Thor Fic: "We Are Our Own Folklore" (R, Loki/Darcy, Thor/Jane), 5a/7
LINK TO PART FOUR
Title: We Are Our Own Folklore (Part 5: East of the Sun and West of the Moon)
Characters: Loki, Thor, Darcy, Jane, Amora, Balder, Sif, Warriors Three, Heimdall, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, original characters; mention of others
Pairings: Loki/Darcy, Thor/Jane, Thor/Amora, Volstagg/OC
Rating: R for grimness, dark themes, gender weirdness, mild gore and semi-explicit sexuality
Length: 16,520 words
Summary: After what might seem to some like the world's longest courtship, Loki and Darcy are finally dating, and Thor and Jane are set to be married. But during the engagement party several intervening parties are out to throw a wrench into both relationships in a big way. Some of them are outsiders, but some come from much closer, and through uncomfortable ties to the past.
Notes: Part of my ongoing series. For further notes see part one.
Alternate link to story at AO3; please comment either here or there.
Part 5: East of the Sun and West of the Moon
The element of surprise was a thing that in his years Loki had long mastered as a weapon.
He held it over his enemies, used it to his advantage both on the battlefield and off. At any moment the right word or gesture to catch someone else off-guard could turn an entire situation to his favor.
And it was a tactic he never allowed to be employed against him. With as many secrets as he collected, with as proficient as he was at reading the minds and moods of others, very rarely could Loki himself be surprised. And when he was, with the practice of concealing his emotions, no trace ever showed on his face.
Or at least that was usually the case.
But he was too far gone in his state of shock to have enough presence to even think about hiding it, feeling as though the world had dropped from under his feet.
Balder was dead. Had been dead for millennia. The mortals had told stories about it. There had been odes.
And yet he was standing right in front of Loki, looking back at him, very much alive.
So perhaps Loki could be forgiven if he was temporarily reduced to being able to do nothing but stare, overwhelmed in his total sense of shock.
He knew it had been prophesied that Balder might return someday, that it was hinted his spirit was still with them, but Loki had interpreted that as some form of vague mysticism; at best a reference to reincarnation. He had never thought it might be taken so literally.
Though perhaps he of all people should’ve realized: he too, had neglected to be dead when he was supposed to be, returning when not expected to the astonishment of many.
What an odd thing for the two of them to turn out to have in common.
“You know my name?” Balder demanded, pulling Loki back to fuller awareness. He stared at Loki also, with less trepidation than simple astonishment, and confusion. “You know who I am? How is it, that you know me?”
He moved closer, and there was something beseeching in his wide-eyed glance.
Loki’s eyes darted in the direction of Nezzori and the barkeep, wary. But they were in luck: the two men had moved aside to the table and become embroiled in some other conversation, likely about money.
They looked not Loki and Balder’s way, seemed unaware the two were speaking, in fact seemed to have momentarily forgotten they were even there.
Quickly Loki spun back to face Balder. He knew not what was going on - his head was still awhirl. But there was no time to stop and analyze. He had to make his move if he wanted to keep the upper hand.
If this was truly Balder - and somehow, Loki knew in his heart that it was - it would be a terrible mistake to let him slip through his fingers.
“If you give me the chance I will do my best to explain everything,” he said quietly, intent. “But we must go someplace more private.” Nezzori would sell about anything to make himself coin, even a secret, and the walls could very well have ears. “Will you trust me?”
Balder looked taken aback, but he didn’t consider long before nodding his assent. “Lead the way.” He gestured for Loki to go first, and he obediently followed.
Loki kept his steps silent, Balder in his heavy leather armor and loose-fitting chainmail, not so much. But when Loki stole a look back no one was watching them, their flight evidently unnoticed.
The dressing room had already been set up first right after they arrived - all the other girls were gone, and anyway ‘Throkk’ was allowed her own veiled-off corner. Loki all but shoved Balder through in his hurry to get them inside, drawing the curtains shut and throwing up an arm as he cast a shield to mask their voices.
Balder held his hands awkwardly, neck craning as he shifted on his feet, blushing slightly as he took in the gauzy surroundings and implements of a lady’s toilette.
And for a moment Loki had no voice, for it was all he could do to just stare at him. Head to toe he raked the other man, taking him in with a keen and observant eye.
Balder had not grown up to be the man all of Asgard had imagined. Indeed, he looked very little like the privileged young nobleman Loki had known last.
Inside of his shining well-made raiment, he stood there dressed in the common grubbiness of a hired sword. His clothes were either several years old or had been purchased second-hand; almost nothing fit entirely properly, save his leather jerkin, which out of necessity he’d no doubt sprung to have tailor-made. He had a fine dwarven-made broadsword concealed in a cracked leather scabbard. His boots were caked with mud, his gloves were stained and his mail was unpolished.
This was the prized beauty of Asgard, making a living as a man paid to escort caravans and break up bar-fights? His good looks were hidden under a thin layer of grime and his hair was lank from being unwashed. “Uncouth” did not even begin to describe it. The gentry who loved and mourned Balder would weep to see him now, or else turn their noses up in disgust and horror.
Even Loki, who had professed a possible hatred, at best an outright dislike, felt a sorrow in his chest at seeing Balder brought so low. He was not as Thor had been once, spoiled and prideful. Even the most vindictive part of Loki knew he deserved much better than this.
But it wasn’t just Balder’s change in station that threw him so off. Though Balder was still practically a boy at the time of his death, he’d been old enough one could picture easily the man he would become one day. Something had gone awry in the intervening centuries: Balder was not that man now.
Oh, he stood tall and broad-shouldered, sure enough, and one could see instantly he was an experienced fighter. But he was not a warrior. He was unassuming where he should have been valiant, and amongst the company of men raised on Asgard he would’ve been mediocre. He had the distinct body type of guardsmen and hirelings: muscles in his arms broad and developed, but less so in other places, extra pounds around his waistline that came from living an unchallenging, mostly sedentary life.
And, ultimately, there was an air about him that just seemed…wrong. As though something was missing.
Like Thor, like many of Asgard’s finest, in his memory Balder had constantly seemed to all but shine, possessing an aura so golden and resplendent with Asgardian power that it gave him a glow of sorts.
This Balder seemed…dull. There was nothing spectacular about him, as if that part had been stolen away, leaving behind a body that was empty and uncertain. His hair was not the sturdy chestnut brown of his father’s that Loki remembered: it had turned completely white. Not with premature aging, but with an otherworldly paleness that was distinctly supernatural.
It was the mark, Loki was certain, of someone who’d been touched by magic.
Was that how Balder had been restored, then? If so, by whom - and at what cost?
Balder, Loki thought with an incredulity akin to despair, what has been done to you?
“You said that you knew me,” Balder prompted him. “You called me by my name, though no one spoke it first and I’m certain I never seen you before. So, tell me: do you know me?”
“Oh, yes,” Loki breathed. He took an involuntary step closer, one hand rising as if to brush the hair out of Balder’s eyes for a better look at what was underneath. He stared searchingly. “Though it has aged, I would know this face anywhere. It has been burned into my memory.”
His throat closed and for a moment he caught the acrid taste of centuries-old guilt. His arm dropped, shying back.
“You are Balder, of Asgard,” he finished, voice more even with how he detached his emotions. “Of this there can be no doubt.”
Balder gazed at him. “And what do you know of Balder of Asgard?” he asked, there an almost hungry edge to the question.
It instantly caused Loki’s wariness and unease to rise. “What do you?” he returned, questioning.
Balder’s expression took on an air that was guilty. Shamed. “I know that’s who I am,” he admitted; “Or at least, who I am supposed to be.”
He looked down, eyes weighed with frustrated sadness.
Loki balked with a realization of horror. “You don’t remember.” Despite being a living man, this Balder seemed more like a ghost: a sad, pathetic shade bearing just enough of the traits of who he’d been to provoke resemblance.
And on Balder’s behalf Loki found himself growing angry. Who had done such a thing, raising him only in part like this? Who had been so careless - or worse, had it been purposeful? If so, who had dared?
Balder’s eyes darted back up to his. “Not entirely. I have some memories. I remember Asgard. I remember my life…before.” He sank down into a chair with a sigh, hands reflexively gripping his scabbard. “But everything from that time is so hazy. Nothing is clear in my mind.”
His brow furrowed as he thought, as he tried to explain.
“I remember places, names, but not details. There are so many gaps. It all feels like a dream - or like the memories are from someone else. They don’t feel like mine. It’s more as if they were stories told to me, about somebody else’s life.”
Loki carefully lowered into a crouch, wrists folded over his thighs, so he could look up and study Balder’s face.
“You died,” he stated, senselessly, still impeded by that one irrefutable truth. “I know that you did. It was no trick. I-” His voice cut out, swallowed up by how potentially he could finish that sentence. I smelled your blood. I watched your body fall.
“You were dead,” he repeated in lieu, softly.
Balder gave a stiff nod, the gesture strangely detached.
“I know. I don’t remember that day very well. And I don’t remember…being dead,” he put reluctantly. “Anything from that.” Loki was morbidly relieved: he’d fear for Balder’s sanity if he’d retained knowledge of being in Valhalla - or anywhere else, for that matter. “But somehow that I know with utmost certainty. That I died. That for some time I was a dead man.”
“But what of after?” Loki pressed. “Of this, and now? How were you brought back?”
Balder inhaled quietly. “I think it was the Norns,” he said. “The first thing I remember clearly is awaking in their care. I know not exactly how they fished my soul out of the abyss and gave me life once more. I didn’t care to ask.” He shook his head. “They didn’t seem to have much purpose in it, either. I would almost venture they did it only because they could.”
“The Sisterhood has ways that can seem strange indeed at times - I wouldn’t put it past them.” Still Loki was shaken. “But all this time they’ve known you were alive, and sent not one word back to Vanaheim or Asgard?”
“No. At first I was almost afraid at the thought of going home - for try as I might, it didn’t feel like ‘home’ to me. Everything in my head seemed so confused and strange. The Norns assured me that after what I’d been through it was not at all odd I’d come back…differently. They told me that time, or something I experienced, might cause the fog to be lifted and restore me to myself.”
“But that never happened,” Loki gathered, “did it.”
“No.” Dejectedly Balder shook his head. “I waited but nothing ever changed. Finally I decided that memories or no, I should return to my family and my duty. But the Norns’ queen wouldn’t let me. She tried to dissuade me, to convince me I should relax and wait further until I felt more sure.”
“How very predictable of Karnilla,” Loki said disapprovingly, stilted. “And let me guess: she wanted you to carry out that ‘waiting’ in the comfort of her arms?”
“She did.” Balder was a mixture of embarrassed and bitter. “But I would not submit to her. I had no desire to spend forever as her pet. When eventually I realized she would never cooperate and help me, I managed to escape.” He raised a hand. “I found myself in Svartalfheim and here I’ve been ever since.”
Loki chose not to fixate on that Karnilla may very well have only brought Balder back so she could have him as a consort - that she had made a plaything of heaven and earth so she could have the noble warrior all to herself, even in his diminished state.
“But why stay here?” he asked instead. “Why not return to Asgard?”
Balder gave a helpless shrug. In his pale blue eyes Loki could see how earnest he was, how very lost he felt. “I had not the means, and I didn’t know the way. And,” he confessed, “I didn’t entirely see what good it would do. The Norns told me of how much I was mourned over, how worshipped I had been. I felt going back when I’m this way, I would only be a disappointment.”
He would be, Loki thought to himself with grim honesty. This frank and confused warrior was not for whom the hallowed halls of Asgard had rung with fallen tears.
But that wasn’t his fault. And it didn’t matter: he was still Balder. He belonged on Asgard, with his friends, with his people. Maybe the All-Father knew something to be done that would return whatever had been taken from him.
In any case Loki knew he had to convince Balder to stay with him, to follow him so he could get them both back to Asgard once he figured out the way.
And the fact that a living Balder would instantly derail the tension and danger that threatened Loki’s own existence there - was only a part of his reasoning, truly. It was the right thing to put Balder back where he was meant to be.
“But now I’ve told you my tale,” Balder spoke up, interrupting his thoughts, “and you have yet to tell me yours. You promised me an answer. So please now, explain. How is it that you already knew who I was?”
Loki met his eyes for a moment and swallowed. He intentionally kept his face guarded as he rose back to his feet.
“What I’m about to tell you will seem…fantastic,” he began. “And it must be kept a secret between us. But for all that, it is no less true, and hopefully within my power to convince you.” He cleared his throat. “I recognize you, because I was there the day you died. I am your cousin. Loki.”
Confusion washed freely over Balder’s face as he stared at him. “Forgive me,” he said, flat, “but when I said my memories of the past weren’t so clear, I did not mean-”
“You think I mock your intellect?” Loki almost laughed. “No, no. You misunderstand. I was already practicing magic when you were still with us on Asgard.” With one hand he gestured, indicating his body. “My talents have much improved over the centuries that have passed. And there are times when it benefits me to travel in another form, so that I may not be recognized.”
“You are a shapeshifter,” Balder understood, astonished. “But why of all things a Jotun? And a woman?”
Loki drew his mouth into a tight line. “It is at this point an incredibly long and complicated tale, Balder. One I don’t think I could make you understand, in your present state.”
A half-truth. It made Loki weary to even think of retelling the whole story, but also there were parts of it he simply did not wish his cousin to know. Particularly how Balder’s own mother had gone so mad with grief she’d all but enacted a coup.
“But if you doubt my honesty by all means, you have the right to test me,” Loki continued. “Ask me anything you think I should know.”
“You already know my memories are less than whole,” Balder pointed out, doubtful. “No secrets come to mind that only my cousins and I should be privy to.”
But as he stood up, back straightening, there was a deeply contemplative look on his face.
“I do remember Loki, a bit. I remember dark hair and a smirking face. He was clever, and quick, and seemed always to be in trouble. And he could be incredibly mean-spirited at times when his temper was roused. But he was giving to his friends and longed to be a good servant to Asgard.”
Blue eyes focused on Loki once more.
“It seems almost too incredible a story to be simply made-up. And I have no real reason to doubt what you say.” He offered a passive smile. “If you are truly my cousin, then I will accept it at that.”
It was really too easy. But the Balder that Loki remembered had been a generous and trusting soul - evidently his centuries of hardships had not taken that from him. It was an aggravating trait in general but for present circumstances it suited Loki perfectly.
He moved closer, reaching to lay a careful hand on the back of Balder’s gloved forearm.
“I am at present stranded here, unable to use the Bifrost. But the whole reason I’m with this group is so I can search for a passage of my own.” He stated intensely, “You come with me, and I’ll be able to get us both home.”
“But how can I travel with you?” Balder questioned. “Wouldn’t your employer notice if I was following you from town to town?”
Loki shook his head. “Leave that to me,” he promised. “I’ll get Nezzori to hire you on. That way it won’t raise any suspicion.”
He went to the curtains and pulled one aside, checking the coast was clear. Seeing it was he swiftly gestured to Balder to go.
“Come back after the show. I’ll have things in order by then. And remember,” he pressed a finger across his lips, “not a word of this, to anyone. No one can know who or what I really am.”
“You have my word,” Balder swore. He bowed his head and took his leave.
It was a good thing that by then Loki had his routine firmly down in his muscle memory. If he had had to think while on stage, it might not have been possible. He could scarcely believe all that’d happened.
Balder was alive. Everything that had come because of his death and after, and Balder lived. He was alive and of all the places in the Nine Realms he could’ve been, he and Loki had crossed paths. Loki had seen and experienced much in his time, but this was pushing the boundaries.
It was hard not to describe it using the word ‘miracle’.
After he left the stage Loki didn’t even bother to change out of his costume before going to find Nezzori. The man was squeezed in at a table in a hidden room near the back of the tavern, giving him enough sight and sound he could tell in general how the audience was reacting.
Evidently the night was going well. Nezzori seemed pleased. Loki would use that to his advantage.
He started the conversation slow, sweetly reminding Nezzori of how much success Throkk had, specifically, brought to him. How it was so good of him, so reasonable, in how he had so far been extra accommodating of her needs.
Nezzori was no fool. He had to know Loki was going to ask for something. But he waited patiently, smiling indulgently all the while, putting in the occasional note of agreement.
Finally Loki brought up the ‘faint concerns’ he had been having about personal safety. Throkk was very popular, and some of the less savory places they’d been had boasted men that tried to follow or lay hands on her. Because of both her profession and her race, people didn’t always think to treat her respectfully.
(Loki could have very easily eviscerated anyone who came too close, but of course he didn’t let the man know that.)
“So,” Nezzori said, frowning faintly, “what is it you would like me to do?”
“I want a personal guard,” Loki told him. “Just one, a man to stay at my side late at night and stand outside my dressing room as an extra precaution. You know you can afford it. And after everything I’ve done for you, I think you can agree that I’m worth it.”
Nezzori grunted and scratched at his cheek, scowling, but he didn’t voice disagreement with either of these facts.
“I’ve even already found someone for the job,” Loki continued. “That man the tavern’s owner introduced us to today, his head of security. I like the look of him. He seems strong and reliable. And you wouldn’t have a hard time hiring him away: he wants to travel. You wouldn’t have to pay him much more than he already makes.”
Nezzori chortled. “Oho, so is that how it is?” He leaned back on his chair. “You surprise me, Throkk. All this time I figured you must be as coldblooded as they say of your kind. But one look at that pudgy, doe-eyed stout and you’ve gone sweet on him.”
Loki frowned deeply. “That isn’t it at all.” He felt obligated to add, “And he isn’t ‘pudgy’.”
“I’d say he’s carrying a bit of a belly,” was Nezzori’s sage retort. He patted his own not insubstantial stomach. “I think I’d be in a position to know. But, that’s beside the point. If he’s your type-”
“He’s not,” Loki stressed, aggravated. “I swear he’s not. I just want you to give him the job, that’s all.”
“I’m sure,” Nezzori said, clearly not believing a word of it. “If it’ll keep my main event happy and doesn’t cost me too much, I see no reason to object. But you know how I feel about my girls having relationships with my other employees. Keep it quiet, and you’re fine. I actually see anything, and you’re both out.”
“Believe me,” Loki replied, somewhat terse, “you won’t see a thing.”
But he’d gotten what he wanted, so as annoying as the misinterpretation was, he wasn’t going to argue.
Balder came back after the show, as promised. And if he seemed surprised Loki handled everything so easily, he showed no apprehension about going along with what had been planned.
When they left town and packed up again, heading to their next engagement, Balder came with them. From that day on he was part of the arrangement. He travelled in the same cart as Throkk and her things, helped her pack and unpack and generally responded dutifully in tending to her every need.
He was equal parts manservant and bodyguard. Loki found it bewildering, while his twisted inner self enjoyed it: Balder the Bright, the pride and exemplar of Asgard, waiting on him hand and foot. Jumping to answer his every command without hesitation.
It was so very wrong, and Loki knew that was why his dark half found it pleasing - Balder should be no one’s servant, least of all that of Asgard’s most disappointing outcast. Least of all that of his murderer. The man should have more self-respect.
But there was much about this version of Balder that was not as it should be.
If there had been any lingering doubt, Loki cast it aside with something that happened less than a week into their journey.
There’d been a fight at the bar the troupe was performing at. Balder intervened; the audience stopped watching the girls in favor of potentially bloodier spectacle, and Loki had stopped wasting his time with the pole, his position on the stage giving him an especially good vantage of the fight.
“You were holding back,” Loki noted later, when Balder came into the dressing rooms to check up.
Many of the dancers were sweet on Balder. They crooned at him and teased him, waving their scarves and draping feathers around his neck. Balder would flush and stammer and then decorously ignore them.
Though he left much to be desired in cunning, so far Balder had been perfectly careful about keeping Loki’s secret, only using his real name or addressing him as “cousin” when it was certain they were alone.
Not that there weren’t plenty of opportunities for that. Balder took his alleged duty very seriously and was constantly hanging around him. Loki had a suspicious impression Balder didn’t know what to do with himself without Loki giving commands.
“I would say I gave my fair share,” in the present Balder replied mildly, fingers curled in lazy posture around his belt. “I wasn’t about to let them harm any of the women, or the other patrons for that matter.”
“But it took you too long,” Loki insisted. “I know how strong you are; I’ve taken your measure. You could have ended that one brute with a single blow.”
Balder’s face darkened. “I could have.”
“So why didn’t you?” Loki simply didn’t understand. It had nothing to do with pride or modesty, but practicality and skill. Certainly Balder couldn’t have lingered because he was bored with the challenge.
Balder gave him a wide-eyed look of earnest disbelief.
“I only wanted to stop him,” he said. “I didn’t want to kill him.”
Loki frowned and waved an absent hand, not understanding him at first. “It’s nice to end the occasional round of combat without bloodshed, if possible. But-”
“No,” Balder cut him off, insistent. “You aren’t listening. Cousin, I do not kill. Ever.”
For a beat Loki just stared at him. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Balder,” he demanded, “do you consider yourself a…a pacifist?”
He said the word almost in a gasp. But supreme as his shock was, it was still better than the reaction it’d have garnered on Asgard. There they said that particular word as if it were profanity.
Balder inclined his head. “I can’t deny the fighter’s spirit I have in me, and I make my living with the sword, but I try to avoid violence whenever possible,” he confirmed. “And I would never take a life. Not under any circumstances.”
Loki gazed up blankly. His voice came out shrill in protest and denial, dumbfounded.
“But, you are Balder the Brave! You are a warrior of Asgard, a noble son of Vanaheim. You fought alongside ‘Mighty’ Thor and shared in his adventures,” he exclaimed. “You were proud of what you were, and honored for it!”
“What you say may be true, but I don’t remember any pride,” Balder stated gently. “I don’t remember any glorious adventures. It was another life. What I know in this one is the thought of being responsible for the death of another living being makes me sick. I can never do it. Not even in self-defense.”
“But that’s-!” Loki started to expound, stammered, and then trailed off.
He managed to compose himself before he stood to meet Balder’s eyes with grave sincerity, his voice softer.
“That’s not an attitude they have, where we’re going. Do you not understand? If you insist on that when you get back to Asgard, they’ll brand you a coward,” he stressed. “You will be openly mocked.”
“Then so be it,” Balder replied with no hesitation, only the solemnity of quiet personal conviction. “They can think whatever they like of me. I’ll know that they’re wrong.”
“But,” Loki started again, floundering - this was wrong, this was all wrong. Balder wasn’t supposed to be an outcast, an object of scorn. He was supposed to be a warrior, the best of them all. He was supposed to be loved, and enjoy that.
Balder didn’t give him the chance to try and get out the words to explain any of that.
“I won’t change my ways or what I know in my heart to be right to find the approval of people I barely remember,” he claimed, almost scoffing. “Your concerns are touching, and I thank you, but voicing them isn’t going to convince me. Please, don’t waste time worrying about me.”
That request had no effect - as Loki watched Balder walk away, he found he was doing a great deal of worrying. Not all of it directly about Balder.
There was an awful numb feeling in his stomach as he tried sorting his way through his thoughts.
There was no point in denying it. Balder was just so different now. Loki had kept dismissing it, likening it akin to a phase, a problem that could be fixed once Balder was home again.
But what if there was no “fixing” it? What if death had changed Balder permanently? What if the youth that’d been in the process of being sculpted had been lost forever, and this was just who Balder was now?
A kindhearted, honest, somewhat simple-minded man, who was stronger than most but was no true Asgardian, no god.
He would never live up to the expectations that’d been set for him. People would slight him, insult him, tell him to his face with the greatest pity how tragic it was he had lost his former glory.
The entire time they’d been journeying Balder had shown no real interest in Asgard. He never asked Loki any questions. Not about his family or members of Loki’s, not about any of his old friends, not about what happened in the years since his death. It was like he didn’t care at all.
It was like he had put his trust in Loki completely, blindly, and thought he didn’t need to know anything else.
Or perhaps he’d simply become an empty vessel, devoid of his own purpose or desires, content to follow orders and live as the extension of another’s will.
When they got back to Asgard, he would be eaten alive.
Loki shivered to think of it, because the truth was he’d become a different person too. Gone was the spiteful boy who hadn’t stopped to think things through in desire to see his cousin hurt.
He had thought by finding Balder and returning him to Asgard alive once more he somehow balanced out the deed from his past, erased his crime, made amends.
But now he couldn’t help but wonder if by dragging Balder back he was in truth doing him more harm than good.
*
Darcy was trying not to feel like she was about to go absolutely crazy.
It’d been three weeks since Loki vanished. Three whole weeks, and edging in on four.
It wasn’t even that she had gone for so long without seeing her boyfriend. It was that nobody seemed to know where he was.
And for some reason she couldn’t anyone to pay attention to that.
At first she had been too preoccupied, what with Siún and Volstagg and the baby and all. The husband had arrived in a frantic rush to sit by his wife’s side, to hold her hand and try his best to comfort her as she whimpered and groaned.
Even though she didn’t need to be there by that point, Darcy felt like she couldn’t leave. No one tried to kick her out, and she wanted to stay to lend her friends support. So she took a place by the opposite side of Siún’s bed, holding her other hand, whispering reassuring words to the woman in labor. She mopped the sweat off her brow and tried not to cringe when the bloody stuff started, and did what she could to distract Siún from the pain.
Though the caesarian obviously sped things up a lot, the whole ordeal took the better part of a day. Darcy hung back feeling superfluous and awkward as the screaming newborn was hustled into a corner to be washed and examined, as two healers tended to the new mother who’d fallen into an unconscious swoon, as Volstagg’s head jerked back and forth as he fretfully tried to watch what was happening to both at once.
But when all was said and done, Siún recovered enough she was able to sit up, one of Volstagg’s arms propping her at the waist, the two of them with heads pressed together as they were handed their son.
The baby was crying and squirming, tiny fists waving in the air, eyes shut against the light. He was red-skinned and chubby and still a bit on the slimy side.
Volstagg and Siún gasped and beamed over him like he was the most beautiful thing ever.
For the next few days Siún was groggy and at the healers’ advice she remained in bed. Volstagg and Darcy both slept in her room and took turns hovering over her in case she needed anything.
The baby was kept in a large white beribboned bassinet that was brought into the bedroom. He slept happily, but could grow pretty loud and fussy when he wanted a feeding.
By the next morning after his birth, his ruddiness had died down to a rosy pink. There were curly stands of ginger hair already springing from his head, his eyes were round and curious, and his cheeks were especially chubby. Darcy was willing to bet he weighed significantly more than a normal newborn on Earth would.
“Does he have a name yet?” she gently asked the happy couple.
Siún and Volstagg exchanged a glance, smiling, before returning their gazes to the being bundled in his mother’s arms.
“Yes,” Siún answered, as Volstagg stroked her hair between his fingers. “His name is Saemund.”
“Saemund Volstaggson,” the father said, reverently, eyes bright with joy and wonder. He laughed as the infant made an insistent sucking sound, head craning towards Siún’s breast. “Ah, see! Already he does me proud.”
When the exhaustion and excitement had worn off, and Darcy left the new parents to learn how to deal with things on their own, the rest of the world she had pushed at bay while her focus was solely on Siún caught up with her. She went right back to worrying.
This long after the fact there could be absolutely no doubt that Loki wasn’t on Asgard. The rest of their friends hadn’t seen him. There still were no clues where he had gone.
And while Darcy was too respectful to keep nagging Frigga - and too intimidated to approach Odin - she was convinced that they needed to be doing something. Someone had to go and look for him.
She tried time and time again bringing the subject up to Thor, but to her supreme frustration, starting to border on disbelief, she kept not being able to speak freely to him or Jane. One way or another, she got thwarted at every turn.
The engagement festivities were in full swing now, and Jane and Thor seemed to always be in the middle of doing something. Darcy would get up first thing in the morning to look for them, only to be told they’d gone to see a play being performed in their honor - and since the show had already started, she couldn’t be let into the theatre. When it was over, the betrothed pair would disappear surrounded by a crowd of courtiers, invited to a private luncheon in one of their rooms. She would go to Jane’s bedroom later but she would never be there: she’d be off for a walk or a boat ride or a sojourn on horseback alone with Thor.
Even at dinner Darcy could never manage to talk to them. There were so many people clamoring for their attention, wanting to give them congratulations or make a toast, that Darcy couldn’t get a word in edgewise. She’d start a sentence and then one loud Asgardian or another would speak over her, and Thor and Jane’s attention would be lost. She could barely even get them to look at her.
It was insane. She was aggravated, unsettled, and feeling like she’d fallen into an episode of the Twilight Zone. Had everyone but her forgotten about Loki?
Didn’t Thor worry at all what might’ve happened to his brother? And since when had they become so swept up in the partying they couldn’t pay attention to anything else - especially Jane?
It absolutely, emphatically did not make any sense. But she was at a loss for an explanation as to what was going on.
Finally, after days straight of fuming and stalking, Darcy had had enough. And she also had an opening. She found Jane sitting on a terrace, surrounded by a tittering group of handmaidens that were brushing her hair and making appreciative remarks over some of her engagement gifts.
It was the kind of gathering that’d normally make Jane sigh and try not to roll her eyes , fidgeting in her anxiety for a chance to get away. But for some reason at present she was basking in it.
With no preamble Darcy rushed in and went straight up to her. “We need to talk,” she announced.
Jane’s eyes turned to her slowly and she gave a distracted frown. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, actually, you can. By you and Thor giving me maybe five minutes of your friggin’ time!”
With a look tinged by disapproval Jane waved at the women currently fussing over her to stop. “I don’t really think that’s an appropriate way for a lady-in-waiting to speak,” she noted with an airy laugh of disbelief.
“Lady-in-waiting?” Darcy repeated, indignant. “Okay, I get that maybe you want to practice for being space royalty and all, but I am so not having it with this ‘We are not amused’ shtick. I’m not your servant, Jane, I’m your assistant?” she reminded the other woman condescendingly. “Not to mention your friend. Or so I thought.”
Jane blinked once, and then she plastered a smile across her face. “Of course, my dear friend. Darcy.” She rose to her feet, chuckling. “I was only teasing you!”
“I should sure hope so,” Darcy retorted. “Not that I find it very funny.” She gave Jane the sideways eye as she looked her up and down. For a moment there she could’ve sworn she heard hesitation in Jane’s voice - like she had forgotten her name. “What’s gotten into you?”
Jane tilted her head, giving her an innocent and confused expression. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
“Okay, that. That is exactly the kind of thing that I mean.” Darcy pointed. “Since when do you talk with all the fluttery language and the thees and thous? It’s wigging me out.”
“I’m only trying to emulate the people I’ll be queen over,” Jane said sweetly, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. “Don’t you think it is more fitting? More proper?”
Darcy stared at her. “I think it sounds like you’re turning into some Shakespearean Valley Girl caricature,” she stated, flat. “Why would you do that, anyway? Thor’s already head over heels crazy about you.”
Jane moved over to play with a bouquet of gilded flowers, an oddly smug look on her face.
“Hmm. He most certainly is, isn’t he.”
Darcy’s alarm bells were going off so hard she was forced to take a moment to clear her head, shaking it, her eyes squeezed shut with a look of dumbfounded incredulity. What in the nine worlds was wrong with Jane?
Before she could come up with something next to say, she heard footsteps behind her, and she opened her eyes to see Thor had appeared.
“My love,” he called, evidently in an extra gushy mood today. “As promised, I have returned to your side.” He reached towards her eagerly.
“Oh, Thor,” Jane said in a breathy, pleased voice. She sashayed - yes, sashayed - over to him, hips working with every step. She leaned into his body as she balanced on the ball one of foot, reaching out to stroke his face with the back of her hand. “I’m so glad you were prompt in coming back to me. You know how I hate not having you close.”
“I know,” Thor agreed. “I too suffer for every moment I cannot see your face.”
Darcy took a step closer, hands limply at her sides, shoulders raised, watching with eyes narrowed, abjectly confused.
There was something so off about this. Thor was looking at Jane way too reverently, even for him - there was something glassy-eyed about his expression, almost unfocused. And Jane’s responding look to Thor was less fond than it was possessive, petting him in a way like she would reward an obedient dog.
“Okay, I think you guys have been spending too much time together. You’re acting like a couple of lovesick zombies.”
Jane turned to give Darcy a displeased, lofty look over her shoulder, while Thor gazed at her blankly.
“If anything, I think we could do with less interruptions,” she replied, slipping in a terse, halfhearted, “No offense.” She backed away. “Thor, darling, why don’t you show her to the door like a gentleman?”
“As you wish, Jane.”
“What? Wait, you can’t just - I need to talk to you!”
Thor marched forward and put a hand on her forearm, turning her around. He didn’t push her, but his whole manner was so forceful there was absolutely nothing Darcy could do to resist. Short of digging her heels in and letting him drag her, anyway.
Jane watched them both idly, one finger playing with a stand of her hair. “I’m sure whatever it is, it can wait.”
“It really can’t,” Darcy squawked, as she was hurried along. “Seriously, you guys, what gives? This isn’t funny!”
But before she knew it Jane was out of sight, Thor having successfully brought her all the way back inside to the hallway.
“Good day to you, Darcy,” he said, emotionless, and then turned like he was going to go back.
“Thor, stop!” Darcy practically screamed. “Wait!” She stared at him, fists clenched and shaking. But at least the loudness of her voice got his attention. He was giving her a puzzled look.
“What is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Thor murmured. He was looking at her like he saw right through her.
Darcy shook her head, throat tight with anxiety. “Whatever is going on with Jane, it’s rubbing off on you too. The two of you have been acting like totally different people.”
Thor frowned. “Do not speak ill of my lady-love. She is the most beautiful, most flawless being in all of Asgard, and is beyond compare.”
The words kind of sounded like Thor, but the way he said them didn’t. It was like Jane was a god and he was worshipping her. A robot would have come across as less enslaved.
Entreatingly Darcy reached out and put her hands on his biceps. “Look, Jane is awesome; I’m not going to argue with that. But you’re acting like her puppet. You need to snap out of it, now.”
“I don’t understand you, Darcy,” he insisted, stubbornly. “There is nothing for me to ‘snap out’ of. I am fine.” It wasn’t very convincing, considering he sounded like he was in a trance.
Darcy would have tried to slap him back into awareness - except one time early on in her friendship with Loki had taught her that a human smacking an Asgardian in the face was a way to practically break a hand. Her grip tightened on Thor and she threw her whole body’s weight into it as she attempted shaking him. Of course he didn’t move an inch.
“Please! You have to listen to me,” she exclaimed. “God, I wish Loki wasn’t missing. Maybe he could figure out what the hell was going on.”
“What did you say?” Thor blinked - Darcy felt a flutter of hope as his brow started to wrinkle, concerned. “Loki…is missing?” His voice was like he was slowly waking up from a dream.
“Yes! Loki, your brother, is missing, and he has been for weeks! This is what I’ve been trying to tell you, only you wouldn’t pay attention! Can you hear me now?” When he shook his head distractedly, expression starting to cloud over again, she leaned in and shouted in his face. “Thor!”
He blinked again, more rapidly. And this time she could actually see him wake up, shaking the clouds off.
“Darcy? Why are you yelling?” he questioned. “What has happened? I-” And then his blue eyes snapped into focus, widening with intent and alarm. “Loki! My brother - you were saying something about him?” Now it was his turn to grab her by the arms.
“Oh thank gods, you’re back,” Darcy sighed. “Thor, there’s something seriously wrong with Jane.”
“Yes,” he agreed at once, musing. “She has not at all been like herself.” He glanced over his shoulder, back in the direction of the door between them and where she was. “I should-”
“No, don’t!” Darcy managed to pull free enough to latch onto him. “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you go back in there you’ll just get the whammy put on you all over again. You have to stay away from her.”
“But how else are we to find out what is causing this?” Thor asked, despairingly. “How else are we to save her?”
“I don’t know,” Darcy admitted. She shook her head and sighed, frustrated, as she thought out loud. “If it’s magic though, then that’s another reason we need to find Loki. Maybe he could fix it.”
“You think what’s wrong with Jane must be some sort of magic?” Thor shot a look at the door again. “That she is under some kind of curse?”
“It’s like she’s been replaced with a pod person ‘Mean Girls’ version of herself,” Darcy retorted. “There isn’t much in the way of mundane explanations for that. Why, what do you think?”
Thor frowned contemplatively, head moving like he was trying to clear it further.
“I do not know. The past few days are as if in a dream in my mind - maybe longer. I can remember nothing Jane did or said specifically, only that my every instinct tells me something is wrong.”
“No kidding. Could someone be trying to wreck your engagement by messing with you?”
“Both I and Asgard have no shortage of enemies. But I’m at a loss as to think who would try to interfere with us in this way.” Thor’s expression darkened. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Darcy pounced on that eagerly.
Instead of replying Thor gazed at her, giving an anxious and guilty look. The pieces clicked into place in Darcy’s head.
“You think Loki might have done this? No way!”
“Darcy…”
“No,” she cut him off, stubborn. “I don’t believe it. I know messing with you is like his thing, but this was so important to you guys. Why would he? What could he possibly have to gain from it?”
“My brother didn’t always need something to gain so long as he could make me look the fool,” Thor said gravely. “It would explain why he chooses not to show his face now. And…I didn’t want to tell you this, Darcy. But shortly before he disappeared, we had an argument. It seemed to me Loki does not approve of my marriage to Jane.”
“He never said anything about it to me,” Darcy protested weakly. Though he did, at one point, go on about how dumb it was for a god to marry a mortal. “Listen. If Loki was mad at you, or Jane, or anyone else, he sounded like he was over it the last time we talked. He was much more worried about Nanna. What if she’s done something to him? Kidnapped him, or-”
“The idea would be outrageous,” Thor said, flabbergasted. “Our aunt is a noblewoman. Her grief and rage may be great, but to actually do such a thing-”
“You think that’s less likely than Loki using his magic to attack you and Jane?” Darcy demanded angrily.
Thor’s expression fell. “I don’t know,” he said softly, greatly saddened. “You have no idea how much I’d like to believe that my brother is innocent. That he would never hurt me this way again.” He hung his head. “I do believe it - but I can’t be certain whether or not that comes from mere hope.”
Darcy tried to relax her ire, looking at Thor with more sympathy. The past was always going to make things really hard between the brothers, unfortunately.
“Why don’t we agree to disagree,” she offered. “Whether Loki had anything to do with it or not, whether he’s in trouble or he just ran away, the point is he’s been gone for weeks, and we need to find him.”
Thor straightened up. “Yes,” he concurred, grasping onto this as his princely reserve returned to him. “Whether it was of his own doing or not, Loki’s disappearance is a cause for concern. And if I am looking for him, it will give me an excuse to stay away from Jane.”
“Which can only be a good thing at this point,” Darcy couldn’t help but saying, “because I don’t think you can afford to lose any more brain cells. I promise I’ll try to keep an eye on her for you while you’re gone, okay? Hard as it’ll be for me to stand her.”
Thor smiled and rested a hand on Darcy’s shoulder.
“Thank you, for everything you have done. You are as ever a good friend to me and my family.”
Darcy managed to smile back at him, a stinging in her eyes. “You’re welcome. Now get out there and bring our boy home.”
*
LINK TO CONCLUSION
Title: We Are Our Own Folklore (Part 5: East of the Sun and West of the Moon)
Characters: Loki, Thor, Darcy, Jane, Amora, Balder, Sif, Warriors Three, Heimdall, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, original characters; mention of others
Pairings: Loki/Darcy, Thor/Jane, Thor/Amora, Volstagg/OC
Rating: R for grimness, dark themes, gender weirdness, mild gore and semi-explicit sexuality
Length: 16,520 words
Summary: After what might seem to some like the world's longest courtship, Loki and Darcy are finally dating, and Thor and Jane are set to be married. But during the engagement party several intervening parties are out to throw a wrench into both relationships in a big way. Some of them are outsiders, but some come from much closer, and through uncomfortable ties to the past.
Notes: Part of my ongoing series. For further notes see part one.
Alternate link to story at AO3; please comment either here or there.
Part 5: East of the Sun and West of the Moon
The element of surprise was a thing that in his years Loki had long mastered as a weapon.
He held it over his enemies, used it to his advantage both on the battlefield and off. At any moment the right word or gesture to catch someone else off-guard could turn an entire situation to his favor.
And it was a tactic he never allowed to be employed against him. With as many secrets as he collected, with as proficient as he was at reading the minds and moods of others, very rarely could Loki himself be surprised. And when he was, with the practice of concealing his emotions, no trace ever showed on his face.
Or at least that was usually the case.
But he was too far gone in his state of shock to have enough presence to even think about hiding it, feeling as though the world had dropped from under his feet.
Balder was dead. Had been dead for millennia. The mortals had told stories about it. There had been odes.
And yet he was standing right in front of Loki, looking back at him, very much alive.
So perhaps Loki could be forgiven if he was temporarily reduced to being able to do nothing but stare, overwhelmed in his total sense of shock.
He knew it had been prophesied that Balder might return someday, that it was hinted his spirit was still with them, but Loki had interpreted that as some form of vague mysticism; at best a reference to reincarnation. He had never thought it might be taken so literally.
Though perhaps he of all people should’ve realized: he too, had neglected to be dead when he was supposed to be, returning when not expected to the astonishment of many.
What an odd thing for the two of them to turn out to have in common.
“You know my name?” Balder demanded, pulling Loki back to fuller awareness. He stared at Loki also, with less trepidation than simple astonishment, and confusion. “You know who I am? How is it, that you know me?”
He moved closer, and there was something beseeching in his wide-eyed glance.
Loki’s eyes darted in the direction of Nezzori and the barkeep, wary. But they were in luck: the two men had moved aside to the table and become embroiled in some other conversation, likely about money.
They looked not Loki and Balder’s way, seemed unaware the two were speaking, in fact seemed to have momentarily forgotten they were even there.
Quickly Loki spun back to face Balder. He knew not what was going on - his head was still awhirl. But there was no time to stop and analyze. He had to make his move if he wanted to keep the upper hand.
If this was truly Balder - and somehow, Loki knew in his heart that it was - it would be a terrible mistake to let him slip through his fingers.
“If you give me the chance I will do my best to explain everything,” he said quietly, intent. “But we must go someplace more private.” Nezzori would sell about anything to make himself coin, even a secret, and the walls could very well have ears. “Will you trust me?”
Balder looked taken aback, but he didn’t consider long before nodding his assent. “Lead the way.” He gestured for Loki to go first, and he obediently followed.
Loki kept his steps silent, Balder in his heavy leather armor and loose-fitting chainmail, not so much. But when Loki stole a look back no one was watching them, their flight evidently unnoticed.
The dressing room had already been set up first right after they arrived - all the other girls were gone, and anyway ‘Throkk’ was allowed her own veiled-off corner. Loki all but shoved Balder through in his hurry to get them inside, drawing the curtains shut and throwing up an arm as he cast a shield to mask their voices.
Balder held his hands awkwardly, neck craning as he shifted on his feet, blushing slightly as he took in the gauzy surroundings and implements of a lady’s toilette.
And for a moment Loki had no voice, for it was all he could do to just stare at him. Head to toe he raked the other man, taking him in with a keen and observant eye.
Balder had not grown up to be the man all of Asgard had imagined. Indeed, he looked very little like the privileged young nobleman Loki had known last.
Inside of his shining well-made raiment, he stood there dressed in the common grubbiness of a hired sword. His clothes were either several years old or had been purchased second-hand; almost nothing fit entirely properly, save his leather jerkin, which out of necessity he’d no doubt sprung to have tailor-made. He had a fine dwarven-made broadsword concealed in a cracked leather scabbard. His boots were caked with mud, his gloves were stained and his mail was unpolished.
This was the prized beauty of Asgard, making a living as a man paid to escort caravans and break up bar-fights? His good looks were hidden under a thin layer of grime and his hair was lank from being unwashed. “Uncouth” did not even begin to describe it. The gentry who loved and mourned Balder would weep to see him now, or else turn their noses up in disgust and horror.
Even Loki, who had professed a possible hatred, at best an outright dislike, felt a sorrow in his chest at seeing Balder brought so low. He was not as Thor had been once, spoiled and prideful. Even the most vindictive part of Loki knew he deserved much better than this.
But it wasn’t just Balder’s change in station that threw him so off. Though Balder was still practically a boy at the time of his death, he’d been old enough one could picture easily the man he would become one day. Something had gone awry in the intervening centuries: Balder was not that man now.
Oh, he stood tall and broad-shouldered, sure enough, and one could see instantly he was an experienced fighter. But he was not a warrior. He was unassuming where he should have been valiant, and amongst the company of men raised on Asgard he would’ve been mediocre. He had the distinct body type of guardsmen and hirelings: muscles in his arms broad and developed, but less so in other places, extra pounds around his waistline that came from living an unchallenging, mostly sedentary life.
And, ultimately, there was an air about him that just seemed…wrong. As though something was missing.
Like Thor, like many of Asgard’s finest, in his memory Balder had constantly seemed to all but shine, possessing an aura so golden and resplendent with Asgardian power that it gave him a glow of sorts.
This Balder seemed…dull. There was nothing spectacular about him, as if that part had been stolen away, leaving behind a body that was empty and uncertain. His hair was not the sturdy chestnut brown of his father’s that Loki remembered: it had turned completely white. Not with premature aging, but with an otherworldly paleness that was distinctly supernatural.
It was the mark, Loki was certain, of someone who’d been touched by magic.
Was that how Balder had been restored, then? If so, by whom - and at what cost?
Balder, Loki thought with an incredulity akin to despair, what has been done to you?
“You said that you knew me,” Balder prompted him. “You called me by my name, though no one spoke it first and I’m certain I never seen you before. So, tell me: do you know me?”
“Oh, yes,” Loki breathed. He took an involuntary step closer, one hand rising as if to brush the hair out of Balder’s eyes for a better look at what was underneath. He stared searchingly. “Though it has aged, I would know this face anywhere. It has been burned into my memory.”
His throat closed and for a moment he caught the acrid taste of centuries-old guilt. His arm dropped, shying back.
“You are Balder, of Asgard,” he finished, voice more even with how he detached his emotions. “Of this there can be no doubt.”
Balder gazed at him. “And what do you know of Balder of Asgard?” he asked, there an almost hungry edge to the question.
It instantly caused Loki’s wariness and unease to rise. “What do you?” he returned, questioning.
Balder’s expression took on an air that was guilty. Shamed. “I know that’s who I am,” he admitted; “Or at least, who I am supposed to be.”
He looked down, eyes weighed with frustrated sadness.
Loki balked with a realization of horror. “You don’t remember.” Despite being a living man, this Balder seemed more like a ghost: a sad, pathetic shade bearing just enough of the traits of who he’d been to provoke resemblance.
And on Balder’s behalf Loki found himself growing angry. Who had done such a thing, raising him only in part like this? Who had been so careless - or worse, had it been purposeful? If so, who had dared?
Balder’s eyes darted back up to his. “Not entirely. I have some memories. I remember Asgard. I remember my life…before.” He sank down into a chair with a sigh, hands reflexively gripping his scabbard. “But everything from that time is so hazy. Nothing is clear in my mind.”
His brow furrowed as he thought, as he tried to explain.
“I remember places, names, but not details. There are so many gaps. It all feels like a dream - or like the memories are from someone else. They don’t feel like mine. It’s more as if they were stories told to me, about somebody else’s life.”
Loki carefully lowered into a crouch, wrists folded over his thighs, so he could look up and study Balder’s face.
“You died,” he stated, senselessly, still impeded by that one irrefutable truth. “I know that you did. It was no trick. I-” His voice cut out, swallowed up by how potentially he could finish that sentence. I smelled your blood. I watched your body fall.
“You were dead,” he repeated in lieu, softly.
Balder gave a stiff nod, the gesture strangely detached.
“I know. I don’t remember that day very well. And I don’t remember…being dead,” he put reluctantly. “Anything from that.” Loki was morbidly relieved: he’d fear for Balder’s sanity if he’d retained knowledge of being in Valhalla - or anywhere else, for that matter. “But somehow that I know with utmost certainty. That I died. That for some time I was a dead man.”
“But what of after?” Loki pressed. “Of this, and now? How were you brought back?”
Balder inhaled quietly. “I think it was the Norns,” he said. “The first thing I remember clearly is awaking in their care. I know not exactly how they fished my soul out of the abyss and gave me life once more. I didn’t care to ask.” He shook his head. “They didn’t seem to have much purpose in it, either. I would almost venture they did it only because they could.”
“The Sisterhood has ways that can seem strange indeed at times - I wouldn’t put it past them.” Still Loki was shaken. “But all this time they’ve known you were alive, and sent not one word back to Vanaheim or Asgard?”
“No. At first I was almost afraid at the thought of going home - for try as I might, it didn’t feel like ‘home’ to me. Everything in my head seemed so confused and strange. The Norns assured me that after what I’d been through it was not at all odd I’d come back…differently. They told me that time, or something I experienced, might cause the fog to be lifted and restore me to myself.”
“But that never happened,” Loki gathered, “did it.”
“No.” Dejectedly Balder shook his head. “I waited but nothing ever changed. Finally I decided that memories or no, I should return to my family and my duty. But the Norns’ queen wouldn’t let me. She tried to dissuade me, to convince me I should relax and wait further until I felt more sure.”
“How very predictable of Karnilla,” Loki said disapprovingly, stilted. “And let me guess: she wanted you to carry out that ‘waiting’ in the comfort of her arms?”
“She did.” Balder was a mixture of embarrassed and bitter. “But I would not submit to her. I had no desire to spend forever as her pet. When eventually I realized she would never cooperate and help me, I managed to escape.” He raised a hand. “I found myself in Svartalfheim and here I’ve been ever since.”
Loki chose not to fixate on that Karnilla may very well have only brought Balder back so she could have him as a consort - that she had made a plaything of heaven and earth so she could have the noble warrior all to herself, even in his diminished state.
“But why stay here?” he asked instead. “Why not return to Asgard?”
Balder gave a helpless shrug. In his pale blue eyes Loki could see how earnest he was, how very lost he felt. “I had not the means, and I didn’t know the way. And,” he confessed, “I didn’t entirely see what good it would do. The Norns told me of how much I was mourned over, how worshipped I had been. I felt going back when I’m this way, I would only be a disappointment.”
He would be, Loki thought to himself with grim honesty. This frank and confused warrior was not for whom the hallowed halls of Asgard had rung with fallen tears.
But that wasn’t his fault. And it didn’t matter: he was still Balder. He belonged on Asgard, with his friends, with his people. Maybe the All-Father knew something to be done that would return whatever had been taken from him.
In any case Loki knew he had to convince Balder to stay with him, to follow him so he could get them both back to Asgard once he figured out the way.
And the fact that a living Balder would instantly derail the tension and danger that threatened Loki’s own existence there - was only a part of his reasoning, truly. It was the right thing to put Balder back where he was meant to be.
“But now I’ve told you my tale,” Balder spoke up, interrupting his thoughts, “and you have yet to tell me yours. You promised me an answer. So please now, explain. How is it that you already knew who I was?”
Loki met his eyes for a moment and swallowed. He intentionally kept his face guarded as he rose back to his feet.
“What I’m about to tell you will seem…fantastic,” he began. “And it must be kept a secret between us. But for all that, it is no less true, and hopefully within my power to convince you.” He cleared his throat. “I recognize you, because I was there the day you died. I am your cousin. Loki.”
Confusion washed freely over Balder’s face as he stared at him. “Forgive me,” he said, flat, “but when I said my memories of the past weren’t so clear, I did not mean-”
“You think I mock your intellect?” Loki almost laughed. “No, no. You misunderstand. I was already practicing magic when you were still with us on Asgard.” With one hand he gestured, indicating his body. “My talents have much improved over the centuries that have passed. And there are times when it benefits me to travel in another form, so that I may not be recognized.”
“You are a shapeshifter,” Balder understood, astonished. “But why of all things a Jotun? And a woman?”
Loki drew his mouth into a tight line. “It is at this point an incredibly long and complicated tale, Balder. One I don’t think I could make you understand, in your present state.”
A half-truth. It made Loki weary to even think of retelling the whole story, but also there were parts of it he simply did not wish his cousin to know. Particularly how Balder’s own mother had gone so mad with grief she’d all but enacted a coup.
“But if you doubt my honesty by all means, you have the right to test me,” Loki continued. “Ask me anything you think I should know.”
“You already know my memories are less than whole,” Balder pointed out, doubtful. “No secrets come to mind that only my cousins and I should be privy to.”
But as he stood up, back straightening, there was a deeply contemplative look on his face.
“I do remember Loki, a bit. I remember dark hair and a smirking face. He was clever, and quick, and seemed always to be in trouble. And he could be incredibly mean-spirited at times when his temper was roused. But he was giving to his friends and longed to be a good servant to Asgard.”
Blue eyes focused on Loki once more.
“It seems almost too incredible a story to be simply made-up. And I have no real reason to doubt what you say.” He offered a passive smile. “If you are truly my cousin, then I will accept it at that.”
It was really too easy. But the Balder that Loki remembered had been a generous and trusting soul - evidently his centuries of hardships had not taken that from him. It was an aggravating trait in general but for present circumstances it suited Loki perfectly.
He moved closer, reaching to lay a careful hand on the back of Balder’s gloved forearm.
“I am at present stranded here, unable to use the Bifrost. But the whole reason I’m with this group is so I can search for a passage of my own.” He stated intensely, “You come with me, and I’ll be able to get us both home.”
“But how can I travel with you?” Balder questioned. “Wouldn’t your employer notice if I was following you from town to town?”
Loki shook his head. “Leave that to me,” he promised. “I’ll get Nezzori to hire you on. That way it won’t raise any suspicion.”
He went to the curtains and pulled one aside, checking the coast was clear. Seeing it was he swiftly gestured to Balder to go.
“Come back after the show. I’ll have things in order by then. And remember,” he pressed a finger across his lips, “not a word of this, to anyone. No one can know who or what I really am.”
“You have my word,” Balder swore. He bowed his head and took his leave.
It was a good thing that by then Loki had his routine firmly down in his muscle memory. If he had had to think while on stage, it might not have been possible. He could scarcely believe all that’d happened.
Balder was alive. Everything that had come because of his death and after, and Balder lived. He was alive and of all the places in the Nine Realms he could’ve been, he and Loki had crossed paths. Loki had seen and experienced much in his time, but this was pushing the boundaries.
It was hard not to describe it using the word ‘miracle’.
After he left the stage Loki didn’t even bother to change out of his costume before going to find Nezzori. The man was squeezed in at a table in a hidden room near the back of the tavern, giving him enough sight and sound he could tell in general how the audience was reacting.
Evidently the night was going well. Nezzori seemed pleased. Loki would use that to his advantage.
He started the conversation slow, sweetly reminding Nezzori of how much success Throkk had, specifically, brought to him. How it was so good of him, so reasonable, in how he had so far been extra accommodating of her needs.
Nezzori was no fool. He had to know Loki was going to ask for something. But he waited patiently, smiling indulgently all the while, putting in the occasional note of agreement.
Finally Loki brought up the ‘faint concerns’ he had been having about personal safety. Throkk was very popular, and some of the less savory places they’d been had boasted men that tried to follow or lay hands on her. Because of both her profession and her race, people didn’t always think to treat her respectfully.
(Loki could have very easily eviscerated anyone who came too close, but of course he didn’t let the man know that.)
“So,” Nezzori said, frowning faintly, “what is it you would like me to do?”
“I want a personal guard,” Loki told him. “Just one, a man to stay at my side late at night and stand outside my dressing room as an extra precaution. You know you can afford it. And after everything I’ve done for you, I think you can agree that I’m worth it.”
Nezzori grunted and scratched at his cheek, scowling, but he didn’t voice disagreement with either of these facts.
“I’ve even already found someone for the job,” Loki continued. “That man the tavern’s owner introduced us to today, his head of security. I like the look of him. He seems strong and reliable. And you wouldn’t have a hard time hiring him away: he wants to travel. You wouldn’t have to pay him much more than he already makes.”
Nezzori chortled. “Oho, so is that how it is?” He leaned back on his chair. “You surprise me, Throkk. All this time I figured you must be as coldblooded as they say of your kind. But one look at that pudgy, doe-eyed stout and you’ve gone sweet on him.”
Loki frowned deeply. “That isn’t it at all.” He felt obligated to add, “And he isn’t ‘pudgy’.”
“I’d say he’s carrying a bit of a belly,” was Nezzori’s sage retort. He patted his own not insubstantial stomach. “I think I’d be in a position to know. But, that’s beside the point. If he’s your type-”
“He’s not,” Loki stressed, aggravated. “I swear he’s not. I just want you to give him the job, that’s all.”
“I’m sure,” Nezzori said, clearly not believing a word of it. “If it’ll keep my main event happy and doesn’t cost me too much, I see no reason to object. But you know how I feel about my girls having relationships with my other employees. Keep it quiet, and you’re fine. I actually see anything, and you’re both out.”
“Believe me,” Loki replied, somewhat terse, “you won’t see a thing.”
But he’d gotten what he wanted, so as annoying as the misinterpretation was, he wasn’t going to argue.
Balder came back after the show, as promised. And if he seemed surprised Loki handled everything so easily, he showed no apprehension about going along with what had been planned.
When they left town and packed up again, heading to their next engagement, Balder came with them. From that day on he was part of the arrangement. He travelled in the same cart as Throkk and her things, helped her pack and unpack and generally responded dutifully in tending to her every need.
He was equal parts manservant and bodyguard. Loki found it bewildering, while his twisted inner self enjoyed it: Balder the Bright, the pride and exemplar of Asgard, waiting on him hand and foot. Jumping to answer his every command without hesitation.
It was so very wrong, and Loki knew that was why his dark half found it pleasing - Balder should be no one’s servant, least of all that of Asgard’s most disappointing outcast. Least of all that of his murderer. The man should have more self-respect.
But there was much about this version of Balder that was not as it should be.
If there had been any lingering doubt, Loki cast it aside with something that happened less than a week into their journey.
There’d been a fight at the bar the troupe was performing at. Balder intervened; the audience stopped watching the girls in favor of potentially bloodier spectacle, and Loki had stopped wasting his time with the pole, his position on the stage giving him an especially good vantage of the fight.
“You were holding back,” Loki noted later, when Balder came into the dressing rooms to check up.
Many of the dancers were sweet on Balder. They crooned at him and teased him, waving their scarves and draping feathers around his neck. Balder would flush and stammer and then decorously ignore them.
Though he left much to be desired in cunning, so far Balder had been perfectly careful about keeping Loki’s secret, only using his real name or addressing him as “cousin” when it was certain they were alone.
Not that there weren’t plenty of opportunities for that. Balder took his alleged duty very seriously and was constantly hanging around him. Loki had a suspicious impression Balder didn’t know what to do with himself without Loki giving commands.
“I would say I gave my fair share,” in the present Balder replied mildly, fingers curled in lazy posture around his belt. “I wasn’t about to let them harm any of the women, or the other patrons for that matter.”
“But it took you too long,” Loki insisted. “I know how strong you are; I’ve taken your measure. You could have ended that one brute with a single blow.”
Balder’s face darkened. “I could have.”
“So why didn’t you?” Loki simply didn’t understand. It had nothing to do with pride or modesty, but practicality and skill. Certainly Balder couldn’t have lingered because he was bored with the challenge.
Balder gave him a wide-eyed look of earnest disbelief.
“I only wanted to stop him,” he said. “I didn’t want to kill him.”
Loki frowned and waved an absent hand, not understanding him at first. “It’s nice to end the occasional round of combat without bloodshed, if possible. But-”
“No,” Balder cut him off, insistent. “You aren’t listening. Cousin, I do not kill. Ever.”
For a beat Loki just stared at him. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Balder,” he demanded, “do you consider yourself a…a pacifist?”
He said the word almost in a gasp. But supreme as his shock was, it was still better than the reaction it’d have garnered on Asgard. There they said that particular word as if it were profanity.
Balder inclined his head. “I can’t deny the fighter’s spirit I have in me, and I make my living with the sword, but I try to avoid violence whenever possible,” he confirmed. “And I would never take a life. Not under any circumstances.”
Loki gazed up blankly. His voice came out shrill in protest and denial, dumbfounded.
“But, you are Balder the Brave! You are a warrior of Asgard, a noble son of Vanaheim. You fought alongside ‘Mighty’ Thor and shared in his adventures,” he exclaimed. “You were proud of what you were, and honored for it!”
“What you say may be true, but I don’t remember any pride,” Balder stated gently. “I don’t remember any glorious adventures. It was another life. What I know in this one is the thought of being responsible for the death of another living being makes me sick. I can never do it. Not even in self-defense.”
“But that’s-!” Loki started to expound, stammered, and then trailed off.
He managed to compose himself before he stood to meet Balder’s eyes with grave sincerity, his voice softer.
“That’s not an attitude they have, where we’re going. Do you not understand? If you insist on that when you get back to Asgard, they’ll brand you a coward,” he stressed. “You will be openly mocked.”
“Then so be it,” Balder replied with no hesitation, only the solemnity of quiet personal conviction. “They can think whatever they like of me. I’ll know that they’re wrong.”
“But,” Loki started again, floundering - this was wrong, this was all wrong. Balder wasn’t supposed to be an outcast, an object of scorn. He was supposed to be a warrior, the best of them all. He was supposed to be loved, and enjoy that.
Balder didn’t give him the chance to try and get out the words to explain any of that.
“I won’t change my ways or what I know in my heart to be right to find the approval of people I barely remember,” he claimed, almost scoffing. “Your concerns are touching, and I thank you, but voicing them isn’t going to convince me. Please, don’t waste time worrying about me.”
That request had no effect - as Loki watched Balder walk away, he found he was doing a great deal of worrying. Not all of it directly about Balder.
There was an awful numb feeling in his stomach as he tried sorting his way through his thoughts.
There was no point in denying it. Balder was just so different now. Loki had kept dismissing it, likening it akin to a phase, a problem that could be fixed once Balder was home again.
But what if there was no “fixing” it? What if death had changed Balder permanently? What if the youth that’d been in the process of being sculpted had been lost forever, and this was just who Balder was now?
A kindhearted, honest, somewhat simple-minded man, who was stronger than most but was no true Asgardian, no god.
He would never live up to the expectations that’d been set for him. People would slight him, insult him, tell him to his face with the greatest pity how tragic it was he had lost his former glory.
The entire time they’d been journeying Balder had shown no real interest in Asgard. He never asked Loki any questions. Not about his family or members of Loki’s, not about any of his old friends, not about what happened in the years since his death. It was like he didn’t care at all.
It was like he had put his trust in Loki completely, blindly, and thought he didn’t need to know anything else.
Or perhaps he’d simply become an empty vessel, devoid of his own purpose or desires, content to follow orders and live as the extension of another’s will.
When they got back to Asgard, he would be eaten alive.
Loki shivered to think of it, because the truth was he’d become a different person too. Gone was the spiteful boy who hadn’t stopped to think things through in desire to see his cousin hurt.
He had thought by finding Balder and returning him to Asgard alive once more he somehow balanced out the deed from his past, erased his crime, made amends.
But now he couldn’t help but wonder if by dragging Balder back he was in truth doing him more harm than good.
*
Darcy was trying not to feel like she was about to go absolutely crazy.
It’d been three weeks since Loki vanished. Three whole weeks, and edging in on four.
It wasn’t even that she had gone for so long without seeing her boyfriend. It was that nobody seemed to know where he was.
And for some reason she couldn’t anyone to pay attention to that.
At first she had been too preoccupied, what with Siún and Volstagg and the baby and all. The husband had arrived in a frantic rush to sit by his wife’s side, to hold her hand and try his best to comfort her as she whimpered and groaned.
Even though she didn’t need to be there by that point, Darcy felt like she couldn’t leave. No one tried to kick her out, and she wanted to stay to lend her friends support. So she took a place by the opposite side of Siún’s bed, holding her other hand, whispering reassuring words to the woman in labor. She mopped the sweat off her brow and tried not to cringe when the bloody stuff started, and did what she could to distract Siún from the pain.
Though the caesarian obviously sped things up a lot, the whole ordeal took the better part of a day. Darcy hung back feeling superfluous and awkward as the screaming newborn was hustled into a corner to be washed and examined, as two healers tended to the new mother who’d fallen into an unconscious swoon, as Volstagg’s head jerked back and forth as he fretfully tried to watch what was happening to both at once.
But when all was said and done, Siún recovered enough she was able to sit up, one of Volstagg’s arms propping her at the waist, the two of them with heads pressed together as they were handed their son.
The baby was crying and squirming, tiny fists waving in the air, eyes shut against the light. He was red-skinned and chubby and still a bit on the slimy side.
Volstagg and Siún gasped and beamed over him like he was the most beautiful thing ever.
For the next few days Siún was groggy and at the healers’ advice she remained in bed. Volstagg and Darcy both slept in her room and took turns hovering over her in case she needed anything.
The baby was kept in a large white beribboned bassinet that was brought into the bedroom. He slept happily, but could grow pretty loud and fussy when he wanted a feeding.
By the next morning after his birth, his ruddiness had died down to a rosy pink. There were curly stands of ginger hair already springing from his head, his eyes were round and curious, and his cheeks were especially chubby. Darcy was willing to bet he weighed significantly more than a normal newborn on Earth would.
“Does he have a name yet?” she gently asked the happy couple.
Siún and Volstagg exchanged a glance, smiling, before returning their gazes to the being bundled in his mother’s arms.
“Yes,” Siún answered, as Volstagg stroked her hair between his fingers. “His name is Saemund.”
“Saemund Volstaggson,” the father said, reverently, eyes bright with joy and wonder. He laughed as the infant made an insistent sucking sound, head craning towards Siún’s breast. “Ah, see! Already he does me proud.”
When the exhaustion and excitement had worn off, and Darcy left the new parents to learn how to deal with things on their own, the rest of the world she had pushed at bay while her focus was solely on Siún caught up with her. She went right back to worrying.
This long after the fact there could be absolutely no doubt that Loki wasn’t on Asgard. The rest of their friends hadn’t seen him. There still were no clues where he had gone.
And while Darcy was too respectful to keep nagging Frigga - and too intimidated to approach Odin - she was convinced that they needed to be doing something. Someone had to go and look for him.
She tried time and time again bringing the subject up to Thor, but to her supreme frustration, starting to border on disbelief, she kept not being able to speak freely to him or Jane. One way or another, she got thwarted at every turn.
The engagement festivities were in full swing now, and Jane and Thor seemed to always be in the middle of doing something. Darcy would get up first thing in the morning to look for them, only to be told they’d gone to see a play being performed in their honor - and since the show had already started, she couldn’t be let into the theatre. When it was over, the betrothed pair would disappear surrounded by a crowd of courtiers, invited to a private luncheon in one of their rooms. She would go to Jane’s bedroom later but she would never be there: she’d be off for a walk or a boat ride or a sojourn on horseback alone with Thor.
Even at dinner Darcy could never manage to talk to them. There were so many people clamoring for their attention, wanting to give them congratulations or make a toast, that Darcy couldn’t get a word in edgewise. She’d start a sentence and then one loud Asgardian or another would speak over her, and Thor and Jane’s attention would be lost. She could barely even get them to look at her.
It was insane. She was aggravated, unsettled, and feeling like she’d fallen into an episode of the Twilight Zone. Had everyone but her forgotten about Loki?
Didn’t Thor worry at all what might’ve happened to his brother? And since when had they become so swept up in the partying they couldn’t pay attention to anything else - especially Jane?
It absolutely, emphatically did not make any sense. But she was at a loss for an explanation as to what was going on.
Finally, after days straight of fuming and stalking, Darcy had had enough. And she also had an opening. She found Jane sitting on a terrace, surrounded by a tittering group of handmaidens that were brushing her hair and making appreciative remarks over some of her engagement gifts.
It was the kind of gathering that’d normally make Jane sigh and try not to roll her eyes , fidgeting in her anxiety for a chance to get away. But for some reason at present she was basking in it.
With no preamble Darcy rushed in and went straight up to her. “We need to talk,” she announced.
Jane’s eyes turned to her slowly and she gave a distracted frown. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, actually, you can. By you and Thor giving me maybe five minutes of your friggin’ time!”
With a look tinged by disapproval Jane waved at the women currently fussing over her to stop. “I don’t really think that’s an appropriate way for a lady-in-waiting to speak,” she noted with an airy laugh of disbelief.
“Lady-in-waiting?” Darcy repeated, indignant. “Okay, I get that maybe you want to practice for being space royalty and all, but I am so not having it with this ‘We are not amused’ shtick. I’m not your servant, Jane, I’m your assistant?” she reminded the other woman condescendingly. “Not to mention your friend. Or so I thought.”
Jane blinked once, and then she plastered a smile across her face. “Of course, my dear friend. Darcy.” She rose to her feet, chuckling. “I was only teasing you!”
“I should sure hope so,” Darcy retorted. “Not that I find it very funny.” She gave Jane the sideways eye as she looked her up and down. For a moment there she could’ve sworn she heard hesitation in Jane’s voice - like she had forgotten her name. “What’s gotten into you?”
Jane tilted her head, giving her an innocent and confused expression. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
“Okay, that. That is exactly the kind of thing that I mean.” Darcy pointed. “Since when do you talk with all the fluttery language and the thees and thous? It’s wigging me out.”
“I’m only trying to emulate the people I’ll be queen over,” Jane said sweetly, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. “Don’t you think it is more fitting? More proper?”
Darcy stared at her. “I think it sounds like you’re turning into some Shakespearean Valley Girl caricature,” she stated, flat. “Why would you do that, anyway? Thor’s already head over heels crazy about you.”
Jane moved over to play with a bouquet of gilded flowers, an oddly smug look on her face.
“Hmm. He most certainly is, isn’t he.”
Darcy’s alarm bells were going off so hard she was forced to take a moment to clear her head, shaking it, her eyes squeezed shut with a look of dumbfounded incredulity. What in the nine worlds was wrong with Jane?
Before she could come up with something next to say, she heard footsteps behind her, and she opened her eyes to see Thor had appeared.
“My love,” he called, evidently in an extra gushy mood today. “As promised, I have returned to your side.” He reached towards her eagerly.
“Oh, Thor,” Jane said in a breathy, pleased voice. She sashayed - yes, sashayed - over to him, hips working with every step. She leaned into his body as she balanced on the ball one of foot, reaching out to stroke his face with the back of her hand. “I’m so glad you were prompt in coming back to me. You know how I hate not having you close.”
“I know,” Thor agreed. “I too suffer for every moment I cannot see your face.”
Darcy took a step closer, hands limply at her sides, shoulders raised, watching with eyes narrowed, abjectly confused.
There was something so off about this. Thor was looking at Jane way too reverently, even for him - there was something glassy-eyed about his expression, almost unfocused. And Jane’s responding look to Thor was less fond than it was possessive, petting him in a way like she would reward an obedient dog.
“Okay, I think you guys have been spending too much time together. You’re acting like a couple of lovesick zombies.”
Jane turned to give Darcy a displeased, lofty look over her shoulder, while Thor gazed at her blankly.
“If anything, I think we could do with less interruptions,” she replied, slipping in a terse, halfhearted, “No offense.” She backed away. “Thor, darling, why don’t you show her to the door like a gentleman?”
“As you wish, Jane.”
“What? Wait, you can’t just - I need to talk to you!”
Thor marched forward and put a hand on her forearm, turning her around. He didn’t push her, but his whole manner was so forceful there was absolutely nothing Darcy could do to resist. Short of digging her heels in and letting him drag her, anyway.
Jane watched them both idly, one finger playing with a stand of her hair. “I’m sure whatever it is, it can wait.”
“It really can’t,” Darcy squawked, as she was hurried along. “Seriously, you guys, what gives? This isn’t funny!”
But before she knew it Jane was out of sight, Thor having successfully brought her all the way back inside to the hallway.
“Good day to you, Darcy,” he said, emotionless, and then turned like he was going to go back.
“Thor, stop!” Darcy practically screamed. “Wait!” She stared at him, fists clenched and shaking. But at least the loudness of her voice got his attention. He was giving her a puzzled look.
“What is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Thor murmured. He was looking at her like he saw right through her.
Darcy shook her head, throat tight with anxiety. “Whatever is going on with Jane, it’s rubbing off on you too. The two of you have been acting like totally different people.”
Thor frowned. “Do not speak ill of my lady-love. She is the most beautiful, most flawless being in all of Asgard, and is beyond compare.”
The words kind of sounded like Thor, but the way he said them didn’t. It was like Jane was a god and he was worshipping her. A robot would have come across as less enslaved.
Entreatingly Darcy reached out and put her hands on his biceps. “Look, Jane is awesome; I’m not going to argue with that. But you’re acting like her puppet. You need to snap out of it, now.”
“I don’t understand you, Darcy,” he insisted, stubbornly. “There is nothing for me to ‘snap out’ of. I am fine.” It wasn’t very convincing, considering he sounded like he was in a trance.
Darcy would have tried to slap him back into awareness - except one time early on in her friendship with Loki had taught her that a human smacking an Asgardian in the face was a way to practically break a hand. Her grip tightened on Thor and she threw her whole body’s weight into it as she attempted shaking him. Of course he didn’t move an inch.
“Please! You have to listen to me,” she exclaimed. “God, I wish Loki wasn’t missing. Maybe he could figure out what the hell was going on.”
“What did you say?” Thor blinked - Darcy felt a flutter of hope as his brow started to wrinkle, concerned. “Loki…is missing?” His voice was like he was slowly waking up from a dream.
“Yes! Loki, your brother, is missing, and he has been for weeks! This is what I’ve been trying to tell you, only you wouldn’t pay attention! Can you hear me now?” When he shook his head distractedly, expression starting to cloud over again, she leaned in and shouted in his face. “Thor!”
He blinked again, more rapidly. And this time she could actually see him wake up, shaking the clouds off.
“Darcy? Why are you yelling?” he questioned. “What has happened? I-” And then his blue eyes snapped into focus, widening with intent and alarm. “Loki! My brother - you were saying something about him?” Now it was his turn to grab her by the arms.
“Oh thank gods, you’re back,” Darcy sighed. “Thor, there’s something seriously wrong with Jane.”
“Yes,” he agreed at once, musing. “She has not at all been like herself.” He glanced over his shoulder, back in the direction of the door between them and where she was. “I should-”
“No, don’t!” Darcy managed to pull free enough to latch onto him. “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you go back in there you’ll just get the whammy put on you all over again. You have to stay away from her.”
“But how else are we to find out what is causing this?” Thor asked, despairingly. “How else are we to save her?”
“I don’t know,” Darcy admitted. She shook her head and sighed, frustrated, as she thought out loud. “If it’s magic though, then that’s another reason we need to find Loki. Maybe he could fix it.”
“You think what’s wrong with Jane must be some sort of magic?” Thor shot a look at the door again. “That she is under some kind of curse?”
“It’s like she’s been replaced with a pod person ‘Mean Girls’ version of herself,” Darcy retorted. “There isn’t much in the way of mundane explanations for that. Why, what do you think?”
Thor frowned contemplatively, head moving like he was trying to clear it further.
“I do not know. The past few days are as if in a dream in my mind - maybe longer. I can remember nothing Jane did or said specifically, only that my every instinct tells me something is wrong.”
“No kidding. Could someone be trying to wreck your engagement by messing with you?”
“Both I and Asgard have no shortage of enemies. But I’m at a loss as to think who would try to interfere with us in this way.” Thor’s expression darkened. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Darcy pounced on that eagerly.
Instead of replying Thor gazed at her, giving an anxious and guilty look. The pieces clicked into place in Darcy’s head.
“You think Loki might have done this? No way!”
“Darcy…”
“No,” she cut him off, stubborn. “I don’t believe it. I know messing with you is like his thing, but this was so important to you guys. Why would he? What could he possibly have to gain from it?”
“My brother didn’t always need something to gain so long as he could make me look the fool,” Thor said gravely. “It would explain why he chooses not to show his face now. And…I didn’t want to tell you this, Darcy. But shortly before he disappeared, we had an argument. It seemed to me Loki does not approve of my marriage to Jane.”
“He never said anything about it to me,” Darcy protested weakly. Though he did, at one point, go on about how dumb it was for a god to marry a mortal. “Listen. If Loki was mad at you, or Jane, or anyone else, he sounded like he was over it the last time we talked. He was much more worried about Nanna. What if she’s done something to him? Kidnapped him, or-”
“The idea would be outrageous,” Thor said, flabbergasted. “Our aunt is a noblewoman. Her grief and rage may be great, but to actually do such a thing-”
“You think that’s less likely than Loki using his magic to attack you and Jane?” Darcy demanded angrily.
Thor’s expression fell. “I don’t know,” he said softly, greatly saddened. “You have no idea how much I’d like to believe that my brother is innocent. That he would never hurt me this way again.” He hung his head. “I do believe it - but I can’t be certain whether or not that comes from mere hope.”
Darcy tried to relax her ire, looking at Thor with more sympathy. The past was always going to make things really hard between the brothers, unfortunately.
“Why don’t we agree to disagree,” she offered. “Whether Loki had anything to do with it or not, whether he’s in trouble or he just ran away, the point is he’s been gone for weeks, and we need to find him.”
Thor straightened up. “Yes,” he concurred, grasping onto this as his princely reserve returned to him. “Whether it was of his own doing or not, Loki’s disappearance is a cause for concern. And if I am looking for him, it will give me an excuse to stay away from Jane.”
“Which can only be a good thing at this point,” Darcy couldn’t help but saying, “because I don’t think you can afford to lose any more brain cells. I promise I’ll try to keep an eye on her for you while you’re gone, okay? Hard as it’ll be for me to stand her.”
Thor smiled and rested a hand on Darcy’s shoulder.
“Thank you, for everything you have done. You are as ever a good friend to me and my family.”
Darcy managed to smile back at him, a stinging in her eyes. “You’re welcome. Now get out there and bring our boy home.”
*
LINK TO CONCLUSION