Prompt Post 3
Welcome to norsekink .
Keep up the awesome, folks.
Announcement: All new and continuing fills for Round 3 should be posted in the Overflow Post.
THIS ROUND IS CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS.
( Rules )
Keep up the awesome, folks.
Announcement: All new and continuing fills for Round 3 should be posted in the Overflow Post.
THIS ROUND IS CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS.
( Rules )
The Jotun laughs.
"I do not know what you are doing here," he says, yanking him up by his wrist, squeezing until he feels the bones begin to grind together. "But perhaps you are a boon in disguise. When I am asked, I shall show Laufey King your body, and he will blame an Aesir for it all." Then he laughs.
Laughs and laughs, until Thor manages to get his other arm to the quiver on his belt, and thrusts an arrow into his mouth.
The hand holding his wrist lets go as the Jotun chokes.
Thor tumbles back to the snow, and swiftly takes his knife into his good hand. He curls the other one against himself as he slams the blade into the Jotun's knee. And when it howls and drops, and swings another blow towards him, he ducks, and then slices through the thick flesh of its neck.
It is a messy death. Thor has never killed anything shaped like himself before, and now, right now, he has killed twice.
He stares at the bodies, twisted in the snow. Stares and feels a strange mix of sickness and satisfaction, until he hears the wail of the babe again, and remembers his purpose to begin with.
The knife is dropped alongside the bow as Thor hurries towards the edge, and pulls the bundle and babe away from the threat of a long fall. The wail gets loud enough to pound at his eardrums, at first, and his injured wrist protests. He has never held a babe before. Especially not a Jotun one. It is awkward, and small fists pound at his chest. In truth, the two of them are little more than a confused tangle of limbs and fabric and wailing until Thor finally gets within the treeline again, away from the shadow of the two Jotun corpses, and falls tiredly at the base of a new tree.
He rests the bundle in his lap, easing the pain of his injured wrist, and finally gets a good look at what he has rescued.
Red eyes and blue skin. Well, he cannot say he is surprised. But the babe is smaller than he would expect of a Jotun. That was what the other two had been talking about, he realizes. A runt? He is no expert, but he guesses that the babe is about the same size as an Aesir child of a year or maybe two, with short dark hair atop its head, and a sharp, large-eyed face. A runt that Laufey had shown mercy to, for some reason, which had made the warriors he defeated think him weak.
The babe is wrapped in fabrics which would be very fine by Jotun standards, but Thor does not notice this, of course, because he is used to seeing far finer things. He expects them. It is their absence which is conspicuous to him. The babe is crying, wet tears trailing down its cheeks, freezing before they reach its chin. It feels cold and heavy through the blankets.
"Alright," Thor says, feeling horribly uncertain now that he is neither fighting nor trekking. "Alright, Jotun. You will stop crying now."
The babe keeps crying.
"Stop crying. A warrior does not cry, and... well, you are a baby. But you may be a warrior some day, and when you are, you will not want anyone to know the tale of how the first battle you witnessed set you to tears," he says. "Not unless they are manly tears of triumph. Unless you are a girl. But either way, I have rescued you and the danger has passed. Stop crying."
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He jiggles the babe in his lap, and goes "shh, shh, there there" instead. With his good hand, he steadies the little body, and it occurs to him that after a fall like that - well, perhaps it is hurt.
That thought in mind, he stops jiggling, and instead attempts to pull back the blankets and see if the babe is at all visibly injured. In the process the ascertains that it is, indeed, a boy, and that it doesn't look to be hurt. He gently prods at the tiny stomach, the arms and legs, but all seem in proper order.
It is as he is doing a poor job of re-wrapping his new charge that the wailing stops.
The babe looks at him with wide, red eyes. Thor looks back, relieved at the sudden quiet which has settled upon the air.
Then the babe blinks, and blinks again, and the colour of his skin begins to bleed away. Thor almost drops him in surprise, watching as what was blue turns pink, and what had been cold in his arms becomes warm instead. When the eyes before him blink open again, they are green instead of red.
Thor gapes.
"How did you do that?" he asks.
The babe grabs onto a lock of his hair and gives it a sharp tug by way of response, which makes Thor whince and pull back. But it is not long before the changed infant in his arms begins to shiver, and Thor feels his own cold, and rightly thinks that if the Jotun baby is not a Jotun anymore, it is suffering for it. So he redoubles his efforts to wrap the blankets, and then holds the babe as close to himself as he can.
When that doesn't seem to do much, and the babe looks like he might begin to wail again, Thor unlaces his jacket and wraps him up inside of that, too. And that seems to help, though it leaves Thor colder than ever. He stands from the base of the tree.
Indecision gives him pause. This is not a frost boar. It is not even a baby frost boar. It is not even a wolf cub, and his mother had been very vocally displeased when he had 'rescued' one of those. He does not imagine a shapeshifting baby Jotun will gain a better reception should he bring one home. But he doesn't know what else to do with him. He has saved him; in Thor's mind, in some basic way, that makes him Thor's.
He decides that the first matter to be settled is the cold, and getting out of it. So he retrieves his bow and discarded knife, juggling the babe in one arm and wincing as he cleans off the blade with his injured wrist. Then, with some effort, he yanks his second knife from the fallen Jotun's skull. It is not pretty. He cleans this, too, and pockets them both, and slings his bow over his shoulder. The arrow he gives up as a lost cause, and he steals himself against the wind and holds the bundled babe close as he starts back the way he came.
This time, he does attempt to find an easier way down. But only after he decides that he has no means by which to strap his new burden to his back, and cannot climb with only one good hand and a babe all at once. He heads west until he finds a rocky slope. It is not gentle, but it is not steep, either, and so he climbs his way carefully down it, holding the babe tight when he must jump and landing on his rear more times than he will ever, ever admit.
The babe is oddly silent as he moves. But when he looks, he sees green eyes focused open him, clear and bright and watching him with something like curiosity. He smiles.
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The babe stares, big eyes widening slightly, and lower lip quivering. As it looks like he might be on the verge of wailing again, Thor stands, and sets to walking. He re-tightens the coat, and ignores the tired strain of his limbs.
"I wonder if you have a name," he says. "Do Jotuns give their babes names when they are small, or do they wait until they are older?"
He hums, and wonders aloud about Jotun names, and how he has never heard any that sound particularly impressive as he manages to get so far as the snow bank again before he recalls that he is lost. A heavy sigh escapes him, then. It is cold, and he decides that he has never been so weary as this, not even on the days when his instructors have run him ragged from dawn until dusk.
And of course, that is when the babe begins to stink.
Thor wrinkles his nose, and glares at his small charge.
"Oh no," he says with feeling. "That is no way at all to thank your daring rescuer."
Green eyes blink innocently back at him. Then, of course, the mouth beneath them opens, and the wailing begins anew. It is less tearful crying this time, Thor idly notes, as he plugs his nose and desperately considers his options. 'Leave the stupid babe in the snow' is a tempting one, but he discards it.
Well, he thinks, waste is warm, if nothing else, and he claps his bad hand over his nose, and decides to put up with the noise and the stink for the time being. He trudges through the snow, renewing his pace across the bank and looking for anything which seems familiar. At least, he thinks, if the hunters are still about, they will hear him coming.
They are halfway across the bank, and the snow is up to his waist, when the babe quietens down again. That is a good thing, Thor decides, because the pain from his wrist is beginning to bother him in earnest. It is sinking up his arm, crawling towards his shoulder, and the cold is resting too heavily against his body now. It feels like a weight. The snow pulls at his boots, and threatens to drag him down.
His steps are too slow, he decides. But he cannot find the strength to hasten them, and that disconcerts him.
When he is finally past the heaviest drifts, he lets out a breath of relief, and cannot help but drop to his knees for a moment. His vision swims, and he tightens his grip on the bundle in his arms, momentarily concerned that he will drop it. He can see it dropping in his mind's eye, so close to that hard edge of earth and snow. Dashed upon the rocks, tumbling against them on the way down. It is a disturbing thought.
The snow begins to melt against his knees, and the babe squirms, still stinking beyond reason. He his trying to make himself get up again when he raises his head, and sees something thick and dark blue blocking his vision.
Thor looks up.
And up.
And almost cricks his neck, as he reaches his freer hand - his bad hand - towards one of his knives. There is a Jotun standing before him. It is as large as the last two, but if he had been in a position to note it, he might have seen that it was not as hard or battle-scarred. Its body is leaner, and the only weapon it carries is a spear, slung to its back. A young, recently slain boar is thrown over one of its shoulders.
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"Odinson," it says.
Thor musters up as much strength as he can, and gets to his feet again. "I have killed two of your like today, Jotun," he says. "I can kill one more."
A sneer curls the corner of its mouth.
"You can barely stand," it tells him, which is painfully true. But Thor will not let that stop him, he decides. A mirthless chuckle reaches his ears. "But, by your good fortune, your father has let it be known that your death will mean war - and your safe return, reward. I have little love for the former, and great fondness for the latter." It shifts, and waits, for it takes a moment for the words to sink into Thor's near-frozen mind.
He still does not move his hand from the hilt of his knife, however.
"Then you will let me pass?" he asks.
The Jotun snorts. "And freeze to death by your own foolish? That will gain me nothing. No, you will follow me, Odinson. You and your spawn. I will see you live through the night, and return you to your people at dawn. Then I will recieve my reward."
Thor thinks to correct him, to say that the babe is not his but a Jotun's. But at first he is too tired to find the words. Too tired to even protest, in truth, as the strange Jotun turns and begins to walk away, and expects Thor to follow. He stands there dazedly for a moment, before he begins to take his steps again. His feet are clumsy and leaden now. Slow to follow, and the Jotun waits impatiently when he gets too far ahead, red eyes narrowed, the hairs on its fresh kill fluttering in the wind.
Then, when at last they come to a large but simple house nestled amidst a few more iron-trunked trees and at the edge of a frozen river, he decides against it. He looks at the icy water, and does not care for the odds that the Jotun will not throw the babe into it if it should know that Thor's burden is not his own, and therefor not under his father's protection.
He keeps his silence until they are within the strange, sparse home. The sun is almost set against the horizon, but inside is only marginally warmer than outside, Thor finds.
At least it is still an improvement. He sinks to the floor, for there are no chairs low enough that he cares to climb them, and checks the babe's face. But he seems well enough, if quiet.
When the Jotun drops a heavy bucket before him, sloshing with water, he starts in surprise.
"Wash that thing," the Jotun says, pointing to the babe. "I'll not sleep with its stink in my house. Then I shall start a fire, and you may warm yourself by it, and eat. And that is all I will do," it tells him.
Thor scowls fiercely. The water is cold, but the Jotun does not move until he relents, somewhat - because the babe really, truly does smell awful - and lowers the bundle of jacket and blankets to the floor.
It is a terrible mess, and he has no experience in cleaning babies. Fortunately, at least, this one keeps still, and the ruin has at least been confined to the innermost blanket. Thor holds his breath, and uses the top half of this and a sparing amount of water to clean the babe off. Then the discards the whole thing, and wraps him back up again, glad for the removal of the smell but slightly ruined by what horrors such a small body can produce.
The wide green eyes watch him, fists clenched and shoved up near the babe's mouth, until the Jotun follows through on its promise and gets a fire going. Then Thor gratefully carries them both towards it, and sits the babe in his lap, and finally feels some of the warmth return to his limbs. He finds that the babe has very smooth hair when he runs his hand over it. And very tiny fingers, which close against his own, and reach out for the golden strands that dangle just past their reach (and not by coincidence, either, as Thor carefull to push them back).
It is amazing, Thor thinks, how very big his head is when compared to the rest of him.
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This effort earns him a lot of sputtering and squirming complaint. But after the first few failures, he finds that his burden will suck eagerly on a dampened cloth, and so tears off the top of one of his blankets for the effort.
Thankfully, for whatever reason, the babe seems to have finished his crying for the day, and so he only watches Thor with solemn eyes, as Thor, in turn, watches the Jotun. Who watches them back from his perch on an enormous chair, at a rough-hewn table in the center of the room.
After some time has passed, the Jotun nods towards the babe. "Ran off, did you?" it asks.
The true meaning of the question passes well over Thor's head. "My actions are no business of yours," he says.
The Jotun snorts. "You would not be the first panicked Aesir to find itself unexpectedly with child, and flee to another realm. Though you would be the first fool enough to flee here."
Thor is too tired to try and parse out the meaning of that jumble of a statement, he decides, and so he only grunts, and runs another hand over the soft hair on the babe's head. It is oddly soothing. For both of them.
"Who is the father?" the Jotun asks.
Thor shrugs. "I know not," he honestly replies, as that's a simple enough question.
For some reason, the answer earns him a laugh. A hearty laugh. Which devolves into the Jotun poinding its table, and recovering itself, only to being laughing again. "Ah, that is good to hear," it says, when it has finally recovered from its inexplicable bout of hysterics. "Of course, so is any shame brought to the house of Odin. May it rot for the losses we've suffered."
That Thor understands perfectly, he bristles. He shall never be so far gone as to endure insults to his family. His hand moves again to his knife, and he stands, angling the babe so that he is largely between it and the Jotun.
"You will not speak in such a way. Not in my presence," he warns.
The Jotun gives him a long, steady look. It is not a warrior like the others, Thor decides, but it is still big and strong, and something tells him that this one will fight no less fiercely for its lack of training.
Then it shrugs, and some of the tension fades. "I will suffer those terms and hold my tongue, then, Odinson, if only to keep from killing you and denying myself riches."
After a long, silent moment, Thor concludes that that is the best that he can expect. And as he has no real wish to fight again today, not least because his arm still burns, he carefully returns himself to his post by the fire.
That is the last said between himself and the Jotun for some time, as the sky behind its home grows pitch as black, and the babe's eyes droop slowly, and open again, and droop again, on and on until they finally close in sleep. For one moment, Thor is almost worried that the babe is not sleeping. That he has done something wrong, and the babe has died instead. But then he places a hand gently to his chest, feels the rise and fall of it, and reassures himself otherwise.
The babe falls asleep in his arms, but after a short time has passed, Thor carefully rearranges him on the floor instead. There are no blankets for him, no soft billows or warm mattress, but he is tempted to sleep as well. Except that he cannot, for the Jotun is not asleep; and even if it were, Thor would not trust it long enough to close his eyes.
So he stays awake instead, vigilant by the fire, and does not falter even as the long hours drag through the night in silence.
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When the light outside the windows begins to turn grey, and the fire is reduced to a few dull flickers, the Jotun stands.
"Now I send you on your way, Odinson," it declares.
Thor is no less the worse for wear from having spent the night awake, but he nods, and gathers up the babe. The movement wakes him, of course, but only long enough for him to rest his head against Thor's shoulder, and let loose a little sigh against Thor's neck. He pats the babe gently on the back, and, staggering, follows the Jotun out into the snow again.
Fat flakes drift down from the sky, but the wind is calmer this day. There is very cold, though, and the snow is crisper beneath his boots, half-frozen and crumbling with each step he takes. For a moment he thinks that some of the falling snow has turned black. But then he realizes, with some concern, that there are instead tiny black spots flitting across his vision. A trick of his own eyes. He tries to blink them away, to only marginal success.
The ground is open and rocky around them as they head along, and Thor tries to look, to see where exactly they are and where they are headed, but his mind is fuzzy with exhaustion. His focus is ruined, and he cannot hide his relief when he first spot something that actually resonates within his mind. A collection of stones, arranged almost in a circle, half-buried in snow. The place where the Bifrost connected when he first arrived.
There are figures standing there. Warriors clad in full regalia, stern-faced and armed, and Fandral's father amongst them.
The babe shifts in his arms.
He hesitates. But only for a moment. Hesitation has never suited him.
The Jotun steps forward, and Thor follows tiredly in his wake. His arm feels strange, now. Almost numb, and almost burning at the same time. The blackened skin twists painfully when he moves it.
"I have brought the Odinson, alive, as asked by your All-Father." It waves towards Thor. "I will have my reward."
Many a shocked look is leveled at Thor, who thinks that maybe, perhaps, he should find some way of explaining how he left to go on an unsupervised boar hunting trip and came back with a baby. But his mind draws only blanks. Even the truth seems, at the moment, insufficient. Snowflakes melt across his shoulders, and he finds it difficult to marshal his thoughts. The air he breathes in weighs heavily against his lungs.
It is one of the hunters who asks the obvious question.
"What is this?" he says. "What is this child you carry with you, Thor?"
Thor opens his mouth. Then he closes it again, and settles for a shrug. Several incredulous glances are exchanged. The Jotun makes a sound of impatience, and takes another step forward.
“My reward,” it flatly demands.
In silence, the warriors seem to decide that ridding themselves of the Jotun is a priority. One of them steps forward, a heavy gilded chest burdening his arms; but when he presents it to the Jotun, the giant lifts it one-handed with little difficulty. The Jotun opens it, though Thor does not see what is inside. It must be to its satisfaction, however, as it closes the heavy lid again, and nods, and then with thundering footsteps turns back the way they came. Red eyes glance once towards Thor, then flick away again, the intent of the glance unknown to him. He is glad, though, as the figure recedes into a shadow on the horizon, and suddenly he finds himself surrounded by his own people. Someone throws something warm and heavy around him.
The babe begins to cry again.
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It is the last thing he rightly recalls, though later, he will be told that he kept his feet, and walked the bridge, and only stumbled to his knees when he and the rescue party were before Heimdall and his father; and then he had to be carried to the healing rooms, the wailing babe carefully pried from his arms.
But in Thor’s own mind, he goes from standing amidst the ice and snow of Jotunheim, to waking in a bed, with soft light around him and something thick and firm wrapped about his arm. He blinks, and is gripped with a notion of urgency, though he is not awake enough to place it. But it is enough to make him push himself up. Or try to, at least. He does not get far, wincing as he feels a strange prickle carry across his bound arm, before there are hands pushing him down again. He catches the familiar scent of his mother’s perfume. It calms him some, and as he is not nearly as awake as he’d like, he lets himself be pressed into the blankets and pillows beneath him once more.
“Rest,” his mother says, smoothing his hair from his brow. “Rest, my darling. You are safe.”
He mumbles a question, though even in his addled state, he knows it is unintelligible. It must be, for its meaning eludes him as well, until his mother answers what he did not know he was asking.
“He is with a nurse,” she says very softly. “There is nothing to fear, you need only get well again.” Then she presses a kiss above his eyebrow, and he sighs, and he lets himself sink into oblivion once more.
The next time he wakes, the room is still and dark around him, and the bindings on his arm are gone. He sits up, and finds himself a little woozy, still, but otherwise none the worse for wear. The skin of his arm is pink and sensitive when he prods it, particularly around his wrist, and it stretches oddly against his elbow when he bends it. But it will be fine, he decides. A very soft music fills up the room around him. A glance towards the window confirms that it is night, and the realm is sleeping. Stars glitter against the backdrop of a dark blue and purple sky. Thor sucks in a deep breath, filled with a mingled sense of relief, disappointment, and apprehension. He failed in his intended quest, managed to become entangled in another, and he is not at all certain of what to expect from his father now. But he does not care to linger in the healing rooms. So after a brief search in the darkened light, he locates a pair of pants, and pulls them on, and tip-toes softly out into the corridor.
He is well surprised by the guard waiting outside of his door. The warrior is as tall and stern-faced as any, and blinks, apparently equally as taken aback by Thor’s sudden appearance. Healing rooms do not ordinarily require guards, Thor thinks.
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The guard blinks. “I have been sent to watch this room while you rest, my lord,” he replies.
Thor’s lips purse into a scowl, and he feels a twinge of embarrassment, that he should be so babysat. And in the heart of Asgard itself, too! There is no safer place. “Very well,” he says. “You may keep on watching this room, if that is what you have been ordered to do. But I am leaving for my own chambers.” He starts towards the hall, and is halted by the warrior moving to bar his path. His scowl becomes a glower. But the warrior keeps his head bowed, respectful even in his obstruction to Thor’s aims.
“I fear that I have also been ordered to ensure that you do not leave these rooms,” he says. “By word of the All-Father.”
“I am well enough to sleep in my own bed,” Thor hotly replies.
“That may be, my lord. But I know only what I have been commanded to do,” the guard insists.
His temper flares, but it is not for the warrior before him. Not truly. It is for his father, who has made this confusing and frustrating decision - a decision which Thor cannot fathom the thinking behind. Does his father think he will try to cross the Bifrost in Jotunheim again? Even if he were set upon such an idea, it would be simple, now, for Heimdall to prevent such a thing. And this guard, this warrior, is not even one whose face is known to Thor. He looks young, and new to his armour, and in truth, not much of a threat. Thor is fairly certain he could win in a bout between them; he is only a few years younger, by his guess. If something dangerous had occurred whilst he was gone or resting, he would not be assigned a contingent of warriors, he knows, not one lone, newly-promoted spearman.
It is an insult, he decides. A pointed blow to his pride.
He is fuming as he returns to the darkened room and its softly playing music. Like wind chimes. There is another exit, past the healer’s chambers, and so he makes his way as quietly as he can towards that.
Another guard is standing outside it. This one is just as unfamiliar as the last, though he is very old as opposed to very young; on the cusp of retirement, Thor would think. His temper reaches the boiling point at this discovery, and so he does not go back into the healing rooms, this time, but rather bolts down the hall, heading in the direction of his own chambers. The guard’s weathered voice shouts after him in alarm. But Thor does not think of it. He does not think of much of anything, except how angry he is, until there is a sudden alarm raised up around him, and more guards come pouring in from different parts of the palace. He is almost to his door when they catch him up. His legs are still somewhat tired, and he gets only one hand around the handle before an arm closes around his waist.
He gives its owner an elbow to the gut for his trouble. He rages, and fends off the others, until a sharp, clear voice cuts through the red line of his fury.
“ENOUGH!”
With instinct well-honed in early childhood, Thor stills.
His father stands at the end of the hall. He is staring at Thor. Grim, silent, coloured by anger, but something in his eye softens only momentarily as it falls upon him. Then it hardens again, a match for the rest of his face. A moment slips by. Then slowly, Odin nods towards the guards who have caught him. They release Thor to his own feet. He stands, and tries not to breathe as raggedly as his body wishes to. It was not such a run that it should have winded him. He supposes, to his frustration, that he is still not as well as he would like. And after what must have been at least a full day’s rest, too.
“Thor. Come with me,” he says.
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“Why would you place such guards outside the healing rooms?” he demands. “I require no such ‘watching over’! It is an insult. An old man and a boy, guarding me, and from what? Ghosts?”
His mother’s hands tighten together, the knuckles bleaching white. His father scowls.
“So you require no ‘watching over’,” he says. “And yet you run headlong into danger at the first stolen opportunity, with no care for our fears, and no mind for yourself. Such a child must be minded. And you are a child, Thor.” The words come out heavy, furious, almost outraged, and Thor bristles against them. He is sixteen; that is nearly grown. It is grown enough to slay two frost giants. But before he can shout as much, his mother speaks. And she sounds so stricken that it stops him in his tracks.
“What were you thinking?” she asks. “Running away like that… you never have cause to runaway from us, Thor; there is nothing you cannot bring to us. Nothing could make us love you less.”
He stares at her, feeling as though he has lost his footing somewhere in this conversation without noticing it. She keeps going.
“I know you think yourself close enough to grown, now, and a warrior, but-”
“I am!” he protests.
“-but you are still only sixteen! There are things that…” and she trails off, the picture of distress, her head shaking. He looks to his father, hoping for some way of deciphering just what she means - none of this is going anywhere near according to plan - but his father’s face is unreadable. And then he opens his mouth to speak, and seems to change the subject completely.
“You threw yourself into Jotunheim, as Heimdall tells it. And when you returned, you brought a babe with you.” He straightens, and Thor spares a stray thought for wide green eyes and tiny hands before his father carries on. “When you fled, the hunters pursued you. And Heimdall watched you, until you came to a forest of cursed trees; and then he could see no longer. Four months you were gone in that place. No warrior could find you; their steps only came to mazes and circles.”
Four months?! Thor thinks, baffled. That was not a month. It was not even a day! But the thought of cursed trees disturbs him. He recalls the dark branches, the white leaves. The tracks that seemed to lead everywhere and nowhere, until he emerged at last from the shadows of them to find the two Jotuns about to commit murder. He looks down towards himself. Wonders if he has been cursed, now. And then he wonders if the babe had been cursed, too, and feels his mouth go dry at both thoughts.
“Only Jotuns know how to navigate that place, and even they do so with great caution. We feared you were lost. We never feared…” his mouth firms into a hard, white line. “Where did that child come from, Thor?” he asks.
Thor is so lost, it takes him a moment to find the words to answer his father’s question. But this, at least, he thinks, is a story which features some sign of his maturity - his triumph in combat - and so once he finds his words, he speaks with confidence.
“I found him,” he says. “There were two Jotuns speaking to one another past the forest. They were going to throw him off of a cliff. But I slew them, and rescued him instead.” He nods to himself. “I had my bow and hunting knives with me. It was not an easy fight, father, but-”
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“You slew two grown Jotuns?” he asks. Thor does not much care for the note of skepticism in his voice. He straightens up unconsciously, and nods again.
“Two grown warriors,” he replies. And then, for good measure, “one of them tried to hit me with a cursed tree.”
There is a moment of uncomfortable silence. He glances towards his mother, but she is looking at him so sorrowfully that he cannot help but look away again. His father steps forward. Thor feels a brief surge of surprise as he walks until he is directly before him, and then rests his hands upon his shoulders. “And these Jotun warriors,” he says, carefully, softly. “Do you know how they came to have an Aesir babe with them? For none in Asgard have gone missing.”
Thor opens his mouth to explain that the babe is Jotun, not Aesir - though he can apparently change form - to explain how his skin shifted when Thor touched him… and pauses. He stares into his father’s good eye, into the worn lines of his face, and he knows that he is looking at a good man. A great king. That is who his father has always been. But he is also a distant figure to Thor, at times, and one who has filled his head with stories of war and glory and honour; told tales of their Jotun enemies, and the valour with which they were defeated. He knows full well that his father would never harm an infant. He is the man who taught Thor to be the type of warrior who rushes headlong to stop such things.
But he could send him back. If he knew the babe was Jotun. Thor can hear his voice in his mind, now - “it was good of you to save him, my son, but he does not belong here; he must be with his own people” - in the same way he had explained that the wolf cub needed to be with its pack. Only the wolves hadn’t taken the cub back. Thor knew that, though his father was not aware that he did. He had followed the hunters who returned it to the forest. The other wolves had… they had not recognized him, it seemed, or if they had, then they had seen something in him that they did not find suitable. The memory casts his eyes down. Thor had been too slow to stop the big alpha male from… it had not been pleasant. But he knows, in some strange ways, time has made his father more naïve than the warrior he seems to be in his stories. If he knows that he is Jotun, he will send him back. And they will kill him.
Lying has never been something he is good at. So instead he only closes his mouth, and feels his brow furrow, wondering what he can say. What are the right words to say?
A minute passes in awkward silence. Then another. His father’s hands move from his shoulders to the sides of his face, and he raises Thor’s head until the are looking one another in the eye again. He waits, and thinks he might say something; but instead his father only sighs, and presses his brow to Thor’s, as he has not done since Thor was barely big enough to hold a blade.
“You are barely back and barely recovered,” he says, in a tone of voice which brooks no protest. “You will rest, under guard, and we will speak more on this later.”
He opens his mouth to protest. But then his father has moved back, and his mother swoops in, and the words die on his lips as she wraps her arms around him, one hand running through his hair. She presses a kiss to his cheek as he returns her embrace, and whispers softly into his ear.
“If any has touched you, my darling, tell me their name,” she beseeches, an odd ferocity colouring her tone. Her grip on him tightens. “Tell me their name, and they will never touch you again.”
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“I slew him, mother,” he assures her, thinking only the Jotun warriors he fought - of the one who grabbed his arm, and left him burning with cold. But at that she holds him so tightly that he fears his ribs may crack, and presses another kiss to his temple, as if she is trying to erase something from him. She holds on for much longer than he feels is strictly necessary. But he lets her, for her own sake, and reminds her quietly that he is a strong warrior, and she need not worry for him so. He came back, did he not? He is well again, is he not? And yet that only seems to make her clutch him tighter, so that in the end it is only his father’s hand which finally draw her away.
Thor is so confused, he doesn’t even remember to protest his guards as he his then taken back to his rooms, which are just as he left them. He finds himself suddenly tired again, and so he lets himself collapse onto his bed, and drifts into a strange, fitful rest.
The guards stay, and their effect on Thor’s mood is obvious. His mother and father continue to behave strangely when he wakes the next morning, particularly when he asks after the babe he rescued. They exchange glances. But his mother brings him to the nurse - directly after breakfast, too, as if there is some kind of rush - and he cannot deny that he is relieved to see the babe whole and well and still looking very Aesir. He does not cry so much this time Thor is glad to note, and the nurse hands him over readily. His small body has been clad in soft blue clothes, which clash with the colour of his eyes and slope down from his small shoulders. He recognizes Thor, which is also nice. Recognizes him, and then immediately grabs for his hair.
“Ah, ah, none of that, little wolf,” Thor replies, catching the tinier hands in his own. The endearment seems to come out of his mouth of its own accord. But, he supposes it fits. His mother hovers in the doorway behind them, with the oddest expression on her face.
Thor stares at her.
Then he stares at the babe, who seems to have decided that he has had enough of being held by Thor, and wants to explore the floor instead. He squirms, and twists, and he’s surprisingly slippery all things considered. “Would you like to hold him?” he asks his mother, half hoping that will help her strange look, and also hoping for a hand or two. She hesitates. The babe decides to plant one small hand directly in the center of Thor’s face and give him a push from there, which is an interesting tactical maneuver, Thor decides. Maybe try poking me in the eye if you want me to let go, he thinks, but does not say aloud. He wouldn’t want to give him any ideas.
His prying the tiny fingers away from his face when he feels his mother’s shadow cross his shoulder. She pauses, her hand partly outstretched, and then she reaches over and lifts the babe into her arms. He stares at her curiously. Thor suddenly remembers when he was very, very small, and his mother’s hair was one of the most fascinating things in the world, with all its long strands and braids and the fancy jewelry she would loop through it, all gold and soft, rosy hues. The babe seems to agree, as not a second later his hand snaps out -
And of course, his mother catches it, and a hint of a smile turns up the corner of her lips.
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Thor tilts his head, considering.
“Dragonslayer?” he suggests.
She gives him a flat look, and shrugs defensively.
“Dragonslayer is a fine name!”
“It is no name at all for a child,” his mother refutes. Her gaze turns back to the babe, and even as he privately disagrees, he thinks that she can pick whatever name she likes if it will do something to chase the dark stormclouds from her head. He can tell she is thinking of something by the way her lips briefly purse, and she jiggles the tiny hands in hers. “Loki,” she says.
“Loki?”
“Hmm. It was what I wanted to call you, actually, but your father was set upon Thor.” She leans over, then, and returns the babe to his lap, brushing her hand through his short black hair. “It is a good name,” she tells him, strangely distant again.
Thor looks at her, and nods.
“I like it,” he agrees. “Loki Dragonslayer.”
His mother bites off a laugh only one second too late; he is glad for it.
“At least wait until he has actually slain a dragon,” she requests.
Thor gives this some consideration, and agrees that perhaps that would be best. Then he lets the nurse take the newly-dubbed Loki back again, and sets off to find Sif and Fandral, who have doubtless been wondering where he was for those mysteriously lost months. Or he means to. Until he finds that he is not permitted by visit them - or anyone - without his thrice-cursed new ‘guards’ peering over his shoulder at everything. He gives his mother a despairing look, but she is as immovable as his father on this matter. And in her case, he cannot even bring his anger into play, as she only looks at him sorrowfully, as if some great wrong has been done.
“I swear it on my word as a prince of Asgard, I will not leave the grounds!” he promises. “I will not go anywhere near the Bifrost, but do not ask me to endure the humiliation of baby-sitters!”
In the end, the best he can get is that they will keep an unobtrusive distance. He tries to think of a way to explain them to Sif and Fandral which is anything short of embarrassing (and considers perhaps not explaining them away at all, and simply taking the opportunity to rant to sympathetic ears) but neither of them seem as concerned with his guards as they do with near-tackling him as soon as he is within sight. Sif almost bowls him over, and then punches him soundly in the arm. Fandral settles for a swifter hug, and holds his punches. Thor stares. There is a hint of a moustache on his friend’s upper lip and chin, a growing circle of hair, that was certainly not present before he left. It seems a strange proof that more than a mere couple of days have, indeed, passed. Sif is taller as well.
“You idiot,” she says to him. “What possessed you? And what’s this we’ve heard about a baby?”
Fandral shoots her a distinctly betrayed look, and then rolls his eyes.
“Need I tell you again that we are not supposed to know about that?” he asks.
Sif ignores him in favour of shaking Thor, who only shrugs.
“I rescued a babe from a Jotun sacrifice,” he explains. He has decided that ‘sacrifice’ is a much easier way of phrasing it than ‘cliff-murder’. “He is being cared for at the palace now. We have dubbed him Loki. I shall bring him to meet you next time, he has very green eyes.”
Fandral gives him a steady look. Then he reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out a long-suffering sigh. Sif punches Thor’s arm again.
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“I could not have brought you,” he says. “The three of us together would never have made it past Heimdall’s notice. Besides which, it wasn’t my intent to battle giants myself. I meant to hunt boar.” He shrugs, aiming for nonchalance. “The giants were incidental.”
Sif looks like she means to punch him again. Thankfully, that his when Fandral speaks, and this seems to halt her.
“How did you come to find an Aesir infant in Jotunheim?” he asks. “That would be the height of bad parenting, taking your child over there.”
Thor throws a conspicuous glance towards the guards who are still trailing him. Sif and Fandral seem to notice them at the same time as well, but fortunately, neither seem to be paying them much mind, and they are just beyond what should be hearing range. Satisfied, he beckons his two friends closer.
“This stays between us,” he says. “But the babe isn’t an Aesir. He’s a Jotun; he changed his appearance when I found him.” And he goes on to explain the encounter, starting with a blow-by-blow of his daring trek and ending with his discovery that he had somehow lost four months of time in all of that. It isn’t long before he gets onto the subject of his parents’ odd behaviour. Surprisingly, however, neither Sif nor Fandral seem to be is baffled by it as he is. He is almost relieved when they share a glance with one another. At least if they know what is wrong, then they can tell him.
“What? What do you know?” he asks.
Another glance is exchanged. By some silent communication, Fandral is elected to explain.
“You disappear. For months,” he says carefully. “Do you, ah, do you recall when my cousin went to ‘visit’ my aunt for several months? And when she came back, she had a new younger ‘sister’?”
Thor nods, uncomprehending.
Fandral shoots Sif something of a beseeching look, but she is apparently in no mood to take pity on him, and only raises her hands in the universal gesture of ‘I’m not touching this’. He sighs.
“When young people disappear and then come back with mysterious babies, most will come to the conclusion that the child is… you know…” he waves a hand vaguely through the air. “Theirs.”
Thor blinks. His first thought is actually well, I did rescue him - that sort of makes him mine, doesn’t it?, but then his brain catches up, and he feels an unbidden surge of heat rise up in his face as all the pieces abruptly fall into place.
“That is - I wouldn’t - I have never even - that is not what happened!” he declares, almost shouting, and then shoots a self-conscious glance towards the guards. They’ve looked over, but when he gives him a cheery smile and a wave, they decline to come over. He moves a little closer to Sif and Fandral. “I did not give birth,” he hisses. “That would be preposterous!”
Sif shrugs.
“Good luck convincing anyone else of that. It’s a little less common with men, but you wouldn’t be the first,” she points out. “And if you want to keep it a secret that that babe’s a Jotun, no one’s going to believe he’s not yours.”
“Why do you want to keep that a secret anyway?” Fandral asks.
Again, Thor glances towards the guards, and moves his hand in a shushing gesture. “Keep it down,” he says. “If my father knows that Loki is a Jotun, he’ll send him back to Jotunheim. And sooner or later, they will kill him. I did not do battle with those warriors and endure his wailing and stinking just to have him die anyway.”
“But if he stays here,” Sif feels compelled to point out, “he’ll still be a Jotun. What if he grows up into a monster?”
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“For now, he is only small and helpless,” he decides at last. “If he should begin to act like a monster, then we will deal with it. But… I have never heard of a Jotun changing shape before. So perhaps he is different?” He cannot help but think of the wolf cub again, of how wolves raised by humans are not quite dogs; but they are not quite wolves, either.
Sif seems to know his thoughts. “This is much bigger than that wolf cub you wanted to keep,” she tells him, and he bristles. “A Jotun baby…” Her head shakes.
“I know the scale of it,” he snaps, though internally, he is not quite sure that he does. But that only serves to make him more defensive on the subject. “By all means, if either of you can think of a way to solve this, I am more than ready to hear it.”
She ducks her head, chastened for a moment. Fandral looks at him a moment longer before doing much the same. If Thor didn’t know any better, however, he would say that there was an odd quirk to the corner of his friend’s mouth.
“Well,” Fandral suggests after a long, awkward silence has stretched between them all. He nods towards the guards, who have finally taken note of their conspiratorial huddle and are attempting to - subtly - move closer. Whistling is actually involved. “At the very least, you might rid yourself of your guards if you can convince your parents that he came from… oh, from sleeping in an enchanted cave, or eating a piece of magical fruit, or snow, or somesuch,” he suggests. “Then they shall feel less need to guard your ‘virtue’.”
Thor gapes.
“That is what they are here for?!” he says, almost shouts, and then winces and pointedly lowers his voice again. “My virtue?!”
Sif and Fandral exchange another look.
“Most likely.”
“Yes.”
They both answer at the same time.
Thor exhales noisily, and wonders how he got himself into this mess. He’d only wanted to hunt boar! Boar! That was it!
“I would not wish to lie,” he finds himself saying. “They have let themselves believe that Loki is mine, perhaps, but he truly is not. It is one thing to let them misbelieve on their own. It is another to purposefully deceive them.”
Sif reaches over and pats him consolingly on the shoulder. “I could start a rumour,” she suggests. “The other ladies and most of the maids have been asking up and down about this whole thing ever since you came back. If I said that you had told me something…” she shrugs. “It would become known. Even if it was only, perhaps, idle speculation.”
Fandral gives her a moderately impressed look. “That,” he says. “Is an excellent idea.”
But Thor’s stomach twists. “It seems… wicked, somehow.” Coming from anyone else, this comment would seem insulting. But he speaks so genuinely that neither of his friends have the heart to take offence. Willful deception is so far from Thor’s element as to be like fire to a fish.
“It would be far wickeder, I think, to twist your parents hearts with worry,” Fandral points out. “For at they moment, they doubtless believe you to have been despoiled before you left, and feel themselves great failures for not protecting you better.” He has some experience in these matters. Fandral comes by his charming ways honestly, and has more cousins than he can typically name on any given day. Rabbit jokes generally abound in their presence.
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He will never fully wrap his head around magic and engineering, however.
When his lessons are over, he finds himself at loose ends. Unable to train or spar. Unable to seek out the company of his friends, as Fandral and Sif have lessons of their own, and have gotten to rumour-mongering besides. He does not much care for the thought of seeing his parents, now that he knows what troubles them. So, after some consideration, he heads for the nursery section of the palace. As he’d hoped, Loki and his nursemaid are there. Neither she nor his minders make any protest as he scoops up his apparent-bastard, and winces as he forgets to watch his hair. Loki latches on, and pulls. His round face is smiling, though, Thor notices for the first time, he does not laugh, nor seem to make any sound at all when he is not crying.
Babies are fun to play with, Thor finds, when there is someone else at hand to take care of the crying and cleaning up parts. Loki like shiny baubles. He reaches for them, and his eyes follow them. So Thor ensconces them in a corner, and entertains them both with little odds and ends of his finery. Loki’s grip is surprisingly strong, considering how small his hands and fingers are. The nursemaid warns that he will try to put anything and everything into his mouth, given half a chance; but Thor watches, and Loki does not try to eat anything. Instead he looks it at it all with such an intent face, it makes Thor wonder what he is seeing. If he sees things the same way that everyone else does. He stares at the engraved side of Thor’s bracers as if they are the most fascinating of things, his eyes eagerly following as Thor twists them in the light, watching them glint. And Thor watches him in turn, and if he could see his face, he would note that it looked no less fascinated than Loki’s.
There is no hint of red in his eyes. No ghost of blue beneath his pale skin.
Thor finds himself unaccountably relieved.
(A/N: More to come~!)
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YES! I'd love to see older Thor interact with a grown Loki, that would be amazing.
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