Chapter Text
When the giant caught hold of him, Loki braced himself for the pain of its touch. He tried to wrench his arm away as his armour crumbled with cold, but the jotun’s grip was absolute. Fire, he thought, but was frozen. Suddeny his skin was exposed to the ice, but there was no pain. Loki, lip curled and mind fraught with the waiting, looked down … and choked.
His skin was discoloured with the frostbite, but the wound, stretching from wrist to elbow, was too large to believe the battle rush blocked the pain. As he grappled for an answer, he felt an ancient thing moving, stirring deep within his mind. He had difficulty breathing around the panic.
He locked eyes with the stunned giant. Loki fought through the confusion for the advantage, summoning a dagger and driving it into the giant’s throat. It released him as it died, and Loki stumbled away.
He whipped around at a shout of pain, heart thudding as he caught sight of Fandral impaled on a spike of ice. His blood was shockling red. Fandral’s easy smile had vanished, and he sagged against the stalagmite, gripping it weakly. The wound must have been worse than it looked. The jotun who had stabbed him advanced, the ice on its arm sharpening into a new blade. Loki cursed, pulling a knife from his belt. The jotun never saw it before it was in its eye, and it fell back with a scream.
“Thor!” Loki hollered. “We must go!”
Volstagg and Hogun lifted Fandral off the spike as his brother bellowed, “Then go!”
Thor was terrifying to behold in the heat of battle — tall, golden, fierce, strong. Perfect. The boyish eagerness with which he fought the jotnar around him wasn’t present in his friends and brother now. Loki, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif, however, had had enough.
Thor threw Mjolnir through the jotnar to clear a path. Loki and the others took the opening and, with Fandral slung across Volstagg’s shoulders, ran across the open ice to the Bifrost site.
“Thor —” Sif said sharply, but Loki cut across her, “Leave him; he’ll be fine.” She looked at him with incredulity.
“Sif, Loki is right,” Hogun said. He swung his morningstar at an oncoming jotun, and the creature bellowed as the weapon crushed bone. “Thor will be able to get himself out of this.”
Sif’s reluctance at leaving Thor was clear, but Loki had no time to dwell on it. The ground jolted beneath them, and a growl of stone-against-stone rumbled through the air.
Loki whipped around, fear igniting in his chest as he saw some beast, some titanic monster that he had taken as a mere statue of Laufey’s, move; ice fell from its leathery hide as it shook itself. It was a bulky thing; its shoulders were all muscle, and blunt spikes ran along its back. Huge teeth lined its mouth, tusk-like protrusions protected its jaw, and upon its feet were equally sharp claws. The tail was a heavy club and covered in spines. Loki could see a geis at the junction of its neck and sholders. Its small eyes fixed upon the party of Aesir, and it roared before charging after them.
“Run!” Volstagg bellowed.
No one needed to be told twice. Loki could feel the heavy footfalls of the thing behind them, and he gave a sharp look over his shoulder. It was gaining on them.
“Thor!” Sif shouted.
And then, as miraculously as if he had heard them, Thor acted. Loki couldn’t see him, but he’d be hard-pressed to miss the lightning Thor summoned, and the crack! as the ground shattered. The shriek of cracking ice and crash of falling rock echoed in their ears as the ground broke apart. Jotnar fell screaming into the earth, dozens of them going to their deaths, but the five of them were hardly safe — the beast was still after them, bounding over the ice and snapping and snarling on their heels.
But then, suddenly, it too fell — a fissure had opened under its feet. It swung its tail, burying the spikes in the ice to stop its fall, but it slipped. It fell, roaring as the bowels of the planet swallowed it.
Fandral laughed weakly. “It’s gone,” he whispered. Loki wasn’t so sure, and unsure as to his scepticism.
“Heimdall!” shouted Volstagg as they skidded to a stop at the Bifrost site. “Open the Bridge!”
There was silence for a few heartbeats, and then a claw landed before them.
They started back as the beast pulled itself up the cliff face, looking at them all with contempt as it reared skyward. Sif muttered a few choice words as she brandished her sword, Volstagg his axe single-handedly, and Hogun twirled his morningstar in hand. Loki pulled a dagger from the negative space. However, before they could so much as twitch, something flew overhead. With a crunch, it smashed into the beast’s mouth. The beast teetered for a second, as if it were trying to understand what had happened, before the eyes rolled back in its head and it fell from the cliff. Thor landed in front of them. He turned, uncaring for the blood on him and a self-satisfied grin on his face. It faltered when he looked behind them.
Loki turned. They had been surrounded. The giants studied them with their crimson eyes, and Loki flinched as he found Laufey only a few yards away. There was something in his eyes that made Loki readjust the grip on his dagger; he was tempted to call it scrunity.
The jotnar started forwards, weapons raised and ready for use, then a deep boom echoed through the night, accompanied by a distant scream of power. Then, Loki’s utter relief, the Bifrost opened. However, it wasn’t for them to jump back to Asgard in a great escape — it was to deposit another.
A horse materialised from the Bridge, a huge, dark grey charger with eight legs upon which sat Odin Allfather. He was wearing full battle armour, and held Gungnir aloft in his hand as Sleipnir’s neigh rang through the crackling air. The hooves struck the ice beneath him like hammers on an anvil.
“Father!” bellowed Thor, his smile returning to his face at once. “We’ll finish them together!”
“Silence.” Odin’s hiss was cold, and Thor’s grin dropped just as quickly as it had come back.
The ice crunched as Laufey summoned himself a perch and rose to Odin’s eye level. He looked at him with calculating, hooded eyes, and smiled. “Alföðr. You look weary.”
“Laufey,” Odin acknowledged.
Laufey’s eyes never left the Allfather’s, and his lip curled. “Your boy sought this out.”
“You’re right,” Odin said, “but they are the actions of a boy — treat them as such. You and I can end this here and now, before there is further bloodshed.”
Laufey sneered. “You mock me, Jálkr.”
Odin said, “War is the last thing both of our realms need.”
Laufey’s face, shadowed by the huge horns upon his brow, the only jotun who had them, was conflicted. He itched for a fight, that much was clear. His pride was at stake if he backed down, but Odin was right. Jotunheim could not suffer through another war, and everyone there knew it.
Loki shivered as Laufey’s bloody gaze flicked to him once again. He thought he saw his father stiffen from the corner of his eye.
Laufey’s eyes narrowed. “Who is he?” His voice was strangled with some thought or emotion Loki was frustrated he couldn’t place. “I saw him fight; I saw something … strange.” Loki was unwilling to denign a single look at Laufey as the jotun king stepped from his perch and advanced on him.
“Laufey, leave him be,” Odin said sharply.
“Allow me to at least satisfy my curiosity, Allfather, against this person of unimportance.” Laufey reached for him.
Loki said coldly, “Do not sully me with your touch.”
“Lay a finger on my son,” Odin said, nudging Sleipnir forward a step, “and I promise you will regret it.”
But Laufey ignored them both. He reached for Loki’s shoulder, grabbing his clothes in a fist, and touched a finger to his cheek. Loki flinched back from the contact. Again, there was that sense of rightness that overcame him where Laufey’s finger was, the stirring in his mind; it felt like the flexing of a stiff muscle.
Laufey sucked in a breath. “No …”
“Laufey,” said his father, his voice low with warning.
Laufey’s eyes contracted, and his lips curled back in a snarl. “You thief…. You thief!” he roared; Loki winced. “After all these years of silence, and you come back with this?”
Loki’s stomach dropped. He didn’t understand what was going on. He looked up imploringly to Thor’s friends, desperately looking for an answer, but they were staring at him, horror-struck.
What is it? Loki wanted to scream at them, but he was too shocked to do anything other than stand there, Laufey’s hand still gripping his shoulder tight enough to bruise.
“You want to end this without any further bloodshed?” Laufey fumed. “I will do this if, and only if, you pay my price — him. It is for you to decide. War, or him.”
“You know I cannot.” Odin’s voice was quiet, but there was evident anger in his tone.
“You can, and you will. He stays, and if you carry him back to Ásgarðr, nothing you can say or do will stop me from tearing it down. Your realm will lie in ruins, and I will have him back. He is mine; you had no right —”
“No,” Loki interjected. Him, stay here on Jotunheim? He was confused, angry, terrified, and searching desperately amongst their faces for answers. Odin’s face was impassive, his eye on Loki hard and unforgiving. If there were any torn heartstrings at the choice he was faced with, they were buried deep.
But Thor … Thor, who wore his heart on his sleeve, looked stunned, angry, hurt, and just as confused as Loki felt. “You can’t,” he said simply. “Father, we cannot leave my brother here.”
“ ‘Brother’?” Laufey asked, furious. Spittle flew from his mouth. “He is just as much your brother as I am. His heritage lines speak as much.”
“Lines?” Thor spluttered. “What lines?”
“The lines of the House of Laufey; the lines he has carried since the night he was born.”
“No.” Loki shook his head, fighting against Laufey’s hold. “I have no lines; I am of no relation to you. You’re deluded.”
“Do not insult me.” Laufey towered over the Allfather and said, “If you wish peace, then leave. Leave now, leave my son with me, and you will live to fight another night.”
Loki began to struggle in earnest. “I’m not your son,” he said. “I’m not.” He looked to his father again, waiting for him to chastise Laufey on his mistake, to have him released, but Odin wouldn’t meet his eyes. “No. Father, please…. You can’t be considering this….”
The Allfather did nothing.
“… Father?”
His father’s eyes bored into him. “As recompense to this realm for my son’s mistake, Loki will stay. This is my decree.”
No. No no no NO! Loki wrenched against Laufey’s grip, his clothes ripping, but not freeing him.
Laufey’s eyes were alight with malice. “I banish you and the Æsir from this realm. If I find you have gone against my commands, there will be war. Do not take this warning as lightly as you took our agreement of peace, Alföðr.”
“So be it.”
“Father, no!” Thor shouted, but the Allfather raised Gungnir high. “Loki!” Thor lunged for Loki, hand outstretched. The Bifrost opened again and took away Thor, Sif, the Warriors Three, and Odin. Only Loki was left behind, a scream on his lips as he looked to where his father, and his world, had vanished.
#
“Release me!”
Loki thrashed in the grip of the frost giants, kicking and writhing as they made their way back to Laufey’s throne.
“Be still, my prince.”
“I am not — your — prince!” Loki tore at them, but they were too big, their grips on him too tight, and he couldn’t get a good footing. His magic was gone, used up in the battle to the point he couldn’t even open the negative space. His dagger had been wrestled from him and thrown over the cliff into the abyss. He fought only to get away.
“Enough,” Laufey said.
“I am not yours to order, monster!” Loki bellowed.
Laufey paused and turned to look at him. Loki knew he had gone too far with that, and he shrunk back as the jotun king advanced on him. His heart was a thunder drum in his ears.
“Monster, am I?” Laufey mused. Loki was dropped. “I am no monster, as you are no monster.”
“I am not jotun,” Loki spat, eyes fixed on the ground.
“Take his coat,” Laufey commanded. “Take his clothes until his instinct takes over and he shifts.”
“Unhand me!”
Loki writhed as the jotnar tore his clothes from his body and dropped them unceremoniously into piles. Soon, he only had his trousers left. The shock of the cold air on his bare skin stole his breath. Loki inhaled sharply, curling into a ball and rocking back and forth.
“Shift your skin,” Laufey said. “Now.”
But Loki couldn’t shift; he had nothing to shift into.
Laufey said, “So be it.”
Before Loki could spit even a word at him, Laufey grabbed the back of his neck.
The cold nearly made him faint, and something in his chest broke. He felt change come over him, and it was painful, as if fire had dowsed his nerves. Something snapped in his mind with the clean little noise like that of a wishbone broken, and Loki howled. He curled in on himself, clawing at his skin and gripping his hair in a desperate attempt to relieve the agony. There was nothing he could do to soothe the pain but scream as whatever it was that had broken in his mind was wrenched away viciously.
The cold started to feel less distance as the sensation of change spread from his core, as if a clenched muscle had suddenly been relaxed. He was growing as well; the seams of his trousers strained and snapped, and his belt dug into his hips. His mouth became one of wolf’s teeth, each tooth thickening, lengthening, filed to points. His head split in pain, and he clutched at it, whimpering as his skull stretched and dense horn formed under his fingers.
At long last Laufey released him, and Loki fell to the floor, eyes watering and gasping for breath as the rest of the pain abated. His stomach heaved, and he fought down the vomit rising in his throat. He shook on hands and knees.
“You haven’t done that for a long time, have you?” Laufey said from above him. “Odin’s curse had its claws in you.”
Loki couldn’t speak if he’d wanted.
“Stand.”
He looked at Laufey furiously, neck cricking.
Laufey then said quietly, “Oblivion, how you look like your dam.”
Loki swallowed, and his voice was hoarse and small when he spoke. “Let me … let me go.” It was the most difficult thing to talk, and there was an underlying gravel to his voice he’d not heard before. He couldn’t think; the effort of thinking was like waking through syrup, as if his mind had just … stopped.
“Let you go to where? To Ásgarðr?” asked Laufey, and Loki swore there was a hint of fury in his tone. “No.”
“Let me-e … go.”
Laufey snarled and, so fast Loki couldn’t draw back, reached out and grabbed one of his horns. Some instinct made him keep still. He went limp, shivering as Laufey pulled him to his feet. Now they were a height, not an inch between them. He couldn’t be at eye level with Laufey. It wasn’t possible…. They stared at each other, Laufey with fury, Loki with emptiness.
“Stop …”
“You are not leaving.”
“S … s-s-stop …. m-me.”
“You cannot go back,” said Laufey, his voice low and dangerous. “Bifröst is the only way off this realm.”
“Li-ar,” Loki wheezed. “You …”
“Try if you want, but I suspect he will not listen.”
Loki tried to jerk from Laufey’s grip, wincing as the bone shifted against its mooring. Lights exploded behind his eyes, and he fell to the ground, holding his head and moaning as he waited for the sudden pain to pass. He reverted to his normal form, a mere act of will, as if he had wished no more than to raise his arm, and shrunk at once.
Loki refused to look at any of the jotnar, instead training his gaze at the ground. “What do you … what do you want from me?” he croaked, his lungs searing from the bitterly cold air. “Just what do you want from me?”
“You are my son,” Laufey told him. “My royal blood. Should I have more reason than that?”
“You don’t even know my name,” Loki said. “Do you even care?”
“Loki.”
Laufey’s voice was quiet, but Loki heard it over the winds swirling through the place. He closed his eyes, fighting the lump in his throat.
“Your name is Loki. Loki … Laufeyson.”
“I’m not your son,” Loki said hoarsely. His words lacked conviction.
“My blood is writ on your skin and forged in your bones.” Laufey turned to one of the jotnar behind him. “Take him inside. The boy’s about to collapse.” Then, casting another glance at Loki, said, “Perhaps it’d be best to sedate him. It’ll calm him.”
Two jotnar gripped him tightly by the upper arms, and he unsuccessfully tried to jerk away. “No … No!” Blue swathes of skin crawled up his arms from where they held him. It took a few seconds for the monster to burst forth from him. Panic gave him strength, and he threw his weight forward. He was stronger in the jotun form, and the sudden movement jerked one of them off. Loki twisted around, and his other arm slipped free, slick with ice; he didn’t want to think about how. He stumbled towards the nearest gap. The jotnar closed it, and Loki tried to change direction. His feet slid out from under him, and he fell with a yelp of surprise; the ground drove the breath from his lungs.
Then they were upon him, holding him down as he exhausted himself struggling. He fell limp eventually, panting for breath before one of them pinched his nose shut to push something cold and sweet down his throat. They sealed his jaw, forcing him to swallow.
“No….” His grip on reality was slipping away frighteningly fast. The jotnar released him as he fought to hold onto consciousness. Tears wet his cheeks. “No….”
Arms were around him as his eyes slid shut, and some distant part of his mind was surprised at the gentleness they possessed. The last thing he heard was Laufey’s voice above him:
“Destroy his Ásgarðian things; I will not have them here.”
#
As soon as the Bifrost pulled them back to the Himinbjorg Observatory, Thor was fighting against the restraining holds of both Volstagg and Hogun.
“Release me!” he bellowed. “Heimdall, reopen the Bifrost at once! Reopen it!”
“The Bifrost will remain closed,” Odin ordered, striding around to the far side of the mechanism. “As for Jotunheim, it too will remain closed until I expressly command it to be opened.”
“What?” Thor turned his burning eyes on Volstagg and Hogun and spat, “Release me if you so value your lives.”
“No,” his father said. “Hold him.”
Volstagg gave Thor a sympathetic look, but his grip tightened.
Thor snarled, “You traitorous —”
“Lady Sif, escort Lord Fandral to the healing rooms,” Odin said. “Now.”
Sif hooked Fandral’s arm around her shoulders and supported him to the Bridge where horses awaited.
Odin turned to his steward who stood at the Observatory’s entrance. “Athalrádr, assemble the Elder Council at once.”
“Of course, Allfather.”
“Summon the Mage Guild as well. I will be with them shortly.”
“I obey, my king.” Athalrádr bowed and left the Observatory along with Heimdall.
“How could you do such a thing?” Thor bellowed, elbowing Volstagg between the ribs and kicking out at Hogun. Volstagg grunted in pain, but he continued to hold Thor’s arms behind his back. Hogun swayed back, avoiding Thor’s foot.
Odin seemed unaffected by his rage.
“Loki’s my brother, your son, and you gave him away! You just gave him to Laufey! And why? For the sake of peace.”
“It was the only way,” Odin said bluntly.
“Coward! You should have thought of some other way to abate Laufey! We could crush Jotunheim in war.” Thor’s breaths were ragged with emotion. “And because of your insolent want of peace, Loki is trapped on Jotunheim. He has no way back. You are his father!”
“Not by blood, Thor,” Odin said. “He’s not your brother by blood, either.”
“You’re a liar,” Thor spat.
“In these politics, feelings and emotions do not matter,” Odin said. “His blood kin demanded him returned, and that was something I could not deny. War has been declared over less, and we were lucky as it was to come out of this without more damage. Tell me what you would have done in my place, Thor. Perhaps if you can come up with a solution to abate both parties, we will go back to Jotunheim. Do you have any other brilliant plans? Hmm?”
Thor ignored Odin’s question. “Lucky? Loki’s not luck to be handed out! He’s ours, not Laufey’s! He is ours! Don’t deny that you didn’t see and hear him pleading for you when you pulled us away from Jotunheim.” But it wasn’t his brother’s words that haunted Thor now: it was his eyes. Begging.
“And don’t you deny that it doesn’t rip my heart in two,” his father snapped. “As a king, you must make difficult decisions, and this today was the most difficult I have ever made.”
“A decision which took a few seconds to mull over,” Thor accused. “Let me go back! Damn you, Volstagg, release me!”
“Hold him,” Odin said viciously. “It was a decision I had to make for the greater good. War with Jotunheim is the last thing both of our peoples need. You don’t know the cost in life war demands, and both sides are still recovering from the last. Think on this, Thor — had you not made your rash decisions today, you would not have lost your brother! I hate that the price of your idiocy was the cost of the one thing you hold so dear to yourself.”
Thor was shocked into silence. He clenched his fists, loathing that the words rang true. Volstagg and Hogun let him go cautiously.
After a long pause, Odin said in a low voice, “Thor, I command you, as your father and king, that you are not to go after him.” He lifted Gungnir, and Thor was frozen at once, captured by the spear’s innate magic. “Heimdall,” Odin said, his eye unwavering, “watch Jotunheim. Report to me anything that is happening around the realm, any traffic at all. I want to know if so much as a jumpcraft passes within five hundred thousand miles of it. I want the blockade tightened.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Isolate Jotunheim; there has been too much damage done to easily reverse.”
“Father, what are you doing?” Thor demanded. “We can’t! Father —”
“You’ve done enough today, have you not?” The set of the Allfather’s shoulders was tense, and anger lined him. Thor didn’t know if he was imagining the grief there, so desperate was he for regret. “Once again, I now have to deal with the ramifications of your thoughtless actions. And they have cost us far too much, you cruel, bull-headed boy. You’ve finally outdone yourself today and caused enough damage for a lifetime.”