Chapter Text
Despite what some people said later, Thor did not go running off straight to Jotunheim.
It had been a pleasant evening out on the balcony, but he wasn't a fool. The crowned prince of Asgard didn't go running off half cocked for the merest slip of affection. Treasure or glory, certainly, but after some mysterious wisp of a boy who'd disappeared as swiftly and inexplicably as he'd come? Hardly. Their time together had barely measured an hour, all told. As pleasant as it had been(and it had been pleasant), it had been all of an hour or two.
Unfortunately, his mother was determined to not let it go that easily.
"Tell me more of the one you met," she said over breakfast, leaning one elbow against the edge of the table, her fingers knit neatly together. "They say the two of you spent quite some time together, out on that balcony alone."
Thor looked up from the hunk of bread he was eating from, the soft grain saturated in tender oil, his goblet of chilled wine in his other hand. He'd been hoping to enjoy his food in silence, to eat and then make his way down to join his friends in mock combat, but it seemed it wasn't to be. His mother was nothing if not determined, and even four days since the feast, she stubbornly brought it up again and again, her smile deceptively sweet.
Queen she might have been, but she always got her way, and for the last few years she'd been hinting heavily at finding Thor a spouse -- with his coming of age, her plans had gone from speculative to outright.
Thor was young yet, centuries away from the throne, but not from marriage or children, and the purpose of the feast that night, set up by the Queen herself, had been for him to find some suitable mate.
Which at first, was why he'd spent it out on a balcony with a lad not more than a few decades younger than himself.
It was purely circumstance that he'd chosen to remain out there for very different reasons.
"Mother," Thor replied tiredly, taking another bite of his bread, chewing lazily around his words. "We've already been over this. All we did was talk."
"And dance," she reminded. Thor had no idea how she knew that, but he'd never had any idea how she knew everything else -- she just always did. It was the way of things, being the son of a powerful seiðkona. He should have expected the walls to have ears(and apparently eyes) in the hall that night.
"He wouldn't even fit your demands," Thor pointed out. "He was male -- and I cannot very well give you grandchildren with a man."
There was no shame in bedding another man, so long as one wasn't unmanned in the act, and Thor had no intention of being so. But it hardly made for a marriage. A man married a woman, no matter how comely another boy might be.
"You said that he looked elfish, though," Frigga countered. "If he is half-elf, he may be able to bear young. Elves are all the same gender, the spritely little things... And what a fine match that would be -- a union between Asgard and Álfheim."
Thor sighed. It seemed his mother was not to be so easily dissuaded. He should have expected it, really.
"And what would you have me do? Propose based on a dance? A poor dance, at that." He gestured at her. "Believe me, you'd me more ashamed to present us at court than not."
Frigga's hand dusted through the air, brushing aside the issue as so much nonsense.
"Nothing a little bit of training cannot cure, my son. You've shown yourself a devoted student when the subject is something you care for. We simply need to get you to put down your sword for a few scant hours. If you put your mind to it, you could be quite a king."
"I have never once seen Father dance," Thor pointed out. "It hardly seems a necessary skill to rule."
"My battles were different from what you will face, Thor," the King joined in, leaning against the head of the table, plate of pork belly and spiced roots in front of him. "I was a king of war. A king who came to the throne in the throes of violence and turmoil, when it seemed that Asgard herself would fall. I was looked to for strength and courage, to be more of a statue than a man, a figure unfailing. But we've had peace for nearly three hundred years now, and the people look to the throne for something quite different. When you are king, you shall have the battle of diplomacy before you -- of expanding and growing our kingdom, and working with the kingdoms that are our neighbors. Your mother is not wrong to see you dressed with skills befitting that job. To be able to waltz and talk, to be able to greet and entertain. You cannot throw your hammer at everything."
Thor frowned, feeling the weight of Mjolnir hanging from his belt -- his gift from his father the night of the feast, given to him at the end of the ceremony that had crowned him heir apparent. No longer a child but a man, a man fit to rule Asgard when Odin chose to step down.
He knew he should recognize his parents' wisdom, knew that they had ruled this kingdom for hundreds of years, but at their breakfast table it just sounded like more chaffing. More rules to keep him bound and bored, studying books and etiquette instead of winning glory and honor before his peers.
"Perhaps I would rather be a king of war than one of peace." Thor shoved his words onto the table, and was pleased by the furrowing of his father's brow, the shock of his mother's tiny inhalation. "When I am king, Asgard will be admired and feared. We will never have to worry again, our place in the Nine Realms secured -- not by tea parties and balls but by the sword and the shield. I need not learn when to raise my pinky or tend to my hair like a woman. I shall be as my father was: a conquerer."
"Fool of a boy," Odin's voice scratched from the head of their table, leaning forward, his one eye fixed on his son. "You play with wooden swords and think yourself a warrior. You know not the meaning of desperation, what it is to look before you and see nothing but desolation and despair. You live in opulence and think yourself powerful because someone has given you power. If you saw war, true war -- what it means to lose, to be responsible for loss, to suffer -- you would piss yourself with blood. You are a vain and foolish boy."
Thor glared and him and shoved himself up from the table, chair scraping against the floor, and he stormed out of their morning room, his red cape fluttering behind him.
-----
But what actually happened was quite the opposite.
It was in the wake of a gloriously successful campaign to Nidavellir, Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three returning with great spoils, that his father handed down the order to go and find Loki.
Really, Thor didn't understand what his father was so upset about. He and his compatriots had returned unharmed and with armfuls of new treasure to add to Asgard's glory. That the dwarves were less than pleased with their excursions hardly mattered. No dwarf would dare to attack Asgard. All the same, three hours after returning home, confined to his chambers, Thor looked up when his father king strode swiftly in.
"I see that I have raised me a warmongering hooligan for a son." Odin's voice did not boom, but it booked no argument, loud and commanding. Thor prepared to argue anyway. "I thought that perhaps these rooms belonged to a prince of Asgard, the heir to the throne and a grown man -- instead I see myself in front of a little boy who would risk lives to play his games!"
"Father," Thor said dismissively. "It isn't as if anyone was harmed."
Even the dwarves had gotten out with only a few scratches and some ruined buildings.
"Because you are lucky does not make you wise!" the king barked in return. "And even with your good fortune it will take me decades to win back the respect of the earthen kings. Dwarves are slower to trust even than elves -- it was only my victory in the war with Jotunheim that they gave me their grudging respect; now I find myself facing their ire."
"How are they a threat to you?!" Thor exclaimed, arms going out to either side. "What need do the Aesir have to fear such lowly creatures?!"
"Is that how you see the world? Those you can trod on and those you can't? You would stomp about the worlds, taking what you will just because you can and caring nothing for those left behind?"
"No." Thor flustered at that, shaking his head. He was no bully. "That's not what I did--"
"I see I have been remiss in my duties." The one eyed king shook his head slowly, voice and expression going sadder rather than angry, and his father's wrath Thor could endure, but never his disappointment. "I saw my son, my shining first born. I saw him victorious in the ring and proud upon the dais before his people. I saw that pride and thought it pleasure in duty, in serving his kingdom. I saw it as pride in his people, his realm. Instead I find it is vain arrogance, pleasure taken in his own strength and beauty."
"Father--"
"No. No more words from you. No more excuses from either of us. It is time you learned what your feckless thuggery will bring -- and time that you see what good, instead, your strength could beget." The white haired god of all children paused then, his face impassive, but Thor knew he was thinking. Not from his expression, but because the Allfather was always thinking.
Thor said nothing, the judgment already passed and nothing he could say would sway that. All he could do was wait for the sentence.
"I believe I shall strike two birds with the same stone. Your punishment will be to fulfill your mother's desire," the king decided and Thor stiffened, because there was only the one thing his mother wanted from him at the moment, and it was as far down the list as Thor could mark a want.
"No, Father," he begged, taking half a step forward. "I hardly think that marriage will solve anything with the dwarves--"
"You leave the dwarves to me. For the last time, I shall be cleaning up your messes. Now, you shall go and clean up your father's. You are to seek out and rescue the child you spoke to that night, the boy Loki."
"But I--" Thor was already objecting before he'd even really taken in the words. His brow furrowed at first that his father would harp back on that, because it had been dismissed months ago. While there were many races across the realms, races of great variety and multitude, there was no guarantee that Loki was from one that would allow him to bear an heir, and Thor's queen mother was not heckling him for nothing. The subject had, rather, been concentrated on finding him an Aesir bride -- or perhaps Vanir, if he could woo one of their cousins.
But that was only his second reaction.
His third was the realization that his father had used the word 'rescue.'
Thor tensed, fingers curling into fists as if expecting a fight, and a part of him was -- not from his father, of course, but from whatever amorphous threat lurked out there. It was a quest. Another in a long line, and perhaps coming too soon after the completion of his last, and his companions would most likely grumble and complain, but a quest nonetheless.
"Rescue? What do you mean? Loki is in danger?" he asked, thinking back to the boy he didn't know at all. He'd thought of him often enough. Not every day, or even every week. But whenever he was presented with one new contender, one new potential bride -- many kind and many smart and all beautiful, but all missing some spark. Not wit or conviction, nor even their ability to put him in his place(the Valkyrie had certainly felt no compunction to still her tongue for a prince).
Rather, it was the longing. The wistfulness he'd seen that night, as if all of Asgard, a normal, dull sight for him, was bright and effervescent. Loki looked at everything as if it were new, but at the same time as if it were inaccessible. New, but not his, and the duality, the mystery, the unsolvable puzzle that his strange visitor had left him with had kept Thor up some nights. He could only wonder at the way that Loki seemed to see the world.
To Thor, the world was a place to be conquered and taken, made his. To Loki it seemed quite different, and Thor couldn't quite find the words to describe it.
He'd decided that if he ever saw the boy again, it would be the first thing he asked him. And now Thor was learning that perhaps he'd never get to ask him at all -- Loki, slender, spry and sharp like thorns, was in danger.
"What has happened to him that you've not told me?" Thor demanded, feeling the first spark of unfair anger.
"You had not thought to ask."
"I didn't think you'd keep something from me!"
"I keep many things from you. The secrets and knowledge I keep that you do not would outweigh the world, my son. Would break the back of the Midgard Serpent. Of the boy I will say only this: Heimdall has seen him, and so have the Norns. He is stuck but not trapped, held but not prisoner. He suffers but has done no wrong. He is captive but has no captors. You will find him in your own time, just as you will find your answers, and I can only hope that when you return you will be more than a man in form only. And perhaps, with grace of the World Tree, you will still your mother's nerves and let me have a good night's sleep."
And leaving nothing but riddles, the Allfather turned away, Gungnir striking the ground as he walked purposefully back towards the door. Thor searched his father's words for some kind of meaning, but before he could even voice his confusion, Odin stopped in the doorway, looking back at him.
"Oh, and this time? You shall leave your band of buffoons behind. This is for you and you alone, Thor. I will see it done."
And with that final commandment, one that Thor could not break, prince or no, his father king vanished from the room, leaving Thor to flounder.
-----
The first several minutes had been understandably baffling. But he had little time to burn -- he'd only known Loki for an hour, but even if he hadn't known him at all, no one deserved to be--...
...well. Whatever it was that had happened to Loki.
If he required rescuing, it surely had to be unfortunate. After all, people didn't need rescuing from fortunate things.
Tired and dirty as he was from his journey to Nidavellir, he grabbed his saddle bags, yet unpacked, and headed down to the stables. He didn't bother with rations -- whatever realm he was traveling to, he was more than capable of living off of the land. With fresh horse and fresh little else, he rode down the Bifrost, listening to the familiar crystalline beat of hooves against the rainbow bridge, the sparks of stars flying up off of them, his mare's white coat dappled with the burning light of the endless universe, the bowers of Yggdrasil's highest branches.
When he came to the portal at the end, he reined the mare in, pulling to the right so that she danced to her side, Thor looking down into the impassive gaze of Asgard's eternal guardian.
"Heimdall," he greeted, messy blonde braid falling back from where he'd flipped it over his shoulder, swinging down against his back. Given all the times that Thor had used the Bifrost by duplicitous means, at best, he was used to the dry, appraising look that the guardian gave him. To most, it was no different from his usual, blank expression -- but Thor knew. Brat or no, though, he was still royal, still the crowned prince, and he didn't balk at speaking up, despite Heimdall's near infinite powers. "Tell me, do your eyes see one called Loki?" he demanded, his mare still pacing, ready to run.
"My eyes see all," the ancient Aesir drawled, voice like a tomb. His hands rested surely on the hilt of his sword, the hilt of his key.
"Then you know where Loki is -- and that my father has sent me to save him."
"For once, it seems, you will use this bridge for a purpose worthy of a prince of Asgard."
"I have always used it for a worthy purpose." Thor smiled smugly. Heimdall frowned, as much as he ever did.
"Three days," the guardian promised. "You will have three days in Jotunheim--"
"Jotunheim!?" Thor broke through, all humor draining from his features. Loki was in Jotunheim? It was one of the few realms that Thor had never journeyed to -- a realm forbidden to him and all other Aesir, and while he shirked many rules, he knew better than to ignore this one. He'd only been a small child at the end of the great war, but he could still only vaguely remember the face of his father, bold and brash and with two eyes that gazed at him with love. He could only vaguely remember that face, before Jotunheim had taken it, and his father's eye, away forever.
It was the land of Frost Giants -- behemoth monsters with no valor or honor, raving animals in the shape of men, but savages at heart. They were the beasts of his childhood, stories that still sent a shiver through his skin, but he was no small child now. He was a man, with a man's weapon upon his hip, gifted to him by the king of all lands, the king of all realms, and he would allow no monster to cow him.
His expression became set and hard. If Loki was trapped in Jotunheim, then this was serious. Who knew what those creatures had done to him. And Thor had let him languish there for months now.
Beneath him, his mare pranced, feeling the anxiety and anticipation of her master, hooves striking the rainbow stone of the Bifrost bridge.
"Open the Bifrost for me, Heimdall," he ordered, pulling on the reins to steady her.
The guardian nodded.
"As it has been ordered by the king, so shall it be. You will have three days. On the setting of the third day, I will open the way home. If you do not come, I will not open the Bifrost again. I will not endanger Asgard or her people."
Three days. Three days to find and rescue Loki, or he'd be trapped on Jotunheim forever. He was a warrior who'd fought in many realms, conquered many foes, been trained by the Einherjar themselves, and was the son of the great Allfather -- but the idea of being locked away in Jotunheim, unable to see Asgard's golden spires again, was enough to make his heartbeat speed up, the smallest sliver of fear breaking off and rushing through his blood. He would never admit to it, though.
He pressed his lips together and nodded.
"I understand."
When Heimdall opened the gate, opened the light of the universe in front of him, Thor moved forward without looking back -- as he aways had. As he always would.
-----
Thor had been torn back then -- torn between the desire to run to the Bifrost and chase after his father, to stand beside him in glorious battle, to fight as gods did against the wickedness of the world, and the desire to run and hide in his bed, covering his face with the sheets and promising himself that no Frost Giants would ever be able to get past Heimdall.
Thor had grown up, of course. He'd grown out of being a little boy and learned the thrill of danger and the rush of life almost lost. He'd learned what the warriors of his people meant when they talked about the passion of battle and the beauty to be found in glorious rest. And yet the Jotnar and their fabled red eyes had always hidden from him, just beyond the reach of his vision, and Jotunheim had remained a world unseen, still threatening in all its secrecy.
Something unknown, and therefore still on the edge of fear.
When his horse's hooves touched the frozen ground, hit off of the ice and kicked snow up as she danced to find her landing, Thor braced himself, holding to the saddle as his thighs tightened around the barrel of her chest, his other hand pulling her reins back. It was only after she'd steadied, the two of them coming to an uneasy halt, that Thor raised his face into the howling winds and looked upon Jotunheim for the very first time.
It was a desolate wasteland of winter and a sky as dark as the darkest night -- darker than Asgard, at the pinnacle of Yggdrasil's great reach, ever became. His home was always bathed in the light of the cosmos, star dust and galactic ether floating overhead, in the spaces between the burning light of the stars. Jotunheim was in shadow, worse than even Svartálfaheim, which was at least caught in a perpetual twilight. The cold stung against Thor's skin, the wind rushing up against him and whipping his hair against his shoulders and neck, the last of his braid coming undone. He reached down under him, opening one of his saddlebags to pull out his heavy cloak, grateful he'd had it in there. It wasn't as if he'd had time to pack specifically for this trip.
He had the basics, everything he'd need to set up camp and survive away from Asgard's light, but there was a benefit to knowing where one was going before one headed there. Muspelheim and Niflheim had wildly different climates and disparate environments -- being prepared greatly boosted one's chances of survival.
But Thor had ventured to almost all of the Nine Realms, had adventured and quested in the greatest of fires and in the most vicious of storms. He was a son of Odin, the king of all the universe and the Allfather, and Thor didn't doubt his ability to survive even this frigid world. At least for three days.
He pulled his cloak around his shoulders, keeping out the worst of the biting chill, the airy hands that grabbed at his skin and tried to tear the warmth from his bones. He'd always thought that Jotunheim would be like Niflheim -- cold and expansive, a crystaline forest of frozen life, tranquil and quiet and lonely. While the two realms certainly had the snow and the ice in common, Thor found himself almost longing for the beauty of Niflheim. The sun still came out there, beyond the icy clouds, shining rainbow dappled light across the frosted surface of the snow, and the only sound for miles was the chime of ice brushing ice.
Jotunheim was something far less ethereal. It was brutal and beastly, far more mundane and much more harsh, a physical world of flesh and survival, not the eternal stillness of the realm of the unhonored dead.
Over Thor the sky was a darkened blue, no light able to crack the clouds, and with an already wearied breath he nudged his mare's sides, guiding her forward. She picked up her feet, moving awkwardly through the deep snow and down a rolling slope, frost already building against her sides. Druna was a good steed though, a warrior's steed. She had braved many challenges with him, and Thor had no doubt of her courage. He steered her forward, no direction to guide them and only three days to fulfill a mission that Thor was beginning to think might be impossible.
It hadn't seemed so bad on the other side of the Bifrost.
Now he was faced with the reality of Jotunheim; an unending blizzard, an entire world and Thor was looking for one missing boy. Though surely Loki had to stick out amongst the Frost Giants. And Heimdall saw all -- he would have set Thor down near Loki's location. It was just a matter of figuring out which direction to go from there.
Such a thing was easier said than done. The blizzard was thick enough that visibility was barely anything, the world white and blustery all around him and no landmarks or points of light to go by. He flicked a lode stone into the snow at the site of where he'd been deposited. Three days. Three days and he would have to return here, whether he'd achieved what he'd come for or not.
Thor was unaccustomed to failure, though, and with that in mind he urged Druna forward, the two of them making slow but steady progress through the storm.
Without the sun it was impossible to say how much time had passed. Searching through the barren landscape it felt like an eternity, his Aesir skin used to golden light and fair breezes, used to the eternal scent of sweet spring in endless bloom, not this ravaging winter, a chill deeper than any other in the Nine Realms. He thought he could stand it better if he had greater visibility, but when the storm died down he changed that estimation. Even able to see better, all he could make out were endless plains of slate rock and snow and the distant mountainous glaciers at the horizon's edge. There was no life here, no light, no break in the clouds and no green birth to be found creeping through the ice. When they came upon a stream, Thor had to shatter the frozen surface to allow Druna to drink, and even then she wickered in discomfort at the cold.
"Tis a miserable place," Thor agreed softly, rubbing a hand through the white hair on her broad neck, her stout legs steady at the water's edge. Her long tail flicked back and forth at the snow crystals that fell upon her coat.
"I cannot imagine how any would have survived here long," Thor continued, talking to his horse in lieu of other companionship, too used to the company of others and disliking the emptiness of this place. "None but Frost Giants live here, and I would gladly leave them to it."
He glanced up at the sky, uncertain of how to determine time without a sun. He thought that he could perceive the direction of the low blue light that permeated the clouds, lower down now than when he first arrived, and that meant he was near sunset. Three sunsets. That was all he had to find Loki, and it hadn't taken him long at all to know that this was no world to envy. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to be trapped here, to be kept in captivity by the Jotnar, the monsters of his childhood. Thor thought briefly of the feast months ago and Loki, so strange and different and fascinating. He thought of the quicksilver expressions that had darted over the delicate features of the other boy, the darkness that had flashed behind brighter eyes and the merry secrets that had danced just beyond Thor's reach. The prince frowned.
"Come, Druna," he murmured to his mare, pulling himself back up into her saddle. "We have little time."
Who knew how long Loki had been trapped in this wasteland? No wonder the boy had been so reticent to speak true to him, though Thor wondered if there was perhaps a curse in place -- after all, why return here? Perhaps the Jotnar held something dear hostage, a family member, or some treasured gem. Perhaps they'd taken Loki's heart and placed it inside a box, or sewn the cuttings of his hair into a doll. Magic was a strange and wily thing, one that Thor did not claim to understand.
The fact of the matter was that something bound Loki here and Thor had come to save him, and resolute that he would not fail in that, the prince urged his steed up the embankment, her hooves making slow progress over the slippery ground.
Thor structured their search in something like a spiral. Heimdall would have placed him near Loki's prison, so Thor could not risk going straight one way and ending up moving away from wherever it was he was meant to go. He held the lode stone's companion in his hand and kept the pull of its direction to his left, steering Druna ever outward in wide circles, snow building in the thick of his beard.
Near the end of the first day a heavy blizzard set in, covering even the meager light of whatever sun dared grace this world. The clouds were so thick, so dense, that all the landscape seemed drenched in pitch, vanished from sight and cast into shadow. He pulled a small stone from his pack, round and smooth and perfectly spherical -- a magelight, and the heat of his hand stirred it to life, emitted a faint golden light.
Thor kept going as long as he dared, but soon there was nothing, not even the dim blue glow off of the surface of the snow, the world gone blank and hollow. The wind howled desperately all around him, snow flecking past at great speed, but invisible until his beleaguered magelight illuminated it. Jotunheim was vast and wide open in all directions, but hidden by the darkness. Thor could imagine all kinds of creatures lurking in that space, watching from beyond the tiny circle of his existence, where his light ended, and while fear was something he'd long put to childhood, the feeling made him uneasy. He felt his back itch at its bareness, at the feeling of imagined(or he hoped they were imagined) eyes upon him.
In the end, however, it was the darkness that saved him.
He would have never seen the dim light of the frostfire during the day, hidden behind a ridge of rock and mostly obscured. It barely cast a haloed glow around the edges of the ridge, and Thor saw it only because there was nothing else to see. In the absolute dark, even the faintest light seemed powerful.
He stowed his magelight back in the saddlebag and pulled Druna sharply to the right.
The storm had died down considerably then, though the darkness prevailed, and it was easier to navigate his way around the ridge, following the lower snow plane to where the dark rock jutted out of the ground. On the other side, Thor's eyes widened, seeing before him, for the first time, the Jotnar. Frost Giants.
There were about ten of them milling around a frostfire burning on some petrified wood, the dark blue light flickering around the cleared area of their camp -- or their home, Thor amended, seeing two entrances into the rock, natural caves that had been further carved to be made livable. The giants themselves were as huge as tales told, easily twice the height of a man, and their bodies were mottled shades of blue, ranging from dark to light, from greyish to almost cobalt. Across their skin were slung scar lines, though the stories said they weren't scars at all but in-born, the ridges marked by the frost that the giants could call upon and summon ice into their hands. Mage lines, a magic bound to this world and gifted only to her children.
One or two of the giants had hair, but most sported bony ridges, plates jutting out from their skulls and down the backs of their heads. And even from a distance, Thor could see the blood red of their eyes when they came to rest on the young prince, and motion around the camp slowly ceased, the Jotnar one by one coming to a halt to look at the Aesir in their midst.
They didn't attack, though.
Thor firmed his jaw, swallowing back any hesitance, and he felt the hum of Mjolnir against his hip, her song telling him of glory, of battle, telling him he had nothing to fear, and he didn't. He was a prince, sent here by a king, and even if the monsters attacked him they'd face the dead star heat of Mjolnir's uru surface -- a force that few could withstand. Thor had been trained by the Einherjar themselves, was the son of the Allfather, and whatever hesitance he felt, he knew it could be nothing compared to how Loki felt, trapped here with these animals.
The thought sat sour at the base of his stomach and he urged Druna forward, the proud mare prancing over the bare rock, hooves clapping hard against the slate, echoing as he approached the light of the frostfire. Thor reached down to grasp Mjolnir's handle, pulling her up to bare and thrusting her out towards his enemies when he pulled Druna to a halt in front of their camp.
"I am Thor, crowned prince of Asgard, and I have been sent here by Odin Allfather, Odin Giantslayer, to rescue the Aesir you hold imprisoned." Mjolnir didn't waver, nor did Thor's eyes, only Druna's feet pacing slightly beneath him. "You will bring him to me or tell me who has him."
The command came out smoothly and unjarred, and in the empty wilderness it seemed to echo impressively, carrying with it all the authority of Asgard's golden throne. Thor waited for them to fight or to acquiesce, those two the only options that Thor saw before them. He was surprised when nothing happened at all. The giants watched him and he watched them, red eyes meeting blue, and Thor was glad to say that he saw wariness there, saw the way their dull gazes landed on Mjolnir's singing metal before they flicked back up to the prince's face, and none dared to attack.
Finally, though, one of them moved forward, horns protruding from his head, flaking keratin and a thin skin, curling up from his temples. His face seemed old and weathered and his nose hooked, as vile and villainous as a creature could look, and Thor tightened his grip on the hammer's handle.
"We have not seen an Aesir in many years, good prince." The inflection fell strange upon the words, full of things that Thor didn't know, nor wished to, though he felt the distraction of curiosity. "Not since the great war between our peoples."
Thor's brow furrowed.
"You lie," he accused without thought. "I have seen him. Perhaps he is of elfish blood?" Loki had claimed not to be, but Loki had hidden many things, it turned out. "Heimdall himself has seen him here, and I have been sent to retrieve him. You will give him to me or you will feel my wrath, and believe me when I tell you that it is worthy of the name Thor."
"Oh, I have no doubt of your brutality, Odinson," the Jotun said, voice still strangely slick, and Thor expected hate or a sneer there, not a flickered look of amusement. "It runs in your blood. But I can no more give you some imagined hostage than I could give you the wind. Your guardian must have...misseen."
"Heimdall is never wrong, Jotun," Thor replied, warning in his tone. He kept his arm out, kept the threat of Mjolnir there and visible. He pursed his lips. "The boy," he said finally, perhaps haltingly. "He said--... He said that his name was Loki."
And at that, the giant's eyes widened with recognition, and after a moment he laughed, as if Thor had told some kind of joke.
"What?" Thor demanded, brow furrowed in a scowl. "What do you mock?!"
"Nothing, my prince," the Jotun replied, still chuckling. "I shall fetch you your...Aesir."
He bowed then, an obvious mockery that made Thor growl, lowering Mjolnir, knowing he was missing something here but having no clue as to what. Druna shifted under him, shoes scraping the slate rock, and Thor steadied her with the reins, watching the Jotnar move around and talk amongst them, throwing him distrustful looks that he gladly returned. Despite all his threats, he was loathe to engage in violence. His father hadn't actually said anything, but Thor knew that to open hostilities with the Frost Giants would not be in Asgard's best interests. He was as reticent to start a fight as they, and he suspected that they knew that. Perhaps why he'd been treated in such a casual manner.
A moment later another Jotun came from one of the caves, dragging what appeared to be a child with him-- no, not a child. The boy was dwarfed next to the giants, but he didn't have a child's features, didn't have that look of growth yet to come. He was actually almost Thor's size, looked fully grown, but just as blue as the other Jotnar around him. A runt. A Jotun runt, with slender golden horns jutting up from dark hair.
The runt was squirming and twisting, arguing with quickly spat words, trying to yank his wrist from the great hand encompassing it, but to no avail. His skinny limbs were no match for the titanic strength of the monstrous creature pulling him along. When the giant got close he threw the runt forward, the smaller Jotun stumbling and coming to a stop next to Druna's side.
It was a heartbeat later that the runt lifted his head to look at Thor, and his red eyes widened hugely, going round, black pupils dilated in the darkness, and he went stock still.
Thor stared at him for a moment, then looked up at the older giant.
"What is this?" the prince asked.
"You demanded Loki," the Jotun replied with an infuriating smile. He gestured to the runt. "This is Loki."
Thor scowled.
"This is not Loki. Not the one I seek."
"I am afraid this is the only Loki we have to offer you, Aesir--"
"The one I search for is no Jotun runt--!"
"Oh do shut your mouth," the runt hissed, and Thor wasn't expecting that. He looked back down at the little beast, a poorly cut, poorly tanned hide wrapped around skinny shoulders, dark hair pooling around the curve of his neck and curled into a low braid, messy and the ends crystallized with frost.
"What?" Thor asked, baffled.
"You have no idea, do you? You are a buffoon," the runt snarled, looking up at him, its skinny fangs bared. Thor thought on a full sized Jotun the expression might have been threatening, but he had nothing to fear from such a little monster. Even the other Jotnar, who knew well enough that Mjolnir could end them, seemed to regard the runt as pathetic.
"Do you know to whom you speak?" Thor demanded, unwilling to be insulted so by such a meager thing.
"It is you who lacks understanding, not I!" the runt yelled back, leaning forward slightly, red eyes murderous. "I cannot believe you-- What are you even doing here?"
"I have come to rescue the one called Loki--"
The runt interrupted him again, laughing cruel and sharp, shaking his head. Long hair slipped over his shoulders, dangling around his chin, uncombed and uncared for, and Thor couldn't help but notice how prominent the little beast's bones were, jutting up from under pale blue skin.
"Rescue? You are even thicker than I thought... There is no one here to rescue," it said, shaking its head.
"I was told by my father--" he started, but was cut off again. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been treated with such impertinence.
"Surely this is some jest of the Allfather... A punishment, perhaps, for sneaking into his shining realm." The runt snorted. "You came here for nothing, Prince of the Aesir. Go home. Go back to your golden spires and lavish feasts. Go back to your drink and your brawl and forget about Loki Liesmith."
"I will not!" Thor shouted back, offended at the very notion of abandoning a quest, of leaving Loki to this heartless world. Druna stamped her hooves under him, feeling his agitation. "I have come here to find Loki and I will not leave until I have done so."
"You have done so, you foolish creature." The runt threw his arms out to either side, anger seething in those blood red eyes, but Thor felt a similar frustration at this game, this obvious mockery.
He held Mjolnir aloft in threat, willing to book it no longer.
"The Loki I seek is Aesir!"
"Must you always mistake my race?!" the runt yelled back, bright and sharp. "I am no elf. I am no Aesir. I am no mortal or dwarf or whatever other race you might think to pick for me! Face it, Highness -- you have traveled far for a Jotun runt. You must prepare yourself to be as disappointed as I was when visiting your world."
Thor blinked, his eyes wide and Mjolnir still hefted above him.
Ljósálfar.
It was what Thor had teased Loki with so at the feast, had enjoyed the way it made the other boy's face contort in a distasteful grimace, the way it set him on edge and kept him from retreating behind a shield of indifference. At the time it had been merely amusing, but he had also enjoyed the way it had played at the beat of his heart, the way it had stirred that age old lust of men, of warriors such as he.
None could know of that except for Loki, and when he looked down from Druna's back he saw that same anger there, that haughty hate, as if Thor's mere existence, the temerity of his heedless words, offended him. And it probably did.
He'd just acted a fool. More than that.
He lowered Mjolnir from where he'd hefted her, let her gentle song fade from his ears, his thumb pressing tight into the bindings of the leather wrapped around her handle. He lowered her and let his hand dangle by his thigh, by the barrel of Druna's chest, unwilling to holster her here, in front of such villains, but knowing now that his was not the place to threaten.
"...Loki?" he asked, a part of him still disbelieving, because it wasn't true. Couldn't be true. It didn't make sense. The beautiful, well spoken, dignified young man that had so easily slipped away from him was no Frost Giant. No ice hearted monster. No killer of babes, consumer of bones.
"Yes, you fool," the runt--Loki, hissed. His dark eyes, set in the red, darted around, as if willing to truly look. Then he gestured away, the movement quick and understated. "Now get out of here."
"But I--"
"Do you truly think to rescue me? From what, pray tell? Go home, Thor. I had the grace to leave your world when my time was up, now you show me the same courtesy."
"My time is not up," Thor replied, still feeling somewhat numbed. "I have three days."
"Norns curse you, go! You're doing me no favors!" Loki spoke louder this time, gestured more firmly, and Druna was a war horse but she was no fool. She danced a few cautious steps away from the Jotun's claw tipped fingers, black ice clinging to their edges. Thor's hands flew up to steady her, pulling on the line of her reins, feeling her prance beneath him, but his eyes didn't leave Loki's face.
He could see it now, if he looked closely, if he looked beyond the strange lines under the runt's skin, if he looked around the curve of the blue and imagined the silver light of Asgard's moon.
If he wished away the Jotun between him and Loki.
There was the spark, there was the heat. There was the face that had rolled its eyes so elegantly, the hair that had curled at the base of the neck, though now longer, braided. There was the boy that called him oaf and looked at him with such sadness when he'd run from the balcony, like he hadn't wanted to go at all.
The boy who wasn't a boy at all but a Jotun, a monster of frost and blood, a beast of angry waste and endless war, lacking in honor or grace. A savage thing barely better than an animal, and Thor thought of Loki's hands, thought of his cold, cold fingers and the feel of them against his lips. He thought of breathing onto them, breathing out a piece of himself and feeling it sink into flesh that felt frostbitten. He thought of his lips against the flesh of a Frost Giant.
His expression darkened.
"Deceiver," he said, but the accusation lacked the volume it deserved. Stuck in his throat.
Loki rolled his eyes just like he should, just like Thor remembered, but stained red, bathed in strange blood unfamiliar to him. Like something perfect tarnished. Like the golden halls of Asgard smeared with the excrement of bulls. It was ugly. An act of blasphemy.
"I should kill you," Thor said, and it was meant to be powerful, meant to be a threat, but it came out almost breathless, as if this discovery had knocked Thor from his feet, and he felt a bit like it had. His hand tightened around the reins enough to sting, and Mjolnir shivered in his other palm. "How dare you trespass in the home of gods!"
"As you trespass here?"
"I am a prince! I may go where I please -- this realm is defeated. You lay beneath us."
"You are a fool and a braggart. Are you done lording your father's victory over us, princeling? Vain little bird that flew too far from home. Fly home to your father and your shining city. What claim have you here? None to Loki, that I can tell you now. Your quest is a failure before you've even started, so fly away home--"
A thick hand came to cover Loki's mouth, eclipsing most of his face. The giant behind him was huge in comparison, huge to Thor as well, and though Loki glared at him balefully his voice was stilled, the giant's other arm coming around Loki's body, as if to restrain him.
"Ignore the child," the Jotun said, though it sounded more like a demand, as if he was unused to using his voice for anything else. Loki clawed at the hand, leaving angry marks, but the giant was unperturbed. "If he has trespassed, you are welcome to take it out on his hide. Or take him to your people for his punishment."
Loki's eyes widened and he clawed a bit more frantically.
"His life means nothing to you?" Thor asked, surprised and feeling a strange queasiness.
"He is no child of mine. A runt that has been dogging my tribe's footsteps since we skirted near to Utgarde. You would be doing me a kindness -- and I hardly invite the wrath of Asgard down upon my kith and kin. He is young and foolish. I remember the heat of Odin's fury and the memory tires me. If it is his life you want, it is yours." The giant shoved Loki forward, hands still tight on his form, and a fire burned in Loki's eyes, staring up at Thor as if to burn through him.
Thor remained still, considered the offer, staring down at the runt, at the wild mess of Loki's wind stirred hair, at the frost that caught in his eyelashes. Black strands shifted like cobwebs, interleaving as the cold winter wind blew harder, tugged at the edge of Loki's fur as it tugged hard at Thor's cloak, but the wet light of Loki's eyes remained unmoving, unblinking, stiller than stone, unforgiving as ash.
Thor's jaw clenched and he shook his head.
"...I will take my leave. I am...sorry, for my disturbance." It hit him only a second later how absurd it was to apologize to a Frost Giant, but he was too thrown off to take it back. He looked back down at Loki, who was thrown from the giant's hold, and he winked through the snow, disappearing and reappearing a moment later on the ridge, his claws scratching on stone as he perched there. A sorcerer then. That was how he got into Asgard, how he had changed his features.
Thor frowned.
Without another word he turned Druna away, pulled her head to one side and steered her away, hooves clattering over the bare stone until they cleared the camp and entered the snow banks. Thor's mind was a maze, an endless loop of sounds and surprise, and he fought to clear it, to figure his way out around the anger and betrayal and the humiliation of being so fooled. So shamed, and in front of the eyes of enemies.
Shamed by some runt that even the Frost Giants sneered down at.
Thor winced.
Ahead of him was a copse of stone trees, thin trunks spread out and leaving a lonely looking forest, but it would be good enough to bed down in for the night. He had no option but to wait for Heimdall to reopen the Bifrost -- and until then, he was stuck here. Stuck in some foreign land, in the land of his childhood stories and childhood nightmares, somehow awful and underwhelming at the same time. Stuck with the embarrassment of having been tricked by a trickster, a weakling and coward who had used magic, used women's seiðr to fool him.
Thor scowled, nose wrinkling and pride stung. And the worst part was that he was certain that his father knew. That his shame was public, and just as bad, his father had sent him here anyway, to make him face it. To humble him.
But Thor didn't feel humbled. He felt hurt.
Betrayed.
The memory of the night of the feast flashed frost fast by his eyes, Loki's surprise at the kiss, the coldness of the hands in his, and he thought, imagined, fingers turning monstrous and blue within his own.
Wincing, Thor dismounted, leading Druna into the copse, pulling the reins over her head and tying her to the unmoving branch of a tree. He sighed and placed his hands against her sides, looking up at the eternally snowing sky, dark and moonless as the world settled into night.
One sunset gone.