging arcs about his legs. "Acknowledge his feelings."
Odin held himself still, resisting making some display similar to Thor's. "I will try," he mouthed for Frigga's eyes only.
She smiled and took his hand for a quick squeeze, willing things to go well, for both of them, and hoping that she would not face a decision of whether to intervene. "Thor," she said as Odin headed back to the tent, "you're too restless to just stand around here. Why-"
"I'm not returning to Asgard without seeing Loki."
Frigga nodded slowly, lips twitching upward. He'd said that not petulantly as he might have in the past, but firmly, calmly despite his obvious agitation. The words of a king. A less-experienced king, yes, but a king. "Both of my boys are so quick to leap to conclusions. I was going to suggest that you go take a look at that building," she said, pointing to the large raised structure in the distance. "It's sustained damage, and may be unstable. The mortals here depend on it for survival. Perhaps there's something you can do?"
Thor's eyes lit up. He was no engineer, but if there was anything at all he could do to help Jane and the others who lived here, he would be more than happy to do so. And protecting lives without having to end others…it would be the best thing he'd done in some time.
/
Thanks as always to all of you who help keep me going in this in one way or another! (Those of you who've been with me since the beginning or nearly so, do you remember when my chapter updates were on average SIX DAYS apart?)
A wee preview for Ch. 145: Round Two with Odin and Loki...and something of a reminder that in fact the world is (worlds are) spinning on while all this talking is taking place.
And an excerpt:
"It occurs to me that my words here have been many and yours relatively few. I would like to hear what you have to say." Odin steeled himself for what might come, for his temper not to get the better of him.
"I have nothing to say to you."
"Really? This is a unique opportunity, Loki. I am here. You have my undivided attention. Say what you will. Tell me what you're thinking. Ask me questions. Anything you like. We have a twenty-four-hour reprieve, what's left of it. The time is yours."
