Tale of Two Lokis, Chapter 5
Jan. 15th, 2012 02:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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 5
Jane found Thor literally under his own personal thundercloud.
She heard the sound as soon as she went outside, and she spent a few seconds staring up at the blue sky in bewilderment before turning and walking to a place where she could see the lone patch of dark grey, out near the edge of the city. On her way there -- a winding route with several false starts down streets that didn't quite go where she expected -- she noticed that lightning looked really interesting when you could see the whole cloud at once.
Thor was sitting on the edge of a cliff, being rained on, in a patch of wet ground perhaps a few yards across. There was very little wind. Jane stood just outside where the rain sheeted down and held out a hand into it, thinking she should maybe have brought an umbrella. Well, it was a warm day. She hadn't put on eye makeup, so she wouldn't wind up half-blinding herself with it if it ran....
Or, you know, she could take the simple approach. 'Thor?'
He started and turned, and the cloud moved over the cliff and began to dissipate. He was drenched and, remarkably, did not look even remotely like a drowned rat. 'Jane.' He gestured to the ground beside him, then frowned slightly and stood up. 'Ah, perhaps you'd prefer to sit somewhere dry.'
'And also not right on a precipice,' Jane suggested, as Thor was walking right along the edge. She supposed that mattered less when you could fly.
He paused, then came straight toward her and gestured back toward a rock projecting at a low slant from the ground, big enough for two. 'I'd never let you fall.'
'I believe you,' said Jane, 'but it's still not that relaxing.' She sat on the upper end of the rock and found it warm from the sun. The water dripping off Thor stained his section of it a deeper grey. 'Are you all right?'
He spread his right hand and turned it to show her both sides. The only sign of the wound was a narrow patch of new skin pink with busy capillaries on the palm, pale and untanned on the back. Either Asgard's medical technology or their own healing abilities were amazing.
She smiled a bit, but still said gently, 'Not quite what I meant.'
'I thought not.' He sighed and was silent for a moment. 'Yesterday,' he said, and her heart wrenched at his tone even before he finished, 'my brother told me he hated me. That he had, for a long time, while I gave no thought to what he wanted or how he felt.'
What did you even say to that? Jane put a hand on his shoulder for a moment; the wet cloth of his cape bunched under her hand. She pulled one heel up to rest on the stone and put her chin on her knee, thinking. 'Was it true?'
Thor gave her a startled look. 'Loki plays with words, Jane, but I think he meant this.'
'And I'm sure he knows how he feels,' Jane said, 'but unless he's a mind-reader -- um, is he?' It suddenly occurred to her that this might not be so easily ruled out as she was used to. She waited until Thor shook his head before resuming. 'Well, did you really not think about it?'
'I thought I did,' said Thor. 'He wanted his books and his magic, I'm still fairly sure of that much. When we were very young--" He swallowed. 'When we were very young, I had just made other friends for the first time I can remember. We were racing, and he came running after us. I told him to go away and ran faster. I was scolded for leaving him behind, and I made sure that I never did again. At least, I meant to.'
'I'm pretty sure that's all completely normal kid behaviour,' Jane offered.
'Perhaps.' Thor sighed. 'He usually kept up, too. He has always been formidable in battle, even if much of it is stealth and deception.'
'I thought that made up a lot of battle,' Jane said. Not that she was an expert, but wasn't that why they had stuff like military intelligence, all jokes about oxymorons aside? Or even feinting, in her admittedly hazy notions about swordfights or boxing.
'Sometimes,' Thor said, frowning. 'For myself, I would rather face an opponent openly and have things plain--' He checked himself and shook his head. 'But I am meant to have learned not to think of war as a sport.'
'I'm, uh, sure that's a process. Learning, I mean.' However strange she found the starting point.
'I do not mean to suggest that I didn't take advantage of his tricks. We were very effective together. Even more when our friends were with us.' A soft almost-laugh. 'No matter how many times someone took offense at a jest, and I had to convince Loki one of them did not actually hate him, or vice versa....' He trailed off and swallowed. 'Perhaps I was wrong about that too,' he said hoarsely. 'I am almost glad they are away right now. We did tease him a great deal, but his tongue was always sharpest, or at least his retorts the cleverest. We did leave him alone when he asked, but he always came with us again eventually. I believed he wanted to be with us. I thought... that we'd be together. Always.' He shut his eyes. 'And now somehow I have driven him to this.'
'Whoa,' Jane said, alarm bells going off in her head. 'I think that might be going a little far.'
'Thank you,' said Thor, 'but I have to recognise my part in this. If I do not understand it yet, I have to examine it. Perhaps that was the trouble before, when he sent the Destroyer, that I did not know all I had done to offend him. Though at least there he listened enough to cease punishing others for my transgressions.'
'I'm not exactly arguing with that,' Jane said with a frown. And the Destroyer was the giant robot suit of armour that had practically killed Thor? Apparently when he'd been apologising? 'At least, not the part about taking responsibility for what you did and understanding how he felt about it. But you can't take responsibility for everything he does. I'm pretty sure Loki's making his own decisions.'
'Yes, but if I have been so blind to him --'
'Then the last thing that's going to help either of you is to act like it's all about you!'
Thor blinked. 'I... had not looked at it that way.'
'Anyway,' Jane added, 'I know I wasn't there for most of this, but I'm pretty sure the correct response to feeling like your family is ignoring you is to talk to them about it or get counselling or something, not turn into Darth Vader and start blowing up planets.'
'Turn into what? Or who?'
Oh. Right. 'Who. He's a fictional character. Sometime when we're back on Earth, I'll show you the movies.'
Thor accepted this as a placeholder explanation. 'I will think on what you've said, Jane.'
'You do that.' She leaned over and hugged him. He was still damp. 'With a few grains of salt, I guess. Part of the time I'm still pretty weirded out by SHIELD, and they're probably the least mind-boggling thing that's happened to me lately.'
'You provide a valuable perspective, even on things otherwise outside your experience.' And he said things like that as if they were completely normal. They were almost starting to sound that way, despite both the phrasing and the fact that she usually had trouble convincing people that her perspective on her actual area of expertise wasn't completely crazy. A second later, he added thoughtfully, 'SHIELD might be of some help.'
'With Loki?' She'd gotten the impression he was a little out of their league.
'Mm. We think he intends to conquer Midgard. It would be -- forgive me, Jane -- the easiest of the realms to treat so, but even so he could hardly do it all by himself. SHIELD should be given a chance to prepare, and they might know if there are individuals or factions on Earth he might ally with.'
'Oh, that makes sense.' She was sure Loki would find some takers, if he looked for them. 'You think he'll stick with, ah, local help?'
'Not necessarily, but it is worth a look. We're contacting the other realms as well. Though some of them are easier to talk to than others, even for Heimdall.' Thor grimaced. 'Another possibility is that he has found allies in other extradimensional creatures. On the bright side, few of those would dare try to pass Jormungand, and Father thinks our uncle could probably keep him from trying to unchain Fenrir.'
Jane blinked. 'Your uncle Loki? And I take it Fenrir isn't as much nicer than the mythological version as Jormungand?'
'Yes and yes. I don't know what your myths say about Fenrir, but it would be hard to make the stories less nice.'
'Ouch.' A pause. 'You know, among other things, the stories have both Fenrir and Jormungand as Loki's children.'
'Ah,' said Thor, sounding a bit stunned by this prospect, 'definitely not. In that case our uncle would be much scarier.'
Jane was surprised into a giggle. 'I wonder how we got that mixed up, then?'
'Sigyn might have some idea. Or -- they do have a son who is sometimes called the Wolf, I think, though I've never met him. That might have done it easily enough.' His voice suddenly quiet, he said, 'He -- Uncle Loki -- visited Father last night.'
'Really.' Jane leaned back and planted her hands on the rock. 'I didn't realise he'd be able to. Did he say anything about your brother?'
Thor shook his head. 'They spoke of him, but our uncle was constrained not to give information that would help us to stop him.' He hesitated. 'He did say... that I reminded him of the Thor he knew. And that he was glad to see Mjolnir in good hands.' He sounded a little surprised. Wondering, maybe.
Jane looked at him thoughtfully. 'You sound like that means a lot to you.' Especially given it was coming from someone he barely knew.
'I have heard much good of my eldest brother. And it was my uncle who brought Mjolnir from the Dwarves of Svartalfheim.' A pause. 'And while he usually makes his approval clear enough, my father is not altogether free with compliments.'
'Ah. I see.'
Rather wistfully, Thor added, 'They seem to have settled things.'
'After a thousand years,' Jane pointed out. 'I'm glad they have, but I hope it doesn't take you quite that long.'
Thor heaved a long sigh. 'Yes. So do I.'
Loki was standing in extradimensional space, a little past Jormungand’s coils, the greenish tint of the falconskin visible around him. Lopt was behind him, arms wrapped casually around his waist, while he waited for Loki to accustom himself. It felt unsteady, as if he was bobbing up and down although he knew he wasn’t, the falconskin ready to tip into motion at any moment.
‘Have you ever been skiing?’ asked Lopt.
‘No,’ said Loki.
‘Well, don’t try to stop suddenly. If you need to stop, circle a bit to slow down, don’t just dig your heels in or you’ll tumble. We’re going to take the route you already know, the one to Asgard. Part of the way, at least.’
‘And if there are wolves?’ asked Loki.
‘It’s one of the safest routes there is. If anything turns up, or if you look like you’re going to crash, I’ll take over long enough to get you out of trouble. Just don’t fight me.’
Loki tensed. ‘And what’s to stop you taking over and flying me right into Asgard?’
‘I’m bound not to go against your plans, remember? I doubt I could convince myself you intended to turn yourself in. But I also don’t think you plan to crash.’
Ah, yes. That had been unnecessarily paranoid of him. Still, he wasn’t sure how much to trust Lopt. Even though it was reassuring right now to have him there ready to correct any mistakes.
‘I’m ready,’ he said.
‘Go then,’ said Lopt.
Loki did, it was faster than he’d expected and nothing like either Bifrost or the casket. They just threw you straight at your destination, this way you still had all the obstacles you’d have on foot just coming at you at ten times the speed. Loki managed the first two turns, then realised he’d overshot the third and was heading into a space he didn’t know. His instinctive attempt to stop sent him head over heels into it. Lopt’s arms tightened gently around his waist as control was taken from him and the falconskin pulled out of its tumble.
‘Everyone does that at least once,’ said Lopt as he manoeuvred them smoothly back onto the path.
Loki swore to himself that once would be all. ‘You’ve taught people before?’ he said, setting out more cautiously and trying not to let the falconskin pick up too much speed.
‘My children,’ said Lopt. ‘Nari had a distressing tendency to take the falconskin off in order to talk to things, though. He nearly gave me a heart attack when he came home and said he’d spent the afternoon talking to Jormungand, who was really a very nice snake.’
‘Ah,’ said Loki. ‘I don’t think I’m likely to do that.’
The next time he overshot Loki forced himself to circle back instead of stopping and got himself onto the path again with minimal fuss.
‘Well done,’ said Lopt by his ear. Loki smiled both at the praise and because he’d completed the manoeuvre successfully.
‘Stop here,’ said Lopt a little later and Loki forced himself into a careful circle while he slowed. ‘You are learning fast,’ Lopt told him approvingly. ‘There’s nothing near here, we can take a short break before heading back.’
Loki relaxed, knowing already this was one of the safest parts of the way. It had taken a surprising amount of concentration to use the falconskin, although most of it had been used to fight his own impulses. Once he got used to it, and the proper techniques became instinctive, he could see it would be quite an easy way to travel.
‘We’re not as close to Asgard as I expected,’ he remarked.
Lopt sighed. ‘The space around Asgard is a mess right now. I noticed when we passed through it before.’
Loki nodded. The scavengers, of course. He wondered how long it would be before they managed to finish eating the wreckage of the Bifrost and moved on. Drifting here, in a place he had usually been travelling to or from Asgard on, brought back their earlier conversation.
‘Would you take me back to Asgard if you weren’t forbidden to?’ he asked, suspecting he already knew the answer but wanting confirmation.
‘For Midgard’s sake, yes,’ said Lopt.
‘Not for mine?’ said Loki acidly. It was the sort of thing Thor or Odin would say, that they wanted him back home for his own good.
‘No. Your family love you, but I don’t think they know what to do with you. And you don’t seem to have been happy when you were living there.’
Loki paused caught between wanting to agree that he had been unhappy and wanting to insist that he had been fine. Or would have been, if he hadn’t always been in Thor’s shadow. That it had been his brother’s fault, not something wrong with him.
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ he tried.
‘I do after you shouted it at half of Vanaheim,’ said Lopt dryly. ‘It has nothing to do with being a frost giant, you know. Odin’s family runs to overwhelming personalities. I’d be in favour of you getting away from them for a while if you weren’t trying to take over a world while you did it.’
‘You didn’t like Thor?’ asked Loki. Surprised, oddly hopeful and even more oddly offended on his brother’s behalf.
‘I thought he was a nice young man who didn’t deserve the things you said to him. And also that if he was my brother I’d probably want to put frogs in his bed.’
Loki laughed uncertainly. ‘I used snakes. Only grass snakes,’ he added quickly.
‘I didn’t think you’d used cobras,’ said Lopt. ‘Ready to go back?’
The trip back was a little faster as Loki gained confidence and he was almost disappointed to reach Jormungand and have Lopt take control to bring them past the snake. It had been rather tiring, but Loki found himself looking forward to his next lesson.
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 5
Jane found Thor literally under his own personal thundercloud.
She heard the sound as soon as she went outside, and she spent a few seconds staring up at the blue sky in bewilderment before turning and walking to a place where she could see the lone patch of dark grey, out near the edge of the city. On her way there -- a winding route with several false starts down streets that didn't quite go where she expected -- she noticed that lightning looked really interesting when you could see the whole cloud at once.
Thor was sitting on the edge of a cliff, being rained on, in a patch of wet ground perhaps a few yards across. There was very little wind. Jane stood just outside where the rain sheeted down and held out a hand into it, thinking she should maybe have brought an umbrella. Well, it was a warm day. She hadn't put on eye makeup, so she wouldn't wind up half-blinding herself with it if it ran....
Or, you know, she could take the simple approach. 'Thor?'
He started and turned, and the cloud moved over the cliff and began to dissipate. He was drenched and, remarkably, did not look even remotely like a drowned rat. 'Jane.' He gestured to the ground beside him, then frowned slightly and stood up. 'Ah, perhaps you'd prefer to sit somewhere dry.'
'And also not right on a precipice,' Jane suggested, as Thor was walking right along the edge. She supposed that mattered less when you could fly.
He paused, then came straight toward her and gestured back toward a rock projecting at a low slant from the ground, big enough for two. 'I'd never let you fall.'
'I believe you,' said Jane, 'but it's still not that relaxing.' She sat on the upper end of the rock and found it warm from the sun. The water dripping off Thor stained his section of it a deeper grey. 'Are you all right?'
He spread his right hand and turned it to show her both sides. The only sign of the wound was a narrow patch of new skin pink with busy capillaries on the palm, pale and untanned on the back. Either Asgard's medical technology or their own healing abilities were amazing.
She smiled a bit, but still said gently, 'Not quite what I meant.'
'I thought not.' He sighed and was silent for a moment. 'Yesterday,' he said, and her heart wrenched at his tone even before he finished, 'my brother told me he hated me. That he had, for a long time, while I gave no thought to what he wanted or how he felt.'
What did you even say to that? Jane put a hand on his shoulder for a moment; the wet cloth of his cape bunched under her hand. She pulled one heel up to rest on the stone and put her chin on her knee, thinking. 'Was it true?'
Thor gave her a startled look. 'Loki plays with words, Jane, but I think he meant this.'
'And I'm sure he knows how he feels,' Jane said, 'but unless he's a mind-reader -- um, is he?' It suddenly occurred to her that this might not be so easily ruled out as she was used to. She waited until Thor shook his head before resuming. 'Well, did you really not think about it?'
'I thought I did,' said Thor. 'He wanted his books and his magic, I'm still fairly sure of that much. When we were very young--" He swallowed. 'When we were very young, I had just made other friends for the first time I can remember. We were racing, and he came running after us. I told him to go away and ran faster. I was scolded for leaving him behind, and I made sure that I never did again. At least, I meant to.'
'I'm pretty sure that's all completely normal kid behaviour,' Jane offered.
'Perhaps.' Thor sighed. 'He usually kept up, too. He has always been formidable in battle, even if much of it is stealth and deception.'
'I thought that made up a lot of battle,' Jane said. Not that she was an expert, but wasn't that why they had stuff like military intelligence, all jokes about oxymorons aside? Or even feinting, in her admittedly hazy notions about swordfights or boxing.
'Sometimes,' Thor said, frowning. 'For myself, I would rather face an opponent openly and have things plain--' He checked himself and shook his head. 'But I am meant to have learned not to think of war as a sport.'
'I'm, uh, sure that's a process. Learning, I mean.' However strange she found the starting point.
'I do not mean to suggest that I didn't take advantage of his tricks. We were very effective together. Even more when our friends were with us.' A soft almost-laugh. 'No matter how many times someone took offense at a jest, and I had to convince Loki one of them did not actually hate him, or vice versa....' He trailed off and swallowed. 'Perhaps I was wrong about that too,' he said hoarsely. 'I am almost glad they are away right now. We did tease him a great deal, but his tongue was always sharpest, or at least his retorts the cleverest. We did leave him alone when he asked, but he always came with us again eventually. I believed he wanted to be with us. I thought... that we'd be together. Always.' He shut his eyes. 'And now somehow I have driven him to this.'
'Whoa,' Jane said, alarm bells going off in her head. 'I think that might be going a little far.'
'Thank you,' said Thor, 'but I have to recognise my part in this. If I do not understand it yet, I have to examine it. Perhaps that was the trouble before, when he sent the Destroyer, that I did not know all I had done to offend him. Though at least there he listened enough to cease punishing others for my transgressions.'
'I'm not exactly arguing with that,' Jane said with a frown. And the Destroyer was the giant robot suit of armour that had practically killed Thor? Apparently when he'd been apologising? 'At least, not the part about taking responsibility for what you did and understanding how he felt about it. But you can't take responsibility for everything he does. I'm pretty sure Loki's making his own decisions.'
'Yes, but if I have been so blind to him --'
'Then the last thing that's going to help either of you is to act like it's all about you!'
Thor blinked. 'I... had not looked at it that way.'
'Anyway,' Jane added, 'I know I wasn't there for most of this, but I'm pretty sure the correct response to feeling like your family is ignoring you is to talk to them about it or get counselling or something, not turn into Darth Vader and start blowing up planets.'
'Turn into what? Or who?'
Oh. Right. 'Who. He's a fictional character. Sometime when we're back on Earth, I'll show you the movies.'
Thor accepted this as a placeholder explanation. 'I will think on what you've said, Jane.'
'You do that.' She leaned over and hugged him. He was still damp. 'With a few grains of salt, I guess. Part of the time I'm still pretty weirded out by SHIELD, and they're probably the least mind-boggling thing that's happened to me lately.'
'You provide a valuable perspective, even on things otherwise outside your experience.' And he said things like that as if they were completely normal. They were almost starting to sound that way, despite both the phrasing and the fact that she usually had trouble convincing people that her perspective on her actual area of expertise wasn't completely crazy. A second later, he added thoughtfully, 'SHIELD might be of some help.'
'With Loki?' She'd gotten the impression he was a little out of their league.
'Mm. We think he intends to conquer Midgard. It would be -- forgive me, Jane -- the easiest of the realms to treat so, but even so he could hardly do it all by himself. SHIELD should be given a chance to prepare, and they might know if there are individuals or factions on Earth he might ally with.'
'Oh, that makes sense.' She was sure Loki would find some takers, if he looked for them. 'You think he'll stick with, ah, local help?'
'Not necessarily, but it is worth a look. We're contacting the other realms as well. Though some of them are easier to talk to than others, even for Heimdall.' Thor grimaced. 'Another possibility is that he has found allies in other extradimensional creatures. On the bright side, few of those would dare try to pass Jormungand, and Father thinks our uncle could probably keep him from trying to unchain Fenrir.'
Jane blinked. 'Your uncle Loki? And I take it Fenrir isn't as much nicer than the mythological version as Jormungand?'
'Yes and yes. I don't know what your myths say about Fenrir, but it would be hard to make the stories less nice.'
'Ouch.' A pause. 'You know, among other things, the stories have both Fenrir and Jormungand as Loki's children.'
'Ah,' said Thor, sounding a bit stunned by this prospect, 'definitely not. In that case our uncle would be much scarier.'
Jane was surprised into a giggle. 'I wonder how we got that mixed up, then?'
'Sigyn might have some idea. Or -- they do have a son who is sometimes called the Wolf, I think, though I've never met him. That might have done it easily enough.' His voice suddenly quiet, he said, 'He -- Uncle Loki -- visited Father last night.'
'Really.' Jane leaned back and planted her hands on the rock. 'I didn't realise he'd be able to. Did he say anything about your brother?'
Thor shook his head. 'They spoke of him, but our uncle was constrained not to give information that would help us to stop him.' He hesitated. 'He did say... that I reminded him of the Thor he knew. And that he was glad to see Mjolnir in good hands.' He sounded a little surprised. Wondering, maybe.
Jane looked at him thoughtfully. 'You sound like that means a lot to you.' Especially given it was coming from someone he barely knew.
'I have heard much good of my eldest brother. And it was my uncle who brought Mjolnir from the Dwarves of Svartalfheim.' A pause. 'And while he usually makes his approval clear enough, my father is not altogether free with compliments.'
'Ah. I see.'
Rather wistfully, Thor added, 'They seem to have settled things.'
'After a thousand years,' Jane pointed out. 'I'm glad they have, but I hope it doesn't take you quite that long.'
Thor heaved a long sigh. 'Yes. So do I.'
Loki was standing in extradimensional space, a little past Jormungand’s coils, the greenish tint of the falconskin visible around him. Lopt was behind him, arms wrapped casually around his waist, while he waited for Loki to accustom himself. It felt unsteady, as if he was bobbing up and down although he knew he wasn’t, the falconskin ready to tip into motion at any moment.
‘Have you ever been skiing?’ asked Lopt.
‘No,’ said Loki.
‘Well, don’t try to stop suddenly. If you need to stop, circle a bit to slow down, don’t just dig your heels in or you’ll tumble. We’re going to take the route you already know, the one to Asgard. Part of the way, at least.’
‘And if there are wolves?’ asked Loki.
‘It’s one of the safest routes there is. If anything turns up, or if you look like you’re going to crash, I’ll take over long enough to get you out of trouble. Just don’t fight me.’
Loki tensed. ‘And what’s to stop you taking over and flying me right into Asgard?’
‘I’m bound not to go against your plans, remember? I doubt I could convince myself you intended to turn yourself in. But I also don’t think you plan to crash.’
Ah, yes. That had been unnecessarily paranoid of him. Still, he wasn’t sure how much to trust Lopt. Even though it was reassuring right now to have him there ready to correct any mistakes.
‘I’m ready,’ he said.
‘Go then,’ said Lopt.
Loki did, it was faster than he’d expected and nothing like either Bifrost or the casket. They just threw you straight at your destination, this way you still had all the obstacles you’d have on foot just coming at you at ten times the speed. Loki managed the first two turns, then realised he’d overshot the third and was heading into a space he didn’t know. His instinctive attempt to stop sent him head over heels into it. Lopt’s arms tightened gently around his waist as control was taken from him and the falconskin pulled out of its tumble.
‘Everyone does that at least once,’ said Lopt as he manoeuvred them smoothly back onto the path.
Loki swore to himself that once would be all. ‘You’ve taught people before?’ he said, setting out more cautiously and trying not to let the falconskin pick up too much speed.
‘My children,’ said Lopt. ‘Nari had a distressing tendency to take the falconskin off in order to talk to things, though. He nearly gave me a heart attack when he came home and said he’d spent the afternoon talking to Jormungand, who was really a very nice snake.’
‘Ah,’ said Loki. ‘I don’t think I’m likely to do that.’
The next time he overshot Loki forced himself to circle back instead of stopping and got himself onto the path again with minimal fuss.
‘Well done,’ said Lopt by his ear. Loki smiled both at the praise and because he’d completed the manoeuvre successfully.
‘Stop here,’ said Lopt a little later and Loki forced himself into a careful circle while he slowed. ‘You are learning fast,’ Lopt told him approvingly. ‘There’s nothing near here, we can take a short break before heading back.’
Loki relaxed, knowing already this was one of the safest parts of the way. It had taken a surprising amount of concentration to use the falconskin, although most of it had been used to fight his own impulses. Once he got used to it, and the proper techniques became instinctive, he could see it would be quite an easy way to travel.
‘We’re not as close to Asgard as I expected,’ he remarked.
Lopt sighed. ‘The space around Asgard is a mess right now. I noticed when we passed through it before.’
Loki nodded. The scavengers, of course. He wondered how long it would be before they managed to finish eating the wreckage of the Bifrost and moved on. Drifting here, in a place he had usually been travelling to or from Asgard on, brought back their earlier conversation.
‘Would you take me back to Asgard if you weren’t forbidden to?’ he asked, suspecting he already knew the answer but wanting confirmation.
‘For Midgard’s sake, yes,’ said Lopt.
‘Not for mine?’ said Loki acidly. It was the sort of thing Thor or Odin would say, that they wanted him back home for his own good.
‘No. Your family love you, but I don’t think they know what to do with you. And you don’t seem to have been happy when you were living there.’
Loki paused caught between wanting to agree that he had been unhappy and wanting to insist that he had been fine. Or would have been, if he hadn’t always been in Thor’s shadow. That it had been his brother’s fault, not something wrong with him.
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ he tried.
‘I do after you shouted it at half of Vanaheim,’ said Lopt dryly. ‘It has nothing to do with being a frost giant, you know. Odin’s family runs to overwhelming personalities. I’d be in favour of you getting away from them for a while if you weren’t trying to take over a world while you did it.’
‘You didn’t like Thor?’ asked Loki. Surprised, oddly hopeful and even more oddly offended on his brother’s behalf.
‘I thought he was a nice young man who didn’t deserve the things you said to him. And also that if he was my brother I’d probably want to put frogs in his bed.’
Loki laughed uncertainly. ‘I used snakes. Only grass snakes,’ he added quickly.
‘I didn’t think you’d used cobras,’ said Lopt. ‘Ready to go back?’
The trip back was a little faster as Loki gained confidence and he was almost disappointed to reach Jormungand and have Lopt take control to bring them past the snake. It had been rather tiring, but Loki found himself looking forward to his next lesson.
