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Beneath
Chapter One Hundred Ninety – Hearth
"Him?" Jane repeated, though just as she spoke she noticed the man headed their way, face mostly obscured by the hood of his long brown cloak, except for the prominence of his full gray beard.
"The entertainment," Loki leaned in to whisper.
The new arrival stepped onto a low platform Jane hadn't realized was there, behind an empty table, in the direction they were all facing. Loki's foot nudged hers, and she looked over at him to see him raising his glass; a quick flicker of her gaze around them showed that everyone else was doing the same, so she raised hers as well.
"Good evening," the man said.
"Good evening," the audience said back, Jane managing to join in on the 'evening.'
The man nodded once. "May the gate of this fortress of poetry serve only the finest wine of the raven's threat."
Jane scrambled to replay the words in her head, certain she'd misheard something or missed some words entirely. But then Loki was nudging her foot again and she glanced around and quickly joined everyone else in taking a drink from her glass.
"He said he hopes you like the poetry," Loki whispered in Jane's ear, though those nearest to them probably heard as well. "And you made room for it in your glass." Technically he'd said he hoped Odin liked the poetry, but Loki chose to ignore that particular meaning.
Trying not to show her confusion, Jane nodded.
"Look you to the east!" the robed man suddenly shouted, voice full of excitement, turning and throwing an arm up to point up to the sky. "In the borderland of the sun! The hall of the high mountains! The very roof of the realm!"
The sky, Jane thought. It helped that the presumed poet was pointing at it, but it wasn't until she heard 'roof of the realm' that she understood what he was saying, and that the other two phrases probably meant basically the same. Symbolism, she thought. She hadn't been very good at that in school. She felt herself smiling anyway. This must be what Loki felt like when he watched all those movies and didn't understand things. She remembered him asking her how the dinosaurs got on the screen, in Jurassic Park. The tables were turned now, and this could be a lot of fun, if she didn't obsess over all the things she didn't understand.
"The ancestors' fair jewel of the high storm-house has departed the ship of the league fixed with mountains' wind oars, and thus a gate may open to tell its story anew, now entering the embrace of the beloved friends of the maiden."
Jane's head whipped around to Loki. "The Ancestors' Star?" she mouthed with a wide grin.
Loki returned her smile and nodded. He'd been almost positive she would remember, but was relieved to see that in fact she did.
With jewels and maidens, it was clearly a love story, Jane thought. Having settled into the idea that she didn't understand much and wasn't going to, she relaxed and decided as the poem began that she didn't need to in order to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere, the cool evening air and the hot tea to ward off the chill, the rhythm of the poet's words, the splendor of the Asgardian night sky, and of course Loki's company, along with the memories from that earlier evening spent on an Asgardian hillside. When she glanced his way he smiled at her, and she thought he, too, looked relaxed, like he was enjoying himself, which only made her happier.
Jane sipped her way through two cups of tea, letting the words – sometimes spoken and sometimes sung – flow over her, and her imagination take random leaps along the way.
She understood next to nothing, despite knowing almost every word used; many of the words that she didn't know seemed to be names of people and places. Mind drifting to the lull of the poem, she recalled the poem Jabberwocky, which she'd had to write an essay on in college. The essay had been terrible, but she still remembered a few lines. "All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths…" something. A laugh started to bubble up; Jane cleared her throat and held it back. This wasn't the same of course – Lewis Carroll had made up his words. These words weren't made up, they were just used figuratively instead of literally. She did catch a few of the references to "sky" again, and some phrases whose meaning she could at least guess at.
"Thus the beloved friends of the maiden breathe the eternal praise of the feeder of the bluewings."
Jane felt Loki nudging her elbow and quickly followed his lead in standing and bowing her head. The urge to bring her hands up to clap was strong, but no one else was clapping, and when she glanced toward Loki she saw him holding a palm out, low, toward her hands. Don't clap, she interpreted it.
The poet left while everyone was still standing, without another word. The others started to sit down again, but when Jane moved to do the same she again felt Loki's hand on her elbow.
"Let's go inside. It'll be warmer for you."
"Okay," Jane agreed. She wasn't too cold – her definition of "cold" had been reset at the South Pole – but Loki, she suspected, knew that. Her suspicion was confirmed when she followed him inside and no one else followed, except for Tassi and the other server, who soon brought the kettle and tray and glasses and plates that Loki had insisted they leave behind.
"Set the hearthstones to low," Loki said.
Jane watched as Tassi went over to a fireplace of dark red brick with iron shelves and an iron cauldron, and seconds later she could feel a little heat coming from the lightly glowing stones piled behind a partial iron grate. It did feel nice, actually.
"Can I get you anything further?" Tassi asked, returning to the table Jane and Loki sat at, now opposite each other.
"No," Loki answered after a glance to Jane, who shook her head. He signaled for the register clipped to Tassi's belt. "An extra 200 for the Ancestors' song, a worthy addition. You have my thanks for arranging it."
"It was an honor," Tassi said, taking back the register once Loki had pressed his fingers to it.
"We'll have privacy now," Loki said once Tassi left, closing behind him the door they'd come through. "Just like at the South Pole, really."
Jane laughed. "Just like at the South Pole, uh-huh." But it was more like the South Pole already, just being alone in here, an emptied-out homey tavern with stone floors and bulky exposed wooden beams in the ceiling and those same little white lights gleaming from them. "So you requested this? The poet?"
Loki nodded. "I had the impression you might appreciate it. Did you enjoy it?"
"I did. I mean, the symbolism was hard to follow sometimes, but it was a really beautiful love story, and a lot of themes from nature, and of course the stars…and the poet conveyed a lot of emotion with his voice."
"Mmm. That he did. But it was about a series of battles…with a lot of themes of carrion-eating birds picking apart corpses."
Jane sat back and scrunched up her face. "Are you being serious?"
"Of course," Loki said over a laugh. "Don't be offended, Jane, I didn't instruct him in his choice of themes. The position of the stars dictates it, more or less. Annnnd yes, all right, there was something of a love story as well, in the background, woven into the rest of the events, which were mostly battles."
"A-ha, I knew it! Okay, wait…what are bluewings? They're birds, right? Not the carrion-eating ones?"
"They are birds, and they are among the carrion-eating ones."
"I thought they symbolized the sky."
"They symbolize death."
"How romantic," Jane deadpanned.
Loki smiled. "I feel like we should be having this conversation out in the jamesway."
"Do you think you can get me the words to it? And maybe a book on Asgardian symbolism?"
"If it's written down, yes, I can probably get you the words to it. I'll ask Tassi to inquire. As for a book on symbolism…I'm not sure there is any book that would be at such an introductory level. Perhaps something published on one of the other realms. It isn't quite symbolism in the sense you mean. They're kennings, and they're well-known. Most of them are standard, used again and again, known to every Asgardian. For example, a 'feeder of bluewings' is a warrior, usually meaning a warrior at battle, possibly one who has died in battle. He feeds the bluewings with those he has slain, or with his own body. The composer may create new kennings, but they're formed on a pattern of familiar elements. You don't need Macy's degree in literature to understand them."
"You just need to be from Asgard, huh?" Jane asked. She'd heard the "feeder of bluewings" phrase multiple times, and imagined something very different, connected to birdfeeders and bluebirds and tossing breadcrumbs to hovering birds.
"Basically."
"Maybe I'll just ask for some more interpretations, then. Or better yet, a translation. And speaking of themes of battles…can I ask…"
"You can ask anything."
"What happened with Brokk? Thor said there was some kind of fight…but I could tell there was something he wasn't telling us."
Loki grimaced. It was probably the only thing he would rather her not ask. He didn't want Jane to think badly of him, and in this, he thought, she likely would. "It's probably better you not know. Nothing to be concerned about, luckily. Just…things that should be left where they are, on Svartalfheim, under a pile of rubble."
"Okay," Jane answered, finding the non-answer surprisingly easy to accept. She was still curious, but it was nothing more than curiosity. Loki didn't seem anxious or upset or angry, like he used to when she asked him about things he didn't want to talk about. Besides, she had her suspicions – she remembered sitting in Loki's room on the footstool as Loki told her he wanted to "fillet Brokk like a fish." Thor, maybe, had left out some unpalatable details, though Jane thought it surely couldn't be that bad; she couldn't quite imagine Loki doing it, and she definitely couldn't imagine Thor standing there and letting him.
"What about the… Tony called me. He said he found you in the bathroom standing there all zoned out, like your brain had checked out of your body. He asked if I knew what was going on."
"And you told him…?" Loki asked, tensing. Jane herself had no real understanding of what had happened in New York, but she knew much that Tony Stark did not.
"I told him the truth, that I had no idea. But then I was thinking about how hard it was to wake you up when you're having one of those nightmares, how you don't seem to hear anything but you wake up when something touches you, and Tony said you snapped out of it when Captain…I mean Steve Rogers touched your arm. I didn't know if that was really the same thing, though. But then I remembered what you said about consciousness-sucking, and-"
"Allow me to interrupt for a moment to clarify: those were your words, not mine," Loki said, both because it needed to be said, and to put a halt – if only for a few seconds – to Jane connecting things he hadn't expected her to connect, things that weren't even quite as connected as she might think, things he would prefer to stay unconnected.
"I don't remember your exact words, but you know what I mean. You said Brokk did that to you. So when you said you were going after him…I was worried."
She was worried. The tension melted away. Jane wasn't trying to tease apart his secrets. Or perhaps she was, but not for the sake of the secrets, or because she was suspicious of him. She was worried about him. That, he thought, was not so terrible. "Nothing like that happened," he assured her. "My dreams are merely dreams; Brokk never had anything to do with them." The lie, the one he still clung to because on this he could not bring himself to divulge the truth even to her, was made more palatable by the addition of a truth. "But what happened in New York…Jane, I will tell you, but you must swear to me that you'll tell no one else. If you are asked again, you'll have to lie."
Jane hesitated, but only for a moment. "Okay. I swear I won't tell anyone else."
"The scepter I had when I was on Earth, before, served several functions."
She nodded. She knew he could stab with it, fire energy blasts from it, and take over minds with it.
"Among them was communication. It maintained a link back to Thanos's lackey. His…assistant, I suppose. They attached no importance to names or titles there. He told me to call him 'The Other' when I pressed him for a name. Through the scepter, I could communicate with The Other, and he with me. If he wanted, he could compel my mind back to him through that connection, not unlike what Brokk did. It permitted better communication…but it also permitted him to demonstrate who was in control, at least in his opinion. Your friend Tony contacted SHIELD as soon as I showed up on his balcony, and they thought it would be a good idea to bring the scepter, to subdue me with it if they felt the need. The idiots. What they actually did was enable that communications connection again."
"Tony told me SHIELD brought the scepter," Jane put in before Loki could continue. "I gave him a piece of my mind. Told him they should get rid of it, but he said it wasn't up to him."
"I also tried to convince them they should keep it far from me. I hope they listen, for everyone's sake. Believe me, Jane, when I say I would take any action necessary to ensure it isn't used against me."
Jane merely nodded; so would she.
"Better had it never existed," Loki said faintly, amid an unexpected wave of guilt. Here he sat, across from Jane, bombastically warning of dire consequences should anyone attempt to turn the scepter on him, when he had willingly, without hesitation, turned it on others. When he had turned it on Erik. He had already told Jane he regretted the aftermath of his use of the scepter on Erik, the difficulties it left him with. He had never particularly regretted its actual use. Until now. "I'm sorry for what I did to him, Jane." He didn't say the name. He knew he didn't need to. "I'm sorry I made light of it to you before. I wasn't really thinking about it from…from anyone else's perspective. I wish things had gone differently. Somehow."
"Thanks for saying that," Jane said, after a moment of surprise at the directness of the apology. They came so much more easily to him now; she remembered when his rare "apologies" were indictments of others and attempts to concede no actual wrongdoing whatsoever. She didn't want to talk about Erik, right now, though, and really, what Loki had said was enough. "So The Other…he was pulling your consciousness back to…wherever he is?"
"Yes. I could have resisted, but I didn't. Because 'wherever he is' is precisely the problem. The war is over. Thanos, however, remains a threat. He still blames me for the loss of the Tesseract, which he still wants, and he knows it's on Asgard. I'd hoped to convince him to reveal their location. It didn't work, unfortunately. I learned nothing new."
"You said he couldn't reach us."
"He can't. Not at the moment. But if he found a way before, he'll find a way again, eventually. And I'd rather remove the threat than wait for it to strike."
"Why didn't you just tell them the truth then? Why threaten them?"
"I didn't threaten them."
"Tony told me what you said, that you could call the scepter to your hand like Thor can call Mjolnir."
"All right…I said something that…in a certain frame of mind…might loosely be interpreted, however vaguely, as a threat. And I'd like to officially note that I prefer the term 'warning.'"
"So why do that? I mean, if Tony in particular knew the truth, he might be able to help."
Loki huffed out a breath. He didn't want to give this voice, and with anyone but Jane, he wouldn't. "Because it's a weakness. And he is the last person I want to know about it. Tied with everyone else, really. Heimdall knows, some of it anyway, because I had no choice – I'd hoped that in seeing me, he could see where I went. No one else knows. No one but you."
"I'm honored. I mean, I'm glad you feel like you can tell me. But everybody has weaknesses, you know. It's normal. Part of being human. Or Aesir. Or…well, alive."
"Perhaps. But advertising them would be foolish."
"Yeah, okay, I guess I understand. And I know you and Tony aren't friends. I just wish you wouldn't antagonize each other the way you do."
"I threw him out a window, and he and his friends put me in chains. That we merely antagonize each other I think is not so terrible a state of things."
"That's a fair point," Jane said with a cringe. "How did the rest of it go? You were there to learn about prosthetic limbs?"
"Yes. It went well enough, under the circumstances. Finnulfur, Asgard's Chief Magistrate, was there, too, as well as Jolgeir. I still haven't finished writing up my summary of the meeting. I suppose I'll do so tomorrow morning. I don't think it will matter, in the end. Jolgeir's thoughts are the ones that should matter."
"I don't think anyone will blame you for needing another day or two to write up your notes. You've been busy. You've been to Earth, Svartalfheim, Vanaheim…and Jotunheim."
"Too bad Asgard has no frequent flyer program," Loki said with a crooked smile.
Jane laughed at the incongruous comment; everyone at the South Pole had accrued a lot of miles on their journey, so he had probably heard the subject come up more than once. She quickly grew serious again, though. "Going to Jotunheim must have been hard," she said tentatively.
Loki nodded, slowly, then looked to confirm that all three entrances were still securely closed, then constructed his own sound barrier, as well. If he'd made a list of things he wanted to talk about with Jane tonight – he hadn't – this wouldn't have been on it. But he remembered how desperately he'd wished to flee to the South Pole the instant he'd returned from Jotunheim, again not really to talk about the experience but simply for the inexplicable form of refuge he was certain he would find with Jane. And he thought, perhaps he could. The memories were hardly fond, but while they were still fresh, he found that they no longer had the effect on him that they did in the immediate aftermath. "It was."
Jane waited. If Loki wanted to say more, he would; she wasn't going to press him on it.
"We sought out the brothers."
"We? The brothers?"
"I was forced to bring Thor. And the brothers…Helblindi and Byleister. The sons of the late King Laufey, who were at war against each other to claim his throne. Metaphorically speaking, at least." Loki took a breath, and a moment to gauge Jane's response. She didn't say anything, but he could tell from her nod that she understood the significance of who they were, which was good since it meant he had no need to say it aloud.
"And you found them?"
"Yes. Uncivilized, uncouth, spewing invective like madmen. They wouldn't listen. They would have rather let their people be slaughtered and the ruins of their realm crumble away than accept the Ice Casket back with the modification I made to prevent it from being removed from Jotunheim."
"You mean they're proud. Too proud for their own good."
"Mmm," Loki said noncommittally, fixing Jane with a disapproving look he didn't let linger. He recognized from her expression the point she was trying to make and didn't care to hear it, not to mention the fact that Odin had recently said something rather similar. "I tried everything I could think of. Every argument. Every point of logic. But they kept insisting that the magic I'd used on the Casket was foreign. Asgardian. They didn't know how wrong they were. So I…I showed them. What I am. And I told them who I was born."
"You mean…everything? You told them who they were to you?" Jane asked, shocked. She'd had the strong sense that Loki's Jotun birth was his deepest darkest secret, something he would never willingly reveal to anyone, not even in words, much less physically show them.
"I didn't see a choice. I couldn't leave there without Jotunheim's official withdrawal from the alliance against Asgard."
"How did they react?"
"They remained more inclined toward fighting than toward a joyous reunion. Unfortunately they also remained inclined toward seeing the restriction on the Casket as foreign. And then I received an invitation to see the queen."
"The queen? You mean…your..."
"Yes. She agreed to the deal, and that was that."
Jane frowned, tilting her head and looking at Loki askance. That was that? He met his birth mother and "that was that"? "I'm guessing it wasn't actually that simple."
"It wasn't. She was curious…and she felt some compulsion to…explain things to me."
"Things?"
"Hair. Traces – the marks they have on their bodies. Bonds. Cousins. Name bans. Things." Why she abandoned her own child to die.
"Sounds like she covered a lot."
"Much more than I wanted to hear. But I had to humor her. She's a queen, and one with considerably more influence and power than I had assumed, it turns out. She is ruthless. Manipulative. Conniving and crafty. She schemes against her own family." Loki pulled himself from the recollection that was tightening its grip on him too much, and caught Jane's furrowed brow. He reviewed what he had just said and frowned. "Not a word, Jane."
"I didn't say anything. I wouldn't. I can't imagine how hard it must have been for you. Why did she want to tell you about hair and…all those other things?"
"To educate me about Jotunheim. To make me see some kind of…value in it all. I don't know. I don't care. I hope to never see her again."
"I can understand that."
"She tried to tell me that Frigga wasn't a real mother to me. To hear such a thing from that woman's lips…. Frigga is as real a mother as anyone could possibly be to me. I don't know why I wasted so much effort trying to convince myself she wasn't."
"You were hurt."
"I was angry," Loki corrected. Both were true, but he preferred "angry," because "hurt" sounded like another weakness.
"You're not as angry as you used to be, are you?"
The question surprised him. He was still angry. He was definitely still angry. As angry as I used to be? "Perhaps not," he said with a half-smile.
"If you want to tell me more about it, about Jotunheim and what it was like and what they were like, you know I'm curious, and I…well, I could just listen. When it comes to Jotunheim, maybe there's no one else here who can listen like I can."
Loki leaned his elbows onto the table and picked at the crust of a slice of bread. "You would have found some parts of it interesting, I think. They're very specific in their requirements for ice. Something about the impurities in it. But I didn't ask any questions. I can't tell you anything more specific than that."
"I'm pretty sure you know I wasn't talking about the composition of their ice."
"Don't lie, though. I know you're intrigued," he said, cracking a smile at her.
"I might be a little bit intrigued," Jane said with a laugh.
"It was unpleasant, and I don't want to endure it ever again, if I can possibly avoid it. I don't really want to talk about it, either. Maybe someday I'll feel differently. But they have nothing to do with my life. And I'd rather it remain that way."
Jane nodded, and watched as Loki spread jam over the slice of bread that had been on his plate for a while now, then took a bite, sighed, and turned his gaze on the red brick fireplace. She poured a little more tea – the pot somehow still kept it hot – and took a long look at Loki. She was struck again by how good he looked. Healthy. Relaxed. Calm, even when talking about his hated biological Frost Giant relatives. Too much so for it to be no more than a show put on for her sake.
"What?" Loki asked when he turned back to Jane, feeling the weight of her silent gaze.
"Nothing, really. It's just…it's really nice to see you like this."
"Like what?"
"You're so at peace here."
Loki was surprised by the comment, which he knew was inaccurate. And yet right here, right now, he was at peace. More so than he'd realized. He knew then that when he looked back on Jotunheim, it wasn't the distance of a few days that made it more bearable. "I'm not at peace because I'm here," he said, eyes flickering between Jane and his plate before forcing himself to hold her gaze. "I'm at peace because you're here."
He wasn't sure what reaction he had expected – he'd done no more than choose to speak honestly – but it wasn't the disappointment that slowly spread over Jane's face and to her shoulders, making them visibly droop. He looked back to the glowing hearthstones. He shouldn't have said it. Honesty was rarely the right choice for him, and even with Jane, there were levels of honesty that were best acknowledged only to himself.
"I don't know what to say to that."
"You don't have to say anything, I suppose. I didn't mean to…overstep my bounds."
"No, it's not that. You didn't. Your friendship means a lot to me. And that you let me be your friend, when I know that hasn't been easy for you. When trust isn't easy for you. I guess it's just…this is your home. I want you to feel comfortable here because of that. You should be able to feel comfortable here. It makes me really sad to hear you say you're only at ease because of me being here. That's not the way it should be."
"But that's the way it is. There are those here who believe I conspired with the Dark Elves against Asgard. There are those who see me as a traitor for returning the Ice Casket to Jotunheim."
"But Thor was there, too."
"I tricked Thor. I stole it from under his nose. He didn't know what I was going to do until we were already on Jotunheim."
"But I thought…I had the impression that you were on the same page about that."
"In the end, yes. It doesn't matter. I'll be blamed for it, not him. It's a longstanding pattern with us, you see. And I have committed crimes. Turning the bifrost on another realm, deserving of such action as that realm may be, is a serious crime. As for Midgard, well, from the Asgardian perspective an attempted overthrow of another realm's government is not a case for Asgardian intervention. But the attempt came from outside Midgard, which makes it Asgard's concern, and I did it in the name of Asgard, so…also a crime. It will fade from the forefront of people's minds, eventually – well, probably not the Ice Casket – but regardless, I'm not the same person I was before. My place here is not what it was before. Nor do I want it to be. I doubt I could ever feel at peace here again. Sometimes…you just have to let the past go."
"That's true. But it's a thousand years of past, Loki. How do you let go of a thousand years?"
Loki gave a bit of a shrug. "You move on. Start over. Somewhere else." He watched as Jane looked back at him, clearly frustrated. "I'll be fine. I have many options, or I will as soon as Odin releases me from judgement. There's no need for concern. I haven't even made any decisions yet." It was a lie, but an easy one, one to ease Jane's worries.
"Well," Jane said a moment later, "whatever you wind up doing, don't forget about the people who care about you. And you know that includes me. With your ridiculously long lifespan…don't forget about me, okay?"
Loki's eyes fixed on Jane's, willing her to see the truth in his next words. "I could never forget about you, Jane. Never."
Jane gave a weak smile. He wouldn't; she could tell he meant it. But her lifetime was a barely-visible blip on the radar of his, and in his world, maybe keeping in touch meant checking in once or twice a century. Thor's world, too. She shivered, anxiety wrapping its way up her spine. There was no sense in worrying about things she couldn't change, but for the first time, it bothered her, this sense in which she did not belong in their world.
"I, um…I brought you a couple of things," Jane said, wriggling around to adjust the stole and take off the mini-backpack she'd kept on this whole time. The movement, and the distraction, helped her shake off the disquiet as well. "If you come back, you can get whatever you want from your room, but I wasn't sure if you'd want to go back inside the station, and…well, I thought you should have this."
Loki looked at the item in Jane's hand before taking it from her. The horse hat, as he'd always thought of it. A gift from Mohsin Tarkani, a stranger who'd given him a ride, a ticket to a hockey match, a place to spend the night in his own home. It was so recent, mere months ago, but it seemed a different lifetime.
"This is how I finally recognized you, I think. But I figured it meant something to you, maybe."
"It does. I'm not sure what, exactly…but it does. This is where my journey to the South Pole began. Thank you for bringing it to me."
"And then there's these. No way are you leaving the Pole without these."
Loki smiled and laughed through his nose. The clothing items Jane had bought for him at the Pole-Mart, over his objections, and later also for his "birthday."
"I kind of thought you'd never actually deign to put them on, so I'm glad you got some use out of them. I would've washed them for you, but I didn't have time."
"Thankfully I again have servants to do such things for me," he said with a smile, briefly holding up the dark blue shirt with the words Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in white lettering. "I found that I dislike doing laundry, Jane, which is why I did eventually wear these. More items of clothing, less frequent visits to the laundry room."
"Funny, I dislike doing laundry, too. I'll have to look into this servant thing."
"You should have brought your entire wardrobe. Avail yourself of servants while you have the chance. Oh, yes," he continued at Jane's look of confusion. "You're a guest of the king, Jane. Should you need anything at all, a servant will attend to it."
"Okay. Wow. I hadn't really thought of it like that. I'll keep it in mind. But…I already have everything I need here."
"Good. And these," Loki said, folding up the shirt he'd held up, "will make a fine memento of the life of Lucas Cane. I thank you again. And you're right, I'll collect my things from the jamesway, but I think it best that I not show my face in the elevated station again."
"I don't know. You might be surprised. There was a lot of anger and fear at first, but that's mostly faded."
"I don't think anyone, them or me, needs that particular surprise. I prefer to remember them from before, when they believed I was Lucas."
Jane nodded. It was Loki's choice, and maybe he was right. Things were settling down at the South Pole, and Loki's sudden reappearance to swing by his room and pick up his few remaining belongings there might stir things up again. "I brought one more thing. But this isn't for you. It's actually for me. I just didn't know it at the time. And…neither did you, I guess."
"I confess, you've piqued my cur…. Oh," Loki said, his ability to produce words momentarily disappearing. In Jane's hands was the book he'd bought for her in New York, the one he'd left in her room without knowing if she'd ever see it. Obviously she had. "When did you find it?"
"When I was unpacking, our very first day at the Pole."
"And how did you connect it to me?" he asked. He knew that she had; she wouldn't have brought it with her and specifically shown it to him otherwise.
"I was out at the jamesway, and I promise I wasn't snooping, I was just boxing all of your papers, and this little one fell out of the stack," she said, opening up the front cover to the receipt she'd stuck inside. "I noticed it looked like a receipt, and I wondered what you'd bought on Earth and saved a receipt from."
"I couldn't dispose of it in the trash. Not as closely as Paul goes through it all. The date on the receipt would've raised questions, had it been noticed. Of course I never imagined anyone else would have access to my storage."
"And you didn't plan to tell me about it? Ever?"
"It was just a test," Loki said with a light smile, the words more of a mild jest than an actual attempt to convince.
"Just a test, huh? A test you never check on the results of isn't much of a test. In fact, I think you've been miscounting. You've clearly got more than just the one."
"Pardon?"
Jane reached over the bread-and-jam tray and pointed directly at Loki's left pinky.
Loki looked down at his finger, then sat back, laughing. His smile stretched his face in ways that had grown unfamiliar. It was as though the entire universe was composed of nothing but the interior of this tavern, and him and Jane, and in that particular universe, there was nothing to inhibit the size of his smile or the volume of his laughter.
"Thank you," Jane said. "I think I know why you got it, I mean, I remember what was going on when you got it, and it was really thoughtful. It's meant a lot to me. I've read in it almost every single day."
"I thought you might appreciate it more, at the time, if you didn't know it came from me. I'm pleased to hear it's brought you enjoyment. Perhaps when you leave the South Pole, it will even bring you your own roses."
"I'm definitely going to try. There's a science to it, especially in the characteristics of the soil. PH level, chemicals that stimulate growth and how you can get them into the soil naturally, that kind of thing. It seems more manageable if I think about it in terms of science."
"I am shocked," Loki said, closing the book, which Jane then carefully slid back in her bag.
"You know, I wish you didn't feel like you need to hide your kindness. Wrap it up in mischief. Minimize it, even outright deny it. Why do you do that?"
Loki tried for several long seconds to answer, or at least to imagine himself answering. But these were not doors he wanted to open; he wasn't even certain he knew how. "You should know by now," he decided to tell her, "I don't have answers to questions like that. You're always trying to understand me. Don't doom yourself to an impossible task. I am what I am. And what I am not…is a scientific equation to be solved."
"Touché. So what you're really saying is, you're not a rose?"
"Hardly," Loki said in the driest tone of voice he could affect.
"And I should let you keep your mysteries, huh?"
"What is a person without mysteries?"
"Well-understood?" Jane asked with a teasing look before finishing off a slice of bread slathered with dragonfruit jam.
Loki leaned forward. "Boring," he whispered.
Jane laughed. "I don't think you have anything to worry about there. I can honestly say that of all the adjectives I might have used to describe you over the entire time I've known you, 'boring' has never come to mind."
"Well, then, if you have nothing more hidden away in your bag, I think perhaps we should part before you have a chance to add that one to your no-doubt extensive and colorful list of adjectives. It's past midnight by now, and a busy day awaits you tomorrow."
Reluctantly, Jane nodded and murmured her agreement. It was the practical thing to do, but she was still energized, and wasn't always very practical about sleep, though she'd tried to stick to a schedule at the Pole. As they got up from the table and made their way back out through the outdoor part of the tavern, now deserted, Jane kept expecting Loki to vanish the hat and clothes, as a matter of convenience if nothing else, but he kept them grasped in a bundle in his left hand. Maybe he won't just stick it in the giant junk drawer and forget about it, then, Jane thought with a smile. She'd seen enough of Asgard by now to know he definitely wasn't going to be wearing any of it here.
"It's so quiet. You'd think we were the only people in the entire realm," Jane said once they'd gone back through the gate and set off onto the road, leaving the twinkling white lights of the tavern and the path behind. Loki hadn't even bothered to pull up the hood of his cloak.
"It's late, and movement outdoors has been restricted. Tomorrow will look very different. And after tomorrow, treaty-signing celebrations will begin, and it will no longer be so quiet."
"I bet Asgardians know how to party."
"Asgardians do know how to party," Loki said with a chuckle, finding it easy to laugh even though he had long ago come to find the "partying" irritating. Being the only sober person amongst a drunken crowd acting like fools was sometimes useful for prying secrets from mead-loosened lips and occasionally good for some creative mischief, but over the years more often than not it was simply dull and annoying.
"Will you be at the signing, too?"
"I will be signing, so yes. I was made a separate party to the treaty, since I was personally singled out as a demand by the aggressors. And you?"
"Me? Um…I don't know. No one's mentioned it, and I hadn't thought about it. I guess I assumed it was kind of a private thing," Jane said, glancing up at Loki as they stepped into one of the regular puddles of low light from the streetlamps.
"It will be, more or less. But you are no mere member of the public. You should attend. In fact, I'm shocked you haven't insisted on it. Thus far you have seen only Aesir and Ljosalf. Tomorrow midday you can also see Vanir – if you haven't happened to see a Vanir Asgardian already – as well as Svartalf, at least one of the species of dwarves, and Fire Giants."
Jane's eyes lit up as Loki ticked off his list. "Now that you mention it…yeah, I think I'll ask to attend. But I can't help noticing you left out the Jotuns."
Loki made a sour face. "They already left the war, and we already have their signature and seal. They won't be here."
Jane nodded, figuring there was nothing she could say that wouldn't risk spoiling the evening. Maybe it was for the best – tensions might be high, a ripe environment for something to go awry between the longstanding enemies. Still, she couldn't help thinking that relations would never improve, and Loki's attitudes with them, if the people of the two realms never interacted.
Instead, Jane asked about the Fire Giants, and learned that they were capable of making their own fire, through a combination of a gas they could exhale from the lower two of a set of four lungs, and a chemical their bodies produced, while their own skin was all but impervious to fire. The Fire Giants, or Muspelir, as they were also known – though Loki assured her that the Fire Giants themselves rarely used that term – did prefer heat, and for that reason the signing would be held in an outdoor courtyard behind the palace, under guaranteed full sun.
"Guaranteed full sun?" Jane interrupted. "Are you able to control the weather here?"
"Of course," Loki answered in surprise, then realized it hadn't come up before. "We don't do it often; earlier generations found that interfering with nature can have unpredictable consequences. And we can't fully dictate it, but Asgard is small enough that we can push clouds out, or draw them in, even encourage them to produce rain. We cannot, say, make it rain right here," he said, pointing at their feet. "For that, something more precise is needed."
"Something like Thor?" she asked, catching the look of distaste that flashed over Loki's face.
"Exactly."
Jane wondered how they controlled their clouds, picturing them being parted like Moses and the Red Sea. They were already approaching the palace so time was growing short, but she thought it might be worth asking about another time. Asgard's blend of science and magic was never going to stop fascinating her. "Oh! Don't be mad, but-"
"I truly hate it when you say that."
"Oh, come on, I don't say it that often. It's just that I know I said I wasn't snooping before-"
"Out with it, Jane, no need for excuses. You've timed it well, I'm in a good mood. I doubt I'll wreak too much destruction in my reaction."
"I'll hold you to that," Jane said, bumping Loki with her elbow. "I looked in one of your books. I was just curious."
"What books?"
"In the jamesway."
"There were books?"
"Lots. You don't even remember?"
"Obviously not. What were they about?" Loki asked, thinking back. He'd hadn't made a habit of storing books that way, though it was certainly possible he'd forgotten about some.
"That's what I wanted to know. I only opened one, and only to one random page, but it wasn't a book-book. More like…an art book I guess?"
"Art book? Are you sure…oh. What was on the page you looked at?"
"A field of wheat, or some kind of grain. And it was moving, like a breeze was blowing through it. Not just 'looked like it was moving,' it was literally moving."
"Mmm. I know the one you speak of."
"You remember that one out of…all those books? Or was only one of them an art book?"
Loki chest pulsed with laughter. "I wouldn't go so far as to call that art. You should have looked at more pages. You would have seen the same attempt on every one. It's a fairly rudimentary standard practice piece."
"You used to study art?"
"I studied many things. We call that illumination, or sensory depiction. Engaging the senses on the page. It's used in certain high-quality formal texts, though less often now than in millennia past. These days, one finds it most often in children's books and advertisements. That grain drawing wouldn't pass muster for anything but the most basic of advertisements."
"If you say so. I thought it was pretty cool. And that kind of illumination…it can also be used to correct drawings of the night sky, right?"
"It can," Loki allowed with a smile. "You should really let me complete and improve that. I was hardly a prodigy with illuminations, but I can do better than what's on that page."
"Not in a million years. It…it captures a moment in time. A few moments in time, actually. Moments I want to remember. That's what I like about it. I'm not looking for a Rembrandt to hang on the wall."
"What's that?"
"Famous artist. Never mind. No Rembrandt ever had actual magic in it."
"You are sentimental, Jane. Not unlike my mother."
"From what I know of your mother, there are worse people you could compare me to. I told her, by the way. What I said I was going to. That she's a seriously awesome mom."
Loki looked down to see Jane wearing a self-satisfied grin. He smiled back, about to say something he promptly forgot as suddenly he saw instead Farbauti, looking down at him, his forehead, his chest, as though he was some kind of specimen in a museum. He shivered, and noticed Jane's expression turn to a worried frown. "I'm glad," he said, pasting on a smile which quickly became real. "She was. She is. I'm grateful to her."
Jane nodded, relieved. But Loki's unexpected initial reaction reminded her of something she needed to tell him. "I kind of let slip about what happened on the bridge that time, when I fell. I didn't mean to, I just said something about a first trip to Asgard, and she…she didn't really even say that much, it was just the way she looked at me. I couldn't help it."
"My mother should interrogate criminals for a living. The most hardened would crumble under her gaze. It's all right. Nothing to feel bad about, not for you anyway. As for me…if she hasn't turned her back yet, she won't now."
"She won't. She said she was disappointed, but I could tell she wasn't angry."
Loki took those words with significantly less indifference, which surprised him until he considered it for a moment. "I confess I don't enjoy her disappointment, though I'm not new to it," he said, pausing outside the gate that would let them enter the palace grounds. "It was easier when I had convinced myself I didn't care. She sent with me a secret means of escape, wrapped in words of compassion, and when I discovered it I scoffed at her and mocked her words. But I see more clearly now, I think. Shall we?"
Jane nodded, and Loki opened the gate.
"Speaking of that means of escape," Jane said after they'd reached the palace itself and the door had closed behind them, "I should have asked your mother this but I didn't think of it at the time. Do you have any idea what was in that little vial? What goes into a magic potion that transports you across the universe? Eye of newt, that kind of thing? I don't know exactly what a newt is, some kind of lizard I think, but when I think of magic potions I think of eye of newt."
"That sounds disgusting."
"Yeah. Which is why I asked. Just wondering what I drank. But also how it works."
"I'm surprised it took you this long to ask," Loki said, turning to crack a grin at Jane. "But it's entirely irrelevant, since we now know it isn't safe for mortals to travel that way."
"It was safe enough, in an emergency. And safe or not, I still want to know."
"Indeed. It was done through dark magic, powerful and dangerous for all involved. Looking back, I don't know how my mother managed to appear unaffected by it when she gave me that necklace." He glanced Jane's way but quickly averted his eyes, something trembling a little in his chest as he recalled the moment it had glowed around Jane's neck, and what he'd thought it meant. He should have known better. He hadn't even actually given it to her; she'd taken it from around his neck and put it on herself. "Perhaps I was just paying too little attention," he continued, dragging his thoughts back to the day he'd been sent to Midgard. "It's draining on one's life energies. You manipulate particles in ways they do not naturally permit, into forms they cannot naturally hold, in a process which is exceedingly difficult to control. Rare ingredients are usually required. Not lizards' eyes-"
"Eye of newt."
"Fine, eye of newt. Not eye of newt, there are plenty of those, I suppose, two per newt."
Jane looked up at Loki's eyes gleaming with mock cruelty and laughed.
"Ingredients that are rare in their substance. For example, in your terms, an unstable element with certain chemical properties such that it does not normally exist in nature, at least not for long. Things that are either expensive or difficult to find, or both. Things you may have to create yourself, which is typically also dangerous."
"So it's a bunch of rare chemicals?"
"I suppose so. Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"There's the magic."
"But magic isn't a…a thing, right, a physical substance?"
"No."
"So what else?"
"It doesn't really matter at this point, does it?" Loki said as they began climbing, tossing Jane his most good-humored look of dismissal.
"It does now, when you clearly don't want to answer."
They made it up to the first landing, where Loki stopped. "I don't know exactly what was in it. Dark magic is something I've only dabbled in a little, mostly to my regret. My control of it has not been sufficient. But I know there is one necessary ingredient in such magic. One I don't think you'll find…appropriate."
"Oh, for Pete's sake, I already drank it. Just tell me."
"Fine. Markers of my mother's own particular energies would have suffused that tonic. But she would have needed something stronger, something physical, to ensure the endpoint of the hole that would be ripped through space. Do you happen to recall the color?"
Jane's eyes went wide. She recalled the color. "Blood? I drank blood?"
"Only a drop or two," Loki said, a placating hand out.
"Blood. Wow. Okay. That's…okay."
"Calm down, Jane, you look like you're about to go into a panic."
"I'm not…" Maybe I am. Which is stupid. A drop or two of blood. Get a grip, Jane. "I'm not panicking. It's fine. It's just…odd, that's all. It's odd."
"That you drank my mother's blood?"
"Okay, you saying it like that? That's not helping."
"Saying it like it's a simple fact, which it is? You're being ridiculous. I did warn you."
"Yeah. I just didn't expect real-life blood magic," Jane said, setting off again. It was, she thought, probably best not to keep dwelling on it.
"The blood isn't magic; it's just blood," Loki said, falling into step beside Jane.
"I told you, it's fine."
"And you apparently haven't felt any side effects, so I'm sure it is fine."
"Uh-huh. Wait. Side effects?"
"Improved vision, hearing. Speed. You seem unchanged to me."
"What? What are you talking about?" Loki wasn't stopping, so Jane didn't either, but she couldn't help glancing around, trying to decide if her vision in the lower nighttime lighting levels was normal, whether the sound of their footfalls on the stairs seemed louder than usual. Her heart skipped a beat when, once she focused on it, they did seem louder than they should. Am I part-Aesir now? Part magic? Forever connected to Frigga in some way? The questions raced through her mind, there and gone before she could even think about trying to answer them or even ask them aloud, and now she was starting to panic.
"Hm."
"What? What 'hm'?"
"I was just thinking, the surest sign…"
"What is it?"
"You wouldn't have noticed, not at the South Pole in winter. Have you spent much time outdoors here, in Asgard? Before night fell?"
"No. Just the walk from that little hut where Heimdall was with the Tesseract to the palace. Why? What does that have to do with it?"
"Did you happen to notice whether, during that walk, your skin sparkled at all?"
"What? What do you mean, 'sparkled'?" Jane demanded, now constantly glancing between her feet with their pounding stomps on the stairs and Loki's look of frustratingly mild concern.
"Just what I said. Did it?"
Jane came to a sudden halt, Loki stopping a couple of steps above her to look down in more of that oh-so-mild concern. She fixed the sternest look on her face she could. It wasn't even hard. "When did you watch Twilight?"
"Every day, when I have the chance; it's a beautiful time of day and I must admit I missed it at the South Pole. I don't understand the question."
"You don't? Oh, hold on, don't move."
"Why not?"
"Is that a Great Spiny River Cricket crawling up your arm?"
"Hallucinations aren't a typical symptom," Loki said, narrowing his eyes to look Jane over critically, as though he might find some visible defect. When his eyes met hers again, and he saw she was not merely suspicious and testing him, he gave up the pretense and broke into laughter. "I went too far, didn't I?"
"Telling me I was turned into a vampire?" Jane said, climbing the couple of stairs between them.
"No, not that. I mean, was it the sparkling that gave it away?"
"Yes, it was the sparkling. Twilight, Loki, really?"
Loki shrugged. "I barely knew what I was talking about. I was winging it, as you say. I never saw that movie. There was a discussion about it over poker one night. Zeke would totally turn Bella."
Jane rolled her eyes and started up again.
"So would Paul."
"Okay."
"Actually. Each of them said they would turn Bella. Though Zeke did stipulate, as a clarification, that he would only do so if he was 20 years younger and unmarried."
Jane started laughing, and stopped only when she had trouble catching her breath as she kept climbing. "And to fit in, you said…?"
"I would turn her in a heartbeat."
Jane only laughed harder, and thankfully by that point they were almost at her floor's landing. "Okay. You had your fun. You really had me going, I admit it. And don't think I'm going to forget it. In fact, I'm going to get even. Do you know what I'm going to do to get even with you?"
"I shudder to think," Loki answered with a smirk.
"Make you watch Twilight."
Loki froze. But only for an instant. "I shall look forward to it."
"I'll remind you that you said that."
They came to a stop in front of Jane's door; an Einherjar, not the one she'd met earlier that day, stood at the end of the hallway.
"Thank you for joining me this night, my lady. It was a pleasure."
"Um…yeah. Me, too," Jane said, momentarily by thrown by Loki's sudden formality. Probably because they weren't alone. "Thanks for the invitation. I had a lot of fun."
"I'm happy to hear it. I'll see you at the signing?"
"As long as I'm allowed, I'll be there."
"I bid you good night, then."
"Good night. Oh…Loki?"
"Yes?" he asked, having only started to turn back toward the stairs.
"Was any of that true? I mean about the…" – she glanced toward the guard out of the corner of her eye – "you know?"
Loki quirked his head and let his gaze lose focus, as though considering. "Not everyone wanted to turn Bella. In fact, there was a rather spirited debate about the matter. Ronny was enthusiastically on board, but also mentioned that it had been a while and he was desperate. Austin hasn't seen the movie. And Carlo swears he only saw it because his niece wanted him to take her. Austin insists that Carlo only used his niece as an excuse."
"Fascinating. And not what I meant."
"The contents of the vial? Yes. The side effects? No. Sometimes you are delightfully gullible, Dr. Foster."
"I'm going to make you watch Twilight and every single one of its sequels. Twice."
It came as less of a shock this time, and Loki successfully ignored the utter impossibility of it. "Good night, Lady Jane," he said over laughter at her concept of revenge.
"Good night," Jane said, watching Loki until he disappeared up the stairs, then gave a little wave to the guard and let herself into her room.
/
Super long one so, keeping it brief here, I'll just say it was lovely to be able to get this chapter out in a reasonable amount of time! I hope you enjoyed it.
Previews for Ch. 190: The day of the treaty-signing and the feast has arrived. Twenty chapters from now, it will end. (I feel like I'm estimating high, but who knows?)
Excerpt:
"Is something wrong, though? Everything on track with the treaty?" She hadn't thought much about it before, caught up in the experience [...], but Thor had been uncharacteristically quiet for most of the morning.
"No, everything is right on schedule."
"I can hear the 'but' in your voice, you know. If you can't talk about it I understand, but I'm pretty sure something's bothering you, and… There's something your mother said to me. Something about how kings don't have many people they can talk to. You can talk to me. If you want to. You don't have to put on a smile and pretend."
Thor shook his head, a rueful smile spreading. He thought he'd been doing well in keeping his burdens to himself. He didn't want anything to mar Jane's visit. But…he had been suffering alone with this, and her offer seemed sincere, and maybe confiding in her would help.
