Roskva in Utgard (Norse mythology)
Title: Roskva in Utgard
Characters: Roskva, Loki, Thor, Thialfi
Fandom: Norse mythology
Summary: Roskva competed in no contests at Utgard, but the humiliation of her brother and her gods doesn't sting any less for that. The giants hitting on her doesn't really help either.
Explanation: This story will make more sense if you're familiar with the tale of Thor's visit to Utgard. While he was on the way there, Roskva and her brother Thialfi were taken to be Thor's servants in recompense for an injury to one of his goats. The trip rapidly got stranger from that point forward. A number of recountings don't mention Roskva at all, but once I found out about her (possibly from khilari?), I started thinking over what it might have been like from her perspective.
Roskva had never been so mortified in her life. That included when she'd slipped in the pigsty the day after her mother finished a new dress that properly covered her growing legs. Her cousin had shoved her, but that happened often enough and she usually kept her footing.
It really didn't compare.
She had been more frightened once before: the morning before the journey, when Thor had raised his goats up and found one of them limping where her brother Thialfi had cracked the bone. Thor's wrath had been terrible, his pity after it like the fresh smell of the air after a storm. His accepted penalty had been downright bizarre. Take her and Thialfi with him? It wasn't going to be altogether easy on her parents, although at least Thor hadn't seemed offended that their lone milk-goat, which he'd spared, had been very interested in the prospect of male company, so they probably wouldn't be expected to fight not to have her covered. But still, to go adventuring with the gods!
Well, it was an honor, and it was exciting, and so far it was miserable. It hadn't started out badly -- fine weather and Thialfi so excited he kept running off ahead, back, and off to the sides once they got past the familiar places around home. The gods had both been kind. They'd been patient as she and Thialfi tried to figure out what they were supposed to do as Thor's servants, especially what with never having traveled before. Thor hadn't once mentioned the goats after he'd declared the matter settled, and he'd told Thialfi he was not merely the fleetest of foot among their village but among all mortal men he'd seen. Loki had interrupted their efforts to start a fire, kindled the laid wood with a touch, and laughingly asked Thor's permission before setting her to mending.
Then there had been sleet, and the earthquakes, and the strange open hall that had turned out to be a glove, and the closed gates of Utgard. Loki had lost an eating contest to somebody who apparently had an unlikely taste for timber, Thialfi had lost a race for the first time since he'd grown taller than her, and Thor had been three times roundly mocked as a weakling over a drink, the world's stretchiest cat, and an old woman.
She hadn't proposed any contest, and the giants had not demanded one of her. They'd offered no comment when she went to sit with the three men afterward, and she'd been given food and drink with the rest. But the failure and the insults for her brother and her gods smarted no less.
But Roskva's pride was injured, not dead, and so she swallowed enough mead to blame it for the burn in her cheeks and held her head up and fumed. She was seated between Loki and Thialfi, and trying not to feel grateful that Thialfi was the one next to Thor. He was being very civil, but she could feel the crackle of lightning in her hair.
Then a massive hand fell on her shoulder -- no, wrapped around her shoulder, and half her body, and an enormous fingertip planted itself over her chest. She wasn't sure how much of this was intentional until a deep rumbling voice said, "A tiny thing, but well formed."
Roskva tensed. Her knuckles were white on the knife she'd been eating with, not because she thought she could do any damage with it, but because it was something to hold on to. "I thank you," she said carefully, "for the compliment."
"Care to bed with better company than these tonight?"
Help, Roskva thought. Under the circumstances, however, she didn't think that was happening. And the giant would hear her if she prayed Thor to grab her outraged brother before he could do something stupid. She contented herself with kicking Thialfi hard under the table as she twisted around in the crook of the giant's finger and made herself smile at him. It was probably a ghastly effort. But she was so much smaller, maybe he wouldn't be able to tell. "I'm sure," she said, trying hard to make her voice sweet, "that anyone in your hall would be far too much for me."
The looming giant boomed with laughter and let go of her. She was starting to turn back to the table when another giant, this one only twice her own height or so, caught a finger under her chin. "Do you think so, little one?" he asked, smiling.
This one was just close enough to her own size that the thought seemed more plausible and therefore more terrifying. Surely the mountain-sized one had only been joking. Thialfi and Thor were both scowling at the edge of her vision. Roskva swallowed. "I'm sure of it," she said, sincerely, feeling her pulse flutter against the blunt edge of the massive fingernail.
"Don't you want to find out?"
"Please," she said. "My lord." Her vision hazed reddish-gray in fear and fury, and she blinked stinging eyes. She didn't know if the giant meant to rape her or mock her, but she would not cry about him. "You do me too much honor," she choked out, between clenched teeth, "and I am already bleeding today."
This one laughed too and moved back to his place at the table, and Roskva turned back around and stared at her heaping trencher, hooking her dangling feet together at the ankles, and let go the clutch on her knife. It clattered on the table, the tiny sound lost in the dining giants' laughter, and she started to shake.
Thialfi patted her hand once, then withdrew his. She peeked over him and he was staring at the table too, cheeks red. She wasn't sure how much of it was from not being able to help her and how much was because of the last thing she'd said.
She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't.
A light nudge from her other side made her jump, but it was only Loki, not another... er, well, not another of the giants of Utgard. It really said something about the last few days that the phrase Oh good, it's only Loki had even entered her head. She swallowed and tried to get her voice to work.
Fortunately, Loki didn't wait for a response to start talking. "Aren't you going to eat that?"
The lump clogging her throat gave way for a strangled laugh. "Not all of it. Are you still hungry?" she asked, then clapped a hand over her mouth. She'd just answered Loki as she would her little brother when he asked the same question that way.
He only laughed at her. It stung less than the laughter of the giants who'd just left. "Of course," he said, then added with a roll of his eyes, "though I have not discovered any desire to eat the table." He swiped a piece of meat from her. "You should eat more than you have so far, though. And drink, you'll feel better." She was trying to obey this last injunction, a bit reluctantly -- she'd only had mead once in a while, a few sips at a time, and it was good but very strong -- when he added, "You're not feeling lovesick, are you?"
She choked and sputtered out, "What?"
"Oh, you didn't turn them down to spare Thor's pride? Disgusted by your suitors, then?" Laughter and sparks in his eyes, and the back of her neck prickled. Did he have close kin here? "You were lying, anyway."
Perhaps it would be safer to just put the drink down. "I've never even been kissed before," she muttered, looking away from him as she felt her face heat up again. "I've no desire to be -- be --" Her eyes fell on an enormous bird still turning over the great fire. "Spitted."
Roskva heard a rather hasty swallow and cough. "Oh, I see. Well, most of them are likely shape-changers. I'm sure one could manage to avoid, ah, skewering you too badly."
That was not a possibility she had considered. "I'd still rather not." A slight shiver, even though the hall was if anything too summer-warm. "And if I survived the night, I doubt I'd survive bearing a Jotun's child."
"You could give them another runt. Like me and my mother."
She dared a look at him. "My lord. Please stop."
"So eat." Loki waited until she was obeying to add, "I can't say I'd be in a rush to get pregnant again either."
"Ow," Roskva gasped when she could breathe again. "Weren't you a horse?"
"Does that help?"
"How would I know?" The tears in her eyes now were from choking -- twice -- which somehow felt better than when they'd been because she felt like crying. "Mother seemed fine with Thialfi, but I was barely old enough to remember."
"Hm." Loki leaned back and spoke to someone behind her; Roskva froze. "Don't bother, lads, it's her moon-time. And she's a cold fish anyway."
"Maybe that's just with you," offered a new voice; Loki smiled thinly, and then heavy footsteps moved away. She stared at him.
"Now," he said, "what are you looking at me like that for? They left, didn't they?"
"Thank you," she said, trying to shake off the surprise. She wasn't exactly thrilled by the implications, but not having to argue the point herself made up for a lot. "Very much. But...." It seemed like a terribly awkward question. "Do goddesses do that every month?"
He snorted. "So do mortal women, when they're well enough fed. Between children, anyway."
"Oh." That sounded remarkably annoying, but the food would be worth it.
"You're not doing too badly, you know."
She looked up at Loki again. "I don't think I understand."
He was looking elsewhere in the hall rather than at her, this time, but he was smiling faintly. It didn't reach his eyes. "One could say you're doing better than the rest of us. You've lost no contest, you've received compliments, they've accepted your excuses both truth and lie...."
Roskva hadn't looked at it that way. She'd prefer less grabby compliments. "You helped." She swallowed mead again and failed to resist a wince, ungratefully wishing for ale or clean water.
"You don't care for the mead?"
"It's very good, but... again, a bit too much for me. I never had more than a little before."
"Let me see it." He picked up her cup, and a flame curled from the surface, the liquid below boiling fiercely.
"Loki, what are you doing?" Thor was leaning around Thialfi to ask. Several of the surrounding giants were looking too, suddenly intent.
"Amusing myself," Loki said, looking thoughtfully around at their audience. "Amusing your maidservant. Drink, Roskva."
She accepted the cup back and took a tiny, wary sip. It was still hot, had much less bite from the alcohol, and tasted of smoke and slightly burnt sugar.
"Roskva," Thor said on a sigh, "you don't have to drink that."
"Indeed not." Loki's opponent from earlier had appeared across the table, in front of the fire. "Strange games you play, friend of the Aesir. Would you like a fresh drink, little one?"
"No, it's good," she said quickly, pulling the cup protectively close, to general if somewhat baffled laughter. It tasted odd, but it was less overpowering than before. "This is fine."
"It wasn't that interesting," Loki said, mostly under his breath.
Once they were back to being mostly ignored -- aside from the occasional loud joke and snigger, but that was different from being listened to -- Roskva thanked him again.
"Easy enough." He was still watching their hosts and occasionally swiping food from her trencher in the brief intervals his own spent empty. "Cheer up... little one. This is actually going suspiciously well."
She blinked. That was definitely another unexpected view of things. "It is?"
"In my experience," Loki murmured, "when giants determine they have you at a marked disadvantage, they are likely to do considerably worse than laugh at you and feed you dinner."
Roskva's skin crawled, and her fingers dug into the piece of bread she'd been about to break. She thought about the stories. She wouldn't have chosen to bring up any of the assorted ones where Loki found trouble instead of making it, not in front of him. Now that she thought about it, the ones that had made it to Midgard were nightmarish. Besides, the least of giants could overpower her without trying, and they weren't out of Utgard yet. "Are you trying to cheer me up," she asked just as quietly, "or scare me half to death?"
Loki did look at her then. "Well, it is usually less of an issue with Thor along. He's been threatening not to let me travel on my own anymore, as if he could prevent it. He'll be hearing about this one for a long time, I can tell you."
"That doesn't actually answer the question," she pointed out meekly, then tried not to duck as someone leaned over her to refill her cup.
Loki dipped a fingertip in her mead and set it on fire again without asking or waiting to be asked. "Let's say I think I'd prefer we all keep our wits about us," he mused, as eyes began turning toward them again. "Now what is so fascinating about this trick?"
Roskva rather doubted he was looking for an answer, but he hadn't minded so far. "I don't know. Maybe they think you'll decide to set the table on fire."
He looked down at her, sudden and sharp and startling, and for a moment she thought she'd made him angry this time. Then he offered her cup back to her with a smile. "Maybe that's it."
Characters: Roskva, Loki, Thor, Thialfi
Fandom: Norse mythology
Summary: Roskva competed in no contests at Utgard, but the humiliation of her brother and her gods doesn't sting any less for that. The giants hitting on her doesn't really help either.
Explanation: This story will make more sense if you're familiar with the tale of Thor's visit to Utgard. While he was on the way there, Roskva and her brother Thialfi were taken to be Thor's servants in recompense for an injury to one of his goats. The trip rapidly got stranger from that point forward. A number of recountings don't mention Roskva at all, but once I found out about her (possibly from khilari?), I started thinking over what it might have been like from her perspective.
Roskva had never been so mortified in her life. That included when she'd slipped in the pigsty the day after her mother finished a new dress that properly covered her growing legs. Her cousin had shoved her, but that happened often enough and she usually kept her footing.
It really didn't compare.
She had been more frightened once before: the morning before the journey, when Thor had raised his goats up and found one of them limping where her brother Thialfi had cracked the bone. Thor's wrath had been terrible, his pity after it like the fresh smell of the air after a storm. His accepted penalty had been downright bizarre. Take her and Thialfi with him? It wasn't going to be altogether easy on her parents, although at least Thor hadn't seemed offended that their lone milk-goat, which he'd spared, had been very interested in the prospect of male company, so they probably wouldn't be expected to fight not to have her covered. But still, to go adventuring with the gods!
Well, it was an honor, and it was exciting, and so far it was miserable. It hadn't started out badly -- fine weather and Thialfi so excited he kept running off ahead, back, and off to the sides once they got past the familiar places around home. The gods had both been kind. They'd been patient as she and Thialfi tried to figure out what they were supposed to do as Thor's servants, especially what with never having traveled before. Thor hadn't once mentioned the goats after he'd declared the matter settled, and he'd told Thialfi he was not merely the fleetest of foot among their village but among all mortal men he'd seen. Loki had interrupted their efforts to start a fire, kindled the laid wood with a touch, and laughingly asked Thor's permission before setting her to mending.
Then there had been sleet, and the earthquakes, and the strange open hall that had turned out to be a glove, and the closed gates of Utgard. Loki had lost an eating contest to somebody who apparently had an unlikely taste for timber, Thialfi had lost a race for the first time since he'd grown taller than her, and Thor had been three times roundly mocked as a weakling over a drink, the world's stretchiest cat, and an old woman.
She hadn't proposed any contest, and the giants had not demanded one of her. They'd offered no comment when she went to sit with the three men afterward, and she'd been given food and drink with the rest. But the failure and the insults for her brother and her gods smarted no less.
But Roskva's pride was injured, not dead, and so she swallowed enough mead to blame it for the burn in her cheeks and held her head up and fumed. She was seated between Loki and Thialfi, and trying not to feel grateful that Thialfi was the one next to Thor. He was being very civil, but she could feel the crackle of lightning in her hair.
Then a massive hand fell on her shoulder -- no, wrapped around her shoulder, and half her body, and an enormous fingertip planted itself over her chest. She wasn't sure how much of this was intentional until a deep rumbling voice said, "A tiny thing, but well formed."
Roskva tensed. Her knuckles were white on the knife she'd been eating with, not because she thought she could do any damage with it, but because it was something to hold on to. "I thank you," she said carefully, "for the compliment."
"Care to bed with better company than these tonight?"
Help, Roskva thought. Under the circumstances, however, she didn't think that was happening. And the giant would hear her if she prayed Thor to grab her outraged brother before he could do something stupid. She contented herself with kicking Thialfi hard under the table as she twisted around in the crook of the giant's finger and made herself smile at him. It was probably a ghastly effort. But she was so much smaller, maybe he wouldn't be able to tell. "I'm sure," she said, trying hard to make her voice sweet, "that anyone in your hall would be far too much for me."
The looming giant boomed with laughter and let go of her. She was starting to turn back to the table when another giant, this one only twice her own height or so, caught a finger under her chin. "Do you think so, little one?" he asked, smiling.
This one was just close enough to her own size that the thought seemed more plausible and therefore more terrifying. Surely the mountain-sized one had only been joking. Thialfi and Thor were both scowling at the edge of her vision. Roskva swallowed. "I'm sure of it," she said, sincerely, feeling her pulse flutter against the blunt edge of the massive fingernail.
"Don't you want to find out?"
"Please," she said. "My lord." Her vision hazed reddish-gray in fear and fury, and she blinked stinging eyes. She didn't know if the giant meant to rape her or mock her, but she would not cry about him. "You do me too much honor," she choked out, between clenched teeth, "and I am already bleeding today."
This one laughed too and moved back to his place at the table, and Roskva turned back around and stared at her heaping trencher, hooking her dangling feet together at the ankles, and let go the clutch on her knife. It clattered on the table, the tiny sound lost in the dining giants' laughter, and she started to shake.
Thialfi patted her hand once, then withdrew his. She peeked over him and he was staring at the table too, cheeks red. She wasn't sure how much of it was from not being able to help her and how much was because of the last thing she'd said.
She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't.
A light nudge from her other side made her jump, but it was only Loki, not another... er, well, not another of the giants of Utgard. It really said something about the last few days that the phrase Oh good, it's only Loki had even entered her head. She swallowed and tried to get her voice to work.
Fortunately, Loki didn't wait for a response to start talking. "Aren't you going to eat that?"
The lump clogging her throat gave way for a strangled laugh. "Not all of it. Are you still hungry?" she asked, then clapped a hand over her mouth. She'd just answered Loki as she would her little brother when he asked the same question that way.
He only laughed at her. It stung less than the laughter of the giants who'd just left. "Of course," he said, then added with a roll of his eyes, "though I have not discovered any desire to eat the table." He swiped a piece of meat from her. "You should eat more than you have so far, though. And drink, you'll feel better." She was trying to obey this last injunction, a bit reluctantly -- she'd only had mead once in a while, a few sips at a time, and it was good but very strong -- when he added, "You're not feeling lovesick, are you?"
She choked and sputtered out, "What?"
"Oh, you didn't turn them down to spare Thor's pride? Disgusted by your suitors, then?" Laughter and sparks in his eyes, and the back of her neck prickled. Did he have close kin here? "You were lying, anyway."
Perhaps it would be safer to just put the drink down. "I've never even been kissed before," she muttered, looking away from him as she felt her face heat up again. "I've no desire to be -- be --" Her eyes fell on an enormous bird still turning over the great fire. "Spitted."
Roskva heard a rather hasty swallow and cough. "Oh, I see. Well, most of them are likely shape-changers. I'm sure one could manage to avoid, ah, skewering you too badly."
That was not a possibility she had considered. "I'd still rather not." A slight shiver, even though the hall was if anything too summer-warm. "And if I survived the night, I doubt I'd survive bearing a Jotun's child."
"You could give them another runt. Like me and my mother."
She dared a look at him. "My lord. Please stop."
"So eat." Loki waited until she was obeying to add, "I can't say I'd be in a rush to get pregnant again either."
"Ow," Roskva gasped when she could breathe again. "Weren't you a horse?"
"Does that help?"
"How would I know?" The tears in her eyes now were from choking -- twice -- which somehow felt better than when they'd been because she felt like crying. "Mother seemed fine with Thialfi, but I was barely old enough to remember."
"Hm." Loki leaned back and spoke to someone behind her; Roskva froze. "Don't bother, lads, it's her moon-time. And she's a cold fish anyway."
"Maybe that's just with you," offered a new voice; Loki smiled thinly, and then heavy footsteps moved away. She stared at him.
"Now," he said, "what are you looking at me like that for? They left, didn't they?"
"Thank you," she said, trying to shake off the surprise. She wasn't exactly thrilled by the implications, but not having to argue the point herself made up for a lot. "Very much. But...." It seemed like a terribly awkward question. "Do goddesses do that every month?"
He snorted. "So do mortal women, when they're well enough fed. Between children, anyway."
"Oh." That sounded remarkably annoying, but the food would be worth it.
"You're not doing too badly, you know."
She looked up at Loki again. "I don't think I understand."
He was looking elsewhere in the hall rather than at her, this time, but he was smiling faintly. It didn't reach his eyes. "One could say you're doing better than the rest of us. You've lost no contest, you've received compliments, they've accepted your excuses both truth and lie...."
Roskva hadn't looked at it that way. She'd prefer less grabby compliments. "You helped." She swallowed mead again and failed to resist a wince, ungratefully wishing for ale or clean water.
"You don't care for the mead?"
"It's very good, but... again, a bit too much for me. I never had more than a little before."
"Let me see it." He picked up her cup, and a flame curled from the surface, the liquid below boiling fiercely.
"Loki, what are you doing?" Thor was leaning around Thialfi to ask. Several of the surrounding giants were looking too, suddenly intent.
"Amusing myself," Loki said, looking thoughtfully around at their audience. "Amusing your maidservant. Drink, Roskva."
She accepted the cup back and took a tiny, wary sip. It was still hot, had much less bite from the alcohol, and tasted of smoke and slightly burnt sugar.
"Roskva," Thor said on a sigh, "you don't have to drink that."
"Indeed not." Loki's opponent from earlier had appeared across the table, in front of the fire. "Strange games you play, friend of the Aesir. Would you like a fresh drink, little one?"
"No, it's good," she said quickly, pulling the cup protectively close, to general if somewhat baffled laughter. It tasted odd, but it was less overpowering than before. "This is fine."
"It wasn't that interesting," Loki said, mostly under his breath.
Once they were back to being mostly ignored -- aside from the occasional loud joke and snigger, but that was different from being listened to -- Roskva thanked him again.
"Easy enough." He was still watching their hosts and occasionally swiping food from her trencher in the brief intervals his own spent empty. "Cheer up... little one. This is actually going suspiciously well."
She blinked. That was definitely another unexpected view of things. "It is?"
"In my experience," Loki murmured, "when giants determine they have you at a marked disadvantage, they are likely to do considerably worse than laugh at you and feed you dinner."
Roskva's skin crawled, and her fingers dug into the piece of bread she'd been about to break. She thought about the stories. She wouldn't have chosen to bring up any of the assorted ones where Loki found trouble instead of making it, not in front of him. Now that she thought about it, the ones that had made it to Midgard were nightmarish. Besides, the least of giants could overpower her without trying, and they weren't out of Utgard yet. "Are you trying to cheer me up," she asked just as quietly, "or scare me half to death?"
Loki did look at her then. "Well, it is usually less of an issue with Thor along. He's been threatening not to let me travel on my own anymore, as if he could prevent it. He'll be hearing about this one for a long time, I can tell you."
"That doesn't actually answer the question," she pointed out meekly, then tried not to duck as someone leaned over her to refill her cup.
Loki dipped a fingertip in her mead and set it on fire again without asking or waiting to be asked. "Let's say I think I'd prefer we all keep our wits about us," he mused, as eyes began turning toward them again. "Now what is so fascinating about this trick?"
Roskva rather doubted he was looking for an answer, but he hadn't minded so far. "I don't know. Maybe they think you'll decide to set the table on fire."
He looked down at her, sudden and sharp and startling, and for a moment she thought she'd made him angry this time. Then he offered her cup back to her with a smile. "Maybe that's it."