The coming of Ullr into Asgard, part 2/3
part 2 title: "Loki and the Einherjar"
summary: Loki returns. Twice.
And Sif's relation to the Einherjar is explained.
part 1 is here
part 2 is here
part 3 is here
~~~~~~~~~
Loki returns to Asgard as well in that same week, and like her he does not come alone. Thor comes with him, as does something Odin sweeps away to the Armory, giving Thor two words which tell him where to place Loki The Worldstriker: in the other Vault deep in Asgard.
Much as she wants to come sooner, Sif's feet refuse to carry her to see Loki before a full week has passed; by this point, she and Ullr have taken up residence in the barracks, sharing quarters with several other Einherjar warrior mothers. But now, here, at the entrance of the Vault, the Einherjar guards let her pass inside the structure; the Asgardian guards allow her past them to go deeper in.
In the hall of contained captives, everything is heavy - the walls are solid enough to crush fire and water, the very air is pregnant with threat. And there is no sound.
Footfalls are swallowed by the floor. Shadows are drunk up by the light. Prisoners have learned not to bother screaming themselves hoarse, as it is to no avail. Title means less than nothing here, as was learned by some of the captives who were once lords of Realms which no longer exist.
Loki's cage is more a container, the sort made for things which can bend nature and unnature alike to their will. As magicians were rarely captured, historically, this is the closest thing to what could best keep Loki within.
Even with the silence, even with the absence of shadows, even with all her ways and habits, Loki is looking up at her as she approaches. "Sif," he says. One word. A single noun carrying so very much upon itself. Like the woman in question, he knows. A word with broader and more capable shoulders than its spelling would suggest on any world.
"Loki," Sif replies in kind, weighting his name with relief at seeing him once more, disappointment that he had fallen so far so fast, sadness that there lay a barrier wall between them, gladness that he was not lost to death or eternity.
"You're looking well," he says, a phrase he picked up on Earth, compliment and probe alike.
"I am." Now. Reasonably so. As much as I could be expected to be.
Asking of her what he asked of Thor, "Did you mourn?" curious if Thor's had simply been the official version for all to repeat.
"I wept for my own reasons, Loki," Sif said.
"I'm glad to hear it."
"Oh?"
"One would hate for you to weep on command." He tilted his head, slower than he used to, his body still recovering from all and everything. "What reason?" he asked.
Sif considered not answering him. She likewise considered dodging the question, or replying in the form of those riddles he so loved. "Pain." Perfectly honest, and a perfect nonanswer.
Loki barked a laugh, a short miserable sound unlike what used to erupt from his lips as he laughed. "I can scarce imagine the wound, then. To drive the stoic Sif to tears, that must take incredible damage and tenacity, as well as a suicidal preference which would bring a pause to any berserkr."
"It was not a battlefield injury," she said.
Now his face was a mess of simple confusion, a question on his lips, another in his eyes.
As she weighed the best way to inform him of his option to see his child, Thor came charging into the room. As Thor brushed past her, Sif leaped back, her body and mind reeling from the sheer force of the anger and hatred which was flowing off his body.
Slapping his hand against the relevant piece of the container, Thor was recognized, and an open doorway formed in it. Thor stepped inside, grabbed Loki, and carried him out one-handedly.
Sif stepped into his path, blocking his way; however fatal a decision it may be, she accepted that.
"I ask you to move, Sif," Thor said, his voice deep as the storms mortals wove stories around.
"What is happening? Why do you not speak to -" and hesitated, not knowing how to address him - as 'Loki', as 'your brother', as 'my child's father', or as something else.
Thor's answer made no sense to her - she could pick out something which sounded like "Malek"...but the remainder was unfamiliar. I know the military history of all Asgard and her protectorates and dependencies, and a good deal of the other Realms who do not qualify as such. And yet... "Now, as I have answered you, I tell you to step aside."
"And should I refuse, prince Thor?"
"I should not like that," was how he cryptically answered.
"I suppose I don't get a say," Loki said dryly.
"You are needed," Thor said. "Were not your skills vital, I would not have let you from your bowl so soon - three days at least, for you, as it was for me."
Your bowl was a planet, Loki thinks but does not say. He keeps his silence, letting it dangle more than tauntingly while less than mockingly.
In no mood for this, not now, "You will come, or we will find a deeper hole for you," Thor said, laying out the options.
Loki closed his eyes.
"Well?"
Opening one eye open a crack in a passable impression of the Allfather dangling from a tree, Loki said "I'm thinking."
~~~~~~~~~
{Sif leaves the underground prison and returns to the Einherjar barracks to pick up Ullr - only to find the Einherjar milling around outside, afraid to go inside...as Odin's in there. Sif barrels in, warns off Odin, picks up Ullr, and leaves, apologizing to the Einherjar on her way - and as soon as she can, she sets Ullr down and lets herself shake and experience all the terror and dread she should have been feeling when she was shouting at the Allfather}
Odin gives her a patient look, grants her a nod, and walks past her to the door.
Feeling more like she is seeing a feint rather than a true surrender - neither was to be expected - Sif asks after him, "You are leaving?" That easily?
"I beheld your approach before you ever left the prison," Odin said, "and readied myself, for Thor and Loki are not the only ones going into battle."
...
~~~~~~~~~
Loki did not return for another three months, and when he did, it was to drop three feet to the ground in front of the Einherjar barracks when Sif was nearby and singing with Aelfred and the others in the regiment. Everyone fell silent, looking at Loki; which left it to Sif to go over and look down at him.
"Watch the first step," Loki muttered, quoting who-knows-who. Rolling onto his back, he looked up at Sif and smiled. "Did you mourn?"
"None have ever been able to kill you, Loki," Sif reminded him. "It would be premature to mourn."
"Yes, an excellent point. Next time, I'll leave a body."
"Next time, it may be I who kills you."
"I should be so fortunate."
Sif snorted.
Loki frowned, seeing the silenced singers to one side. "Since when did you prefer to have an audience?" he asked her. "Yes yes, I recognize the Einherjar, before you ask. Even Hod would know them."
"Then why did you come back?" Sif asked Loki.
"We must talk."
"We are already talking."
Loki's answer made little sense to her, as it seemed he was calling her a very stark...something. "I have undertaken a great deal, Sif, and while I would care for nothing more than the pleasure of your company - with or without the regimental company - I fear I require food and tending-to... Or at least drink and something flesh-numbing."
Sif pulled out her stamp, the instant signature which was affixed to many short-order agreements drawn up, and handed it to Aelfred. "See this reaches Eir so she sends down her best physicians. And bring some platters of food from the hall - we're all hungry, are we not?" she asked that last part to all the Einherjar, who nodded agreement. Aelfred ran off to do his duty.
Stark assumes that, as a god I would be a poor ruler for his world, Loki mused; yet Odin is not my only role model in these things - more I have been following the example of Sif with her Einherjar, and she is what Stark's vernacular would call 'a patron saint.' Though to be so generous to my subjects, I must first rule them...unlike Sif's relation to these people.
~~~~~~~~~
Sif is looking in her mirror, closing first one eye, then the other, all but glaring at her eyelids; at this time of the year, they refuse to be changed to any other hue or shade, no matter how much blood flows to the various parts of the skin. Normally, this is a good thing. Loki always appreciates their contrariness.
"I can watch him for you," Odin said, standing in her doorway.
"Which 'him'?" Sif asked. Wherein the Allfather is concerned, best to never assume what he means.
"Ullr. While you and Loki are dining this evening. I will watch him for you."
Sif smiled as she stood and walked up to just shy of Odin - close enough that he could kill her with one hand, if he so chose. "Very well, my king. I grant you permission to watch Ullr on this day and night - you do anyway."
Odin smiled at the recognition, for not everyone recalls that when they treat with me.
But she wasn't done yet: "You may stay if you wish in the Einherjar barracks and watch Ullr, for that is where and with whom he will be in my absence. You may not speak to my son, make gestures or magic to him, nor make quail the knees of the Einherjar while my son is under their watch."
"And if they are needed on the battlefield?"
"A battlefield without the Allfather would be a shoddy thing indeed," Sif remarked.
"Oh indeed," he agreed. "Should a battle arise, I will see Ullr handed to Eir - surely the highest medical doctor in Asgard is sufficient."
"I agree," Sif said, and still had the feeling that she had missed a trick somewhere, that Odin had left a loophole where his grandson was concerned.
~~~~~~~~~
Dinner fares well, and is eaten mostly in silence between them. Silence is better than absence, each knows, each for their own reasons.
"Thor relented his grip and relaxed when we reached the battlefield," Loki tells her; "he let my feet touch the ground," which draws a smile from her - the aim of that truth. "He then explained who we were facing and what he needed of me, why my skills were relevant to the battlefield he had brought me to. So I fought alongside him."
She knows what a minefield the subject can be, but feels it need be addressed. "And how was it? A return to the way you used to fight as a unit?"
"It approached that in some moments," Loki allows. "Still, quite jarring to not see you on a battlefield." Jarring, and occurring with increasing frequency... Midgard, New York, and now this latest theater of the war on that red-faced demon.
"I have been required elsewhere," Sif said.
"Ah," Loki says, and leaves it at that.
"You have been missed, Loki."
Had a human said that to me, I would tell her to improve her aim. "Missed, but not searched for. The distinction exists."
"As I said, I have been required elsewhere."
"Ah," Loki says. Then, in an act of mercy, "Thor was full of praise for a youth by the name of Ullr," Loki said. "And he insisted I make the lad's acquaintance."
"You would like him, I think."
"I have no doubt. You know him?"
Sif looked Loki right in the eyes as she said, "I am his mother. We are his parents." A bit boldfaced, and rather abrupt, but after as much as he had been coming and going, little stopping in their lives, she was tired of awaiting.
"I..." Loki said, and it is all Sif can do to not smile at the sight of the Wordsmith himself, rendered mute, caught unable to find what to say. "I am a father." 'I have been required elsewhere' indeed.
"Yes."
"You could have told me..." and to his credit, he does not finish the statement, and keeps accusation far from even the part he said.
"I could have. But when?" Sif asks him. "When you were hunting Thor to ground? When you were imprisoned? The times you were not here?"
You could have continued to hold it back from me, and you would have been in the right. That you spoke of this to me now...Means very much. He dips his head in acknowledgement that she is right, a gesture just shy of hanging his head fully.
And he knows what he must do. The only thing there is to do. The only thing I can do - that which I am good at. And he looks back up at Sif, seeing her grace, savoring what he beholds, storing it up. "Know, Sif, that I always care. Always for you. Now for Ullr as well."
"Long suspected, now knowing," Sif said as Loki rises and walks around the table, and bends toward her.
Loki kisses her.
It is warmth and languidity and tender, caring and attentive. It is all the things she remembers and things which are new where he is concerned - mortality? fear? - and all wrapped in the pressure of Loki's lips. But it is a drink too short for one who has been through the arid places.
Sif looks into his face as he pulls himself slowly away not wanting to go. And sees him vanish.
She does not rush or hurry. She wipes her face and returns to Ullr.
~~~
summary: Loki returns. Twice.
And Sif's relation to the Einherjar is explained.
part 1 is here
part 2 is here
part 3 is here
~~~~~~~~~
Loki returns to Asgard as well in that same week, and like her he does not come alone. Thor comes with him, as does something Odin sweeps away to the Armory, giving Thor two words which tell him where to place Loki The Worldstriker: in the other Vault deep in Asgard.
Much as she wants to come sooner, Sif's feet refuse to carry her to see Loki before a full week has passed; by this point, she and Ullr have taken up residence in the barracks, sharing quarters with several other Einherjar warrior mothers. But now, here, at the entrance of the Vault, the Einherjar guards let her pass inside the structure; the Asgardian guards allow her past them to go deeper in.
In the hall of contained captives, everything is heavy - the walls are solid enough to crush fire and water, the very air is pregnant with threat. And there is no sound.
Footfalls are swallowed by the floor. Shadows are drunk up by the light. Prisoners have learned not to bother screaming themselves hoarse, as it is to no avail. Title means less than nothing here, as was learned by some of the captives who were once lords of Realms which no longer exist.
Loki's cage is more a container, the sort made for things which can bend nature and unnature alike to their will. As magicians were rarely captured, historically, this is the closest thing to what could best keep Loki within.
Even with the silence, even with the absence of shadows, even with all her ways and habits, Loki is looking up at her as she approaches. "Sif," he says. One word. A single noun carrying so very much upon itself. Like the woman in question, he knows. A word with broader and more capable shoulders than its spelling would suggest on any world.
"Loki," Sif replies in kind, weighting his name with relief at seeing him once more, disappointment that he had fallen so far so fast, sadness that there lay a barrier wall between them, gladness that he was not lost to death or eternity.
"You're looking well," he says, a phrase he picked up on Earth, compliment and probe alike.
"I am." Now. Reasonably so. As much as I could be expected to be.
Asking of her what he asked of Thor, "Did you mourn?" curious if Thor's had simply been the official version for all to repeat.
"I wept for my own reasons, Loki," Sif said.
"I'm glad to hear it."
"Oh?"
"One would hate for you to weep on command." He tilted his head, slower than he used to, his body still recovering from all and everything. "What reason?" he asked.
Sif considered not answering him. She likewise considered dodging the question, or replying in the form of those riddles he so loved. "Pain." Perfectly honest, and a perfect nonanswer.
Loki barked a laugh, a short miserable sound unlike what used to erupt from his lips as he laughed. "I can scarce imagine the wound, then. To drive the stoic Sif to tears, that must take incredible damage and tenacity, as well as a suicidal preference which would bring a pause to any berserkr."
"It was not a battlefield injury," she said.
Now his face was a mess of simple confusion, a question on his lips, another in his eyes.
As she weighed the best way to inform him of his option to see his child, Thor came charging into the room. As Thor brushed past her, Sif leaped back, her body and mind reeling from the sheer force of the anger and hatred which was flowing off his body.
Slapping his hand against the relevant piece of the container, Thor was recognized, and an open doorway formed in it. Thor stepped inside, grabbed Loki, and carried him out one-handedly.
Sif stepped into his path, blocking his way; however fatal a decision it may be, she accepted that.
"I ask you to move, Sif," Thor said, his voice deep as the storms mortals wove stories around.
"What is happening? Why do you not speak to -" and hesitated, not knowing how to address him - as 'Loki', as 'your brother', as 'my child's father', or as something else.
Thor's answer made no sense to her - she could pick out something which sounded like "Malek"...but the remainder was unfamiliar. I know the military history of all Asgard and her protectorates and dependencies, and a good deal of the other Realms who do not qualify as such. And yet... "Now, as I have answered you, I tell you to step aside."
"And should I refuse, prince Thor?"
"I should not like that," was how he cryptically answered.
"I suppose I don't get a say," Loki said dryly.
"You are needed," Thor said. "Were not your skills vital, I would not have let you from your bowl so soon - three days at least, for you, as it was for me."
Your bowl was a planet, Loki thinks but does not say. He keeps his silence, letting it dangle more than tauntingly while less than mockingly.
In no mood for this, not now, "You will come, or we will find a deeper hole for you," Thor said, laying out the options.
Loki closed his eyes.
"Well?"
Opening one eye open a crack in a passable impression of the Allfather dangling from a tree, Loki said "I'm thinking."
~~~~~~~~~
{Sif leaves the underground prison and returns to the Einherjar barracks to pick up Ullr - only to find the Einherjar milling around outside, afraid to go inside...as Odin's in there. Sif barrels in, warns off Odin, picks up Ullr, and leaves, apologizing to the Einherjar on her way - and as soon as she can, she sets Ullr down and lets herself shake and experience all the terror and dread she should have been feeling when she was shouting at the Allfather}
Odin gives her a patient look, grants her a nod, and walks past her to the door.
Feeling more like she is seeing a feint rather than a true surrender - neither was to be expected - Sif asks after him, "You are leaving?" That easily?
"I beheld your approach before you ever left the prison," Odin said, "and readied myself, for Thor and Loki are not the only ones going into battle."
...
~~~~~~~~~
Loki did not return for another three months, and when he did, it was to drop three feet to the ground in front of the Einherjar barracks when Sif was nearby and singing with Aelfred and the others in the regiment. Everyone fell silent, looking at Loki; which left it to Sif to go over and look down at him.
"Watch the first step," Loki muttered, quoting who-knows-who. Rolling onto his back, he looked up at Sif and smiled. "Did you mourn?"
"None have ever been able to kill you, Loki," Sif reminded him. "It would be premature to mourn."
"Yes, an excellent point. Next time, I'll leave a body."
"Next time, it may be I who kills you."
"I should be so fortunate."
Sif snorted.
Loki frowned, seeing the silenced singers to one side. "Since when did you prefer to have an audience?" he asked her. "Yes yes, I recognize the Einherjar, before you ask. Even Hod would know them."
"Then why did you come back?" Sif asked Loki.
"We must talk."
"We are already talking."
Loki's answer made little sense to her, as it seemed he was calling her a very stark...something. "I have undertaken a great deal, Sif, and while I would care for nothing more than the pleasure of your company - with or without the regimental company - I fear I require food and tending-to... Or at least drink and something flesh-numbing."
Sif pulled out her stamp, the instant signature which was affixed to many short-order agreements drawn up, and handed it to Aelfred. "See this reaches Eir so she sends down her best physicians. And bring some platters of food from the hall - we're all hungry, are we not?" she asked that last part to all the Einherjar, who nodded agreement. Aelfred ran off to do his duty.
Stark assumes that, as a god I would be a poor ruler for his world, Loki mused; yet Odin is not my only role model in these things - more I have been following the example of Sif with her Einherjar, and she is what Stark's vernacular would call 'a patron saint.' Though to be so generous to my subjects, I must first rule them...unlike Sif's relation to these people.
~~~~~~~~~
Sif is looking in her mirror, closing first one eye, then the other, all but glaring at her eyelids; at this time of the year, they refuse to be changed to any other hue or shade, no matter how much blood flows to the various parts of the skin. Normally, this is a good thing. Loki always appreciates their contrariness.
"I can watch him for you," Odin said, standing in her doorway.
"Which 'him'?" Sif asked. Wherein the Allfather is concerned, best to never assume what he means.
"Ullr. While you and Loki are dining this evening. I will watch him for you."
Sif smiled as she stood and walked up to just shy of Odin - close enough that he could kill her with one hand, if he so chose. "Very well, my king. I grant you permission to watch Ullr on this day and night - you do anyway."
Odin smiled at the recognition, for not everyone recalls that when they treat with me.
But she wasn't done yet: "You may stay if you wish in the Einherjar barracks and watch Ullr, for that is where and with whom he will be in my absence. You may not speak to my son, make gestures or magic to him, nor make quail the knees of the Einherjar while my son is under their watch."
"And if they are needed on the battlefield?"
"A battlefield without the Allfather would be a shoddy thing indeed," Sif remarked.
"Oh indeed," he agreed. "Should a battle arise, I will see Ullr handed to Eir - surely the highest medical doctor in Asgard is sufficient."
"I agree," Sif said, and still had the feeling that she had missed a trick somewhere, that Odin had left a loophole where his grandson was concerned.
~~~~~~~~~
Dinner fares well, and is eaten mostly in silence between them. Silence is better than absence, each knows, each for their own reasons.
"Thor relented his grip and relaxed when we reached the battlefield," Loki tells her; "he let my feet touch the ground," which draws a smile from her - the aim of that truth. "He then explained who we were facing and what he needed of me, why my skills were relevant to the battlefield he had brought me to. So I fought alongside him."
She knows what a minefield the subject can be, but feels it need be addressed. "And how was it? A return to the way you used to fight as a unit?"
"It approached that in some moments," Loki allows. "Still, quite jarring to not see you on a battlefield." Jarring, and occurring with increasing frequency... Midgard, New York, and now this latest theater of the war on that red-faced demon.
"I have been required elsewhere," Sif said.
"Ah," Loki says, and leaves it at that.
"You have been missed, Loki."
Had a human said that to me, I would tell her to improve her aim. "Missed, but not searched for. The distinction exists."
"As I said, I have been required elsewhere."
"Ah," Loki says. Then, in an act of mercy, "Thor was full of praise for a youth by the name of Ullr," Loki said. "And he insisted I make the lad's acquaintance."
"You would like him, I think."
"I have no doubt. You know him?"
Sif looked Loki right in the eyes as she said, "I am his mother. We are his parents." A bit boldfaced, and rather abrupt, but after as much as he had been coming and going, little stopping in their lives, she was tired of awaiting.
"I..." Loki said, and it is all Sif can do to not smile at the sight of the Wordsmith himself, rendered mute, caught unable to find what to say. "I am a father." 'I have been required elsewhere' indeed.
"Yes."
"You could have told me..." and to his credit, he does not finish the statement, and keeps accusation far from even the part he said.
"I could have. But when?" Sif asks him. "When you were hunting Thor to ground? When you were imprisoned? The times you were not here?"
You could have continued to hold it back from me, and you would have been in the right. That you spoke of this to me now...Means very much. He dips his head in acknowledgement that she is right, a gesture just shy of hanging his head fully.
And he knows what he must do. The only thing there is to do. The only thing I can do - that which I am good at. And he looks back up at Sif, seeing her grace, savoring what he beholds, storing it up. "Know, Sif, that I always care. Always for you. Now for Ullr as well."
"Long suspected, now knowing," Sif said as Loki rises and walks around the table, and bends toward her.
Loki kisses her.
It is warmth and languidity and tender, caring and attentive. It is all the things she remembers and things which are new where he is concerned - mortality? fear? - and all wrapped in the pressure of Loki's lips. But it is a drink too short for one who has been through the arid places.
Sif looks into his face as he pulls himself slowly away not wanting to go. And sees him vanish.
She does not rush or hurry. She wipes her face and returns to Ullr.
~~~