Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Three – Frost Giants
Not much later, Thor and Loki heard the first evidence of a battle underway: a dull thud in the distance. From then on, the thuds continued sporadically, growing steadily louder as they advanced.
"Do you have any idea what it might be?" Thor asked after a particularly loud thud, more of a boom.
"I know nothing more about their means of warring than you do. In the Ice War, and the attacks leading up to it, they used only the Casket, ice weapons formed by their own hands, and the occasional other handheld weapon, mostly for impact, some for stabbing."
Thor nodded; he and Loki had devoured everything they'd been taught about the Ice War, from their tutors, their father, Einherjar who'd fought in it, and of course countless poems. A few weapons had even been brought back and kept for study and eventual exhibition; Thor still remembered clearly the first time a tutor had brought some of them to their lessons. He and Loki had held them, spellbound, later incorporating them into wild tales they spun together about how their father had personally slain each giant who'd dared raise those weapons against him. "They've added to their inventory," he said, and saw Loki nodding beside him, too focused on the task ahead now to make a cutting response, apparently.
Over the last two and a half months, Thor had fought in more battles than he could count, against sword and fist and arrow and club and fire and once, even ice. Before that, of course, there had been other battles, including against Frost Giants, but he'd never seen Frost Giants fighting Frost Giants, and he didn't know what to expect. In the end, their first view of the battle was so sudden and bright that Thor stood squinting, trying to make sense of what lay ahead, still far away and still dark except for one brilliant spot of light. Then, in the same general area, another light burst into being, accompanied by a boom that rumbled on longer than the earlier ones. Fire, he realized. Fire, burning atop ice – barren ice, as far as he knew – and burning intensely. "Sea fire," he murmured.
"You'd have to be blind not to," Loki said, similarly trying to glean something of the battle, though it was still too far away.
"No, sea fire. Remember? The Byzantine Empire. We studied this. They had a secret formula that sparked a special kind of fire. They launched it through tubes on their ships, or with catapults, using earthen pots. The fire would burn even on the water."
"I doubt they gave the formula to the Frost Giants. Look, they're fading."
"They look duller, but I don't think they're fading. They're just creating a lot of smoke," Thor said. He'd had a fair amount of experience dealing with fire in battle now.
"Let's keep going," Loki responded with a frown. Thor knew battle; there was no denying that. Loki knew it, too, but Thor felt it in his blood in a way Loki did not – perhaps, he thought now, because they did not share the same blood. Regardless, it irritated him that Thor had held on to this arcane knowledge from lessons when they were just ten years old and Loki had not.
The first two fires finally died away, whether on their own or doused, the smoke dissipating not long after. As they continued to shorten the distance between them and the battle, it was the great beasts they made out first, the creature that had first appeared as a statue in their earlier journey to Jotunheim, but had merely been hiding beneath a thin sheet of ice. There were three of them, two snapping and slashing at each other, and one thrashing around further away. Before long, the battle took greater shape: a writhing clash of bodies that to eyes struggling to focus in the dark and over the distance looked like a roiling stormy sea. On opposite sides of the clash of giants, smaller clusters of them scrambled over white-framed contraptions that dwarfed them, and it quickly became clear that they were the sources of the thudding and booming they'd been hearing, perhaps even of the fire: catapults. The largest ones hurled enormous balls of ice across the field of battle, flattening whatever was unfortunate enough to be under them when they struck the ground; the smaller ones, found only on the side where the beast was causing havoc – the side that had launched the sea fire, probably from those smaller catapults – lay dormant. That side was faring worse, despite the fire that the other side had shown no sign of possessing, for the gray-blue ice beast that had at greater distance seemed to be mindlessly thrashing about on its own had apparently been sent by the other side and had made it through the melee to maul and crush and – Thor and Loki both saw at the same time – swallow the Frost Giants working one of the catapults.
They were still far away, at a higher elevation than the relatively flat field of battle, having walked uphill for the last half hour or so. Below them, the ground dropped off steeply, with a rocky surface peeking through the ice in glints of black, silver, and maroon.
"There," Thor whispered, crouching beside his brother where they'd been surveying the battlefield.
"What?" Loki asked, following his line of sight, but uncertain what he was pointing at.
"One of the princes. In that group over there."
Loki saw now what Thor was looking at. "No," he said with certainty. "The princes would not be in the rear. Laufey always fought at the front of the Frost Giants."
Thor nodded; they'd studied those battles in detail in their youth, and indeed, Laufey had always led from the front. "Laufey always had the Ice Casket. He laid the path for them to do battle in the way most convenient for them, and with the Casket between him and his enemy, he was nearly invincible. When we fought them on Jotunheim, you and I and our friends, he directed their attacks from the rear. Probably because he did not have the Ice Casket. See how the others stand around him, to take his orders? Probably to watch for the catapult launches from the other side, too, to ensure he's protected. It must be one of the princes."
Loki strained to make out whatever he could of the small group; they were too far away to discern any detail. He tightened his jaw as he stared. Thor was probably right. And Loki had been wrong. Though he shouldn't have been. Loki had all the same facts that Thor had. Loki had probably been paying more attention to the bigger picture that time on Jotunheim than Thor had. He would simply have to do better. Think more carefully, analyze more fully, pay better attention. He could not afford such mistakes here. "Yes," he finally agreed with a crisp nod.
Thor craned his neck, and saw that Loki was bothered. Though his brother said nothing further, Thor thought he understood a little more of Loki than he had before. A little more of the insecurities that he'd failed to perceive before, or that he'd at least failed to perceive were felt deeply enough that barbs in jest without ill intent had still wounded deeply. "I've been doing this nearly every day of the last two and a half months, Loki. I don't think I would have noticed otherwise."
Loki's eyes darted to Thor's; he took a quick breath and looked away again. Thor was trying to be understanding. Or to take pity on him. Loki didn't want it either way. Even if Thor had again made a reasonable point. The stakes were too high for either of them to make excuses for a failure.
They remained in place a while longer, until Thor decided they'd probably gleaned all they could of the battle below without getting closer. "How do you want to do this?" he asked, shifting on the balls of his feet to better face Loki.
Loki glanced at Thor, who was watching him expectantly, not a single tense muscle to suggest he was ready to take the lead, much less to fly off on his own. It was such a complete opposite from the last time he'd been on Jotunheim with Thor, when Thor could hardly be bothered to listen to anything Loki said, when the one time he had listened he'd nevertheless fixed Loki with a look of pure disgust, as though Loki had just surrendered to Jotunheim instead of gaining them peaceful passage off of the forsaken ball of ice. For a few flickers of a moment, Loki liked it, even reveled in it. Thor was his to command. But the flicker quickly faded, leaving emptiness behind. Commanding Thor made for an enjoyable fantasy, and was good for a bit of fun and an occasional rush in reality, but it was never what he'd really wanted all those years before, as he and Thor drifted further apart. He'd wanted Thor to listen to him, yes. To take him seriously, to show some respect, to consider his words – not to mindlessly obey them. There was no fun in that at all, not after that initial cheap thrill. There was no satisfaction in it. He found himself thinking of Erik Selvig, of Clint Barton, of the handful of others he'd enslaved to his will, of how quickly he'd decided to let Barton recruit those he knew had a grudge against SHIELD and the particular talents to act on it, rather than enslave more. He swallowed heavily and tried to push those thoughts aside; this was not that. Thor would not mindlessly obey, not past a point.
This, in fact, was not so bad, he realized, disguising his pensive thoughts with another appraising look toward the battle. Much as he told Thor he wanted him to simply shut his mouth and do what he was told, much as he occasionally told himself that, and even much as he genuinely did, at certain specific times, want that, he didn't want mindless obedience. Nor was he willing to ever again accept Thor's arrogant denigration of him, disregarding him, speaking to him in ways he would not speak to his friends or even to mere subjects, telling him "know your place." Looking back, he was surprised to realize Thor had actually done none of those things these last few days. He'd gotten angry, he'd shouted, he'd pushed, he'd glared…he'd wallowed in unwanted sentimentality. But the treatment he'd expected, the attitudes he'd grown accustomed to and had increasingly chafed at, all that was a pale shadow of what it had long been.
Still, whether Thor really had changed in more than just his professed desire to kill all the Frost Giants, or whether he was simply doing an impressive job of restraining his more natural tendencies, what Loki really wanted was to have succeeded in removing Thor from this situation. This was going to be hard enough. He didn't need Thor as an audience. He was stuck with him, though, at least for now, so there was no point in dwelling on it. Eyes still fixed on the battle, he spoke, realizing as he did so that Thor had been remarkably patient in waiting for his response. "I'd hoped they would be at camp. A more controlled environment. If we walk out in the midst of all that even with hands raised, we're likely to be killed before I have a chance to speak."
"I'll allow you a chance to speak before I kill you."
Thor and Loki both spun around as they shot to their feet at the sound of the deep voice behind them, in time to see a Frost Giant seemingly emerging out of solid rock, towering over them. Thor's hand was already on Mjolnir, and Loki's hand went just as quickly to Thor's arm. Thor kept his grip on Mjolnir's handle, but did not remove it from his belt.
The Frost giant grew a dagger in his palm, raising it to strike. "But you'd best speak quickly."
"Do you know who we are?" Loki asked.
In the same moment, a glint of recognition passed over the giant's face, in a narrowing of the eyes and a more thorough sweep over both Loki and Thor, lingering most intensely over Loki. "All of Jotunheim knows who you are. All of Jotunheim has been warned about you. About your lies."
Loki smiled thinly. At least there's finally a place where my fame eclipses Thor's, he thought mordantly. "Be that as it may, you must recognize that we are worth infinitely more to you alive than dead. We came to speak with your leader."
"I cannot guarantee that he will let you speak before killing you, but I will gladly see that you are taken to him." The giant frowned then, ridges tightening on his brow, red eyes shifting around and down toward the battle before settling again on Loki and Thor. "Move," he ordered, stepping around Thor and Loki and giving Loki a shove between the shoulder blades with the hand that wasn't wielding the ice dagger.
Loki stumbled forward a step from the force of it, forced to let go of Thor's arm and hoping fervently that Thor would maintain his self-control. "Which leader do you follow?" Loki asked, quickly regaining his balance. He began walking toward the exposed rock face, which was obviously an illusion, and a good one.
"Strange question, when you say you want to speak with him."
With out-of-place flashbacks to a lonely road through a forest and a man who talked incessantly but managed to never mention their location, Loki looked over his shoulder to find Thor had positioned himself between him and the Frost Giant so that they walked single-file. So that further shoves would fall on Thor instead of on Loki. He bit back an ill-timed complaint about not needing protection. "We want to speak with each of them."
"I serve Dirnolek. But I doubt he will be willing to share his prize."
Loki closed his eyes, continuing forward blindly, this time biting back a litany of words so foul as to make a maiden blush. He felt a nudge from behind, Thor and not the Frost Giant; he had no doubt that Thor was asking if he should take down Dirnolek's man. He hadn't wanted to begin this with an attack. He hadn't wanted any contact with Dirnolek or any of his faction at all. But this was his plan, so of course the first giant they encountered was with Dirnolek. A magic-user, too – Loki had been engrossed in his own thoughts, but not so much that he wouldn't have heard a giant lumbering up behind him, and Thor would not be so inattentive either. He'd emerged from some kind of hidden observation post, probably keeping tabs on the clash between Helblindi and Byleister and reporting back to Dirnolek. He was probably alone. And ice dagger or no, he was one giant, and he was probably already relaxing his guard in the face of his captives' lack of resistance. They were only a couple of feet to the rock face now; there was no way to know what lay beyond it. Perhaps less favorable conditions. Loki was just dropping his head to nod his agreement to Thor when he heard a crunch from behind – a familiar kind of crunch. A grunt followed right behind it, then a gasp and the scrambling of footsteps, and it couldn't have been Thor attacking the giant, not yet. Eyes wide and heart racing he spun around to find Thor apparently not injured, and sidestepping the giant, who was beginning to pitch forward. With one last glance to Thor he cloaked himself in invisibility and stepped to the side himself. The giant fell to his knees, giving Loki a good view of the large metal blade with its long wrapped handle buried in the creature's bare upper back, blue blood oozing around the wound. Beyond them, approaching at a run now, were two more giants. The one on his knees swayed, hand clenching around the dagger in his palm, growing it longer. But a second later the hand fell lax, the shoulders sagged, and the giant collapsed to the ground.
Thor took two steps back, watching every movement and every glance intently, hand hovering over Mjolnir but willing himself not to use it. He doubted there was anything that could test his discipline like Frost Giants brandishing weapons and running toward him. But Loki was also doing nothing more than watching warily, so Thor stood tense but still, muscles ready to propel him into attack in an instant.
"Reach for that and you die, Aesir," one of the giants warned as they reached the group, a blade in his right hand like the one in the fallen one's back, an ice bludgeon rapidly growing in his left; Thor knew he meant Mjolnir and shifted his hand slightly further away from it.
The other giant crouched over the one on the ground, lying at an angle with his face mostly obscured, still breathing from the minute movement visible in his back. He quickly drew out the blade, then plunged it into the unprotected side of the neck. After a couple of seconds there was no more movement. The victorious giant kicked the body, flipping it onto its back. "You are Thor Odinson," he said, smoothly rising and stepping over to stand directly in front of Thor, staring down at him as he drew a glistening dagger of ice from his palm. "Why are you meeting with spotters from Dirnolek's side?"
"Is Dirnolek colluding with you rancid slushes?" the other giant asked.
Thor glanced to Loki for guidance, but Loki promptly dropped down to one knee next to the dead Jotun and put his finger over his lips.
"They can't see or hear me," Loki said quietly, eyes fixed on Thor's and willing him to understand. "I was hidden behind you and this one. They don't know I'm here. They think you're looking at the body. Look at them now."
Thor nodded briefly before catching himself. "We…I wasn't meeting with Dirnolek. I came here to meet with…" He stole glance at Loki, and found him nodding. "Helblindi and Byleister. But I was seen by one of Dirnolek's instead."
The giant crowding Thor rumbled a low laugh that spoke more of danger than humor. "I can't speak for Byleister, but Helblindi does not collude with Aesir."
"No collusion. We wish to speak with Helblindi. To discuss the war."
"Have you brought an army with you? At least those weaklings you brought the last time?"
"I speak for Asgard," Thor said quickly, to gloss over his use of "we." Loki was right there, and it was hard to look two Frost Giants in the eye and pretend that he wasn't. All their lives Loki had been better at pretending than Thor. "I am king now, since Odin went into an early restorative Sleep. And I need to speak with Helblindi. About Jotunheim's demands. Byleister, also."
"We don't speak to Byleister and those traitors," the other Frost Giant put in, the one who'd first threatened Thor, the one who'd called the Aesir "rancid slushes."
"Helblindi is Laufey's heir. He may speak to you, when he has time. He's busy now. Destroying Byleister."
"It's important that I speak with him right away."
"Your demands mean nothing on Jotunheim. Helblindi will speak to you if he chooses to do so, whenever that may be. In the meantime, you will wait here."
The club of ice in the giant's hand then grew even larger and he aimed it downward, where it reached Thor's feet and began to grow there, too. He instinctively began stepping back, but the ice grew and grew, both outward and upward, and Thor forced himself to still and not fight it. Ice would not kill him. He warred with himself anew when the ice reached Mjolnir and encased it, but he managed to keep his resistance to a minimum and watched as the ice reached his waist, trapping both his hands, and finally stopped growing. When he concentrated, he could still feel Mjolnir there, so close to his hand, and he felt confident that if he had to, he could call the hammer to his hand, shattering the ice around it, and with enough effort he could break free entirely. Of course by the time he managed that, one of the Frost Giants might be able to slit his throat, but Thor was satisfied that he was not as helpless as he appeared; as long as he had any chance at all he would find a way to best these giants.
"Ask if it's Helblindi who's using fire," Loki said, still crouched next to the body so that when Thor inevitably looked at him, it would appear he was looking at the dead Frost Giant.
Thor asked.
"Why?" the one who'd encased half his body in ice asked, voice rumbling lower than before.
"I was merely curious. I didn't know that Jotuns fought with fire, and I only saw one side using it."
"Byleister uses that abomination. Did you give it to him, this fire?"
"No, of course not. Asgard is currently in a state of war with each of your factions, not only Helblindi."
The giant stared down at him for a long moment before huffing a breath of air through flaring nostrils. "We shall see. I'll inform Helblindi of your presence. Taulist, stay here and ensure that our…guest is comfortable. No knocking out his teeth while I'm gone." He leaned in to flash a wide grin at Thor. "Aesir teeth are useless."
The unnamed giant abruptly left, while Taulist, the one Thor thought might in fact be more likely to knock his teeth out – or try to, anyway – drew closer and narrowed his eyes. He brought a hand toward Thor's face; Thor stared at him without flinching until he made to touch Thor's lips and Thor jerked away, preferring to avoid frostburned lips just as much as missing teeth. Mjolnir was right there but he would not attempt to free it and himself from the ice unless absolutely necessary. "I believe Helblindi would be displeased to find his guest, who came here peacefully, damaged."
Taulist's mouth spread into a cold, toothy smile. "I disagree."
"Thor," Loki said, moving to stand right behind Taulist. "Don't look at me, don't answer directly. I need to go find Byleister. Can you handle this?"
Thor blinked, thinking rapidly. "Of course," he said, pausing long enough for Loki to know that this was his answer before continuing, "if you're wrong, it's you who will face the consequences."
"Once I'm gone, once the other one or Helblindi or any of Helblindi's army come for you, tell them that I'm here, too, and have gone to Byleister's camp, and that we wish to speak with both of them, together. Tell them we don't want to meet with Dirnolek. Tell them as little as you can; tell them that we wish to discuss terms if you must. Don't mention the Ice Casket. We can't mention that until they're together. Do you understand? Tilt your head to the right if you- No, not yet, you haven't even heard what I was going to say. Tilt your head to the right if you foresee any difficulties with this."
Thor held still, watching Taulist watch him.
"Good. If you did, I'd have to kill this giant so you could explain them to me, and that would be awkward. Don't provoke him." And don't let him kill you, he thought. That would also be awkward.
Thor grit his teeth over the irritated response he wasn't able to make, and continued his staring match with his Jotun guard while Loki slipped away.
/
/
Byleister was using sea fire. Byleister's warriors were being mauled by Helblindi's overgrown ice hound. It was Byleister that Thor had identified, the army on the right. Loki knew where to go. That part was easy. Getting there, considerably less so. Any lingering concern he had for Thor was easy to forget about when he entered the fray at the rear and found himself running along with a dozen giants as an enormous ball of ice appeared overhead, falling rapidly. It exploded onto the ground behind him, a chunk of it breaking off and striking him in the back and sending him careening forward and down, crashing into a Frost Giant and scrambling to disentangle himself from him before the giant could look around and realize that he couldn't see what had hit him.
He pulled himself back up and hurried on, ignoring the discomfort in his back and watching for more flying boulders and the occasional glinting ice shards or metal weapons that made it this far back. He stayed well clear of the snapping teeth and whipping tail of the ice hound, which now bled pale blue from at least ten places and appeared to be putting more of its effort into defending itself than attacking the Frost Giants.
"Release!" a giant at a nearby catapult shouted, followed immediately by the sound of a spring releasing its tension and an enormous container hurling its icy passenger up and over the heads of Byleister's side, toward Helblindi's. The surrounding giants scrambled over the catapult – it was fashioned largely out of bone, Loki realized now, darting right past one – and into the container, where he assumed they were growing the next boulder out of their own bodies. He shuddered at the thought, but put it aside to keep his sight set on his goal.
Byleister Laufeyson.
Loki found him easily, and paused to observe and to catch his breath; he'd run nearly all the way here. Byleister – the one Loki felt certain was indeed him – stood at the center of a small clutch of giants, conferring over something on a stone slate he couldn't make out, while those around him shouted out orders to others and took messages relayed to their little group.
"Their rantoor is down!" came one such message.
"Prepare the next barrage of fire immediately!" Byleister shouted; Loki watched as the order was relayed out, but from where he stood now he could not see those preparations, or the downed rantoor which Loki figured probably referred to the ice hound; Fandral had referred to it as an ice hound in the Healing Room, and in Loki's mind it had stuck. The rantoor on the loose was likely why they'd seen no further launches of sea fire – its chemical components were surely volatile, and the rantoor's thrashing about could have set fire to Byleister's own warriors. Frost Giants, he imagined, were not fond of fire.
Once he was confident of his grasp of the situation, he simply stared at Byleister. He had the same blood red eyes with small dark pupils as all the other Frost Giants – in fact, Loki found it difficult to tell them apart, though he'd learned to recognize Laufey well enough. He found himself focusing not on the face or the tightly-fitted helmet but on the shoulders, where Byleister had two spikes sticking out from the armor over his upper arms, and the collarbone, covered in tarnished golden metal for surely no more than some bizarre sense of Frost Giant fashion. Laufey, he remembered, had worn bits of metal just below his collarbone, similarly for no discernible reason. He stood there, watching Byleister speak, listen, move. His full-blooded brother. Who he was meant to grow up beside instead of Thor, except that he'd been tossed out instead as inferior, while Byleister and his spiked shoulders had been deemed good enough to keep. He told himself to snap out of this odd and unpleasant fixation; he'd spoken to Laufey after knowing Laufey was his real father, though that was different. He wasn't plotting to kill Byleister.
"Byleister," Loki said, forcing the name out quietly but clearly; he needed to be heard and understood, but he didn't need an army converging on him.
Byleister's head, and those of the inner circle gathered around him, turned in his direction, searching.
"I'm here to meet with you on behalf of Asgard. I have come in good faith, harming no one though I could have easily done so. I have hidden myself only to avoid being killed on sight. I will reveal myself now," Loki said, pausing to take in Byleister's inner circle which had now become his, surrounding him with snarls and ice daggers and the random mace and blade, "though it would be in our mutual best interests if you still did not kill me."
With that, Loki dropped the invisibility and for an instant no one moved. Then Byleister surged forward, shoving aside two other giants to reach Loki, wrapping a fist around his neck, nearly encircling it and squeezing. "You!" he shouted. "Liar! Destroyer! Scourge!"
"Thor is with Helblindi," Loki said, though with the crushing pressure on his throat, only "Thor" and "blindi" were understandable through the wheezed words. With both hands he dug fingers uselessly into the cold firm flesh of the arm stretched out in front of him, less in hopes of dislodging it and more in a desperate attempt to resist the nearly overwhelming instinct to grab for his knives. He could feel the change starting, the pull against his Aesir form, and threw all his effort then into resisting it and holding on to his Aesir form. If he was going to die here, he wasn't going to do so with his body looking like one of them.
But it worked. For all Byleister knew, concessions were being offered to whoever would accept them first; what good was killing the liar-destroyer-scourge if Helblindi took the wonderful deal Thor might be offering at this very moment and defeated him? It was a gamble, though, Loki thought as he slowly got up from where he lay sprawled on the ice, tailbone bruised. Loki was himself one of the potential concessions, but they all knew he wasn't the biggest prize on the bargaining table. He massaged his throat – sore, but not burned, and not blue. The high neck of his black tunic and the collar of his leather surcoat felt undamaged, too; it seemed Frigga was right, that these giants could control the temperature their skin exuded. "The name is Loki, by the way."
"Prisoners forfeit their names and murdering barbarians have them stricken from all tales. Why are you here and the other Odinson with Helblindi? What are you offering, besides yourself?"
"I am not offering myself. But you'll want to hear what we have to say. And we will discuss it only with you both, together. At a neutral location that you can both agree on."
Byleister's eyes narrowed minutely; they really did look to Loki as though they were full of blood, and this close it was difficult not to physically recoil.
"The fire is ready, my liege!" a voice somewhere behind Loki called out.
"Release it then!" Byleister shouted back before peering down at Loki again. "You will say what you came to say to me now, here. Or I will slit your throat now, here," he said, growing a long thin blade from his palm.
"I am here by my own choice. I remain by my own choice. And I do not respond to threats. If you aren't interested in meeting with me together with Helblindi, then I'll take the same offer to Dirnolek…loathe as I am to do so."
Silent communication in the form of glances and a couple of nods from the other giants still surrounding him told him he'd struck a nerve. Byleister suspected that something would be offered, and he didn't want it to be offered to Dirnolek instead of him, even if it meant having to somehow share with Helblindi. Byleister and his associates stepped away, while four more giants – even taller and bulkier than the average – stepped in close. Loki ignored them and stood waiting patiently.
"Think of them as people," Frigga had said. "If you're a person, how can they not be?" Jane had asked. People. He'd thought of them before as power-mad morally-deficient savages who would take any risk and stoop to any low to get their revenge on Asgard and on Odin and they'd fulfilled and even exceeded his every expectation. Thus far it seemed to be working now as well. Power-mad morally-deficient savages who would take any risk and stoop to any low to get their revenge… Loki drew in a quick uncomfortable breath. Like someone who would willingly enter into a pact with a sadistic creature in love with Death and rain down destruction on Midgard without the slightest care about how many might be killed in the process, intending to then rule it, all to spite Thor and Odin… He looked around him. These are your "people," after all, he thought, lip curling in a sneer.
Byleister reappeared then. "If he moves, kill him," he said, then left again.
Loki waited; he had little choice if he hoped to see this through. Byleister, he thought, was surely not simply leaving him here to go about his war. He would have to somehow get word to Helblindi and make arrangements to meet, perhaps calling for a temporary truce in the meantime. Byleister wanted power. He wanted a throne. And he would do whatever he had to to get it. Loki could barely remember that shift in himself, when exactly it had happened, or whether it had been in stages so gradual that he hadn't ever been conscious of it. He remembered the moment that everything had become possible, the moment Gungnir had been placed in his hands, but even then, his thoughts had been about what he could do with that throne in the circumstances he'd been in at the time, not about maintaining it, not about ruling Asgard for the rest of his life. He hadn't wanted a throne before his life had been turned upside down, not really, and then somehow, by the time he left Thanos's abode, it was all he wanted.
"You aren't like them," Jane had told him. He had been. But while they remained mired in the muck of their primal desires and disgraceful behavior, Loki had not. The dog that had learned to be human. Or Aesir. Something other than a Frost Giant, anyway. Not dogs. People, he reminded himself. At least pretend for a little while.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and twisted around.
"Come," a Frost Giant was ordering him, not Byleister, this one lacked the shoulder spikes and collarbone ornamentation.
"Where?" Loki asked, instinctively chafing against orders from these creatures, especially orders absent explanation.
"A neutral location."
Loki started to move, only to have a fist shoved under his chin, forcing it up.
"If you waste his time, he'll ensure that you regret it."
Loki smiled in response, refusing to otherwise acknowledge the unimaginative threat. Off to his right, two fires burned in the distance, but no more ice flew and masses of Frost Giants were lumbering away from the heart of the battlefield. Truce, he thought. Even if only a brief one.
The little group set off, Loki, the four giants guarding him, and the fifth who was in the lead. Byleister wasn't with them, but Loki had no doubt that he was headed to the same place. And if they were going there, then surely Helblindi was, too, and Thor as well. At least assuming that Thor had had the good sense to stay alive.
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Thor had never been in a situation remotely like this, stuck unmoving, staring down – up, actually – at his enemy for what felt like hours, not striking. He'd spent a portion of the time trying to come up with polite conversation, given that he was here with Loki to try to convince these people not to be his enemy any longer. Or at least to walk away from the war; not being enemies would probably take much longer. It wasn't long, though, before he realized he didn't even know enough about them to ask a simple question. "Where are you from?" Taulist's answer wouldn't mean anything to him and Thor's response could be little more than "Oh." Questions related to the war, whether the interrealm one or the one on Jotunheim, were not likely to be productive. He didn't know anything about food and drink here, hobbies, games, festivals, families… He didn't know anything about them except what weapons they used and how best to kill them.
Then Taulist spat on him and he stopped trying to think of questions and put all his will power into glaring at the giant but not reacting. He decided that if he was spat on again, he would free himself and end any delusions that he was truly captive, forced to stand here and accept such degrading treatment. Taulist began to pace afterward, though, paying Thor little further attention, and Thor began to think instead about Loki, and wonder how he was doing. Loki, he suspected, would not allow himself to be subjected to such indignities. Thor looked down at himself, just over half his body encased in ice, and couldn't believe he was allowing it, either. But times were desperate, and as he'd told Loki, he could endure a little indignity for the sake of Asgard. It didn't mean he had to like it.
Eventually, the giant who'd gone off to find Helblindi returned, and promptly grew the ice up to Thor's chin.
"The other one is here, too. Talking to Byleister's side. Why? What do you expect to gain?"
"Perhaps peace," Thor said, straining to get the words out with the ice putting pressure on his jaw. If the ice went any higher, covering his head, he wasn't sure how well he'd be able to function, so he strained also to feel Mjolnir's power, then realized with a flash of panic that he could not.
"Peace," the newly returned giant said. "That's not what you came here for last time."
"I have learned since then," Thor responded, forcing himself to calm. "I have changed." It wasn't so much that he couldn't feel Mjolnir, he realized, as he couldn't feel his hands. Or anything, from the waist down. He'd been encased in ice so long he'd gone numb. If the Frost Giants had known that that would happen, then he had to grant them grudging respect for their cleverness. Still, Heimdall had managed to break free from the ice Loki had sealed him in, so Thor was reasonably certain he would be able to, too, if it came to that.
"You brought one tribute, but you sent him to our enemy instead of us. What have you brought us? I don't see the other tribute we require."
Taulist surged forward, hand flying for Thor's face and stopping right over his eye; Thor reflexively tried to arch back and swing an arm around when he saw the small sharp dagger growing out of the knuckles, but was quickly reminded that he couldn't move. "He has sent it to Dirnolek!"
"I will not discuss this with you," Thor said, fixing his gaze on Taulist's face and not the ice dagger no more than an inch from his eye. "Only with Helblindi and Byleister, and my brother. But I tell you this: no Asgardian has approached Dirnolek, and we have no interest in speaking with him."
Another minute passed, before either giant spoke again. "Free him," the other one said, turning away.
"Reihal! We can make him talk," Taulist said, snarling his words and holding his position.
"Perhaps. But it would take time. And Helblindi has already decided to see him. Now do as I said, child."
Reihal's voice, full of authority, held a warning tone. Thor wondered who these two were to each other, whether "child" meant Taulist was younger in age – Thor couldn't tell – or junior in rank or experience, perhaps even a younger family member, or something else entirely. He had never been around Frost Giants long enough to wonder such things, and even if he had, he'd seen them little differently from how Loki had once seen Midgardians – ants undeserving of such thoughts. Big ants.
Meanwhile, snarl still in place, Taulist shoved a hand against Thor's upper chest, and the ice there began to grow thin and fragile. Smoke rose up and cracks popped their way through, until finally it crumbled down to the ground. Taulist stepped back and gave a hard kick to the block of ice still around Thor's feet and it shattered, nearly sending Thor to his knees. He caught himself on the pile of ice and managed to push himself back up, weakened and numbed legs trembling and tingling as the nerves began to awaken. It was only now, slight breeze brushing against exposed skin, that he realized just how cold he'd become.
"Your skin looks almost Jotun," Reihal said with a strange pinched expression.
Thor doubted it was concern for his safety and the bluish tint his hands had taken on, and figured it might instead be amusement at his current weakness. To be laughed at like that, by a Frost Giant no less… Thor worked his jaw and tried to let the anger settle and fade. He looked up at Reihal – the nicer of the two, if one could say that – and for an instant saw Loki, Loki's Frost Giant face. He remembered the day he was to be made king, how he'd laughed at Loki. "Some do battle. Others do tricks." Loki hadn't gotten angry. Not visibly. He'd hidden it, shoved it behind a mask, taken it out on that servant, and Thor had just laughed at that, too. Loki should have gotten angry. At him, not random servants. He should have done it long ago, made him see where his words went too far, made him think about someone besides himself…if that were even possible. But Loki had instead let it simmer and grow, until he was plotting to let Frost Giants into Asgard and eventually descending into madness. This, however, wasn't the time to get angry. It was the time to shove it behind a mask. After his previous journey to Jotunheim, which at least Reihal was well aware of, Thor's actual strength wasn't in doubt here, not to these giants and certainly not to himself. He could take whatever they threw at him, and he could do so without striking out in return. He straightened from the ice pile, ignored the remaining tremors in his legs, and waited.
"Let's go," Reihal ordered.
Thor followed, Taulist taking up the rear. This was it. He was going to see Helblindi, and Byleister too, from the sound of it. Loki's blood brothers.
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Background detail-of-the-day: Anyone remember that Thor had a particular interest in the Byzantine Empire? (Loki mentioned it to Jane at one point.) I did a little reading (a very little!) on "sea fire," better known as "Greek fire," and it was pretty interesting. No one has ever figured out what formula they used for it - it was a very closely guarded secret! But no, they didn't give the formula to the Frost Giants. It's not meant to be precisely the historical stuff from Earth. Just a weapon that would be quite feared on Jotunheim. Greek fire did indeed burn on water, so I suppose this special Jotun fire may as well burn on ice. Putting out Greek fire? Not easy! Water wouldn't do it.
Previews for Ch. 164 "Negotiator": Brothers meet brothers?
Excerpt:
"You would just let them leave?" Byleister said, putting an arm out to stop Reihal's advance. His muscles rippled as Reihal tested his resolve. "If I can't have one I will have the other. Saltir, bind the Lie-Bringer."
