The Spirit of Magic, 1/2.
Title: The Spirit of Magic
Series: #9 in Walking Yggdrasil
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13 in chapter 1, NC-17 for chapter 2.
Author's Notes: Not mine! Characters you recognize belong to Marvel, and I've incoporated some comic back story and mythology into the movieverse. I had this written out a while ago, but Real Life was hella hectic and even now isn't exactly calm. But I have a moment, so here's some fic!
Summary: Loki promised to teach Wanda magic. Apparently, there were more ways to walk Yggdrasil than he thought. And he wasn't the only one that could do it.
One - By The Roots And Branches
Using a silver knife while sitting on the rooftop of Avengers Tower under the full moon, Loki exposed his left wrist over a crystal bowl sitting inside a silver bowl. The silver bowl had rock salt in it between the two bowls, anchoring the crystal bowl in place. At the bottom of it was ash from a small fire he had lit in it earlier in the day. It had taken some wrangling to get branches of ash, yew, yarrow, sage and mint, but because he was to be teaching Wanda the intricacies of Asgardian magic, he was allowed the materials he needed. She watched him carefully, worrying her lower lip between her teeth, seeming much younger than her years. Loki thought she seemed so terribly fragile in that moment, and couldn't remember ever being that way. Perhaps he had been once, but the memories had been burned out of him long ago.
He inscribed a rune into his wrist with the tip of the silver blade. Blood welled up to the surface, taking on the shape of the rune, and it began to faintly glow in the moonlight. Wanda's eyes widened almost comically, but Loki couldn't afford to ruin the casting with a snide comment. Whatever else that could be said about him, he definitely took magic seriously. Too much could go wrong with it if he treated it without the respect it deserved.
The glowing blood spilled over his wrist and began to spatter onto the ashes inside the crystal bowl. It still glowed, but the ashes began to smolder and give off a fragrant smoke.
Staring deeply at the smoking ash and blood, Loki breathed out slowly. The embers caught, and the blood he had offered began to burn in earnest, giving the smoke a coppery counterpoint to the sweet scent. Blood magic was dangerous, as its effects could not be undone once cast, and carried an immediacy to the spells that simple seidr or galdr did not.
Silver knife placed on the ground, Loki put his mouth to his wrist to staunch the bleeding. It was crude, but nothing new could be added to the ritual, and even pressing his wrist to his clothing would have counted. He began humming the familiar cadence of a healing galdr, which then slid into the actual chant of the protection and guidance spells he intended to cast.
A haze of bloody ash rose from the crystal bowl, and then the rock salt ignited as well. As the salt flames rose higher, the hazy mist circled Loki and Wanda in a rough sphere. At his lofted eyebrow, she breathed in deeply as he did, but didn't try to attempt mirroring his galdr at the same time he chanted.
Without disrupting the rhythm of the chant, Loki saw her choke on the mist and look at him in concern. He didn't shake or nod his head, but tried to impart with a glance that it was important for her not to move. Either she understood from his earlier warnings or the glance was successful, as she didn't move at all.
When the spells came to an end, the mist instantly dissipated and the fire died out. The salt was completely gone now, the crystal bowl sitting neatly inside of the silver one. There wasn't even a crack in the bottom from the heat of the flames, a good casting indeed.
Wanda looked at him with a questioning expression, still not saying a word. Good, she learned quickly. That would help; Loki had little to no patience at all.
"Blood magic is dangerous," he said quietly, turning his left wrist for her to see. The skin was unmarred, as if nothing had been done. "It hurts," he continued as she stared at his wrist. "Don't think that it doesn't. Magic comes with a cost, and pain isn't even the worst of it. But blood is quite powerful. It carries not only your intent, but your essence. Your strength and spirit, if you will. You're forever tied to your working, so you had best be certain you want to cast it."
"What spell did you cast?" she asked, meeting his gaze without flinching.
"If I told you it was to do harm?" he asked, giving her a sardonic smile.
"I wouldn't believe it. I would have felt that. I felt no such thing, no dark purpose like that."
Loki chuckled. "For one so untutored, you do have good instincts, little witch. Yes, it wasn't a harmful spell. I did a healing galdr for my wrist, simple enough. It didn't disrupt the flow of the protection and guidance spells I cast. If anything, the healing added to the protection. So little cuts and harms for your own casting would heal that much faster."
"Protection? From what?"
"From yourself. From outside of you, whether magical or not." Loki shrugged negligently. "I suppose we could start with simple magicks like light spells or scrying, but where's the fun in that? You can figure out as much on your own, or perhaps by looking through some of the tomes I have. No, you want to do battle like a warrior mage. So we will need to focus on those kinds of spells. You have some basis, perhaps. But the casting is sloppy. Childish."
"I had no-"
Waving his hand in an irritated manner, Loki nodded. "Yes, yes, you lacked a teacher. Those horrid mortals that gave you this power were quite remiss. Idiots, one and all."
"I don't disagree," Wanda said cautiously, eyeing him.
"Excellent. Now, you have the basis for some useful spell work, but we must refine your technique. There's no need to broadcast what you're casting for all and sundry, even if they lack the understanding for it. A few mortals possess magic, after all."
Wanda frowned at him. "What do you mean? You have a staff that you used."
"It's an augmentation strategy. Metamagic," he said when she gave him a blank look. He sighed and shook his head. Truly, Hydra had done her a serious disservice out of their ignorance. "There are ways to enhance your spells, Wanda. Or give you powers you don't normally possess, skills you aren't as good at, that kind of thing. The staff was a focus, a way to boost the power output of the spells I had cast with it."
"So movies had that right with wands?"
"What are you talking about?"
She grinned. "Perhaps it is my turn to teach you of magic, at least the way that films portray it. I'm sure most of it is silly and inaccurate, but perhaps a few things might be correct."
Loki rolled his eyes and got to his feet. "We shall see, then."
Maybe having a pupil wasn't all bad.
***
Natasha was sitting next to her archer, their heads close together and bent low. The flare of jealousy that stained Loki's gut was ugly and painful. But she had given herself to him, not to her archer, and she had expressed affection to him. She was Loki's Tsarina, and she found him worthy and useful and sharp. He was an edged weapon, with skills that could be cleverly wielded. Clint Barton held no love for Loki because of the mental manipulation, and he likely would never approve of a lasting liaison. It was an awful thing to say, but Loki would have cheerfully slit Clint's throat if that meant the disgust and hatred wouldn't be there. But it would hurt Natasha, and Loki couldn't harm her in any way at this point.
So he grit his teeth and simply tried to wrap his tattered dignity about himself like a cloak before approaching them in the conference room.
He pulled up a chair next to Sam Wilson, who was polite even while giving him a sidelong glance. He nodded briskly at the others, and forced himself not to turn when Natasha all but giggled beside Clint. Giggled.
She was gorgeous, with her hair long and wavy, shining like a sunset. She wore a white blouse and fitted jacket over trousers and boots, only simple diamond stud earrings and a jade charm on a gold necklace. Loki wanted to whisk her away from the conference room and bring her to his bedroom. He could strip the layers of clothes, mouthing at the exposed flesh as he did so, bringing her to completion before ever sliding his mouth between her thighs or his fingers inside of her slit. He could bend her over the bed and drive into her repeatedly, until her gasps and moans were like screams of ecstasy. He could lift her up against the wall, pinning her in place, all but biting at her lips as he kissed her.
By the Tree, he was starting to harden like a boy first glimpsing a maiden's underclothes.
Taking a deep breath, Loki looked over the others at the table, but didn't recognize most of them and didn't quite care enough to make their acquaintance. The image of Natasha and Clint so close together irked him, burned at his mind.
Do you really think the Norns would have sent you here if you were unworthy?
Gradually, Loki was more aware of his surroundings as Steve began to talk. Natasha had risen from her seat, and was bringing up some kind of information on a wall screen. Whatever Steve was talking about, Loki wasn't paying attention. He was looking at the photo of an open pit, a slab of oak on its northern side. "What's on the slab?" he asked abruptly, interrupting Steve in the middle of his discussion about something else a Hydra enclave seemed to be doing.
"What?"
"The oak!" Loki spat in agitation, pointing to the object near the pit. "What's on it?"
"I don't think we have a picture of that," Steve replied, frowning.
"What are you concerned about?" Sam asked beside him, frowning as well.
Let them frown all they liked, Loki didn't care. "Look for footprints. The jets of dirt around that pit, they don't look right. It looks more like a stave for waking the dead, and-"
"Wait, are we talking about a zombie apocalypse?!" Clint blurted out.
Loki conjured a roll of parchment as well as a quill and ink. He immediately began sketching out the outer circle, the inner squares, the hatch marks and the glyphs meant to look like mirror images of a man's face in the very center, symbols for the moon and afterlife in a circle around the squares. "Waking the dead is a long process to prepare for, but would result in quite a strong and mindless servant. This is carved into the oak," he explained as he sketched, movements hurried and a tinge angry. "Blood is worked into the grooves, particularly from hand and foot, to symbolize the bondage of the spirit to the caster. Runes and blood and spá entwined, the force of will of the caster to permanently bind it."
"All that from a picture?" Steve asked, frowning.
Carefully putting down the quill, Loki stared at Steve. "You folk talk of knowing the nature of a killer by the marks left on a body. Of knowing the type of weapon used by the wounds left behind. I can see the signs of spellcraft." Stalking to the screen, he pointed at what they had all supposed were carelessly strewn bits of dirt, and the shadowy parts of the photograph. "Footfalls, perhaps. Or ashes from ceremonial fires. Sometimes the runes could be inscribed on items. Tokens. To represent the whole, the part of the desired outcome." He pressed his lips together, clearly frustrated with having to explain himself.
"Sympathetic magic," Wanda said, rising from the table.
Loki pointed at her in agreement. "Different styles of magic could use such a method. There were tales of Freiya or Vitki inscribing spells on parchment, then burning them to release the energies. Less direct a method of casting, but it could be timed, and would be easier to hide the signatures of the caster behind the spell."
"Not if there was blood."
He grinned at her, pleased, sharp teeth and glittering eyes. "You were listening."
"If there's something worth listening to," she replied, lifting her chin a notch.
She went up a bit more in his estimation, so his smile took on a less menacing edge and he turned to the photo again. "Just so," he said imperiously. "I've seen this before. Not on Asgard," he said when Steve looked ready to ask. "Hardly the safe sort of magic that most of the seidkonor would wish to practice on Asgard."
"What you saw, what was it used for?" Natasha asked, head cocked to the side in curiosity.
"To control one of the vættir of the place." He frowned a bit, thinking of how to explain it to the others in the room. "A spirit, not mortal in origin. One that had always inhabited the area, always been part of the land."
"I don't understand what raising the dead would have to do with Hydra," one of the others at the table asked. Loki thought perhaps his name was Rhodes, but he hadn't been paying attention to him, and couldn't be certain.
"Hydra raising zombies," Clint sighed, shaking his head. "Think about it. Mindless drones, strong, relentless... How much you want to bet that the body raised looks like someone close to whoever the target is? Unless the body has information they can get?"
"The dead are woken, not returned to the living," Loki told him.
"So that would be a no on the information extraction," Natasha murmured.
"But I'm sure there are other ways to get it, if not directly from a corpse," Steve said.
"Would the spell end if that oak tablet was burned?" Wanda asked, taking a closer look at the projected picture.
"It would for most iterations of this spell. Unless the anchor isn't the tablet but in the corpse itself, which is hardly usual."
"So not likely."
"No, not likely," Loki agreed.
Clint was leaning back in his chair, looking horrified. "Just when we thought Hydra couldn't get any worse. Freakin' zombies, Jesus."
"Real life video game," Natasha teased him, nudging his arm with hers.
Loki pretended he understood the reference and merely looked back at Steve. "What have your people otherwise thought of this?"
"Local police didn't know what to think of it," Steve told him with a slight shoulder shrug. "All they saw was a pit in the ground near a site that was believed to be a Hydra base and called us."
"We'll need to see it," Loki told him flatly. "To be sure if it's a stave."
"They could be trying to create others like me," Wanda said in a small voice, not meeting anyone's eyes. "They had a staff of some kind, and a jewel. The power was overwhelming, and killed most of us."
"But you survived," Loki said.
"Only my brother and I did. Maybe we would have been Inhuman. Maybe the talents were always there, and Hydra merely unlocked it. I am still myself. Mostly." She looked down at her hands, at the tendrils of red energy that started to twist and writhe. "Maybe."
Loki snorted. "The seidr doesn't rule you, little witch. Magic doesn't work that way. It could be that they're trying to resurrect their failed projects, but they don't know what they're doing. They couldn't teach you, they killed those that would work with them... Failures, one and all," he snorted.
Wanda looked up at him, expression almost unreadable. Was that exasperation in her expression, or gratitude that he wasn't belittling her or thinking her a monster? Loki honestly didn't care enough to try to puzzle it out. Instead, he turned to Steve with a bland expression. "When do we leave?" he asked.
Steve seemed ready to shake his head and sigh, but he didn't. "One hour."
Ready in ten, Loki stood in the hangar with nothing more than a scrying stone in his pocket and a silver knife in an ornate scabbard made of rowan and crystal. He knew that any armor or weapon brought to the Hydra site would lead the others to doubt his sincerity at working with them. Duress or not, he could feel the anticipation that came from a hunt, from discovering something that others didn't want him to know.
"No weapons?" Sam asked him, eyebrow raised in inquiry as he approached the hangar.
"I'm here for the magic expertise," Loki told him regally. "I am a weapon."
"Huh. Never thought of it that way," Sam mused thoughtfully. "Makes sense, I guess. Plus, you have that ceremonial blade and likely hand to hand training."
"Of course."
"So you're not the one we need to worry about."
"Absolutely not," Loki huffed.
Later, Sam would say that those words jinxed him.
The pit had clearly been a shallow grave, but there was no telling who had been buried there. The sprays of dirt from the photograph had been disturbed, and the pit itself had signs of a body climbing out of it. The thing that could have been the oak tablet was gone, if it had even been there, so the assembled people had no idea what could be done.
Loki sighed and rolled his eyes, then gestured for Wanda to come to his side. "This is how you find the traces of spellcraft, and reverse engineer the spells that likely could have been done," he said, gesturing toward the pit. "This is the location, which is necessary. What we need to do now is ground ourselves and block out potential workings outside of what will be cast."
Wanda nodded earnestly. "As I've been doing it, or as you prefer?" He shot her an imperious look, but she only shrugged. "You've said that it makes a difference with comfort level, and I'm used to doing it my way."
"Fine, fine, do it as you're used to. It doesn't matter if there's leakage of your energies."
"That just sounds all kind of wrong," Clint muttered, shaking his head. "Why did I come out of retirement again?"
"Because you really didn't want to put that addition on the house," Natasha snarked.
"Not that Laura wouldn't arrange for a contractor to do it while I'm out in the field."
Natasha laughed, drawing Loki's attention. "But she'd wait for your opinion on it, and you know it. So in the meantime, no construction."
Were they not together, then? It surprised him; he had been in Clint's mind and had controlled it, yet he had seen nothing of a wife, and this line of conversation made Loki think that Clint was married to someone other than Natasha. Could it be?
Red tendrils of magic fluttered across the ground in a rough circle, like a mass of writhing snakes extending out from Wanda's feet. Seeing it brought Loki back to the task at hand, so he started a slow galdr of revelation, picturing a corresponding rune. Wanda was paying close attention to his words, and he would have to explain it to her later. For her benefit, he gestured the shape of the rune he wanted, then took his knife to add a drop of his blood for additional power when nothing formed within the circle.
The moment his blood fell to the ground, striking one of the grounding tendrils of Wanda's magic, it exploded.
Wanda was thrown to the side, toward the road where the others stood in a rough circle. Loki was thrown in the opposite direction, colliding with a massive tree and knocking it into the wooded area behind it. He didn't know that, however. All he knew was pain and darkness in that moment, and the flash of surprise that blood magic would react so explosively with what he assumed would be the same paltry offerings that Midgard had.
He never liked being wrong.
***
The branches of Yggdrasil stretched in front of Loki, looking less like a tree and more like a tangled mass of twisted brown yarn, tendrils snaking between the thicker snarls. He faced a rather large knot, the yarnlike quality readily apparent. When he reached forward, he saw that his hand was insubstantial, more like wisps of bright green smoke in the shape of his hand. Panic kicked in hard, but he couldn't feel the rapid heartbeat that he expected to.
This is magic, he realized. That voice in his mind was echoed by the voice of Skuld, as he had last seen her near Yggdrasil's roots. Look to the loom, Skuld told him. See as we do, if only for a moment.
"I did," he said, his voice as ephemeral as the wind. "I can't retain it." He wasn't worthy enough for it, though he didn't say the words aloud.
I see what will be. You see something else but think it is what will be.
It felt like condemnation, and it stung badly.
You have not altered your own fate. You have not altered the fate of others. You did not abuse the power that had been at your disposal.
"I don't have the temperament for it," Loki replied, surprised that his voice was bitter.
And when does the trickster care for the outcomes of his tricks? Skuld scoffed, still not quite in his view. When does Loki form attachments to others?
"She deserves it!"
Skuld chuckled. Oh, child. It is not a question of deserving. Some things just are, and they will be what will be. You needn't ascribe reasons to everything. Fate snarls and rages and twists and weaves. But it will always be what it was meant to be.
"You talk in riddles."
This is the truth of Yggdrasil. It is as it always was, always will be. You cannot change it, cannot create something new out of it. Yours is not the power to shape fate.
"Then what is my power?" he asked, a snide note to his voice.
But she chuckled again, amused with him. And spoil the surprise? Oh, no, child, you don't get a shortcut to your own making and unlocking and shaping.
"Why are you here? Only to taunt me?" he asked, anger rising.
Because Verðandi asked me to. And Urðr thought it would be amusing.
"Am I only your plaything?"
Isn't all of creation? she challenged.
And then he woke up.
***
Loki was surprised to see Natasha curled up in the armchair beside his bed. He was in a much more relaxed version of his quarters; he supposed she had done some decorating while he was unconscious. He now had a plush armchair, Midgardian books on his shelves, two watercolor paintings on his walls, actual drapes on the window, and a stereo system playing classical music. It felt comfortable, lived in, as if he truly belonged there.
"Hey," she said, moving closer to him. She put aside the book she had been reading and got him a glass of water from the pitcher and glass beside the bed that he hadn't noticed. "Go slow," she cautioned. "You're probably still not feeling your best."
"What happened? How did I get here?"
"We moved you. Had you examined." Her gaze took in his surroundings and she gave him a little smile. "I took the liberty of decorating, since clearly you didn't know what to do with the place. Giving you free rein didn't inspire you, I see."
"I hardly would countenance Midgardian standards as proper," he said, trying to sound haughty and refined. Instead, his voice came out weak and scratchy. He sipped the water and let her put it aside for him when his hand shook. "How long?"
"A week," she said quietly. "We had you hooked up to IV's for fluids, but apparently that had just impeded your ability to heal, according to Thor."
His gut clenched at the name. "He's here?"
"He brought other magicians from Asgard to find out what happened to you. And one of them determined that blood magic was the thing that set off that burial pit."
Loki frowned at her. "Why? That hardly makes sense."
"It wasn't exactly a spell to wake the dead," Natasha explained, moving to sit on the edge of his bed, and placed her hand on his chest. "It was to siphon off magic. So whoever had been buried there had been drained dry before something else horrific was done to them. Your blood set off the original draining spell, but the protections you had put onto you and Wanda reacted badly with it, preventing it from doing its work."
"And you say you don't understand magic," Loki huffed.
Natasha laughed. "No, I said I didn't like it. There's a difference."
"Yes, I suppose there is." He reached up and put his hand over hers. "And you stayed with me anyway. I thank you."
"You're welcome." She leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. "I'll be here for a while yet. Wanda's looking for the original caster, figuring out what Hydra wants with magic."
"What does anyone want?" he scoffed in reply. "Power."
She brought her other hand to his face, tracing the curve of his lower lip. "And the thing people forget is that there are all kinds of it."
"I don't think I truly understood that before we walked Yggdrasil together."
"Most don't understand what needs to be done, or how to get what they want." Her smile would have likely chilled anyone else, but it sent Loki's blood to singing. "So what do you want now?" she asked him. "It isn't power, it isn't stopping Thanos any longer. Have you thought about it? Really thought about it?"
"You," he murmured, clasping her hands and bringing them to his mouth. "If you'll have me."
"I suppose that remains to be seen," she said, amused. "But for now, it works."
"And your hawk? Your captain?"
"What about them?"
"What are their thoughts on the matter?"
"I do what I want, Loki. None of us are here because we're forced to be. We all want to be here. Even you could walk away if you wanted to."
"But I've nowhere else to go."
"But you're not tied here. You're not forced to stay. That's the thing of it, Loki. We have the power to choose. And this is a very important power to have."
He mulled over the words, what little he knew of her background and of this realm. "I suppose it is. I hadn't thought of it that way."
"Maybe it's time you did." She softened the words with a tender smile and another kiss on his forehead. "The Norns thought you worthy of that gift. I think you are fully capable of using it. So show us what you can really do."
Too bad he didn't know what should come next.
***
Wanda slowly took off all of her jewelry. The other Avengers really didn't wear much special jewelry. Natasha did, necklaces or earrings, but nothing that would interfere with her hands or could get caught on items. There were stories behind each piece, she knew that, just as there were stories behind her own pieces of jewelry. One of the long necklaces had been her mother's favorite, another had once belonged to her grandmother. One ring she wore on her right hand had been her aunt's wedding ring, salvaged from her body and the only thing to identify her when the bombs had fallen on Sokovia. One silver ring had been a present from Pietro, and there was still the pang of loss when she looked at it. There were some she had bought from street vendors upon her arrival in New York, the ones she had seen that reminded her of the past. Bracelets or cuffs or earrings also tended to have some kind of memory attached to them, even if they weren't exactly the same. Some part of her wanted the reminder, and having the jewelry also meant that she had something of value to barter with if she ever had to run.
There was always going to be a place for her with the Avengers, but old habits died hard.
Once all of the silver, gold and platinum had been stripped off, she unwound the layers of clothing as well. No particular attachment to any of the clothes, though red and black usually worked well with her coloring. Plus, red was a color of protection against evil and bad luck, and black could be as well.
Standing naked in the middle of her room, she shut her eyes and pictured the shape of the runes she wanted to use. Protection, knowledge, strength, willpower. Loki's simple looking spell had been powerful indeed, possibly because of his sheer willpower and stubbornness.
She felt hollow and useless with Loki lying unconscious in his room, and she had no idea what Hydra was planning to do next. She had to know, and she had to be able to plan ahead. Whatever the thing was between her and Vision still hadn't quite resolved into something she could comfortably name, and the Avengers had turned into something like a family over the past few years. Her twin's namesake was an adorable boy, a bittersweet reminder of everything she had and lost.
Magic was dangerous, and it could cost her everything that she had left. It was a cost she had to willingly pay, because otherwise there was no point in continuing.
She swept her magic around her in a grounding circle, doing it Loki's way. Eyes still closed, the shapes of the runes were clear in her imagination, bright red against the black of her closed eyelids. Black and red, black and red, black and red-
The impression of capillaries in her eyelids seemed to shift and turn into the branches of a tree, and the runes seemed to shift until they were embedded in the branches of the tree.
"Is this Yggdrasil?" she asked. Her voice didn't sound like her own, and her body drifted until she reached the hugrunar. Embedded within it was a face, young and appearing almost similar to her own.
The eyes opened and lips smiled. "Dear child, where else would you be?"
Wanda tried to smile in response. "I just wanted to know-"
"Everything," the lips said, and Wanda felt drawn to them, awareness of the branches around her falling away. Inside of a blink, she was standing on a sandy shoreline in her usual Scarlet Witch costume, jewelry back on, sticky gloss on her lips and the feel of mascara and kohl on her eyes. Her hair hung loose around her face, strands shifting slightly as if there was a breeze.
The lips and eyes were inside a serene face, her skin paler than Wanda's. Her hair was a bright blonde, reminding Wanda of a Nordic model. She wore white, the sleeves of her under robe long and bell-like, with a bright white overtunic. The embroidery was done in white as well, and the movement of the sash at her waist made Wanda think that the embroidery itself was magic.
"Loki told you of his travels to the roots of Yggdrasil, and you had seen as much on your own," the woman continued.
"Which of the Norns are you?" Wanda asked, hoping it wouldn't be seen as rude.
The woman only smiled, putting Wanda at ease. "We are one and one in three," she replied. "He could not comprehend us at once."
"But I can?"
"You are woman," the woman in front of Wanda replied simply.
She laughed, bringing a hand up to her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "It's just, I know there's so much for me to learn, and the thought of me being able to do something that Loki can't... It's a little ridiculous."
The woman seemed to blur and shimmer, and Wanda could almost see three faces superimposed over itself. "You were touched with a gift not your own," she replied, the sound of three voices speaking in unison. "Your very being became something more than human."
"They call them Inhuman on Earth," Wanda offered.
"But you are not of their ilk either," the Norn replied, lips curling into a smile. "You are different. Of a reality closer to our own."
"I'm supposed to be afraid of that, aren't I?" she asked after a moment.
Laughing a little herself, the Norn extended an arm toward Wanda. "Come, little one. Your working called to us, and we wanted to see you for ourselves."
Being touched by the gods was never a good thing; mortals never fared well in the games that immortals played. But to refuse the offer would bring her worse luck, so she took the Norn's arm and found herself looking up at a tree extending above her, infinitely tall, stretching higher than her gaze could even follow. "Yggdrasil," Wanda murmured.
"Yes," the Norn replied proudly. "You can't even see all of it at once."
"It's…" Her lips curled into an appreciative smile. "It's beautiful. Like the entire universe, dreaming yet awake at once."
"Oh, I like your description of this," the Norn said, hand sliding down Wanda's back gently. "And that you see it this way, even the small piece of it, tells me that you will have such abilities to weave the spá, it will be a delight to see your workings."
"What do you mean?" Wanda asked, confused, turning to look at her. It was dizzying, looking away from the splendor and massive webbing of Yggdrasil, and she was glad for the hand at her back. It was steadying, and kept her from falling over.
"You have the makings of being a master at the spá, and your lover has one of our gems embedded in his forehead."
Wanda flushed. "Most would say he isn't alive..."
"Pft. We all know better, don't we?" the Norn said in confidential tones. "Your lover is worthy of our gem, never fear. But the power you hold, and that he holds... Why, you could craft children."
She gaped at the Norn, holding still, her heart stuttering in her chest. "Wh-what?"
"We see your dreams, child. We see the discussions you've had. You love so fiercely, so true, with all of your being. He carries such hope for the world, for the future, for the fallible beings he has sworn to protect. Yet he is not human as you are, though you are more than human as well. Work at your magic, and you can use the powers you both have to your advantage."
Hands flying to her flat abdomen, Wanda shot the Norn a helpless look. "But... A child?"
The Norn laughed. "Oh, children are such strange things sometimes. Like roses. Quite beautiful to behold, but needing such care and tending to remain in proper shape. And if not handled correctly, the thorns would pierce even the gentlest of hands." Removing her hand from Wanda's back, the Norn's smile was still gentle. "It is a blessing, but every blessing has its edges."
But Wanda thought of the possibility that the Norn had awoken in her. As much as the Avengers had been her family since Pietro's death, it wasn't exactly the same. Some small part of her longed for family, for blood relations, for someone to call her own. She wanted someone to understand her Romani upbringing, someone to laugh at little nonsense things, someone to feel as though she belonged with. It helped to talk with Natasha in Russian or a different Slavic tongue, but it wasn't Sokovian. There was no one to understand the traditions she had grown up with, why certain days were holy and others accursed.
"It is a gift that comes with a price. For all things come with cost," the Norn whispered.
Wanda looked at her in question, about to open her mouth. The sandy roots of Yggdrasil were gone, and all she saw around her was a vast emptiness, a darkness with distant twinkling of stars and astronomical phenomena.
"Where is your place in the world? Where is your teacher's?"
While the Norn's voice was all around her, Wanda could no longer see her or feel her. She simply existed in the Void, and she could feel the chill terror that Loki must have felt when he had fallen through it.
"What do you want, dear child? What would you take from the shadows? For we will give you a gift, and you may walk Yggdrasil for a time. But mark us, there is always a cost."
Somewhere in the distance of the Void, a star exploded, piercing bright light filling Wanda's eyes. She had no hands to cover her eyes, no body to experience the onslaught of matter as it was flung outward from the explosion.
There is always a cost.
And then she awoke, none the wiser for her working.
***
***
Series: #9 in Walking Yggdrasil
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13 in chapter 1, NC-17 for chapter 2.
Author's Notes: Not mine! Characters you recognize belong to Marvel, and I've incoporated some comic back story and mythology into the movieverse. I had this written out a while ago, but Real Life was hella hectic and even now isn't exactly calm. But I have a moment, so here's some fic!
Summary: Loki promised to teach Wanda magic. Apparently, there were more ways to walk Yggdrasil than he thought. And he wasn't the only one that could do it.
One - By The Roots And Branches
Using a silver knife while sitting on the rooftop of Avengers Tower under the full moon, Loki exposed his left wrist over a crystal bowl sitting inside a silver bowl. The silver bowl had rock salt in it between the two bowls, anchoring the crystal bowl in place. At the bottom of it was ash from a small fire he had lit in it earlier in the day. It had taken some wrangling to get branches of ash, yew, yarrow, sage and mint, but because he was to be teaching Wanda the intricacies of Asgardian magic, he was allowed the materials he needed. She watched him carefully, worrying her lower lip between her teeth, seeming much younger than her years. Loki thought she seemed so terribly fragile in that moment, and couldn't remember ever being that way. Perhaps he had been once, but the memories had been burned out of him long ago.
He inscribed a rune into his wrist with the tip of the silver blade. Blood welled up to the surface, taking on the shape of the rune, and it began to faintly glow in the moonlight. Wanda's eyes widened almost comically, but Loki couldn't afford to ruin the casting with a snide comment. Whatever else that could be said about him, he definitely took magic seriously. Too much could go wrong with it if he treated it without the respect it deserved.
The glowing blood spilled over his wrist and began to spatter onto the ashes inside the crystal bowl. It still glowed, but the ashes began to smolder and give off a fragrant smoke.
Staring deeply at the smoking ash and blood, Loki breathed out slowly. The embers caught, and the blood he had offered began to burn in earnest, giving the smoke a coppery counterpoint to the sweet scent. Blood magic was dangerous, as its effects could not be undone once cast, and carried an immediacy to the spells that simple seidr or galdr did not.
Silver knife placed on the ground, Loki put his mouth to his wrist to staunch the bleeding. It was crude, but nothing new could be added to the ritual, and even pressing his wrist to his clothing would have counted. He began humming the familiar cadence of a healing galdr, which then slid into the actual chant of the protection and guidance spells he intended to cast.
A haze of bloody ash rose from the crystal bowl, and then the rock salt ignited as well. As the salt flames rose higher, the hazy mist circled Loki and Wanda in a rough sphere. At his lofted eyebrow, she breathed in deeply as he did, but didn't try to attempt mirroring his galdr at the same time he chanted.
Without disrupting the rhythm of the chant, Loki saw her choke on the mist and look at him in concern. He didn't shake or nod his head, but tried to impart with a glance that it was important for her not to move. Either she understood from his earlier warnings or the glance was successful, as she didn't move at all.
When the spells came to an end, the mist instantly dissipated and the fire died out. The salt was completely gone now, the crystal bowl sitting neatly inside of the silver one. There wasn't even a crack in the bottom from the heat of the flames, a good casting indeed.
Wanda looked at him with a questioning expression, still not saying a word. Good, she learned quickly. That would help; Loki had little to no patience at all.
"Blood magic is dangerous," he said quietly, turning his left wrist for her to see. The skin was unmarred, as if nothing had been done. "It hurts," he continued as she stared at his wrist. "Don't think that it doesn't. Magic comes with a cost, and pain isn't even the worst of it. But blood is quite powerful. It carries not only your intent, but your essence. Your strength and spirit, if you will. You're forever tied to your working, so you had best be certain you want to cast it."
"What spell did you cast?" she asked, meeting his gaze without flinching.
"If I told you it was to do harm?" he asked, giving her a sardonic smile.
"I wouldn't believe it. I would have felt that. I felt no such thing, no dark purpose like that."
Loki chuckled. "For one so untutored, you do have good instincts, little witch. Yes, it wasn't a harmful spell. I did a healing galdr for my wrist, simple enough. It didn't disrupt the flow of the protection and guidance spells I cast. If anything, the healing added to the protection. So little cuts and harms for your own casting would heal that much faster."
"Protection? From what?"
"From yourself. From outside of you, whether magical or not." Loki shrugged negligently. "I suppose we could start with simple magicks like light spells or scrying, but where's the fun in that? You can figure out as much on your own, or perhaps by looking through some of the tomes I have. No, you want to do battle like a warrior mage. So we will need to focus on those kinds of spells. You have some basis, perhaps. But the casting is sloppy. Childish."
"I had no-"
Waving his hand in an irritated manner, Loki nodded. "Yes, yes, you lacked a teacher. Those horrid mortals that gave you this power were quite remiss. Idiots, one and all."
"I don't disagree," Wanda said cautiously, eyeing him.
"Excellent. Now, you have the basis for some useful spell work, but we must refine your technique. There's no need to broadcast what you're casting for all and sundry, even if they lack the understanding for it. A few mortals possess magic, after all."
Wanda frowned at him. "What do you mean? You have a staff that you used."
"It's an augmentation strategy. Metamagic," he said when she gave him a blank look. He sighed and shook his head. Truly, Hydra had done her a serious disservice out of their ignorance. "There are ways to enhance your spells, Wanda. Or give you powers you don't normally possess, skills you aren't as good at, that kind of thing. The staff was a focus, a way to boost the power output of the spells I had cast with it."
"So movies had that right with wands?"
"What are you talking about?"
She grinned. "Perhaps it is my turn to teach you of magic, at least the way that films portray it. I'm sure most of it is silly and inaccurate, but perhaps a few things might be correct."
Loki rolled his eyes and got to his feet. "We shall see, then."
Maybe having a pupil wasn't all bad.
***
Natasha was sitting next to her archer, their heads close together and bent low. The flare of jealousy that stained Loki's gut was ugly and painful. But she had given herself to him, not to her archer, and she had expressed affection to him. She was Loki's Tsarina, and she found him worthy and useful and sharp. He was an edged weapon, with skills that could be cleverly wielded. Clint Barton held no love for Loki because of the mental manipulation, and he likely would never approve of a lasting liaison. It was an awful thing to say, but Loki would have cheerfully slit Clint's throat if that meant the disgust and hatred wouldn't be there. But it would hurt Natasha, and Loki couldn't harm her in any way at this point.
So he grit his teeth and simply tried to wrap his tattered dignity about himself like a cloak before approaching them in the conference room.
He pulled up a chair next to Sam Wilson, who was polite even while giving him a sidelong glance. He nodded briskly at the others, and forced himself not to turn when Natasha all but giggled beside Clint. Giggled.
She was gorgeous, with her hair long and wavy, shining like a sunset. She wore a white blouse and fitted jacket over trousers and boots, only simple diamond stud earrings and a jade charm on a gold necklace. Loki wanted to whisk her away from the conference room and bring her to his bedroom. He could strip the layers of clothes, mouthing at the exposed flesh as he did so, bringing her to completion before ever sliding his mouth between her thighs or his fingers inside of her slit. He could bend her over the bed and drive into her repeatedly, until her gasps and moans were like screams of ecstasy. He could lift her up against the wall, pinning her in place, all but biting at her lips as he kissed her.
By the Tree, he was starting to harden like a boy first glimpsing a maiden's underclothes.
Taking a deep breath, Loki looked over the others at the table, but didn't recognize most of them and didn't quite care enough to make their acquaintance. The image of Natasha and Clint so close together irked him, burned at his mind.
Do you really think the Norns would have sent you here if you were unworthy?
Gradually, Loki was more aware of his surroundings as Steve began to talk. Natasha had risen from her seat, and was bringing up some kind of information on a wall screen. Whatever Steve was talking about, Loki wasn't paying attention. He was looking at the photo of an open pit, a slab of oak on its northern side. "What's on the slab?" he asked abruptly, interrupting Steve in the middle of his discussion about something else a Hydra enclave seemed to be doing.
"What?"
"The oak!" Loki spat in agitation, pointing to the object near the pit. "What's on it?"
"I don't think we have a picture of that," Steve replied, frowning.
"What are you concerned about?" Sam asked beside him, frowning as well.
Let them frown all they liked, Loki didn't care. "Look for footprints. The jets of dirt around that pit, they don't look right. It looks more like a stave for waking the dead, and-"
"Wait, are we talking about a zombie apocalypse?!" Clint blurted out.
Loki conjured a roll of parchment as well as a quill and ink. He immediately began sketching out the outer circle, the inner squares, the hatch marks and the glyphs meant to look like mirror images of a man's face in the very center, symbols for the moon and afterlife in a circle around the squares. "Waking the dead is a long process to prepare for, but would result in quite a strong and mindless servant. This is carved into the oak," he explained as he sketched, movements hurried and a tinge angry. "Blood is worked into the grooves, particularly from hand and foot, to symbolize the bondage of the spirit to the caster. Runes and blood and spá entwined, the force of will of the caster to permanently bind it."
"All that from a picture?" Steve asked, frowning.
Carefully putting down the quill, Loki stared at Steve. "You folk talk of knowing the nature of a killer by the marks left on a body. Of knowing the type of weapon used by the wounds left behind. I can see the signs of spellcraft." Stalking to the screen, he pointed at what they had all supposed were carelessly strewn bits of dirt, and the shadowy parts of the photograph. "Footfalls, perhaps. Or ashes from ceremonial fires. Sometimes the runes could be inscribed on items. Tokens. To represent the whole, the part of the desired outcome." He pressed his lips together, clearly frustrated with having to explain himself.
"Sympathetic magic," Wanda said, rising from the table.
Loki pointed at her in agreement. "Different styles of magic could use such a method. There were tales of Freiya or Vitki inscribing spells on parchment, then burning them to release the energies. Less direct a method of casting, but it could be timed, and would be easier to hide the signatures of the caster behind the spell."
"Not if there was blood."
He grinned at her, pleased, sharp teeth and glittering eyes. "You were listening."
"If there's something worth listening to," she replied, lifting her chin a notch.
She went up a bit more in his estimation, so his smile took on a less menacing edge and he turned to the photo again. "Just so," he said imperiously. "I've seen this before. Not on Asgard," he said when Steve looked ready to ask. "Hardly the safe sort of magic that most of the seidkonor would wish to practice on Asgard."
"What you saw, what was it used for?" Natasha asked, head cocked to the side in curiosity.
"To control one of the vættir of the place." He frowned a bit, thinking of how to explain it to the others in the room. "A spirit, not mortal in origin. One that had always inhabited the area, always been part of the land."
"I don't understand what raising the dead would have to do with Hydra," one of the others at the table asked. Loki thought perhaps his name was Rhodes, but he hadn't been paying attention to him, and couldn't be certain.
"Hydra raising zombies," Clint sighed, shaking his head. "Think about it. Mindless drones, strong, relentless... How much you want to bet that the body raised looks like someone close to whoever the target is? Unless the body has information they can get?"
"The dead are woken, not returned to the living," Loki told him.
"So that would be a no on the information extraction," Natasha murmured.
"But I'm sure there are other ways to get it, if not directly from a corpse," Steve said.
"Would the spell end if that oak tablet was burned?" Wanda asked, taking a closer look at the projected picture.
"It would for most iterations of this spell. Unless the anchor isn't the tablet but in the corpse itself, which is hardly usual."
"So not likely."
"No, not likely," Loki agreed.
Clint was leaning back in his chair, looking horrified. "Just when we thought Hydra couldn't get any worse. Freakin' zombies, Jesus."
"Real life video game," Natasha teased him, nudging his arm with hers.
Loki pretended he understood the reference and merely looked back at Steve. "What have your people otherwise thought of this?"
"Local police didn't know what to think of it," Steve told him with a slight shoulder shrug. "All they saw was a pit in the ground near a site that was believed to be a Hydra base and called us."
"We'll need to see it," Loki told him flatly. "To be sure if it's a stave."
"They could be trying to create others like me," Wanda said in a small voice, not meeting anyone's eyes. "They had a staff of some kind, and a jewel. The power was overwhelming, and killed most of us."
"But you survived," Loki said.
"Only my brother and I did. Maybe we would have been Inhuman. Maybe the talents were always there, and Hydra merely unlocked it. I am still myself. Mostly." She looked down at her hands, at the tendrils of red energy that started to twist and writhe. "Maybe."
Loki snorted. "The seidr doesn't rule you, little witch. Magic doesn't work that way. It could be that they're trying to resurrect their failed projects, but they don't know what they're doing. They couldn't teach you, they killed those that would work with them... Failures, one and all," he snorted.
Wanda looked up at him, expression almost unreadable. Was that exasperation in her expression, or gratitude that he wasn't belittling her or thinking her a monster? Loki honestly didn't care enough to try to puzzle it out. Instead, he turned to Steve with a bland expression. "When do we leave?" he asked.
Steve seemed ready to shake his head and sigh, but he didn't. "One hour."
Ready in ten, Loki stood in the hangar with nothing more than a scrying stone in his pocket and a silver knife in an ornate scabbard made of rowan and crystal. He knew that any armor or weapon brought to the Hydra site would lead the others to doubt his sincerity at working with them. Duress or not, he could feel the anticipation that came from a hunt, from discovering something that others didn't want him to know.
"No weapons?" Sam asked him, eyebrow raised in inquiry as he approached the hangar.
"I'm here for the magic expertise," Loki told him regally. "I am a weapon."
"Huh. Never thought of it that way," Sam mused thoughtfully. "Makes sense, I guess. Plus, you have that ceremonial blade and likely hand to hand training."
"Of course."
"So you're not the one we need to worry about."
"Absolutely not," Loki huffed.
Later, Sam would say that those words jinxed him.
The pit had clearly been a shallow grave, but there was no telling who had been buried there. The sprays of dirt from the photograph had been disturbed, and the pit itself had signs of a body climbing out of it. The thing that could have been the oak tablet was gone, if it had even been there, so the assembled people had no idea what could be done.
Loki sighed and rolled his eyes, then gestured for Wanda to come to his side. "This is how you find the traces of spellcraft, and reverse engineer the spells that likely could have been done," he said, gesturing toward the pit. "This is the location, which is necessary. What we need to do now is ground ourselves and block out potential workings outside of what will be cast."
Wanda nodded earnestly. "As I've been doing it, or as you prefer?" He shot her an imperious look, but she only shrugged. "You've said that it makes a difference with comfort level, and I'm used to doing it my way."
"Fine, fine, do it as you're used to. It doesn't matter if there's leakage of your energies."
"That just sounds all kind of wrong," Clint muttered, shaking his head. "Why did I come out of retirement again?"
"Because you really didn't want to put that addition on the house," Natasha snarked.
"Not that Laura wouldn't arrange for a contractor to do it while I'm out in the field."
Natasha laughed, drawing Loki's attention. "But she'd wait for your opinion on it, and you know it. So in the meantime, no construction."
Were they not together, then? It surprised him; he had been in Clint's mind and had controlled it, yet he had seen nothing of a wife, and this line of conversation made Loki think that Clint was married to someone other than Natasha. Could it be?
Red tendrils of magic fluttered across the ground in a rough circle, like a mass of writhing snakes extending out from Wanda's feet. Seeing it brought Loki back to the task at hand, so he started a slow galdr of revelation, picturing a corresponding rune. Wanda was paying close attention to his words, and he would have to explain it to her later. For her benefit, he gestured the shape of the rune he wanted, then took his knife to add a drop of his blood for additional power when nothing formed within the circle.
The moment his blood fell to the ground, striking one of the grounding tendrils of Wanda's magic, it exploded.
Wanda was thrown to the side, toward the road where the others stood in a rough circle. Loki was thrown in the opposite direction, colliding with a massive tree and knocking it into the wooded area behind it. He didn't know that, however. All he knew was pain and darkness in that moment, and the flash of surprise that blood magic would react so explosively with what he assumed would be the same paltry offerings that Midgard had.
He never liked being wrong.
***
The branches of Yggdrasil stretched in front of Loki, looking less like a tree and more like a tangled mass of twisted brown yarn, tendrils snaking between the thicker snarls. He faced a rather large knot, the yarnlike quality readily apparent. When he reached forward, he saw that his hand was insubstantial, more like wisps of bright green smoke in the shape of his hand. Panic kicked in hard, but he couldn't feel the rapid heartbeat that he expected to.
This is magic, he realized. That voice in his mind was echoed by the voice of Skuld, as he had last seen her near Yggdrasil's roots. Look to the loom, Skuld told him. See as we do, if only for a moment.
"I did," he said, his voice as ephemeral as the wind. "I can't retain it." He wasn't worthy enough for it, though he didn't say the words aloud.
I see what will be. You see something else but think it is what will be.
It felt like condemnation, and it stung badly.
You have not altered your own fate. You have not altered the fate of others. You did not abuse the power that had been at your disposal.
"I don't have the temperament for it," Loki replied, surprised that his voice was bitter.
And when does the trickster care for the outcomes of his tricks? Skuld scoffed, still not quite in his view. When does Loki form attachments to others?
"She deserves it!"
Skuld chuckled. Oh, child. It is not a question of deserving. Some things just are, and they will be what will be. You needn't ascribe reasons to everything. Fate snarls and rages and twists and weaves. But it will always be what it was meant to be.
"You talk in riddles."
This is the truth of Yggdrasil. It is as it always was, always will be. You cannot change it, cannot create something new out of it. Yours is not the power to shape fate.
"Then what is my power?" he asked, a snide note to his voice.
But she chuckled again, amused with him. And spoil the surprise? Oh, no, child, you don't get a shortcut to your own making and unlocking and shaping.
"Why are you here? Only to taunt me?" he asked, anger rising.
Because Verðandi asked me to. And Urðr thought it would be amusing.
"Am I only your plaything?"
Isn't all of creation? she challenged.
And then he woke up.
***
Loki was surprised to see Natasha curled up in the armchair beside his bed. He was in a much more relaxed version of his quarters; he supposed she had done some decorating while he was unconscious. He now had a plush armchair, Midgardian books on his shelves, two watercolor paintings on his walls, actual drapes on the window, and a stereo system playing classical music. It felt comfortable, lived in, as if he truly belonged there.
"Hey," she said, moving closer to him. She put aside the book she had been reading and got him a glass of water from the pitcher and glass beside the bed that he hadn't noticed. "Go slow," she cautioned. "You're probably still not feeling your best."
"What happened? How did I get here?"
"We moved you. Had you examined." Her gaze took in his surroundings and she gave him a little smile. "I took the liberty of decorating, since clearly you didn't know what to do with the place. Giving you free rein didn't inspire you, I see."
"I hardly would countenance Midgardian standards as proper," he said, trying to sound haughty and refined. Instead, his voice came out weak and scratchy. He sipped the water and let her put it aside for him when his hand shook. "How long?"
"A week," she said quietly. "We had you hooked up to IV's for fluids, but apparently that had just impeded your ability to heal, according to Thor."
His gut clenched at the name. "He's here?"
"He brought other magicians from Asgard to find out what happened to you. And one of them determined that blood magic was the thing that set off that burial pit."
Loki frowned at her. "Why? That hardly makes sense."
"It wasn't exactly a spell to wake the dead," Natasha explained, moving to sit on the edge of his bed, and placed her hand on his chest. "It was to siphon off magic. So whoever had been buried there had been drained dry before something else horrific was done to them. Your blood set off the original draining spell, but the protections you had put onto you and Wanda reacted badly with it, preventing it from doing its work."
"And you say you don't understand magic," Loki huffed.
Natasha laughed. "No, I said I didn't like it. There's a difference."
"Yes, I suppose there is." He reached up and put his hand over hers. "And you stayed with me anyway. I thank you."
"You're welcome." She leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. "I'll be here for a while yet. Wanda's looking for the original caster, figuring out what Hydra wants with magic."
"What does anyone want?" he scoffed in reply. "Power."
She brought her other hand to his face, tracing the curve of his lower lip. "And the thing people forget is that there are all kinds of it."
"I don't think I truly understood that before we walked Yggdrasil together."
"Most don't understand what needs to be done, or how to get what they want." Her smile would have likely chilled anyone else, but it sent Loki's blood to singing. "So what do you want now?" she asked him. "It isn't power, it isn't stopping Thanos any longer. Have you thought about it? Really thought about it?"
"You," he murmured, clasping her hands and bringing them to his mouth. "If you'll have me."
"I suppose that remains to be seen," she said, amused. "But for now, it works."
"And your hawk? Your captain?"
"What about them?"
"What are their thoughts on the matter?"
"I do what I want, Loki. None of us are here because we're forced to be. We all want to be here. Even you could walk away if you wanted to."
"But I've nowhere else to go."
"But you're not tied here. You're not forced to stay. That's the thing of it, Loki. We have the power to choose. And this is a very important power to have."
He mulled over the words, what little he knew of her background and of this realm. "I suppose it is. I hadn't thought of it that way."
"Maybe it's time you did." She softened the words with a tender smile and another kiss on his forehead. "The Norns thought you worthy of that gift. I think you are fully capable of using it. So show us what you can really do."
Too bad he didn't know what should come next.
***
Wanda slowly took off all of her jewelry. The other Avengers really didn't wear much special jewelry. Natasha did, necklaces or earrings, but nothing that would interfere with her hands or could get caught on items. There were stories behind each piece, she knew that, just as there were stories behind her own pieces of jewelry. One of the long necklaces had been her mother's favorite, another had once belonged to her grandmother. One ring she wore on her right hand had been her aunt's wedding ring, salvaged from her body and the only thing to identify her when the bombs had fallen on Sokovia. One silver ring had been a present from Pietro, and there was still the pang of loss when she looked at it. There were some she had bought from street vendors upon her arrival in New York, the ones she had seen that reminded her of the past. Bracelets or cuffs or earrings also tended to have some kind of memory attached to them, even if they weren't exactly the same. Some part of her wanted the reminder, and having the jewelry also meant that she had something of value to barter with if she ever had to run.
There was always going to be a place for her with the Avengers, but old habits died hard.
Once all of the silver, gold and platinum had been stripped off, she unwound the layers of clothing as well. No particular attachment to any of the clothes, though red and black usually worked well with her coloring. Plus, red was a color of protection against evil and bad luck, and black could be as well.
Standing naked in the middle of her room, she shut her eyes and pictured the shape of the runes she wanted to use. Protection, knowledge, strength, willpower. Loki's simple looking spell had been powerful indeed, possibly because of his sheer willpower and stubbornness.
She felt hollow and useless with Loki lying unconscious in his room, and she had no idea what Hydra was planning to do next. She had to know, and she had to be able to plan ahead. Whatever the thing was between her and Vision still hadn't quite resolved into something she could comfortably name, and the Avengers had turned into something like a family over the past few years. Her twin's namesake was an adorable boy, a bittersweet reminder of everything she had and lost.
Magic was dangerous, and it could cost her everything that she had left. It was a cost she had to willingly pay, because otherwise there was no point in continuing.
She swept her magic around her in a grounding circle, doing it Loki's way. Eyes still closed, the shapes of the runes were clear in her imagination, bright red against the black of her closed eyelids. Black and red, black and red, black and red-
The impression of capillaries in her eyelids seemed to shift and turn into the branches of a tree, and the runes seemed to shift until they were embedded in the branches of the tree.
"Is this Yggdrasil?" she asked. Her voice didn't sound like her own, and her body drifted until she reached the hugrunar. Embedded within it was a face, young and appearing almost similar to her own.
The eyes opened and lips smiled. "Dear child, where else would you be?"
Wanda tried to smile in response. "I just wanted to know-"
"Everything," the lips said, and Wanda felt drawn to them, awareness of the branches around her falling away. Inside of a blink, she was standing on a sandy shoreline in her usual Scarlet Witch costume, jewelry back on, sticky gloss on her lips and the feel of mascara and kohl on her eyes. Her hair hung loose around her face, strands shifting slightly as if there was a breeze.
The lips and eyes were inside a serene face, her skin paler than Wanda's. Her hair was a bright blonde, reminding Wanda of a Nordic model. She wore white, the sleeves of her under robe long and bell-like, with a bright white overtunic. The embroidery was done in white as well, and the movement of the sash at her waist made Wanda think that the embroidery itself was magic.
"Loki told you of his travels to the roots of Yggdrasil, and you had seen as much on your own," the woman continued.
"Which of the Norns are you?" Wanda asked, hoping it wouldn't be seen as rude.
The woman only smiled, putting Wanda at ease. "We are one and one in three," she replied. "He could not comprehend us at once."
"But I can?"
"You are woman," the woman in front of Wanda replied simply.
She laughed, bringing a hand up to her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "It's just, I know there's so much for me to learn, and the thought of me being able to do something that Loki can't... It's a little ridiculous."
The woman seemed to blur and shimmer, and Wanda could almost see three faces superimposed over itself. "You were touched with a gift not your own," she replied, the sound of three voices speaking in unison. "Your very being became something more than human."
"They call them Inhuman on Earth," Wanda offered.
"But you are not of their ilk either," the Norn replied, lips curling into a smile. "You are different. Of a reality closer to our own."
"I'm supposed to be afraid of that, aren't I?" she asked after a moment.
Laughing a little herself, the Norn extended an arm toward Wanda. "Come, little one. Your working called to us, and we wanted to see you for ourselves."
Being touched by the gods was never a good thing; mortals never fared well in the games that immortals played. But to refuse the offer would bring her worse luck, so she took the Norn's arm and found herself looking up at a tree extending above her, infinitely tall, stretching higher than her gaze could even follow. "Yggdrasil," Wanda murmured.
"Yes," the Norn replied proudly. "You can't even see all of it at once."
"It's…" Her lips curled into an appreciative smile. "It's beautiful. Like the entire universe, dreaming yet awake at once."
"Oh, I like your description of this," the Norn said, hand sliding down Wanda's back gently. "And that you see it this way, even the small piece of it, tells me that you will have such abilities to weave the spá, it will be a delight to see your workings."
"What do you mean?" Wanda asked, confused, turning to look at her. It was dizzying, looking away from the splendor and massive webbing of Yggdrasil, and she was glad for the hand at her back. It was steadying, and kept her from falling over.
"You have the makings of being a master at the spá, and your lover has one of our gems embedded in his forehead."
Wanda flushed. "Most would say he isn't alive..."
"Pft. We all know better, don't we?" the Norn said in confidential tones. "Your lover is worthy of our gem, never fear. But the power you hold, and that he holds... Why, you could craft children."
She gaped at the Norn, holding still, her heart stuttering in her chest. "Wh-what?"
"We see your dreams, child. We see the discussions you've had. You love so fiercely, so true, with all of your being. He carries such hope for the world, for the future, for the fallible beings he has sworn to protect. Yet he is not human as you are, though you are more than human as well. Work at your magic, and you can use the powers you both have to your advantage."
Hands flying to her flat abdomen, Wanda shot the Norn a helpless look. "But... A child?"
The Norn laughed. "Oh, children are such strange things sometimes. Like roses. Quite beautiful to behold, but needing such care and tending to remain in proper shape. And if not handled correctly, the thorns would pierce even the gentlest of hands." Removing her hand from Wanda's back, the Norn's smile was still gentle. "It is a blessing, but every blessing has its edges."
But Wanda thought of the possibility that the Norn had awoken in her. As much as the Avengers had been her family since Pietro's death, it wasn't exactly the same. Some small part of her longed for family, for blood relations, for someone to call her own. She wanted someone to understand her Romani upbringing, someone to laugh at little nonsense things, someone to feel as though she belonged with. It helped to talk with Natasha in Russian or a different Slavic tongue, but it wasn't Sokovian. There was no one to understand the traditions she had grown up with, why certain days were holy and others accursed.
"It is a gift that comes with a price. For all things come with cost," the Norn whispered.
Wanda looked at her in question, about to open her mouth. The sandy roots of Yggdrasil were gone, and all she saw around her was a vast emptiness, a darkness with distant twinkling of stars and astronomical phenomena.
"Where is your place in the world? Where is your teacher's?"
While the Norn's voice was all around her, Wanda could no longer see her or feel her. She simply existed in the Void, and she could feel the chill terror that Loki must have felt when he had fallen through it.
"What do you want, dear child? What would you take from the shadows? For we will give you a gift, and you may walk Yggdrasil for a time. But mark us, there is always a cost."
Somewhere in the distance of the Void, a star exploded, piercing bright light filling Wanda's eyes. She had no hands to cover her eyes, no body to experience the onslaught of matter as it was flung outward from the explosion.
There is always a cost.
And then she awoke, none the wiser for her working.
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