The Art of Lore: Chapter 12: ever hast been lustful

Author: starhawk2005

Fandom: Marvel's Avengers

Date: Sept 22nd, 2023

Pairing: Loki/ Jane (Lokane)

Rating: Adult (18+).

Summary: Jane and Loki visit Jotunheim. Cue the feels.

Disclaimer: Marvel/ Disney owns it all, except for the occasional OC.

Jane twists, or tries to, but she can't move. Loki's grip is too powerful. "Stop fucking calling me 'little'," she growls instead. At least she can still snark at him.

The face floating above hers grins toothily. "I am merely being factual, Jane of Midgard. And you are in no position to dictate anything, are you?"

He's been toying at the edges of her bra and panties, but now the hand on her breast snakes into the cup of her bra and targets her nipple, pressing it between long fingers. Jane bites her lower lip against a moan.

"You can make me feel whatever you want, but you can't make me like it," she lies, mock scowling.

"Oh, can't I?"

The hand yanks the fabric down, exposing her breast, and a hot mouth traps her sensitive flesh, drawing hard on it…while his face still floats above hers, drinking in her reactions.

This whole scenario is one of his illusions and yet, as always, it feels so real. The groan spills helplessly out of her.

"Did you say something, little prey? I didn't quite catch it. Will this help?"

Another sharp tug and her other breast is bared, and another mouth she can't see but can certainly feel sucks hard, matching its friend.

Her back wants to arch but she can't move. Sweat breaks out all over her as a louder cry squeaks out between her lips.

He hisses encouragingly in her ear and the hands on her legs shift, seizing her knees and pinning them to the furs, spreading her wide open.

The mouths on her are still hungrily working at her nipples, and she can feel the air on the moisture between her legs as yet another hand draws the fabric covering her crotch aside.

A finger skates down her folds, examining the wetness there. "Ahhh," he breathes, the warm air ghosting across her ear. "I knew you would adore this."

She shakes her head no, gritting her teeth. But it's impossible to stay silent as the exploratory finger massages the tender flesh just under her aching clit, eventually flicking lightly across her swelling nub.

"Loki!" she gasps, and lips brush against hers, though his face still hasn't moved from above her. It also isn't that face that speaks when she hears his words hum in the shell of her ear: "Yes, say my name. Tell me who you belong to."

Any remaining resistance evaporates as his finger – real or illusion, does it really matter anyway? – continues to stroke her most sensitive spot. "Please, Loki," she whimpers. She has no doubt he can torment her like this for hours if she doesn't play ball.

"Such a good little mortal. I knew you would come to see it my way. If you'll forgive the pun."

She can barely even understand what he's saying by now. Mouths are sucking on her, nipping, and that lone finger is drawing slow, deliciously tortuous circles, and her brain feels like it's melting, heat and pressure and pleasure overloading her ability to do anything other than groan and beg.

"Pl-please," is all she can manage.

"Shall I take pity on you, little one? I can be merciful…when it suits me." Tears and fog are blurring her vision but she can hear the grin in his voice.

Her throat works but nothing comes out this time, though he's not apparently expecting an answer; yet another finger – no, two of them – materialize at the entrance to her body. They briefly caress the tender flesh just inside the opening, then plunge into her, and the fingers on her clit pinch and rub the taut flesh.

It's too much and Jane climaxes hard, stars streaking across the darkness that's flooding her skull and mind. She's pretty sure she screamed at some point, at least based on the smug chuckles filtering through the fog.

Multiple mouths press gentle kisses to her skin, while the warmth of the palm of a hand lays over her centre, easing her way back to earth. "Did I make you like it, Midgardian?" he purrs arrogantly.

"Yeah, whatever," she retorts, as sarcastically as she can manage.

"Really? Such hubris," he growls, the eyes of the face above her narrowing dangerously. "I see I will have to make an example of you, foolish one."

"Promises, promises, L-" her eyes widen as two more hands grasp each cheek of her ass, squeezing firmly, then pull them apart to expose the tender opening between. "Whoa, wait a sec-"

"But I haven't managed to make you like this yet. So clearly, more extreme measures are necessary," the face above her leers. "Excuse me a moment while I deal with the remaining impediments, minor though they are." At his words her panties and bra melt away.

When still another digit grazes against her opening, caressing between her spread cheeks, Jane gasps and yanks at the hands that hold her, putting up the best false fight she can.

"There there. Relax and surrender to me, and you will not be harmed. On the contrary-" Tongues swirl lazily on her nipples again, and the palm pressed to her centre begins to move in small circles, dragging on her clit. It's almost enough to distract her from the sensation of a now-slippery finger breaching her.

She makes a strangled noise, and his chuckle echoes around her. A hand is still wrapped loosely around her throat, and she can feel her heartbeat tapping against the cage of fingers. When he eases inside her a little more Jane squeezes her eyes shut, stars zipping across her closed lids, drowning in sensation. "Lok-" she gasps.

"Yes, my love. Tell me again who you belong to."

If she had any presence of mind left – and her eyes open – she'd be rolling them now. Until she feels more fingers invading her other opening. Speared deliciously in twin places at once, every sensitive spot inside her being deeply caressed, her body clenches tightly. Any second now-

A mouth replaces the palm over her clit, sucking it hard, and she climaxes even harder than before. Her back arches so much she must be bent double, her scream echoing off the cave walls.

She swims back to reality, panting and dripping with sweat. Every hand holding or touching her is gone, as is every phantom mouth. There's only Loki, naked, settling himself above her as the thick fog clears around him.

"You're…so…going…to kill…me…one of…these…days," Jane declares between each heaving breath. But what a way to go!

"This is not the first time you have proclaimed such things," he notes with a snide grin. "And yet, here you are. Fatigued, yes. But alive yet." Draping himself over her, he presses his forehead against hers. He takes her hand and draws it down until she is cradling his pulsing shaft. "May I?"

"You may," she urges, helping to welcome him inside her.

The contrast always surprises her; how one minute it's like being taken by some ravenous animal, and the next, he's touching her as gently and carefully as if she's made from delicate crystal.

He rocks slowly against her, darkened eyes looking into hers. She wraps her arms and legs around him, reveling in the feel of his skin sliding on hers, the flex of taut muscle, the ends of his hair stroking her cheeks. The heat of him deep inside her, the drag of his coarse hair across her clit, over and over…

Her last climax builds so slowly and gradually that it washes over her almost before she realizes it's happening. She grips onto him even tighter, riding it out. Loki waits until it's finished, Jane slumping exhausted beneath him, before he speeds up, thrusting into her quickly.

She arches into him as best as she can manage, wordlessly encouraging him, then cradling him when he groans and shudders, burying his face in her hair.

For a long time they lie together, his body so heavy on hers that it's a struggle to fill her lungs to capacity, but it's a minor inconvenience. She could lie like this with him for hours.

When he stirs and starts to roll off her, she can't help but quip: "Who needs a lizardman, when I have a god of illusions?"


The next day dawns even stranger. When Jane wakes, the cave is noticeably dimmer. They change clothes and eat a small breakfast heated over another of Loki's magic-produced fires, and when they attempt to then exit the cave, a tall rock that was not there last night is right outside, almost entirely blocking the way. In fact, there's so little space to squeeze by it, Loki has to teleport them out.

As Loki promised, the snow is already gone, and it's raining. Except Jane eventually realizes that at least some of the rain is falling (if that's the word) upwards. What. The. Fuck.

As they continue to explore the planet, Jane discovers more than one place where even the planet's gravity changes. There's a spot on the side of a barren hill where out of the blue she feels about three times heavier, and struggles to lift each foot. Then later that same day, while moving through one of the Niflheim deserts, she feels just as suddenly buoyant, her steps as bouncy as if they've been teleported again, this time to Earth's Moon.

"This place is insane," she remarks to Loki for what has to be the thousandth time that day, gripping firmly onto his hand. "And let me guess, tomorrow these gravitational anomalies will be in different places."

"Indeed. If they continue to exist at all. We did not encounter any such phenomena yesterday."

"Insane," Jane mutters once again. But fascinating. Could there be any scientific explanations for the things that go on here? Or is it all more of that magical mumbo-jumbo that she just can't wrap her brain around?

The idea that there is a force in the universe that can't be explained or described scientifically offends her sensibilities, and yet…

Even the star-gazing on this planet is bizarre. Once night falls (or rather, when the dim fog becomes even dimmer!), Loki takes her to a different spot from last night, and again uses his power to clear mist and cloud so she can see and film the skyscape above them.

At first Jane is entranced by everything she sees, particularly an aurora of yellow and orange. And then puzzled, because unlike the night before, every few minutes one or more sections of the sky will shimmer…and then change.

Stars wink into existence, or out of it. Moons appear, then disappear. In one dramatic event, a brightly sparking meteor shower emerges from one quadrant, only to vanish almost immediately into an adjacent quadrant of the sky like it has swooped behind a blackout curtain.

"What. The-?" She looks quizzically over at Loki.

"It is the same capriciousness that grips the ground beneath us. Why should the sky be any different?"

"So we're not just looking into space as it exists right now…" she trails off.

"We are witnessing celestial events as they existed in the past, or will in the future," he finishes for her.

It's exciting, humbling, confusing, and…yeah. Jane doesn't have the words for this, though she does her best to explain it in one of the videos she takes.


In all, they spend four days on Niflheim. Not because there isn't much to see there – once Loki's magic sweeps the fog temporarily away – because with everything changing from moment-to-moment, there's always something new to see.

At one time during their visit the land outside their cave (which itself has changed its basic structure and location several times each day) is laced with countless streams, springs and small rivers, all frozen solid.

According to the legends Loki relates to her, these waters were once guarded by wingless dragons called wyrms, though no one knows how they managed to survive here, or even how long they were here. One day someone noticed them, and for eons they were commonly encountered on Niflheim. Then one day they were gone as suddenly as they appeared, never to return.

At another time, a soft, ringing note could be heard in the air. "What's that?" Jane asked.

"It is the earth, singing."

"Wait, what?"

"I did explain this Realm was…unique, did I not?"

"That's one word for it."

Jane suspects they could spend months here, discovering something new and intriguing (and utterly illogical) every day. But on the evening of their fourth night, Loki declares they will move on the next morning.

"Huh? Why so soon?"

"Forgive me, my love. But keeping you and myself from succumbing to the ever-changing energies of this place is a great burden, even to someone of my power and skill."

She's about to make some snide comment about that. Then, looking more closely at him, she realizes he's just a touch paler than usual, with tiny lines etching themselves around his eyes and on his forehead.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry, Loki! I didn't realize…" Guilt spikes inside her. "I mean, it always seemed so easy for you to maintain your spells. Like on Muspelheim-"

"Holding the essential nature of a Realm at bay will always be a more difficult task than holding the powers of another mage at a standstill. And Muspelheim, unlike Niflheim, is more…stable. That makes it easier to counter. Here, where the energies and realities twist and turn in unpredictable and chaotic ways, it takes a far greater degree of skill and strength." Noticing her stricken expression, he sweeps her up in his arms. "Do not despair, my love. I am well. Just…beginning to tire of the particular idiosyncrasies of this Realm."

Jane snuggles into him, muttering more to herself than anything: "I'll never get this 'magic' stuff."

His warm breath puffs across the top of her head. "You will have a long time to attempt to try."

"Sounds like a plan," she agrees. Although she immediately recognizes that they have a new problem - where to go next.

It seems the unpleasant decision can't be avoided any longer, though she does her best to act casual about it. "So, where to next?"

He stiffens, then sighs almost inaudibly and releases her, stalking past her to the mouth of the cave. "It is your choice, dearest," he says back over his shoulder to her. On another day she might point out how he's trying to hide his feelings from her, but for the moment she's feeling sympathetic.

Oh well, may as well take the bull by the horns. "Should we get Jotunheim out of the way?"

His spine stiffens further, if that's possible. "We don't have to, you know," she amends quickly. "We can skip it."

He sighs again, slowly shaking his head. "I promised to show you all of the Nine Realms. And I prefer to not always be a God of Lies. Especially with you."

"OK." She moves to wrap her arms around him, and he is quick to return her embrace.

After a long moment, something else occurs to her. "Hey Loki, d'you mind if I…do something first? Before we leave, I mean?"

His forehead creases, but he nods.

Taking Loki by the hand, Jane tugs him after her, stepping out into the thick fog outside the cave. After a couple of paces she stops. Concentrating as hard as she can, eyes squeezed shut, Jane does her best to conjure what she wants to see.

After what feels like a long time, the sigh of the wind dies down and sunlight pierces through her lids. Familiar birdsong filters through to her ears, and she opens her eyes to find her old bedroom around her again.

But this time Loki is with her when her Dad appears at her bedroom door.

"Hi Dad," Jane greets him, smiling happily. "This is Loki, my husband."


Loki had known from the outset that this day would come. He had toyed with the notion of simply not allowing them to visit this cesspool of Yggdrasil. Jane, he knew, would entirely have understood.

But he knew in his heart that this would be cheating her of knowledge, and thus an injustice to her. Her thirst for facts was well-known to him. Had he not been much the same, during his long-ago studies as a mage?

Nevertheless, as the power and light of his 'pathway' between Realms fades around them, and the frozen waste appears, extending in every direction towards the horizon, his misgivings only deepen.

I should not be here.

"Wow, it's so…" His beloved pauses to search for words. Despite his most powerful warming spells enclosing them both, her breaths still fog in the air when she exhales. He examines her critically, assessing the glyphs and runes he drew on her skin before they came, to protect her from the deadly cold of this place. The marks gleam silvery on her face and the backs of her hands. She cannot see them, of course, but to his mage's sight they are clearly evident.

At least he may be reassured that this accursed place cannot claim her life by way of the brutal arctic elements.

"Desolate?" he supplies, as blandly as he can. "Barren? Bleak? Dreary?"

She turns to face him full-on, reaching for his hand. "I was going to say, beautiful."

"Is it?" he retorts sharply. He proves unable to keep the biting sarcasm from his voice, though he knows she doesn't deserve it.

Her expression doesn't change, and his dark mood only deepens as he realizes she is being patient with him.

Scoffing, he casts his gaze about them again. Reluctantly, he notes there is a certain lonely beauty to the place. "I suppose some might think so. Especially if they are partial to rocks and ice. And the colour blue," he allows.

Jane snorts and gives his hand an affectionate squeeze. "Well, that's a start, I guess?"

"I will grant you that the view of the celestial bodies is dazzling," he concedes. "Which is just as well, I suppose, since night reigns all but eternal here."

Jane blinks. "There's no sun at all?"

"There are in fact two. But they are far too distant to lend much heat or light to this Realm. If I am not mistaken, they shall rise in mere minutes, from that direction-" He waves off to their right. "Shall we take our ease and watch them?"

He conjures a pile of pelts and a stein of steaming mead for his wife, and they watch what passes for sunrise in this depressing place. Or rather, his beloved mortal watches.

Loki is too busy scanning the nearby environs for any sign of Jotuns. Despite his reluctance to leave Jotunheim off the list of places they would visit, his misgivings about being here cannot be easily set aside.

How much easier it was to visit – and battle!- here in my youth, before Odin's terrible secret was revealed to me.

When Jane has finished her documentation of the suns, they carry on. Loki teleports them to the highest peak that exists on Jotunheim (after casting yet another protective spell so that Jane can breathe freely in the thin air), that she may best appreciate (if that is the word) the vast, cyan-tinged emptiness of the place.

The keening whistle of the wind is the only sound as his wife takes in the ice-rimed, rocky crags and canyons. The stars are yet visible between the clouds scudding the 'daytime' sky, though snow soon makes an appearance, the flakes as large as one's hand. These whip around the two of them, driven by the gale, but are currently held at arm's length by one of Loki's earlier spells.

Finally, Jane asks: "How cold is it, really?" Her words are slower than usual, as though she is choosing her words carefully.

He blinks down at her, puzzled. "I am not sure I know the precise vocabulary to describe the temperature in terms a Midgardian would understand."

She shakes her head. "No, I mean, I guess what I'm asking is if it would be possible for me to feel the cold."

He barely resists the urge to laugh at her folly. "A mortal on Jotunheim? You would freeze to death in mere minutes." Why should this matter to her so?

"OK", she presses on, "then I should be OK to feel the cold for at least ten or fifteen seconds, right?"

He scowls, anger coiling inside him like the poisonous serpents he is associated with. "I suppose, but…why should you desire to?"

She takes a slow breath, turning to squarely meet his gaze. "I want to understand this place where you were born."

His fists clench as the old denials spin in his mind, but with an immense effort he calms his ire. Jane does not deserve to be a target of his rage, and he knows her well enough to realize she is doing this with the intention of trying to help him.

"Very well," he says after a moment. Despite his best efforts, this is gritted out between his teeth. He turns his back on her to concentrate, modifying the spell so that it will dissipate for the ten seconds she requested.

Still, he keeps tight hold of the threads of his spellwork, prepared to yank the protection back over her like a cloak, if her mortal flesh proves unable to withstand even so brief an exposure.

He turns back to her, his voice carefully neutral as he declares "It is done." The faint gleaming of the loops and whorls of power hovering around her, and scribed on her flesh, dim until they cannot be seen.

Loki would have known the magic was failing anyway, by Jane's reaction: a strangled gasp and a choked expletive, her arms twitching as she fights her instincts. Her shocked breaths freeze instantly on exiting her body, and her nose and lips are glazed by frost in mere fractions of seconds, her arms surrendering and wrapping themselves fruitlessly around her violently quaking form.

He has the competing impulses to snap the spell back over her, as well as to merely observe and allow her suffering to continue. She requested this experience, did she not? some shadowed, fanged corner of himself hisses. It is beyond petty of him, but that darkest part of himself wants to her pay for reminding him yet again that his ancestry stems from this place.

"Oh. My. God," she's mumbling, her eyelashes now also decorated with a rime of frost, the words barely coherent through frostbitten lips.

One immense snowflake speeds towards her face. It shatters against the boundaries of his earlier spell, but without the protective cloak of spells to keep all ice and cold away from Jane, some fragments strike the side of her head. Under the strength of the winds they must feel like little razors biting into her flesh, or at least it seems so, from the way she recoils. In fact she bends over, hunching into herself, as if this will somehow defend her from the elements (it won't).

His protective instincts now scream at him, finally starting to outweigh his pettiness. But he has also been counting down the moments this whole time, and any fraction of a second now-

Yes, there it is, he notes with a mix of satisfaction and relief as his spells encompass her once more, wreathing themselves around her like shining snakes. The flakes melt from her hair and shoulders, then evaporate.

The blood that had been rushing to her cheeks in a futile effort to heat them subsides, and the pale blue tinge fades from her lips and the rims of her ears, while the helpless shuddering of her frame mercifully subsides.

"Y-y-y-yep," she finally speaks, though her teeth still chatter. "B-beautiful. A-a-and t-terrible, t-too."

Finally relenting he moves to her side, encompassing her tiny form in his supporting arms. Shame stabs him in the gut as she reciprocates without hesitation, instantly coiling her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest.

Even though it had been at her own request, he had allowed her to suffer. What evil magic did this place have, to make him forget, even for the briefest of moments, all that she had already suffered because of him? And how could he have allowed himself to be the direct author of yet more suffering on her part?

"How anything – any people – could have evolved to survive here…" she's mumbling against his armour.

It's more statement than question, though Loki is glad for the distraction. "I cannot say for sure, though as usual, many tales abound. Some Asgardian legends say the Frost Giants were born of the cold that already existed here. Others say that the Jotuns existed first, and the Realm became inhospitable from their mere presence. Still others claim that the Jotuns were once much like the Fire Giants, but at some point in the distant past they lost a battle with a powerful foe.

"Then the victors punished the Jotuns by pushing their Realm far from its twin suns, leaving it in eternal winter," he continues. "All those who could not adapt to their new reality died, and the remainder became as they are today. Either way, the Frost Giants are here, and this is the state the Realm has been in, from time immemorial."

"Hmmm," Jane answers. She is silent for a long time, clearly mulling something over. While she is doing so, Loki occupies himself by using his magic to try to find a safe place for them to take their ease.

His beloved must be tired of sleeping in caves, but they remain the best choice in a Realm like this. Soon, he reminds himself, only Asgard and Midgard will remain to be visited on this voyage, and they will have accommodations more befitting a god and his wife.

Once he has located a suitable cave, he magicks them to it. They settle near the inside of the mouth, their boots making squeak-crunch sounds in the snow as they spread the pelts and prepare a light supper over a small fire Loki conjures for them.

At which point she inquires: "Wait, this is suppertime? Didn't the suns just rise?"

"Sunrise does not signal the start of day here. Jotuns consider the day to start with moon-rise," he explains.

"Oh."

Loki settles back on his elbows once their repast is done, pointing out the occasional feature in the sky to Jane, and sometimes explaining the legends behind this or that constellation.

Despite his efforts, there's a tension in his body that hasn't been there on any previous Realm, even the Dark World and Muspelheim, and Jane seems more subdued than usual.

Although he had planned to wait at least until tomorrow night to initiate any kind of erotic play, perhaps accelerating his timeline for such things would prove a good distraction for them both-

"Loki," Jane asks then, shattering his train of thought, "You told me Laufey is your real father, and that you killed him, but…what about your real mother?"

Frigga is my mother! is the automatic retort that wants to push itself through his constricted throat and jaw. And yet it is paired with the confusing welter of emotions – rage, sadness, resentment – that now arise whenever the topic of his 'family' is part of any conversation.

His voice is rough when finally he manages to grit out a reply. "That is entirely irrelevant."

Her eyes widen, but she's mercifully silent for a time. His ire only deepens, however, at his surety that she is picking every word carefully.

At long last, she speaks. "Why? I mean, aren't you even a little bit curious about her?"

"No. I would barely have known her in any case."

"What?" A line appears between his wife's eyebrows.

Loki sighs deeply, making a concerted effort to relax his jaw and shoulders. Again, he reminds himself that she loves him and means well, and is not a deserving target for his rage. "Both Midgardian and Asgardian societies elevate their men above their women, as you are well-aware. That is nothing compared to what passes for 'society' among the Jotuns."

She is looking at him expectantly, so he continues: "The Frost Giants have little use for such concepts as 'family', or 'love'. Perhaps it has something to do with the difficult nature of existence in this Realm. But from what our tomes tell us on Asgard, male and female Jotuns live a mostly segregated existence. The females and their female children occupy certain regions, living deep in sheltered caves, and the males and male offspring – other than those set to guard the females - occupy other regions, near the places where they mine or hunt."

"But-"

He pushes on before his distaste for the topic overwhelms him. "Their roles are also segregated as well. Males go to war and hunt, and females raise the young and make weaponry for the males."

"OK, but if the female Giants raise the young, then you should've had some relationship wi-"

"When it comes to male children, the females only rear them until they are old enough to take their first steps, which is within the first month of life. The moment the male offspring is even slightly capable of following an adult hunting party, they are sent to live with the adult males."

"And then what, they never see a female Giant again?" Jane prods. "That can't be the case; how would they ever reproduce?"

"Such events are rare for the Jotuns. It only occurs when the present King decides that more offspring are needed, to keep the population going or to replenish the ranks of their warriors. Then only the strongest and cleverest of the males are chosen for breeding purposes." He pauses, predicting she is not going to like the next part.

"And the females decide who's going to 'breed' with these lucky guys?" she prompts, her tones similar to his.

"No, the females…do not get a say."

"What?"

"The selected males visit the nearest region where the females reside," he continues reluctantly. "All the females there must assemble, and the males choose who they wish to mate with. That is the whole of it. There is no courting, no love between them. Certainly no marriage or other form of long-term association."

"And if the female doesn't want to breed with that particular guy – or at all?" Jane asks, her voice rising.

Loki shakes his head slowly, saying nothing.

"Un-believable," Jane mutters, her brows pinching together. "Even if, say, a male decides he wants to breed with, I don't know, a kid?"

"No Jotun male would even begin to consider breeding with a prepubescent female – nor would the King hear of it. No offspring could be expected to come from such a union, after all. But have some young females, newly fecund, been obligated to breed with a male much older than them? Not unusual at all, judging from what I have read."

Is that not effectively what has occurred between myself and Jane, as well? I am centuries older than she….and I did not exactly comport myself in a chivalrous way when first we met! Loki shifts, unsettled by the parallels.

Jane's expression is disgusted, and for a moment Loki must wonder if she has somehow sensed his line of thinking. "I'm almost afraid to ask what comes next," she says. "If the female doesn't conceive, what then?"

"The male in question will select a different mate. But at least there is some understanding in this Realm that sometimes an infertile male can be produced; if he couples with three females in a row, yet none conceive, typically he is only allowed to mate once more, the next time the King deems it time. If that second breeding season again does not produce offspring, such a male is no longer allowed to serve in that capacity."

"And if a female does conceive, then what? They drag her off to the father's cave and chain her to his wall?"

Loki barks a short, humourless laugh. "No Jotun male would suffer the presence of females in his home! No, the female is left among her own, to be cared for by the elder females during the pregnancy. Such things are mercifully brief, I have been told. A mere four months are required for a Jotun female to bring their offspring to term."

"Well, that's a small consolation, I guess," Jane mutters, almost to herself.

"Once the offspring has been birthed, if it is female, it remains with the female group. If it is male, as I mentioned earlier, it is sent off to live with the males as soon as is deemed feasible, as such things are judged here."

"Do the male kids at least get to live with their Dads?"

"According to the tomes on Asgard, no. Among the females, their daughters do indeed live in family units with their maternal relatives. Among the males, however, the sons live a separate existence from their progenitors. They live in caves with several other male offspring, and are raised and trained by the male elders. They are taught to show the utmost respect to the one who sired them, but as is the case between their parents, there is little love or connection to speak of between them."

"So you wouldn't have had any relationship with her, even if you had stayed here," Jane concludes, her voice quiet.

She seems to have forgotten, and he is loath to remind her, but he feels the need to point out: "I doubt I would have in any case. You forget, fair wife, that Odin found me wounded and alone in a temple. The son of the King, undefended and abandoned? The only logical conclusion is I was left there to die." The words themselves want to stick in his throat as if they are full of barbs.

Jane shakes her head, brows furrowing once more. "Loki, can't there be another explanation? Maybe they were, I don't know, performing the Jotun equivalent of baptism on you, and they were all forced to leave unexpectedly? Maybe they meant to come back for you. That was during the attack on Jotunheim by Odin and his troops, right? So maybe they left you behind because they went off to fight off the Asgardian army. So they were trying to protect their Prince, not abandon you?"

She's trying to find a positive interpretation, and he has to admire her for that, even if it is naïve and doomed. "You are attempting to be charitable, but believe me when I say these…creatures do not merit it. Not one tale I have ever heard or read has ever stated that Giants of unexpectedly small stature are accepted by their fellow Jotuns. Given my height, all the evidence points to the likelihood that they were about to sacrifice me to whatever Gods they still worship. This was and is their usual response in such situations. More likely Odin's attack distracted them from the deed. And all that came after, well…this you know."

He does not air his next thought: That, according to Odin, Loki had already been wounded when his adopted father had discovered him. The Jotuns, therefore, had already begun to shed Loki's blood, but had been interrupted before the fatal blow could be dealt.

In fact, he judges it to be the most probable scenario, as no Asgardian would soil their honour by stooping to harm a baby. Jotun or not.

Jane's face remains creased with consternation. He can well guess the conflict within her – that she has been trying her best to help him accept that his history began here, and yet, the mores of Jotun society are making this a challenging task!

Mostly to alleviate her discomfort, and not because he believes it by any means, he suggests: "Perhaps there are some nuances I am not aware of, in what passes for 'society' among the Jotuns. By and large I am recounting what I have read in Asgardian literature on the subject, or heard in tales from Asgardian elders over steins of mead. I myself have no memories of this place, aside from the exploits of Thor, myself, and the Warriors Three in recent times."

As he hoped, this bait piques her interest. He is able to spend much of the next hours regaling her with tales – a particular favourite is one where Thor tries to infiltrate a group of Jotuns, disguised by Loki's spells as a Jotun boy-child (no wedding dresses in evidence, unlike the Midgardian version, highly amusing as that would have been!) – of his warrior past at his brother's side.

Alas, even those memories are not exactly happy. He still recalls how insignificant he felt, how darkened by Thor's long shadow. It is far preferable, however, to engage in those remembrances; better that than trying to fruitlessly reconcile his two identities!


The next day dawns (if it could be referred to as such) much the same. In many ways, he muses at one point, Jotunheim is diametrically opposed to Niflheim. Where Niflheim is constantly shifting and changing, Jotunheim is static, as befits a place with such a frozen heart.

With little else to do here, he takes Jane to see the 'sights'…such as they are.

He expects her to be bored. This is not Alfheim, bedecked in rich foliage and unusual (to a human) animals. Nor Muspelheim with its fountaining volcanoes and geysers.

No, Jotunheim is more akin to the Dark World, differing only in that it bears a thick coating of ice, which overlays all the death, he thinks with black derisiveness.

But to his puzzlement she seems as taken with the static tableaus as she has been almost everything else (with the exception of the Dark World, though none would fault her for that). She is as openly admiring of the jagged mountains poking their rude fingers into the skies, as she is of the massive waterfalls that have stood locked in place, unmoving for centuries. It is the same for the lakes and seas, some smooth as panes of glass, that have never been in a liquid state within even Loki's long lifetime. By Yggdrasill, even the icicles that hang outside the cave he chose for them last night, great spikes of ice thicker and longer than her arms, fascinate her.

He supposes he should not be so dumbfounded. She is as hungry for knowledge as ever, and of course she lacks his personal history with, and antipathy of, this place.

"So Jotunheim has always been exactly like this?" she asks at one point.

"Certainly since I have known it. According to the legends and myths I have read in the great libraries of Asgard, however, it may once have been akin to Alfheim in its natural riches. Tall forests, abundant wildlife. But what the deadly cold did not put an end to, the Jotuns drove to extinction with their predation. Until there was nothing left to eat, and then, much like the Giants of Muspel, the Jotuns had to survive primarily on the minerals in the rocks, with only the occasional meat."

Jane looks pensively across the silent landscape. "From where? There aren't any insects, and I haven't seen any small lizards or mammals."

He reaches out with his magic, searching until he finds one particular member of the local fauna. Extending a hand to his wife, he says then: "Here, let me show you."

His magic deposits them on a peak nearby, far enough that if the massive creature notices them at all, Loki will have plenty of time to whisk them away. His one encounter with just such a monster, when Thor had got it into his tiny brain to make war on Jotunheim, had been more than enough.

He glances over at Jane, noting how her mouth hangs open. "That thing is…HUGE. How could anything so big survive here? And how could any Jotun bring it down?"

"It has much the same diet as the Jotuns themselves – rocks, supplemented by the occasional meat. With the meat in this case being Jotuns. Jotun hunters, and unwise Jotun offspring, tend to disappear rather frequently."

"I can believe that," Jane mutters.

"And when the Jotuns decide it is time to hunt one of these creatures down – which they will tend to do only if an important event or holiday merits the consumption of meat – one or more groups of males of fighting age will gang together to take one down. Even then, failure is a frequent occurrence. No doubt this is why the kings of Jotunheim have traditionally always kept one of these beings as a - barely-tamed – pet and defender of the Royal Court." Despite his efforts, memories from that long-ago, ill-advised foray into Jotunheim return to him, particularly how one such monster was involved.

Had he never followed Thor on his foolish Quest, Loki might never have discovered his true nature. And then nothing else that followed would ever have happened.

Including meeting his mortal.

"I'm afraid to ask what they feed their 'pet'," Jane remarks dryly.

Loki barks a short laugh. "Anyone who disagrees with the rule of their King risks being fed to the creature. Or if no dissenters are available, a member of a warring tribe; though many Jotuns follow their one King, there are some tribes of Frost Giants who do not wish to be beneath his boot. These will on occasion make war against the Throne and get themselves captured. Or, one final possibility for feeding the creature is trespassers." As Thor and the rest of us were that day.

"How nice," Jane answers in that same dry tone.

"But as even such sources of 'food' are few and far between, the King and his court will generally pool their powers to keep their 'pet' frozen as much of the time as is feasible. This ensures both that the monster needs to be fed infrequently, and that it will be in a fighting mood when it is awakened. Keeping it frozen for long periods also guarantees that it lives a good many centuries, as it is a massive undertaking to capture a new creature, according to the tomes I have read."

"I'm sure." There's a tiny smirk on her face now, though he doesn't inquire as to its source. Perhaps it is mental images of Frost Giants being tossed hither and yon while trying to acquire the beast.

Then the hint of smile fades. "Can we…go see some Jotuns? Like we did on Muspelheim?"

Loki's attempt to smile feels twisted and foreign on his lips. "What, it is not enough to have seen me in my 'natural' state? Has not your curiosity been slaked?" Biting sarcasm colours these phrases, despite his efforts.

His wife's mouth opens, then closes. She has not his facility with pretty words – when he desires to use them, at any rate – but after a moment he decides he is being churlish. If she wants to see these monsters up-close, it is easy enough to accomplish, and he cannot seriously think that seeing them would in any way alter her feelings for him. That ship has sailed, as the Midgardians would say.

"Never mind, my love. We will do as you request," he accedes, pulling her close and pressing his lips to her sweetly-scented hair. If anything, seeing the Frost Giants in their full 'glory' can only convince her that much more that I have little in common with my race of origin, will it not?

After meticulously constructing the necessary concealment spells, bolstered by what he learned belatedly on Muspelheim (as the Jotuns have their mages as well), Loki steels himself and takes Jane to the site of what was once Laufey's stronghold.

But the place, once called Utgard, is little but shattered piles of rock and ice, and not a single Jotun soul to be found. Even the frozen den of the court's pet monster is abandoned.

"This is where your da- where Laufey's castle was?" Jane asks, puzzled.

"It was once. Perhaps the Jotuns acquired a new leader and chose a new stronghold for that leader. Or perhaps not. I do not recall how succession works among the Frost Giants, when there is no heir apparent," he admits, keeping his tones studiously even. He does nothing to remind Jane that he himself had murdered Laufey. Nor that the ugly collection of broken stone and water that had once been a throne was in fact his birthright.

As much as he loathes his adopted world and family at times, Asgard's light and boisterousness is far preferable to this half-dead Realm.

It is snowing lightly once more, the flakes rustling faintly as they settle on Jane's hair and Loki's cape. Their boots crunch-squeak quietly in the drifts of snow as Loki and Jane wander through the ruins, though only they, within their little bubble of magic, can hear this faint noise. Their footprints also will be swept out of existence the moment the border of his concealment spell passes over them.

There is little else to show Jane, except in the frozen waste behind the former castle. There they encounter row upon row of domes, none taller than Loki's shoulder height. The ice walls of said domes are frozen into a form that cannot be mistaken for anything other than cage bars.

Some of the domes even hold bodies still, though they are long dead, skeletal and desiccated in the cold.

"Oh. My. God," Jane whispers in horror, palm to her mouth as the implications strike her.

Loki nods. "Indeed. Those who disobeyed the will of their King were imprisoned here. Sealed in these domes, in such a way that they could barely move, let alone stand. According to the histories I have read in Asgard, prisoners were fed infrequently as well. Such was the fate that befell warriors from neighbouring tribes, who had the misfortune to lose and be captured. I imagine it may have actually been something of a relief, when they were sentenced to be fed to the court 'pet'."

Jane shakes her head slowly in disbelief, eyes wide.

See? he wants to add. For all my admitted flaws, I am not nearly as monstrous as these…'people'. But then an unsettling thought occurs; for all of his denials and the layer of illusion, his veins yet run with Jotun blood, his bone and muscle forged in this glacial crucible. Could it be that all my worst impulses – cruelty, sadism, envy – were born of this tainted history? The notion makes nausea pool acidly in his belly.

He takes in a deep breath of the arctic air, releasing it slowly. He is Loki, God of Mischief and Lies, and he need no longer live in the shadow of any of his past enemies or detractors – not Laufey, not Odin, not Thor, not Thanos. He had outlived some, and outwitted the rest-

Jane interrupts his train of venomous thoughts, tugging at his sleeve. "Yeah, I think I've seen enough here, thanks."

He nods, a sharp movement of his head. Then remembering her earlier request, he answers: "Let me see where we might spy some living Jotuns."

His magic unfurls and stretches from him like a web to encircle the area, then beyond, searching. Many miles away, he spots them – a party of Jotun males, armed with blocky clubs and spiked spears. Hunting or raiding, he knows not, but it is of little concern.

Loki takes Jane's hand and magicks them near to this group of Jotuns, but not before verifying once again that the spells enfolding them both will conceal them from all sight and hearing. He has had quite enough surprises in this Realm in the past.

They walk behind the group for a time, listening to them boast of past battles and victories to each other in harsh voices, and of females captured and taken to be part of their own tribe's breeding stock (Jane scowls at those comments, as one would have expected).

After perhaps half an hour or more, Loki and Jane pause and let the party continue on without their accompaniment.

"Well," Jane comments, her voice lowered even though the Jotuns are out of ear-shot, "I can see why they're called Frost Giants. Just like the people on Muspelheim."

Loki grinds his teeth together, forcibly reminding himself that her comment is not meant as an insult to his own lack of stature. Unbidden, Odin's voice surfaces in his mind: Small for a giant's offspring. Abandoned, suffering, left to die.

Left to die.

Jane is looking in the direction of the departed Jotuns, unaware of his present train of thought. "Can we see one of the female groups?" She turns to him, blinking as she takes in his expression. "Loki?"

He masters himself and forces the corners of his mouth to turn up as he reaches to take her elbow. "I am quite fine, my love."

She obviously does not believe his claim.


That evening as they eat their provisions and take their ease outside their cave, Jane yet again broaches the topic of magic. He has to admire her tenacity, her drive to attempt to understand this force of the universe that is so alien to her understanding, though he suspects he will never be able to articulate it in a way she will comprehend.

It starts with her looking at him sidelong, studying him intently. "Yes, my Jane?" he prods.

She shakes her head slowly, and again he senses she is picking her words carefully. "Just still struggling to wrap my head around the fact that nobody – not even you – knew that you were…from this place. How could an illusion make you feel warm, for example? I thought illusions were something that fools the eyes."

Loki sighs inwardly, but this is one of the reasons he admires her so, yes? That incisive need to know.

"There are illusions, and there are illusions. Some – the simpler ones that require less skill and power – merely fool the eye, and that is all that is required in such situations. As in battle." He frowns, recalling just then the battle against the Jotuns he had fought, that day when his true parentage had first been revealed. He had employed just such an illusion that day, tricking at least one Jotun into falling off a cliff's edge to its demise.

"Others, such as the one Odin laid on me, and that I am currently employing on myself, create reality. Thus can I seem Asgardian, and warm to your touch." He smirks, leaning to lay a suggestive hand on her upper thigh. Perhaps he can think of one or more ways to distract her from this line of inquiry-

But she grasps his hand, holding it still as she doggedly pursues the subject. "But how can you create something from nothing? I mean, none of these Frost Giants have hair, but you do. I can feel it." By way of illustration, she raises a hand to toy with a strand of his locks.

"It is not from 'nothing'," he asserts. "It is sourced from power, the same power all my spells commence from. I have merely altered it from energy into something tangible. But it is still illusory; if I stop fueling the illusion, it will cease to exist."

She's still shaking her head. "OK, but then shouldn't the illusion stop, when you are sleeping, or unconscious, or something?"

"You had best hope not, beloved wife. Your mortal flesh would not long survive in such close proximity to my own, if my spell was unmade so easily as we shared a bed," he observes.

"You're not answering my question."

"Is it not obvious? It has to do with my power and skill. No, I am not being a braggart," he insists as his wife's eyes roll, "It is merely a statement of fact. I have set the spell in such a way that it will only fail should I desire it to. Or, at the moment of my demise."

Jane scowls. "Yeah, I'd rather not think about that."

"Nor I," he answers. The discussion reminds him once more though, not about his death, but her much more likely and imminent one. To be explored further in the libraries of Asgard, he promises himself.

He smiles archly at her. "Shall we endeavour to give ourselves something more pleasant to think about?"