Chapter Text
The days tilted towards winter and Loki understood the time of his arrival was, indeed, very warm. All unnecessary business outside the fastness was put on hold. The halls became busier, people he never seen before congregating indoors for the long months of winter to come.
As the world outside became violent and dark, screaming wind throwing ice at everything, the inside struggled to retain warmth. Closets were unpacked for warmer wraps and soft felted shoes, for thicker blankets that only Loki used before. The heating panels were tested and turned on, to run hot water from the streams under the fastness inside the walls, keeping out the cold trying to break in. Bashmates bundled closer together to sleep through the long nights in reassurance that those dearest to them were all within arms reach.
He went outside only once. Woken once more by a nightmare, he slipped from a nest of blankets and hugging arms, shivering and the dream clinging on. He wandered the sleeping halls and his feet took him to a narrow side corridor, through several tightly fitted doors. The air was razor-sharp. There was no snow falling and no wind, a brief respite. He was dressed in triple layers of winter clothes already, his heart-cold lingering in his bones, even though his looks improved to a steadier blue and his horns grew at an alarming rate.
Outside, the clothes offered no protection at all. He instantly froze to the bone, wide awake, the nightmare gone from his mind. The field of rotting corpses, quiet except for the buzzing flies and a persistent wavering hum just barely audible; himself lying dead, next to disintegrating bodies of his newfound kin, and Thor, alive, stalking the field and searching for something.
The stars filled the sky, almost as clear as in space. The winter air was so dry, and the planet so far from an already fading sun, there was little to obscure their light, their brilliant sharpness. Some stars he recognised from his studies, some were a constant sight here. But never so many, never so completely. He rarely travelled by spaceship, the mode of travel too slow and outdated for a prince of Asgard with the Bifrost at his command and endless duties. On Asgard, the night sky was beautiful, but easy to look at, like a well-kept garden. This was overwhelming.
All the universe around him.
He was alive and he was free. He had a place here, and this world had a future. He breathed in the stinging air, renewed.
Sleep was gone from him. He turned, and went inside, carefully shutting all doors against the cold. He found his way back to the apothecary's halls, where he was lately helping, to while away the early hours.
The afterlife was strange.
The comfort did not end. He had given them the only thing he had of value, and yet nothing changed. It was not something he had foreseen.
Perhaps he was yet to be of service? He was no longer so ill that things beyond the warm walls of the fastness did not exist. His brain was kicking into gear in fits and starts, and he more and more often thought about what he is meant to do. Now that the Casket was back where it belonged, what role was he to play?
The politics of Jotunheim were largely a mystery. Asgard was out of reach, but an ever-present itch at the back of his mind - did they think him dead? And what if they find out that not to be the case?
Their betrayal still burned bright in his mind, but surrounded by his bash (his? for now) he could look at it, squinting, tears in his eyes. Frigga certainly knew all along and must have conspired with whatever Odin had proposed. Did she weave her own schemes? He was, without doubt, her favoured student, but whether she loved him for his own sake? It was difficult to tell, now that he tried. She was a master diplomat, among her other talents - there was a reason Odin married her, and there was a reason she was away from court so often, advancing Asgard's interests in foreign and vassal courts.
Loki was like her, in so many ways. Unlike her in many others. She, a Vanir bride among the Aesir, had modelled civilisation perfectly, and never faltered. Believed in it entirely. But after all, Vanaheim was not so backwards. Was not at all monstrous, only a little decadent, a little lax in discipline. So Loki could not trust that she would welcome his failure to die, and more than that - his thriving here, with his monstrous kin.
Thor was a wildcard. Unpredictable in his violence and his adoration, always. Ever so sensitive to honour, as determined mainly by himself. He was slaughtering Jotnar by the dozen, three days later claiming Loki was wicked for doing the same but better, claiming he saw the wrong of it. Did he? Did he see the wrong of slaughter, or only that Loki was excelling in Thor's domain, and out of line?
He would call Loki's survival a trick, at best. His cunning brother duping the dumb brutes to escape Father's lawful punishment. Some days it was forgivable behaviour, and some not.
And then, there was still Odin. Even if Thor and Frigga knew he lived, what would it really matter, as long as Odin ruled?
No. Loki would not assume they'd welcome news of his revival. Asgard was a perpetual threat to the Nine Realms, an eye in the sky, and it's best if Loki remains beneath its notice until he knows what to do about that. But only until then. He was no longer bound to serve Asgard's interests.
These thoughts did not linger long. The repetitive clicking of the knife against a wooden board and the crunch of fragrant drying herbs were the only things in Loki's head after a while. He was no longer within constant touching distance of his bash, now working in little stretches at the magician's guild and the greenhouse halls and the nursery.
Here, he sorted the collected harvest of medicinal plants and fungi, and prepared them as instructed. Some he knew of, some were new. The apothecary explained their uses, by the by, and Loki slotted everything away, for future experimentation. He did not begrudge the repetition and the simple work. He was glad he could work alone to occupy times like this, and bitter that mastery of potions, crystals and artefact-making seemed to be the only paths to magic left to him. Crude, primitive, and so fucking slow.
Loki was still chopping through the same pile of thousand-leaves when he was found by Bylestr. Loki briskly tapped at the boxes on the table next to him with the tip of his knife, now packed with prepared packets, neatly labelled, ready for storage. Bylestr carried them off, and Loki heard aggrieved huffing, a hearty sneeze, and the sound of more boxes being pushed around in the shelved storage room.
They were too heavy for Loki to carry on his own, still. The work he did not begrudge, but the time it's been taking to regain his strength grated on his nerves. He gripped the knife tighter than necessary, mincing the stiff stems and crumbling leaves with unwarranted aggression.
Bylestr returned, wiping his eyes. "Ymir's balls, it smells in there." He fished out a handkerchief from an internal pocket of his padded robes, blowing his nose. "I could never be any use here. Trying to get into apothecary's good graces?" He nodded at the diminished pile of the thousand-leaves that Loki spent the early morning hours working his way through.
"Hardly. I don't think he has any good graces to get into." Loki answered without looking up, minding his fingers.
"Oh, I am sure if you took over the fertiliser preparations..." Bylestr smirked.
"No. I've drawn my short straw once already, and I won't let it be my turn again."
"Aww, don't you love shovelling shit?" His cousin mocked.
Loki made a face, tidying away his workstation. Someone else will take over the preparations later, or it will still be there for Loki to finish, depending on who makes it to the greenhouses today, and what else the apothecary will have them do.
His fingers twitched, starting to cast the spell to disappear the fine dry debris that his chopping crumbled all over the table. Loki winced, the motions pulling at his gutted seidr stores, painfully trying to claw at nothing. His casting hand cramped, fingers seizing, and he tried to rub some warmth back into it with the other. Loki snuck a glance at Bylestr, hoping he didn't see, but Bylestr was already frowning and reaching to clasp Loki's contorted hand, wrapping around it with more warmth than Loki's own ministrations could produce. It helped. The cramp passed and Bylestr let go.
"Nothing new with the ice?" he asked.
"No," Loki bit out and swept the dry plant dust into an open palm, dumping it into a bin at the end of the table.
"All in good time?" Bylestr offered, knowing it was a paltry platitude.
Once Loki's health inched away from the abyss over which it hung before, his hands kept trying to cast the old familiar spells, the kinds of magic that came so easily to him before and now became an empty tic. He knew magic was a part of him, but never knew how much it aided his every moment. He muted or amplified light and sound, he changed and fixed and cleaned his clothes and himself, he healed and he killed. Now his casting gestures were only the twitches of a madman. He stopped himself when he could.
Learning the Jotun ice magic has come to nothing. Grandfather Somr was teaching him, patiently, but to no avail. Loki already knew all the ways to cast his mind's eye to the body's energy, how to breathe and to focus his attention on that flame inside that could be guided out to change the world. Somr insisted that Jotnar did not rely on seidr in the same way Asgardians did, that it was not the same, and so Odin could not have taken it no matter what he did. Loki was dubious. He looked inside, and found only nothing instead of the familiar green blaze.
Still, Somr insisted they keep trying. Loki obliged him, some days. On others, he occupied himself in duties Somr couldn't pull him out of, or snuck away before his newly found grandfather could catch him again.
Giving his hands another shake for good measure, Loki said, "Let's go."
They shut the door behind them, to keep down drafts. Bylestr started telling the story of what Kari told him the kids got up to in the nursery this morning, catching Loki up on the really essential news of the day. He continued as they walked to the dining hall for breakfast, only just wrapping up the saga of Tolli's and Varr's tumultuous friendship, as they fought over whose turn it is to go on the better swing, which one of them is Brun's best friend in the whole wide world, and whose snot is a more gross shade of green. A fragile peace has been forged when Kari left the nursery last night.
By the time Loki arrived for his turn looking after the toddlers from this part of the fastness, the peace was fracturing, and war was at hand. He sighed. What is one more peace-keeping mission to stop a small-scale disaster?
Kari was back, with Yma in tow, to take over Loki's duties. One of the other adults left a little early, feeling a cold coming and retreating to his room before he infected half the castle. The other two would be done soon too, taking their own bash children with them for some family time, and others soon coming to replace them.
They found Loki flat on the ground, half-buried in toddlers and their temporarily forgotten plush toys. They were all about him, mesmerised by the tale of the little bilgensnipe and the ice trolls looking for their lost home over the mountains, and their adventures along the way. They intently watched Loki's gesturing hands, which were the only part of him that was free, weaving the story as much as his words did.
Yma sniggered quietly and Kari gave her a knowing, glaring side-eye. It was the horns. Loki had the misfortune of once complaining he looked like a baby goat now, and after explaining what a goat is and drawing one, regretted it immediately. His bash decided goats were wonderful animals, and very suited to Loki, and they'd love to see some one day. Loki did not appreciate their fascination with goats or amusement with his incongruously growing body.
Kari and Yma watched as Loki seemed to be entirely absorbed in the story he was making up right here on the spot. They exchanged a glance, both thinking how much he changed, so unlike the wraith that arrived on their doorstep.
He took to nursery work like fish to water. He separated fights without undue force or anger, prevented more from even starting, kept track of what each child was doing well or where they struggled, and found an endless variety of ways to keep them all learning and busy. Even mealtimes and naptimes were not beyond his skill, as he corralled them towards their own little mealroom and then back out with speed and precision that earned him the respect of the Elder overseeing the work of the nursery, herself a carer of many years, greatly discerning of whom she let near any work more serious than cooking and cleaning up.
More than that, he didn't seem to know that he had any skill at all, and only shrugged when it was mentioned. "How hard can it be? Just keep them fed, don't let them fight, and put them to bed on time."
And he never let slip any talk of monsters. Whatever uncouth things he said sometimes of himself or to his kin, did not seem to apply in his mind to the children in his care. Small blessings.
Yma caught him wiping away tears more than once after a day at the nursery, quickly and out of sight. She wondered that he chose to work there at all. Still he returned - and now, head in his story, he seemed happy and carefree.
Tolli, distractible as always, noticed that aunties Yma and Kari were here again, and called out to them. "Auntie, auntie! Did you know? Ice trolls can smell where, where the caves are, even under all the snow! Did you know? And! And! Dig r-r-right to them!"
"Woah, really? Is that what Loki's been telling you?"
"Now, Tolli, weren't you listening?" Loki chided, "I heard this story from an old man, who heard it from a dwarf, who heard it from a bilgensnipe, who was the nephew of the little bilgensnipe when he was grown up. I am only saying what I heard, and don't you blame me, young man, for any untruths you learn. I, for one, never seen an ice troll smell anything at all."
"That's because ice trolls don't exist." Yma feigned disapproval at the tall tales.
"No!!" The children were entirely unpersuaded, "They so do! Loki, tell her!"
"I myself have never seen an ice troll. But what do I know? I haven't been around much. Maybe I just need to go look very well. Now, let me up, and I'll tell you how they defeated the angry moon next time."
There was a collective noise of disappointment, loud and despondent, but the children dispersed, well rested for the rest of their day of mischief and annoying every adult they could find with questions about ice trolls and bilgensnipes.
Loki got up with Kari's helping pull. He was smiling wide while telling his tale, but now he seemed worn out, eyes tired.
"Go rest. Thanks for taking over for us." Kari patted him on the arm.
He smiled thinly. Like Bylestr's words, this too was a platitude. He did barely half the work of any adult, and was invariably exhausted by the end of whatever he managed to do. And this was hardly work, in any case – not what his duties used to be. "Of course. Mind Brun - she needled Tolli and Varr to prove who was her better friend, the little schemer."
Yma groaned. "Brunhilde, Ymir's... She'll be a handful when she grows up, I tell you. Remember her bash two years ago? Those people, I swear..."
It was a little past lunch. Loki returned to their common room, finding Bylestr reading something and making notes, sitting in his spot on the unmade bed. He should ask about that. It was probably to do with the Casket, almost everything now was. They didn't have much time before Asgard noticed and came knocking, and what then? It was only a matter of time.
Bylestr moved the books and notes from his left side on top of those already spread out on the right, and patted the space next to him without looking up. Loki ignored the brief pang of guilt and disgust with himself, shoved aside the icy ghost of Odin's disapproval.
The demands of his fatigue were relentless. He lay down next to his working cousin, comforted by the presence of another person so near, and was asleep before he could share his own bit of the latest drama of Tolli and Varr and The Fight For The Best Ball, or ask about the Casket.
Bylestr was still there when Loki woke, head tilted back and staring at the ceiling in thought. The books and notes were still around, in a state that suggested no solutions were forthcoming.
"Is it working?" Loki asked.
"We still don't know." Bylestr gave a frustrated sigh, still studying the ceiling.
"We know it's possible, it held off the world's decay before."
"There aren't any precise readings from when it was made. We don't know how soon it would work, if it's doing anything at all. All our measurements are a mess."
"Still. It's easier to search when we know the solution must exist."
"We lost so much."
Loki reached out, giving Bylestr's hand a squeeze. This he was also slow to learn, but he learned. He too could comfort people.
Bylestr squeezed back. They stayed that way for a while.
Since Loki retrieved the Casket from his pocket dimension, it was carried off deep into the ground beneath the fastness, where they reasoned it would be closer to the planet's core. There were no exact records of how it was meant to function, what it did to keep the planet from freezing completely. The mage guild took energy readings near the Casket, and gathered reports from the weather station perched on the peak above the fortress. More reports were coming from other towns and cities as the word of the Casket's return spread, by foot and by slow, patchy light-cable.
When winter was over, Utgard would be free to come to their door as well. Somr was certain at least some of Laufey's former bannermen would want to seize it for themselves. This place that Loki now knew was called Borghund was not a very large settlement, only coming together since the destruction of the last war, people rebuilding on the flattened ruins of the old world. They could hold out a long time against any attack, as long as their doors held. They would not hold out long in open conflict.
"What have they tried?" Since the last time Loki asked. A week or so. Loki was pestering Bylestr for news, since Somr flat out refused to let him work on the Casket himself.
Loki argued he could help. Somr argued he knew Loki would be glued to the Casket day and night until he made it work or until he killed himself trying, and he won't allow it. It turned into an ugly shouting match, until Somr said Loki did not need to prove his value anymore, and Loki growled at him, feeling like he was slapped, before walking out and finding an empty corner to disappear to. He only snapped out of his seething anger when he found himself planning to steal the Casket, sneak out of the fortress and hole up in one of those caves Yali and Leikn hunt for magic ice crystals, so that he could work on the Casket in peace. He didn't know where those caves were, even approximately. His heart-cold still wasn't gone, and he knew it would get worse within a half-day of trudging through the snow on his own. He grudgingly conceded Somr had a point.
"More of the same, really. We haven't any new descriptions of how the Casket was used to stabilise the planet except that one lug of poetic rubbish. So they just keep trying to 'open your heart to the song' and 'sing it, sing it with your heart', and 'join the world, become the world whole'."
"The Casket does have a strong magic resonance."
"That half of our mages can't hear. And not even the weaker half! There isn't any rhyme or reason to it. Somr can hear it! Good, makes sense! Hrotti can hear it! Unexpected, but fine!"
"And the guild master can't." Loki concluded this tirade he had heard several times already.
"And none of his best students! Maybe there is nothing for us to even do, and we only have to wait. The readings, they aren't clear. This winter looks to be a little warmer than the last, but the wind has picked up and the snowfall has grown. Out west, they report this winter is colder than ever, but it's a quiet frost there, and their door seals are cracking. Out east, it seems to be warmer too, but they are not sure if their machines work right, and their only mage is too ill to do a spell reading. We'll just have to wait and see."
Loki could feel Casket even now, if he focused, deep beneath them. He thought he could make out some changes in its tone, sometimes, deep shifts just outside his hearing. It made his head hurt when he tried to sense it. It reminded him of the Tesseract, and his dreams, and he shivered, clasping Bylestr's wrist tighter, Bylest's hand clasping back around his own.
"We have to keep trying. We have time - the sun won't go out tomorrow."
The Bifrost slammed into the ground, shattering the ice. Thor landed heavily on both feet, hammer in hand. As he walked away from the landing site, the Warriors Four followed, and a dozen Einherjar. Ice groaned under the burning beam of light, breaking under the continued exposure. Finally, it was gone, and the Asgardians stood in front of the fastness of Bornhund, as the wind howled in helpless rage.