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Tony wasn’t even sure how he had wound up spending the day at a museum with Loki. It wasn’t something they had ever talked about beforehand, and he didn’t think Loki had even hinted at any interest at going to a Midgardian museum to stare at all of the things they considered important. If he sat and thought about it, he could kind of picture the man striding through the halls and looking at all of the collected art and history… But that was more because Tony could picture Loki in that setting and fitting in pretty well, more than Loki deriving any sort of pleasure from the experience.
And lo and behold, Loki didn’t seem to be enjoying himself at all, unless taking another opportunity to feel superior to humans counted as entertainment. Which it might.
He watched as Loki leaned in to examine a display case. Under the glass was a collection of archeological finds. It didn’t look like much, just a collection of twisted and corroded metal scraps, dark and heavy, with very little in the way of subtlety in their making from what Tony could tell. The little plaque on the display case touted them as a find from a smith’s workshop. Pieces which hadn’t been finished or were discarded but not melted back down – obviously not the best examples of the long-forgotten smith’s craft, but demonstrative of his high standards and pride.
Loki snorted and straightened away from the display. “It never ceases to amaze me just what humans think is worth preserving.”
Tony glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Amaze or appall?”
“Both, now you come to mention it,” Loki said, still looking down at the collection the smith’s work. “I’m willing to acknowledge that your kind is capable of impressive works – you yourself are a good example. But this… I don’t see the point in putting such things in places of honor.”
Tony frowned, wondering if it would be worth the time or effort to even try and explain. Sometimes it seemed like Loki was genuinely curious about how humans worked, where their priorities lay, and was doing his best to cultivate some sort of understanding. Other times it all seemed to be a front so that he could mock humans as a whole. Overall Tony had no idea which of the two was more likely to be the case at any given time.
He shrugged. “Think of it as a sign of how humans have short memories as a species. Our histories tend to be spotty and broken, especially the further back you go, and we’re all fairly short-lived compared to Asgardians. Even the unimpressive things are important to us, and can tell us a lot about how our ancestors used to live and how we’ve progressed.”
“Ridiculous creatures,” Loki muttered, and began walking on to the next display. This one had a small collection of cloth pieces arranged into what was obviously meant to be an entire outfit. “I rather wonder that Odin ever considered it worth his while to interfere with this planet when its inhabitants were so very primitive.”
“Well, it didn’t last for very long.” Tony followed him, looking in on the ancient remnants, little more than thin scraps of linen. “Whatever his reasons had been, it couldn’t have been very important.”
Loki didn’t answer immediately, which made Tony look at him covertly again. There was something of a mystery, at least in Tony’s mind, in how the Asgardians whom they knew had interacted with humans of the past. There were plenty of myths still hanging around from centuries ago, stories of old gods who held rather remarkable similarities to the Asgardians, and both Thor and Loki had made passing references to the way humans had thought of Asgardians in ‘the days of old.’ They hadn’t ever gone into a lot of detail, but Tony had always been given the impression that those of Asgard got something out of humans. Something that wasn’t necessarily material, but which they had prized quite a bit. He’d never asked either one of them about it directly, since it was more of a hunch than anything else, and decided instead to see if he could tease it out of them.
“No,” Loki eventually agreed. “Not so important. Elsewise he would have kept a tighter grip on this Realm. It’s an interesting question to ponder; if your species would have been better or worse off for the interference had we remained?” He looked over at Tony, a small smile tugging at one side of his mouth.
“More interesting at the very least,” Tony said, answering one smile with another. “I can’t imagine that much would have been the same with you lot hanging around. It only took a handful of you to make a pretty permanent impression.”
Loki grinned, white teeth flashing in the semi-dim mood lighting of the exhibit. The touring exhibit of ‘Viking Age Scandinavia’ was all lit the same way, probably to give the mood of the inside of a Viking home or something similar. The displays were bright enough to make out what was under the glass, but the rooms were fairly dark, which had the side effect of everyone walking through pitching their voices low.
Other than the glass display cases where bits and pieces of archeological finds were arranged and displayed, there were also larger pieces not under glass, screens showing short films taken at location and featuring various specialists, handouts and miniatures… Tony looked at it all with passing interest, the whole thing not being an area of particular interest, save in how it related to Thor and Loki. Loki only seemed to have the energy to scoff or remark sarcastically at everything he saw.
Tony wondered again how it was that they managed to find themselves there in the first place. Whose idea had this been…? He couldn’t remember.
They walked around some more, sarcastic comments still coming every now and then. Tony didn’t register most of them. They ran together after a while and began to sound very similar. It wasn’t until they made it to a room with some of the largest displays they’d seen that the running commentary stopped. All along one wall were a series of what looked like short totems to Tony. Although on average they were about six or seven feet tall, so ‘short’ was entirely relative. Wooden, carved with simple features and stained dark with age, about a dozen figures lined one wall, lit from beneath with lamps so they all appeared more dramatic to the people walking along their line. Loki and Tony joined in, Tony taking the time to read the little plaque on the wall describing what they were.
Öndvegissúlur, ‘High-Seat Pillars’
Wooden poles placed on either side of the high-seat of Viking homes, where the heads of household would sit. Sometimes carved with the likeness of Gods, öndvegissúlur have been known to have been brought on long sea journeys and tossed overboard on sight of land to discover good places to establish permanent settlements.
Tony looked at the pillars again, and tried to imagine a pair of them sitting to either side of a seat, and someone sitting there between them. It was probably a striking sight all put together, but looking at the pillars now… Time hadn’t been gentle on them, and even with the dim and dramatic lighting, modern lights were still more clinical than firelight would have been. The features carved into the wood were mostly rough, and fairly indistinct. They all did seem to have something in the way of facial features, though, and general lines suggesting clothing. As far as identifying any of them by name, Tony had to rely entirely on the individual cards for each of them, which displayed the name of the God each was meant to represent, where the pillar had been found, and when it had most likely been made.
“I dunno about you,” Tony commented when they were about halfway along the wall, “but I think they lost a little something when they were making the ones for Thor.”
Loki eyed the pillar in front of them, vague distaste on his face. “Perhaps in generalities,” he said. “But I think they captured the spirit of my brother rather well. Don’t you think he looks rather vacant and brutish?”
Tony choked on a surprised laugh. “I can’t decide if that’s being a little rough on Thor or the people who made the pillar.”
“Let’s be generous and go with both.”
None of the pillars really looked much like the few Asgardians Tony had ever seen, but it would have been expecting a lot to think that they would, in Tony’s opinion. A lot to think that the original artists actually knew what the people they’d been trying to depict looked like, that they could accurately render that onto rough wood, and that any of that would survive the hundreds of years to present day. There was something which Tony did notice as they went along, however.
“They definitely had their favorites for this kind of thing, didn’t they?”
Loki grunted in response, eyeing the pillar in front of him with distaste. The card beside it stated that it was a depiction of Odin the Allfather, but besides the vague patch over one eye, Tony didn’t see much resemblance. It was a little hard to tell, but the figure seemed to have birds carved on it as well, about where the human figure would have shoulders. It was the birds Loki seemed to be glaring at the most.
Out of the dozen or so in the room, there were about four meant to be Odin – none of them particularly similar to each other – and another five were supposedly Thor. Of those remaining, Tony had only met one face to face, and another he’d heard named but never met.
Tony glanced over at Loki, who had been remarkably quiet as they’d looked over the pillars. “You never went in for the big wooden type of praise? I would have thought big and ostentatious would have been right up your alley.”
For a moment Loki didn’t reply, and by the look on his face it seemed reasonable to think that he just wouldn’t at all. Eventually, though, “How mortals choose to express themselves in their worship has very little to do with our direction.” His tone was distant, as though giving a lesson. “There were very few times when any of us could have been said to have given them direction or demands. Humans do what they do because they choose to, and choose to believe what they will about their own actions. How your ancestors chose to… ‘praise’ me, didn’t lend itself to this sort of display.”
Tony’s ears pricked, his interest piqued. “No? How did they tend to praise you, then? We’ve got plenty of stories about you, but not much for how anyone recognized you as a god or anything.”
“Nor would you,” Loki snorted. “Anything done in my name was… simple. Impermanent. As like to disappear with the next tide as a castle made of sand. My domain amongst your people has always been in stories, tales passed from one to the next.”
He stared at Loki’s back for a moment. “That’s… kind of a shame, really.”
It got Loki to turn around and look at him, brows drawn in a small frown. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, I mean…” He motioned back at the pillars, and round the room which had other small depictions of various gods. “It means that not much has survived to now. Stories are good, of course, but they change and warp through time, even if you write them down. And these people didn’t write for the most part, not until way later.” Tony shrugged. “It’s just sort of sad that nothing more permanent was left behind. It seems unfair.”
Loki tilted his head at Tony, his expression puzzled. “Do you really think so?” He looked around as well, taking in the various interpretations of gods, of people he knew and had grown up around, of family whom humans had worshipped. “In a way, I suppose I see your reasoning. Your people seem to set much stock behind such things. In leaving this sort of impression on your culture. If such monuments are not made, then how much importance can be given to those who are not represented, yes?”
“Well… yeah?” Tony felt as though he were being led to a particular conclusion, which was always an unsettling feeling when it was Loki doing the leading.
“Monuments can be impressive, but look at them, Stark. They’ve seen the worst side of time, and can’t be said to have survived the journey unscarred. More than that, though, monuments are… static things. Unmoving.” He grinned at Tony, the odd lighting of the room giving him a predatory look. “Whereas stories, those are alive and breathing. Each and every time a story is retold, a little more life is added to it, more vitality.”
Loki looked round the room pointedly, and then waved dismissively. “Let them keep their sticks and stones, they’re bloodless. Stories have a life all their own, and those are what will be remembered.”
Tony blinked after Loki, who was walking through the rest of the exhibit with what seemed to be a bit more of a spring in his step. He wasn’t sure he totally bought that Loki really believed what he said, but looking around at all the artifacts, there was something to be said for being remembered in stories. What use would all of the artifacts even be if there were no stories to provide them context? Just sticks and stones, like he said, with neither sense nor character attached to them.
He picked up his pace to catch up with Loki. He wasn’t sure how, but he was determined to get some of those stories out of him later. A few drinks ought to do the trick.