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persephone_koreTitle: A Tale of Two Lokis
Authors: Khilari and Persephone_Kore
Summary: Thor and Loki were not the first of Odin's loved ones to bear those names. After the events of the movie, Loki is planning his next moves when he discovers a frost giant imprisoned in a volcano, who proves to be both the uncle he was named for and Laufey's first child. Soon Loki has a new mentor, Asgard is shaking off isolationist tendencies, Jotunheim is receiving foreign aid, and Earth is suddenly and vividly reacquainted with the existence of aliens....
Authors' Note: We were partially inspired by some of the theories proposed on the TV Tropes WMG page for the movie. We have taken the movie and combined it with the Eddas, the Gesta Danorum, and bits and pieces from other Marvel sources. We're having a lot of fun with it and hope you enjoy the result.
Chapter 3
Loki had only activated the Bifrost once, and not for its intended purpose, but he did not think it would be a good idea to let the giant use the casket in order to show him how. Besides, the giant seemed curiously out of it this morning, he had had to be shaken awake and now seemed barely to be staying that way. So Loki took the casket in both hands and reached for its power as he had before, although never for this, holding the path he wished to take firmly in his mind.
They were gone in a flash, the sensation much like travelling by the Bifrost, although instead of being carried along Loki was directing it. The power flowing through him as he flowed through it was immense and exhilarating. It was with a sense of triumph that he brought them out on a hillside, lush with growth as all of Vanaheim was.
‘Nice landing,’ said the giant approvingly. ‘It can be hard to direct without Heimdall’s abilities.’
Loki turned, surprised by the praise, and was further surprised by what he saw. The giant had refused to glamour himself earlier, saying that travel by casket would undo it anyway, but now he looked like an Asgardian. Pale, with red hair and bright green eyes, and surprisingly handsome.
‘Is that a form the Vanir will recognise?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said the giant. It was harder to think of him that way, now that he no longer looked like a giant.
Loki sighed. ‘From now on you are bound to be truthful to me. Is that a form the Vanir will recognise?’
‘Yes,’ said the giant. ‘I can change it later if you wish, but this is my normal appearance when I’m glamoured.’
‘And you hoped to be recognised by the Vanir as someone my Father had imprisoned,’ said Loki. ‘In hopes they would catch me when they caught you? How can you still be on my Father’s side?’
‘You’ve been extremely evasive about your plans. I’m assuming you have reason to think I won’t like them,’ said the giant. Really, Loki was getting tired of thinking of him that way.
‘Give me a name I can call you,’ he said impulsively. ‘I’m not calling you by mine.’
‘It was mine first. But Lopt if you prefer,’ said…Lopt, Loki supposed. It would do.
Loki turned away and paced a few steps over the grass before turning back to Lopt. ‘I bind you not to interfere with my plans but instead to aid me with them.’
Lopt looked down, grimacing, and then sighed. ‘You’ll have to tell me what they are if you want me to obey that,’ he said.
‘I am going to conquer Midgard,’ he said.
Lopt groaned. ‘Oh, not again,’ he muttered.
‘Again?’ said Loki sharply.
Lopt looked at him with brilliant green eyes somehow colder now than they’d ever been while still red. ‘I was imprisoned,’ he said deliberately. ‘For the death of the last son of Odin’s to try conquering Midgard.’
‘I bind you not to kill me,’ said Loki, the words out too quickly to seem motivated by anything other than fear. He hadn’t, technically, included that in the original binding. Which meant he’d slept in the same house as someone who could possibly have freed himself by murder.
‘Wise,’ said Lopt. ‘I wondered when you’d get around to that.’ He sat down on the grass, looking at the sky. ‘So the Muspel giants have agreed to be your army in exchange for world-walking. If you actually get them there you might wind up ruling a cinder, they aren’t compatible with most beings that live below the boiling point of water.’
‘They won’t need to enter Midgard itself. Their magic is strong enough to be used from distances within the solar system, from what they’ve told me,’ said Loki. He remained standing, it placed him in a higher position in relation to Lopt.
Lopt nodded. ‘So they colonise Sol and act as your army from there? A better plan than I expected.’
‘Even if I cannot give them world-walking properly, I believe they would do it in exchange for passage to Sol,’ said Loki. ‘If there was a way I could be sure of keeping safe it might be enough.’
‘So what are your plans here, now?’ asked Lopt. ‘I don’t see that a falconskin will do you much good, but since I’m bound to help you I need to know how you intend to get one.’
‘What would you suggest?’
‘I normally ask nicely and promise to bring it back.’
‘If they’ve heard anything from my Father then I doubt they’ll be inclined to lend things to me,’ said Loki.
‘So we change our glamours and go in disguise,’ said Lopt.
‘I’m not…’ began Loki and then stopped, because of course he was glamoured. He just still wasn’t used to thinking of it as a disguise instead of his face. But he’d been able to put the glamour back on every time he’d used the casket, he should be able to change it. ‘Will they lend them to strangers?’
‘It might be harder to borrow one, but if you’ve got any money they do sell them.’
‘I have money,’ said Loki. He’d never spent much as a prince and he had ways of storing things that kept them available to him wherever he was.
‘Asgardian?’ asked Lopt.
‘Of course.’
‘Then trying to pass ourselves off as Vanir is just going to be more suspicious. We could try being Elves. They trade with Asgard and Vanaheim so the currency shouldn’t raise any questions.’
Loki nodded cautiously. He didn’t like leaving so many of their plans up to Lopt, but neither could he improve on them.
Lopt held his hands out for a moment and his body shifted, his hair becoming blond and his skin taking on a slight reflective sheen. Loki had seen Elves before, but not frequently or recently, and he watched Lopt’s transformation closely before making his own.
Lopt looked him over and nodded approvingly. ‘Good,’ he said climbing to his feet. ‘We should pass for Elves well enough. Better get going.’
Loki had been to Vanaheim before and this, their main city, was familiar to him. The main difference between Vanaheim and Asgard had always seemed to him to be that the Vanir felt the best place for plants was everywhere and there was no gap between buildings not filled with sweet smelling blossoms or verdant bushes. If he were here with Thor they would be going to visit friends. Perhaps Hnoss and Gersemi, although Loki had found it difficult to look at them since Fandral’s last account of what the two of them had done with him.
The shop Lopt led him to was a small one, but near enough the centre of the city to be an important one. To all appearances it was a jewellery shop, and what was kept in a highly secure (physically and, to Loki’s senses, magically) cabinet looked to be rows of necklaces. Identical ones, all narrow bands of gold with a single drop of amber as a pendant.
Lopt moved forward confidently and bent to examine them. ‘Good workmanship,’ he said, pointing to one on the left. ‘Freya’s?’
The shopkeeper nodded. ‘The ones on the left are the highest in price. We have six made by Freya.’
Loki recognised the name, of course, as the mother of Hnoss and Gersemi. He had had no idea his friends’ mother could world-walk although she was well known as a powerful sorceress.
‘We might not need an expensive one,’ he said, thinking the security measures on a cheap one might also be sloppy.
‘Perhaps not. Even the cheapest falconskin sold by the Vanir is tested by masters,’ said Lopt. Oh. That probably answered Loki’s unspoken question.
‘Naturally,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘But in matters of speed and manoeuvrability, the best always exceed the middling.’
‘We’ll take one of Freya’s then,’ said Loki. ‘What is the price? In Asgardian currency, please.’
‘Ah,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Forgive me, it’s been a while. Let me look that up for you.’
He disappeared into the back, leaving Loki and Lopt standing by the counter.
They did decide to take Jane to Vanaheim. With a general sense that she was vibrating inside her skin -- and not from the caffeine -- Jane deliberately omitted all methods of communication that might actually get them interrupted and left a message on a notepad in the most prominent place in the lab: in the break room, propped against the coffee maker.
Then Sigyn, rather to Jane's surprise, put an arm around her shoulders. 'I don't think Thor is likely to move himself anywhere by accident,' Sigyn explained, 'and he'd be hard to drag off against his will. I have no idea about you. Here we go.'
All at once, everything developed the eye-twisting mix of colour and distortion that had accompanied the message to Sigyn earlier, and this time it didn't settle back out. It kept going, an assault on all her senses, painful and too amazing to let go, as Jane tried to find some way to process it.
She settled tentatively on a mental state that lay somewhere between conceptualising higher-dimensional graphs and looking at stereograms. The key, maybe, was to avoid assuming things were only the shapes she knew about. Everything was -- or seemed, for the moment -- dark and full of rich colours, with fiery pinprick lights that might or might not be stars. As she started to feel steadier, she realized first that she was breathing as if she'd tried to run a mile in the desert sun, and then that they didn't seem to be moving.
'Are you all right?' Sigyn asked. She looked, when Jane carefully turned to look up at her, surprisingly normal.
Jane nodded a bit unsteadily. 'It's wonderful,' she said sincerely. 'Just overwhelming. Ah -- did you stop for me, or can I just not tell we're moving?'
'We've stopped. We're in Jormungand's territory right now, which is as safe as Yggdrasil gets.'
Well, that was disconcerting. Jane had guessed Jormungand was either an Asgardian sea monster or imaginary. She managed to locate the correct direction to glance at Thor. Sigyn, still in contact, had been easier to find. 'Definitely not the impression I got from the stories.'
'That's a fairly recent development,' Sigyn said, 'at least from our perspective. Jormungand is very powerful and very territorial, and it really does go all the way around Midgard. In several directions. It delayed Midgard's discovery considerably. Thor's namesake -- an elder brother -- fought it a few times on the way in and out, but my son Nari eventually persuaded it that our type of being was only passing through, and didn't really want any of the things it was defending.'
'Persuaded,' Jane said. 'You can talk to it, then?'
'Oh, yes. Communicate, anyway. And while we're inside its coils, none of the other extradimensional predators are likely to attack us. I'm surprised it let Verdrfolnir though to speak to me; probably Heimdall fed him well first.' Sigyn looked around, then back at Jane. 'Are you ready to go? I'll introduce you on the way past.'
Sigyn started them moving again. It felt very peculiar, and Jane was torn between looking at everything, regardless of not understanding it, and concentrating on how the sensation of movement worked. She thought of wanting a closer look at a bright glimmering shape once, and started to lean in.
Sigyn's arm tightened abruptly on her shoulders, hand gripping Jane's upper arm tightly enough to hurt. Jane gasped.
'What's wrong?' Thor asked, turning.
'You can propel yourself, then,' Sigyn said. 'It's all right, I've got you, but try not to do it again right now.'
She could? 'I didn't realise I was going anywhere,' Jane said. 'Just looking.'
'Will can be movement here,' Sigyn told her. 'And distances can be tricky. That's why I kept hold of you. But you don't want to go in there.'
'In?'
'In from extradimensional space. Or out of it, if you like. That was your moon.' While Jane was still boggling at this evidence of the difference in distance, Sigyn added, 'Come, Jormungand's just ahead.'
Jane could get a sense of why Jormungand had been described as a great serpent; as soon as she was able to distinguish something from the space around them, her first impression was of massive length. And then it started paying attention to them.
It was like being focused on by a friendly earthquake but, once she'd scaled it down several thousand times, the sleepy curiosity reminded her of her neighbours' cat. She wanted to hold out her hand for it to sniff. Somehow the thought caused her to do something, again, although it was more like holding her mind out for it to sniff -- and this time, whatever she did, Sigyn didn't find it necessary to yank her back. It gently examined her thoughts and responded with massive drowsy approval.
'What did it say?' Thor asked curiously, as they moved on.
'I'm not exactly sure,' Jane said, finding that she was grinning almost too hard to talk, 'but I think it liked me.'
The rest of the journey was similarly exhilarating and occasionally terrifying. Thor and Sigyn fought something, perhaps midway through. They finally emerged, rather to Jane's surprise, in a neatly bordered patch of what looked like clover between a busy street and an enormous, vine-covered palace. No one on the street looked the slightest bit surprised.
'Do people appear out of thin air often here?' she asked, as Sigyn let go of her and set off. Thor took her hand instead, and Jane looked up at him with a grin.
'Moderately,' Sigyn said. 'That's an arrival green.'
'Is that what those are for,' Thor said. 'I never realised.'
'Children these days!' Sigyn said, laughing.
Thor's eyebrows jumped. 'And what did children in your day do, my lady?'
Sigyn looked back at him and grinned. 'Well, you've just seen what your father and uncle used to do for fun. Except they didn't necessarily know where they were going.'
'Strange to think Father was running around with a frost giant all that time.'
Sigyn's eyes glinted. 'Why? You did.'
'I'm still getting used to that too!' Thor shook his head. 'I suppose so is he.'
Jane thought it was strange to be as worried as Thor was about someone who'd tried to kill you, but then, it was equally hard to imagine not worrying when someone you'd loved all your life had apparently gone off the deep end.
The guards let them into the palace, which struck Jane as more like a botanical garden than a government building. In a room full of gazing pools (with lilies in them) and people at desks with mirrored bowls, they were informed -- well, Sigyn and Thor were informed -- that word from Asgard had arrived, and an alert had gone out to the merchants who dealt in falconskins.
Sigyn said she would go and look for her husband in person. But while they were still talking, one of the bowls chimed like a bell, and the message arrived that two Elves were inquiring in a certain shop about the purchase of a falconskin with Asgardian money.
Jane was offered a seat. Thor told her he'd be back -- 'Sooner this time!' with a bright but slightly sheepish grin -- and he and Sigyn departed in a rush with a cluster of Vanir. Jane sat back, reeling, and wished there were something she could do. Instead, she settled in to wait.
The shop was close. One of the Vanir with them, Freya -- Freya who had once lived in Asgard, when peace between the two worlds was new -- shook her head in grim amusement as they approached it. She raised a hand and slid it sideways, and the air between shop and street shimmered briefly. "They'll see nothing strange until we enter. They sell my work here,' she added. 'Only the best for a Prince of Asgard, I suppose.'
Sigyn entered first, Thor too impatient not to follow on her heels. He was in time to see one Elf straighten and take half a step toward them, a look of relief on his face and his eyes fixed on Sigyn. The other -- the one with Loki's features under golden hair and gleaming skin -- turned at Thor's arrival, and his jaw set and his eyes burned. 'You.'
The shopkeeper took a step back, raising his hands in a gesture vaguely like some of Loki's. The Vanir streamed in behind Thor, like water flowing. Thor paid them scant attention, only enough to know where they stood. 'Brother,' he said.
Loki's features twisted, and the unfamiliar colouring faded, black coming back into his hair and the light fading from his skin. 'I am not your brother.' His voice was raw.
The other Elf -- presumably not an Elf either, Thor supposed -- gave him an exasperated look.
'Don't be a fool, Loki,' Thor said. 'Come home.'
"No, Thor,' said Loki. "I will not be dragged home like a wayward child."
'Well, unless you act like one, you needn't be,' Thor suggested. 'What have you been doing? We thought you lost. We've only just found out you're alive.'
'Sorry to disappoint you,' spat Loki.
'Really,' said the... non-Elf. 'Do pay attention to what your brother's actually saying.'
Loki turned on him and snapped, 'Be silent.' Which unfortunately seemed to work.
'He has a point!' Sigyn said. 'Your family was relieved to hear you were alive and well. Or at least alive.'
Loki glared daggers at her. Thor was a little worried they would become literal. 'Loki,' he said, forcing himself to speak quietly, 'I never wanted to fight you.'
"Then you need not have. What is Jotunheim to you? How many times have you wished to be born before the last battles when you could kill such monsters for yourself?"
The other Loki's eyes widened behind him.
"You know I had to." Thor did not exactly want to announce in front of a crowd that his brother had tried to destroy a world. "I wanted challenges, glory. I wanted to defend our home and cut down our enemies. I --" He caught his breath. It was still painful to say, and part of him rebelled against it. "I was a fool to seek the opportunity."
"I could have prevented our home from ever being in danger again," said Loki, voice rising. "You did not intervene for their sakes, the monsters you had always hated. But, no, you are magnanimous even to those you despise. Even now."
"Loki. Stop this." His heart hurt.
'Stop? And let you do what you will with me? Brother, I am your equal in power at least.'
Maybe so, from that last fight, but to all of them? 'I ask you to stop, and return home with me to our family in peace.'
'There is no place for me in Asgard,' said Loki, voice hard but eyes regretful. 'It is your kingdom and will never be mine.'
'Your place has ever been in Asgard!'
'My place has ever been in your shadow! No more. Father said we were both born to be kings and Asgard is but one kingdom. I will not accept a place at your heels.'
Sometimes Thor thought Odin's cryptic tendencies couldn't possibly be healthy. 'What about at my side? Loki, where else would you go?' Surely he wasn't actually planning to try to conquer Midgard?
'At your side? Are you offering to rule beside me, then?' Loki was moving closer, almost circling. 'To entrust Asgard to my judgement as much as yours?'
Not quite what he'd meant, although before, he had always assumed Loki would be available to consult. Thor turned slightly. 'Your judgement has seemed a little strange lately,' he said, 'since Asgard was entrusted to you. You're usually the level-headed one.'
'Entrusted to me only because you were elsewhere.'
'Because I'd been exiled.'
'As soon as Father fell into the Odinsleep they set out to get you back. It was a gesture. And one they were quick to end when it seemed it might have consequences beyond those to your pride.' Loki swallowed. 'Consequences like a frost giant on the throne of Asgard.'
Thor's eyebrows drew together. He suspected Loki's logic was suffering. Of course their friends hadn't been pleased by his banishment, but it wasn't as if they had been the ones to end it, or even had the power to end it. Nor, of course, had they known Loki was a frost giant at the time. 'What do you think happened there, Loki?' he asked. 'Mjolnir did not return to me until I had satisfied Odin's conditions.'
'Your friends would have brought you back, with or without Mjolnir.'
'Somehow I don't think Heimdall would have put up with that.'
'He let them come after you. Even knowing it was against my orders.'
'And you had come to Earth and lied to me,' Thor reminded him, starting to grow annoyed.
'Yes. I lied to you. And this makes you want me at your side?'
'That doesn't. But all the time before? I want my brother back.'
'What you want back is the brother you imagined, who adventured by your side but never claimed the glory. Your loving companion whose feelings you never gave a thought to. Brother, you have no idea how long I've hated you.'
The pain of that, the way Loki almost appeared to relish saying it, made Thor forget to breathe. He barely saw the flicker of motion, so fast, and raised a hand before his face just in time. Blood and bright steel had blossomed from the back of his hand before he felt the knife. It still hurt less than the words.
The circle of the Vanir contracted, and Thor, feeling sick, reached for Mjolnir left-handed.
Loki raised his hands. The Jotun casket appeared in them. Blue washed back over Loki -- for the first time, Thor saw him look like a frost giant -- and glittering ice sprayed out around him. It left the other Loki untouched; it sealed over Thor's face for a moment, but shattered as he surged forward. The glass jewellery cabinet cracked in the sudden cold.
Thor glimpsed several of the nearest Vanir coated in white. Then Sigyn raised her hands, the air flared orange and searing hot, and they all moved again. Most stepped surefooted over puddles oozing onto the floor; one collapsed with glassy red skin.
Freya clenched her fists, and the world seemed to contract around them somehow. ‘You might as well--’
Loki let go of the casket, which vanished. He looked like himself again, but deathly white -- and then the air twisted around him, and he disappeared too. Thor rushed forward and whirled, sweeping through the area, thinking it might be an illusion, but he felt nothing.
Thor turned back and saw, to his surprise, that the other Loki was still there, crouching beside the broken cabinet and looking distinctly frustrated. As Thor took a step toward him, he looked at Sigyn, mouthed Sorry and then something Thor couldn't follow, and swept one of the necklaces out and around his neck. Then he, too, disappeared.
This was entirely too many things and people vanishing for Thor's tastes. He looked around the shop, saw that someone was already bending over the fallen Vane, and turned to Sigyn. 'What was that about?'
'He took a falconskin to go and rescue your brother from his own foolishness,' Sigyn said. 'And asked me to make sure it was paid for. Very romantic.'
'How considerate of him,' said the shopkeeper. 'Prince Thor, do my eyes deceive me, or did your brother just use the Jotun Casket of Ancient Winters in my shop?'
Thor pulled the knife from his hand and surveyed the damage -- and worse, the definite absence of his brother -- with dismay. What had Loki done now that he had to be rescued from? 'It's a long story.'
Authors: Khilari and Persephone_Kore
Summary: Thor and Loki were not the first of Odin's loved ones to bear those names. After the events of the movie, Loki is planning his next moves when he discovers a frost giant imprisoned in a volcano, who proves to be both the uncle he was named for and Laufey's first child. Soon Loki has a new mentor, Asgard is shaking off isolationist tendencies, Jotunheim is receiving foreign aid, and Earth is suddenly and vividly reacquainted with the existence of aliens....
Authors' Note: We were partially inspired by some of the theories proposed on the TV Tropes WMG page for the movie. We have taken the movie and combined it with the Eddas, the Gesta Danorum, and bits and pieces from other Marvel sources. We're having a lot of fun with it and hope you enjoy the result.
Chapter 3
Loki had only activated the Bifrost once, and not for its intended purpose, but he did not think it would be a good idea to let the giant use the casket in order to show him how. Besides, the giant seemed curiously out of it this morning, he had had to be shaken awake and now seemed barely to be staying that way. So Loki took the casket in both hands and reached for its power as he had before, although never for this, holding the path he wished to take firmly in his mind.
They were gone in a flash, the sensation much like travelling by the Bifrost, although instead of being carried along Loki was directing it. The power flowing through him as he flowed through it was immense and exhilarating. It was with a sense of triumph that he brought them out on a hillside, lush with growth as all of Vanaheim was.
‘Nice landing,’ said the giant approvingly. ‘It can be hard to direct without Heimdall’s abilities.’
Loki turned, surprised by the praise, and was further surprised by what he saw. The giant had refused to glamour himself earlier, saying that travel by casket would undo it anyway, but now he looked like an Asgardian. Pale, with red hair and bright green eyes, and surprisingly handsome.
‘Is that a form the Vanir will recognise?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said the giant. It was harder to think of him that way, now that he no longer looked like a giant.
Loki sighed. ‘From now on you are bound to be truthful to me. Is that a form the Vanir will recognise?’
‘Yes,’ said the giant. ‘I can change it later if you wish, but this is my normal appearance when I’m glamoured.’
‘And you hoped to be recognised by the Vanir as someone my Father had imprisoned,’ said Loki. ‘In hopes they would catch me when they caught you? How can you still be on my Father’s side?’
‘You’ve been extremely evasive about your plans. I’m assuming you have reason to think I won’t like them,’ said the giant. Really, Loki was getting tired of thinking of him that way.
‘Give me a name I can call you,’ he said impulsively. ‘I’m not calling you by mine.’
‘It was mine first. But Lopt if you prefer,’ said…Lopt, Loki supposed. It would do.
Loki turned away and paced a few steps over the grass before turning back to Lopt. ‘I bind you not to interfere with my plans but instead to aid me with them.’
Lopt looked down, grimacing, and then sighed. ‘You’ll have to tell me what they are if you want me to obey that,’ he said.
‘I am going to conquer Midgard,’ he said.
Lopt groaned. ‘Oh, not again,’ he muttered.
‘Again?’ said Loki sharply.
Lopt looked at him with brilliant green eyes somehow colder now than they’d ever been while still red. ‘I was imprisoned,’ he said deliberately. ‘For the death of the last son of Odin’s to try conquering Midgard.’
‘I bind you not to kill me,’ said Loki, the words out too quickly to seem motivated by anything other than fear. He hadn’t, technically, included that in the original binding. Which meant he’d slept in the same house as someone who could possibly have freed himself by murder.
‘Wise,’ said Lopt. ‘I wondered when you’d get around to that.’ He sat down on the grass, looking at the sky. ‘So the Muspel giants have agreed to be your army in exchange for world-walking. If you actually get them there you might wind up ruling a cinder, they aren’t compatible with most beings that live below the boiling point of water.’
‘They won’t need to enter Midgard itself. Their magic is strong enough to be used from distances within the solar system, from what they’ve told me,’ said Loki. He remained standing, it placed him in a higher position in relation to Lopt.
Lopt nodded. ‘So they colonise Sol and act as your army from there? A better plan than I expected.’
‘Even if I cannot give them world-walking properly, I believe they would do it in exchange for passage to Sol,’ said Loki. ‘If there was a way I could be sure of keeping safe it might be enough.’
‘So what are your plans here, now?’ asked Lopt. ‘I don’t see that a falconskin will do you much good, but since I’m bound to help you I need to know how you intend to get one.’
‘What would you suggest?’
‘I normally ask nicely and promise to bring it back.’
‘If they’ve heard anything from my Father then I doubt they’ll be inclined to lend things to me,’ said Loki.
‘So we change our glamours and go in disguise,’ said Lopt.
‘I’m not…’ began Loki and then stopped, because of course he was glamoured. He just still wasn’t used to thinking of it as a disguise instead of his face. But he’d been able to put the glamour back on every time he’d used the casket, he should be able to change it. ‘Will they lend them to strangers?’
‘It might be harder to borrow one, but if you’ve got any money they do sell them.’
‘I have money,’ said Loki. He’d never spent much as a prince and he had ways of storing things that kept them available to him wherever he was.
‘Asgardian?’ asked Lopt.
‘Of course.’
‘Then trying to pass ourselves off as Vanir is just going to be more suspicious. We could try being Elves. They trade with Asgard and Vanaheim so the currency shouldn’t raise any questions.’
Loki nodded cautiously. He didn’t like leaving so many of their plans up to Lopt, but neither could he improve on them.
Lopt held his hands out for a moment and his body shifted, his hair becoming blond and his skin taking on a slight reflective sheen. Loki had seen Elves before, but not frequently or recently, and he watched Lopt’s transformation closely before making his own.
Lopt looked him over and nodded approvingly. ‘Good,’ he said climbing to his feet. ‘We should pass for Elves well enough. Better get going.’
Loki had been to Vanaheim before and this, their main city, was familiar to him. The main difference between Vanaheim and Asgard had always seemed to him to be that the Vanir felt the best place for plants was everywhere and there was no gap between buildings not filled with sweet smelling blossoms or verdant bushes. If he were here with Thor they would be going to visit friends. Perhaps Hnoss and Gersemi, although Loki had found it difficult to look at them since Fandral’s last account of what the two of them had done with him.
The shop Lopt led him to was a small one, but near enough the centre of the city to be an important one. To all appearances it was a jewellery shop, and what was kept in a highly secure (physically and, to Loki’s senses, magically) cabinet looked to be rows of necklaces. Identical ones, all narrow bands of gold with a single drop of amber as a pendant.
Lopt moved forward confidently and bent to examine them. ‘Good workmanship,’ he said, pointing to one on the left. ‘Freya’s?’
The shopkeeper nodded. ‘The ones on the left are the highest in price. We have six made by Freya.’
Loki recognised the name, of course, as the mother of Hnoss and Gersemi. He had had no idea his friends’ mother could world-walk although she was well known as a powerful sorceress.
‘We might not need an expensive one,’ he said, thinking the security measures on a cheap one might also be sloppy.
‘Perhaps not. Even the cheapest falconskin sold by the Vanir is tested by masters,’ said Lopt. Oh. That probably answered Loki’s unspoken question.
‘Naturally,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘But in matters of speed and manoeuvrability, the best always exceed the middling.’
‘We’ll take one of Freya’s then,’ said Loki. ‘What is the price? In Asgardian currency, please.’
‘Ah,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Forgive me, it’s been a while. Let me look that up for you.’
He disappeared into the back, leaving Loki and Lopt standing by the counter.
They did decide to take Jane to Vanaheim. With a general sense that she was vibrating inside her skin -- and not from the caffeine -- Jane deliberately omitted all methods of communication that might actually get them interrupted and left a message on a notepad in the most prominent place in the lab: in the break room, propped against the coffee maker.
Then Sigyn, rather to Jane's surprise, put an arm around her shoulders. 'I don't think Thor is likely to move himself anywhere by accident,' Sigyn explained, 'and he'd be hard to drag off against his will. I have no idea about you. Here we go.'
All at once, everything developed the eye-twisting mix of colour and distortion that had accompanied the message to Sigyn earlier, and this time it didn't settle back out. It kept going, an assault on all her senses, painful and too amazing to let go, as Jane tried to find some way to process it.
She settled tentatively on a mental state that lay somewhere between conceptualising higher-dimensional graphs and looking at stereograms. The key, maybe, was to avoid assuming things were only the shapes she knew about. Everything was -- or seemed, for the moment -- dark and full of rich colours, with fiery pinprick lights that might or might not be stars. As she started to feel steadier, she realized first that she was breathing as if she'd tried to run a mile in the desert sun, and then that they didn't seem to be moving.
'Are you all right?' Sigyn asked. She looked, when Jane carefully turned to look up at her, surprisingly normal.
Jane nodded a bit unsteadily. 'It's wonderful,' she said sincerely. 'Just overwhelming. Ah -- did you stop for me, or can I just not tell we're moving?'
'We've stopped. We're in Jormungand's territory right now, which is as safe as Yggdrasil gets.'
Well, that was disconcerting. Jane had guessed Jormungand was either an Asgardian sea monster or imaginary. She managed to locate the correct direction to glance at Thor. Sigyn, still in contact, had been easier to find. 'Definitely not the impression I got from the stories.'
'That's a fairly recent development,' Sigyn said, 'at least from our perspective. Jormungand is very powerful and very territorial, and it really does go all the way around Midgard. In several directions. It delayed Midgard's discovery considerably. Thor's namesake -- an elder brother -- fought it a few times on the way in and out, but my son Nari eventually persuaded it that our type of being was only passing through, and didn't really want any of the things it was defending.'
'Persuaded,' Jane said. 'You can talk to it, then?'
'Oh, yes. Communicate, anyway. And while we're inside its coils, none of the other extradimensional predators are likely to attack us. I'm surprised it let Verdrfolnir though to speak to me; probably Heimdall fed him well first.' Sigyn looked around, then back at Jane. 'Are you ready to go? I'll introduce you on the way past.'
Sigyn started them moving again. It felt very peculiar, and Jane was torn between looking at everything, regardless of not understanding it, and concentrating on how the sensation of movement worked. She thought of wanting a closer look at a bright glimmering shape once, and started to lean in.
Sigyn's arm tightened abruptly on her shoulders, hand gripping Jane's upper arm tightly enough to hurt. Jane gasped.
'What's wrong?' Thor asked, turning.
'You can propel yourself, then,' Sigyn said. 'It's all right, I've got you, but try not to do it again right now.'
She could? 'I didn't realise I was going anywhere,' Jane said. 'Just looking.'
'Will can be movement here,' Sigyn told her. 'And distances can be tricky. That's why I kept hold of you. But you don't want to go in there.'
'In?'
'In from extradimensional space. Or out of it, if you like. That was your moon.' While Jane was still boggling at this evidence of the difference in distance, Sigyn added, 'Come, Jormungand's just ahead.'
Jane could get a sense of why Jormungand had been described as a great serpent; as soon as she was able to distinguish something from the space around them, her first impression was of massive length. And then it started paying attention to them.
It was like being focused on by a friendly earthquake but, once she'd scaled it down several thousand times, the sleepy curiosity reminded her of her neighbours' cat. She wanted to hold out her hand for it to sniff. Somehow the thought caused her to do something, again, although it was more like holding her mind out for it to sniff -- and this time, whatever she did, Sigyn didn't find it necessary to yank her back. It gently examined her thoughts and responded with massive drowsy approval.
'What did it say?' Thor asked curiously, as they moved on.
'I'm not exactly sure,' Jane said, finding that she was grinning almost too hard to talk, 'but I think it liked me.'
The rest of the journey was similarly exhilarating and occasionally terrifying. Thor and Sigyn fought something, perhaps midway through. They finally emerged, rather to Jane's surprise, in a neatly bordered patch of what looked like clover between a busy street and an enormous, vine-covered palace. No one on the street looked the slightest bit surprised.
'Do people appear out of thin air often here?' she asked, as Sigyn let go of her and set off. Thor took her hand instead, and Jane looked up at him with a grin.
'Moderately,' Sigyn said. 'That's an arrival green.'
'Is that what those are for,' Thor said. 'I never realised.'
'Children these days!' Sigyn said, laughing.
Thor's eyebrows jumped. 'And what did children in your day do, my lady?'
Sigyn looked back at him and grinned. 'Well, you've just seen what your father and uncle used to do for fun. Except they didn't necessarily know where they were going.'
'Strange to think Father was running around with a frost giant all that time.'
Sigyn's eyes glinted. 'Why? You did.'
'I'm still getting used to that too!' Thor shook his head. 'I suppose so is he.'
Jane thought it was strange to be as worried as Thor was about someone who'd tried to kill you, but then, it was equally hard to imagine not worrying when someone you'd loved all your life had apparently gone off the deep end.
The guards let them into the palace, which struck Jane as more like a botanical garden than a government building. In a room full of gazing pools (with lilies in them) and people at desks with mirrored bowls, they were informed -- well, Sigyn and Thor were informed -- that word from Asgard had arrived, and an alert had gone out to the merchants who dealt in falconskins.
Sigyn said she would go and look for her husband in person. But while they were still talking, one of the bowls chimed like a bell, and the message arrived that two Elves were inquiring in a certain shop about the purchase of a falconskin with Asgardian money.
Jane was offered a seat. Thor told her he'd be back -- 'Sooner this time!' with a bright but slightly sheepish grin -- and he and Sigyn departed in a rush with a cluster of Vanir. Jane sat back, reeling, and wished there were something she could do. Instead, she settled in to wait.
The shop was close. One of the Vanir with them, Freya -- Freya who had once lived in Asgard, when peace between the two worlds was new -- shook her head in grim amusement as they approached it. She raised a hand and slid it sideways, and the air between shop and street shimmered briefly. "They'll see nothing strange until we enter. They sell my work here,' she added. 'Only the best for a Prince of Asgard, I suppose.'
Sigyn entered first, Thor too impatient not to follow on her heels. He was in time to see one Elf straighten and take half a step toward them, a look of relief on his face and his eyes fixed on Sigyn. The other -- the one with Loki's features under golden hair and gleaming skin -- turned at Thor's arrival, and his jaw set and his eyes burned. 'You.'
The shopkeeper took a step back, raising his hands in a gesture vaguely like some of Loki's. The Vanir streamed in behind Thor, like water flowing. Thor paid them scant attention, only enough to know where they stood. 'Brother,' he said.
Loki's features twisted, and the unfamiliar colouring faded, black coming back into his hair and the light fading from his skin. 'I am not your brother.' His voice was raw.
The other Elf -- presumably not an Elf either, Thor supposed -- gave him an exasperated look.
'Don't be a fool, Loki,' Thor said. 'Come home.'
"No, Thor,' said Loki. "I will not be dragged home like a wayward child."
'Well, unless you act like one, you needn't be,' Thor suggested. 'What have you been doing? We thought you lost. We've only just found out you're alive.'
'Sorry to disappoint you,' spat Loki.
'Really,' said the... non-Elf. 'Do pay attention to what your brother's actually saying.'
Loki turned on him and snapped, 'Be silent.' Which unfortunately seemed to work.
'He has a point!' Sigyn said. 'Your family was relieved to hear you were alive and well. Or at least alive.'
Loki glared daggers at her. Thor was a little worried they would become literal. 'Loki,' he said, forcing himself to speak quietly, 'I never wanted to fight you.'
"Then you need not have. What is Jotunheim to you? How many times have you wished to be born before the last battles when you could kill such monsters for yourself?"
The other Loki's eyes widened behind him.
"You know I had to." Thor did not exactly want to announce in front of a crowd that his brother had tried to destroy a world. "I wanted challenges, glory. I wanted to defend our home and cut down our enemies. I --" He caught his breath. It was still painful to say, and part of him rebelled against it. "I was a fool to seek the opportunity."
"I could have prevented our home from ever being in danger again," said Loki, voice rising. "You did not intervene for their sakes, the monsters you had always hated. But, no, you are magnanimous even to those you despise. Even now."
"Loki. Stop this." His heart hurt.
'Stop? And let you do what you will with me? Brother, I am your equal in power at least.'
Maybe so, from that last fight, but to all of them? 'I ask you to stop, and return home with me to our family in peace.'
'There is no place for me in Asgard,' said Loki, voice hard but eyes regretful. 'It is your kingdom and will never be mine.'
'Your place has ever been in Asgard!'
'My place has ever been in your shadow! No more. Father said we were both born to be kings and Asgard is but one kingdom. I will not accept a place at your heels.'
Sometimes Thor thought Odin's cryptic tendencies couldn't possibly be healthy. 'What about at my side? Loki, where else would you go?' Surely he wasn't actually planning to try to conquer Midgard?
'At your side? Are you offering to rule beside me, then?' Loki was moving closer, almost circling. 'To entrust Asgard to my judgement as much as yours?'
Not quite what he'd meant, although before, he had always assumed Loki would be available to consult. Thor turned slightly. 'Your judgement has seemed a little strange lately,' he said, 'since Asgard was entrusted to you. You're usually the level-headed one.'
'Entrusted to me only because you were elsewhere.'
'Because I'd been exiled.'
'As soon as Father fell into the Odinsleep they set out to get you back. It was a gesture. And one they were quick to end when it seemed it might have consequences beyond those to your pride.' Loki swallowed. 'Consequences like a frost giant on the throne of Asgard.'
Thor's eyebrows drew together. He suspected Loki's logic was suffering. Of course their friends hadn't been pleased by his banishment, but it wasn't as if they had been the ones to end it, or even had the power to end it. Nor, of course, had they known Loki was a frost giant at the time. 'What do you think happened there, Loki?' he asked. 'Mjolnir did not return to me until I had satisfied Odin's conditions.'
'Your friends would have brought you back, with or without Mjolnir.'
'Somehow I don't think Heimdall would have put up with that.'
'He let them come after you. Even knowing it was against my orders.'
'And you had come to Earth and lied to me,' Thor reminded him, starting to grow annoyed.
'Yes. I lied to you. And this makes you want me at your side?'
'That doesn't. But all the time before? I want my brother back.'
'What you want back is the brother you imagined, who adventured by your side but never claimed the glory. Your loving companion whose feelings you never gave a thought to. Brother, you have no idea how long I've hated you.'
The pain of that, the way Loki almost appeared to relish saying it, made Thor forget to breathe. He barely saw the flicker of motion, so fast, and raised a hand before his face just in time. Blood and bright steel had blossomed from the back of his hand before he felt the knife. It still hurt less than the words.
The circle of the Vanir contracted, and Thor, feeling sick, reached for Mjolnir left-handed.
Loki raised his hands. The Jotun casket appeared in them. Blue washed back over Loki -- for the first time, Thor saw him look like a frost giant -- and glittering ice sprayed out around him. It left the other Loki untouched; it sealed over Thor's face for a moment, but shattered as he surged forward. The glass jewellery cabinet cracked in the sudden cold.
Thor glimpsed several of the nearest Vanir coated in white. Then Sigyn raised her hands, the air flared orange and searing hot, and they all moved again. Most stepped surefooted over puddles oozing onto the floor; one collapsed with glassy red skin.
Freya clenched her fists, and the world seemed to contract around them somehow. ‘You might as well--’
Loki let go of the casket, which vanished. He looked like himself again, but deathly white -- and then the air twisted around him, and he disappeared too. Thor rushed forward and whirled, sweeping through the area, thinking it might be an illusion, but he felt nothing.
Thor turned back and saw, to his surprise, that the other Loki was still there, crouching beside the broken cabinet and looking distinctly frustrated. As Thor took a step toward him, he looked at Sigyn, mouthed Sorry and then something Thor couldn't follow, and swept one of the necklaces out and around his neck. Then he, too, disappeared.
This was entirely too many things and people vanishing for Thor's tastes. He looked around the shop, saw that someone was already bending over the fallen Vane, and turned to Sigyn. 'What was that about?'
'He took a falconskin to go and rescue your brother from his own foolishness,' Sigyn said. 'And asked me to make sure it was paid for. Very romantic.'
'How considerate of him,' said the shopkeeper. 'Prince Thor, do my eyes deceive me, or did your brother just use the Jotun Casket of Ancient Winters in my shop?'
Thor pulled the knife from his hand and surveyed the damage -- and worse, the definite absence of his brother -- with dismay. What had Loki done now that he had to be rescued from? 'It's a long story.'
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-28 11:12 pm (UTC)Pfft. :D
I finally watched Thor, and I'm so glad I did, because it means I was able to read this fic! My overall knowledge of Norse mythology is a little rusty, so there are a bunch of names earlier on whose relationships I didn't immediately recognize, but honestly that doesn't matter. I love that the female characters are getting a big role in this fic, and I am really enjoying Thor & Loki's messed-up siblingship. And Uncle Loki & his attempts to talk Loki down. Actually I am just really enjoying everything about this fic.
Psst, there seems to be some HTML weirdness just after "Jane was offered a seat. Thor told her he'd be back".
no subject
Date: 2012-01-02 10:09 pm (UTC)If you want to ask them, I'll try to clarify any questions about names and such -- we're drawing on a less well-known version of events for some purposes and then further modifying those, so a few of the relationships have been shuffled anyway. Some of them will become clearer as we go, but as an example, in both the Prose Edda and Gesta Danorum, Rindr is the mother of a guy born specifically to avenge Baldr. We made Baldr half-human, as in GD (sort of), and reassigned Rindr as his otherwise unnamed mother.
We're rather fond of the female characters, although Loki and Loki are driving the main arcs. Thor and his Loki won't get to talk again for a while, but they're certainly still affecting each other. And Uncle Loki is going to spend a lot of time on that, in a way.... *g*
Anyway, in short, thank you very much!