Early Draft: Dangerous Skills

[lokiofsassgaard]

Early draft.

The wind kicked up over the tundra with a banshee wail. Loki had experienced hard winters on both Asgard and Midgard, but Jötunheimr was coming into spring, and already presented him with a dire outlook. Fenrir trudged on ahead, cutting a path in the snow for Loki to follow. The sky above became difficult to see from snow kicked up from the ground and whipped around by the wind, and Loki was no longer certain he was heading in the right direction.

Loki had only truly experienced cold once in his life, on Midgard, and he had hated every moment of it. Now, he was deep into it again, hardly able to think through the numbing chill. Even wearing one of the furs he had packed, and his hood pulled low over his face, the cold was becoming too much.

Then, Fenrir bound ahead into the storm. He was not a dog, and therefore did not bark, but he made a sound like he was trying to.

"No!" Loki shouted after him, running as hard as he could against the snow.

Then he heard it. Beyond the wind and Fenrir's mad noises, Loki heard people. Men shouting in the distance, while Fenrir bound toward them.

"No!" he shouted again, stepping through the shadows blanketing the tundra.

He caught up to Fenrir and locked his arms around the wolf's neck as two Jötunn men rushed forward with enormous hatchets drawn. Unlike the warriors and guards that still patrolled Utgard, the men wore heavy furs and hide boots.

"Don't touch him!" Loki said, putting himself between the Jötuns and Fenrir.

The man in the lead stopped and turned to the one behind. "There's a child out here!" he shouted.

Before Loki could object, the man bent toward him. Realising he was about to be picked up like a toddler, Loki took a step back, pulling Fenrir with him.

"Do not," he said.

Standing tall again, the man looked out over the tundra beyond where Loki had come from. "Are you with anyone?" he asked.

Loki shook his head. "No," he said.

The man nodded. "Come. Quickly, out of the storm."

Loki followed him, keeping a tight hold on Fenrir with one hand, while the other cradled the front of his cloak where Ikol slept. The walk back to the village was a short one. He realised Fenrir must have smelled something ahead and ran off like the damn fool he was. The men led Loki to a turf house where inside they were met by a chorus of alarmed cries from the family within. Apparently even on Jötunheimr, keeping wolves as pets wasn't exactly welcome.

"Go lie down," Loki told him.

He let go, allowing Fenrir to find a spot away from the fire pit in the middle of the room. He lay beneath a tall loom against the wall, keeping watch on Loki, while all eyes were on Fenrir. A small child, not much shorter than Loki got up to approach Fenrir, but was pulled back by his mother.

"Thank you," said Loki as he moved into the house and away from the cold. "The storm caught me off-guard."

"They do that this time of year," the man who had led him to the village said.

Loki reached into his cloak to check on Ikol. He had curled up small inside the deep pocket, and took some rousing to coax out. As he brought Ikol out to the warmth by the fire, he too was met by startled gasps.

"Is that your pet?" one of the women asked.

"Yes," Loki said, trying to find a suitable place for the bird to perch. "He's a magpie."

Ikol had other ideas, and flew over to nest in Fenrir's dense fur. With that problem solved, Loki began to slowly get himself settled. He found an empty place against the wall to place his bag. He could feel the sharp eyes from his observers on him, but he ignored it. He took off his fur pelt, making sure it was neatly rolled and tucked away safely before pulling his hood down.

For the third time, he was met with surprise. Loki looked around the room, at every one of the Jötuns who stared at him like he was something unheard of. Feeling very much on display, he folded his cloak and put it with the rest of his gear. In Utgard, Odin's Jötunn son was widely recognised as a half-breed, which Loki had always chalked up to his Æsir disguise. But now, with blue skin that was too dark and horns too short yet to begin to curve, these people looked at him like they had never seen such a creature in his life.

Just one more thing in a long line that didn't make sense.

"You came from Utgard?" the man asked.

He motioned for Loki to sit near the fire, an offer which was gratefully accepted.

"From that direction, but not from Utgard," said Loki. He shifted to get comfortable near the fire, trying to find a good balance between getting warm and not getting burnt.

"Well," said the man, sitting near the fire as well. "I'm Bjalfi. This is my home. My brother, Hrapp. You're welcome to stay here until it's safe to leave."

Loki nodded. "Thank you," he said. "I'm looking for my namesake. A man named Loki."

Bjalfi shook his head. "Don't know him."

He was obvious in the way he studied Loki, looking for any clues about who, or what he was.

"Is there anyone out there who might be looking for you?" Bjalfi asked.

Loki shook his head, focused instead on looking around the house. Its stone walls supported a peaked pole frame to the roof, with heavy turf piled on top. A hole in the roof let occasional flurries of snow through, which swirled and melted in the updraft from the fire.

"No," he said. "Just me."

As they spoke, the child had inched his way back over to Fenrir. Fenrir wuff'ed lowly, drawing attention back to him.

"Ozur!" the boy's mother shouted.

Fenrir jumped, sending Ikol into a fluttering frenzy through the house.

"He's fine," Loki said, rising quickly to fetch his bird. "He's harmless."

Convincing the boy's parents of this was second to retrieving Ikol and making sure he didn't hurt himself or get out of the hole in the roof. Loki calmly walked across the house toward the direction Ikol had fled, finding him perched up high in the rafters, squawking angrily at everything.

"Yes, I know," Loki said, holding his hand up to the irritated bird. "It was all terribly upsetting."

After a few more angry squawks, Ikol flew down to perch on his hand. Loki stroked him on his head as he walked him back to the fire. As Loki sat, Ikol moved up to his shoulder and stayed where he could watch everything more closely.

Ozur, the boy, was still on the floor, a cautious distance from Fenrir. With the excitement over, Fenrir stretched out, trying to sniff the boy without getting up.

"You can pet," Loki said. "He's harmless."

The boy reached out again and ran the tips of his fingers over the crest of Fenrir's head. And then again, gaining a little more confidence.

"I don't know if I'd call those beasts harmless," Hrapp said, speaking finally.

Loki couldn't help but laugh. "A sentiment my father shares," he said. "I've had him since I was a boy. Hand-reared him, from a pup."

"Since you were a boy?" Bjalfi asked. "And what are you now?"

Loki looked up at him. He was enormous, almost ten feet tall before his horns. Perhaps closer to twelve with them.

"Older than I may appear," Loki said.

He watched the growing unease that filtered through the entire extended family. Both men, their wives, and their combined three children all turned their gaze back to him. He was smaller than all but their youngest child, too slim, and too dark, with horns too short to even curve yet. Even in the low light of the fire and their few lanterns, Loki could see that. Most Jötunn halfbreeds were fairer of skin, often enough to pass as Æsir without magic. He had never seen himself in his true form compared so closely to other Jötnar, but he had always known his skin was darker than it should have been.

And they saw it too. He could see that written plainly on their faces.

"So what are you doing out here?" Bjalfi asked. "It's a bad time of year to travel. The southern seas are warming, bringing storms until the sun returns."

"As I said, I'm looking for my namesake. Or more likely, something he left behind before his death," Loki said.

He realised he knew little of Jötunheimr's seasons, having spent the sum total of his time on the realm in brothels and mead halls. Travelling the realm had never been on his task list until now.

"Do you know where you're going?" Bjalfi asked.

Loki shook his head. "Not at all. My plan was to hire a guide, but it seems my timing was poor."

"Hire a guide?" Bjalfi asked. It seemed everything Loki said made him all the more suspicious.

"Yes," said Loki. "I assume silver still spends on this side of Utgard?"

"You have silver?" Bjalfi asked.

He was testing Loki at this point. And Loki was curious enough to let him.

"Enough for a guide," he said.

He watched Bjalfi struggle with this, turning something over in his head. "A, uh. Man of your stature might not be wise to go around announcing such things," he said.

Loki shrugged, lazy and careless. If Bjalfi was testing him, Loki could test back. "I think I can mange."

As the rough tension hung over the house, one of the women stood. "Let's put the children to bed," she said to the other.

Together, the two women wrangled up the children and ushered them to a partitioned area toward the far end of the house, leaving the men to continue their talk. Loki watched them go, ready to call his knives should he need them. After a long moment of silence, Bjalfi moved closer to Loki.

"I will hide you, but if you put my family in danger, that offer will be revoked," he said lowly.

Loki nodded, not sure what he meant, and not wanting to question it. "Thank you," he said. He looke between Bjalfi and Hrapp, able to see the apprehension they held with their entire bodies. With the women and children gone, they showed it more readily.

"While we're being honest, it's not just my namesake I seek," Loki said, turning his attention back to Ikol on his shoulder. "The man was executed before I was born. It's not him I care about, but something he left behind. A sword. It's that which I seek."

"Executed?" Hrapp asked.

Loki shrugged with the shoulder Ikol wasn't perched on. "My father knew him; not I. All I know of him is that he was a menace called Loki, and he had more enemies than friends."

The two Jötuns looked at one another, and in the low, flickering light, Loki could see Hrapp just barely shake his head.

"You do know him?" Loki asked.

Hrapp looked at his brother, and then to Loki. "Of him, perhaps. Though I could not say much."

"Then say what you can." Loki watched them, their expressions quickly dancing between apprehension and confusion. Something about Loki was wrong. Something he couldn't outright ask without putting himself in any more danger than he was apparently already in.

He coaxed Ikol into his hand, stroking his neck and breast with his fingers.

"There was one," Hrapp said finally. "A sorcerer, excuted when I was a boy. I don't know of anything he left behind, though."

Loki nodded. Hrapp's man sounded like the one he was after.

"I assure you, I bring no danger to you or your children," Loki said. "I seek only his sword, to return to my father."

Bjalfi nodded slowly. He didn't believe Loki, but for some reason refused to call him out. Loki did not understand.

"Very well," Bjalfi said. "As before, I will hide you, and you can stay until it is safe to leave. But I will not protect you."

"Understood," Loki said.

He didn't. Not for a single moment did he understand what Bjalfi was talking about, but asking seemed dangerous.

Bjalfi studied him for a long moment more before nodding. "You're probably exhausted and in pain. Come. Rest."

Loki nodded. "Thank you," he said, following Bjalfi as he got up. As they walked in the direction the rest had gone earlier, Loki looked around for a safe place for Ikol.

"You will have to behave for me and stay put," Loki said. He released the bird up into the rafters, hoping he had not made a mistake in bringing him with.

"How have you trained it like that?" Bjalfi asked.

He took Loki into a room blocked off only by hanging furs. There were three beds, though one had been left empty for Loki. In the other two, the children lay with their mothers, talking quietly.

Loki huffed lowly. "Quite a lot of hard work. Fenrir will do anything I tell him, and nothing I don't."

Bjalfi motioned to the empty bed. "You can stay here. We'll make better arrangements tomorrow," he said.

"Thank you," Loki said again.

He sat on the edge of the high bed and pulled off his boots, glad to have them off. Moving entirely without thinking, he pulled off his tunic as well, still getting used to the careful way he had to move it and his head to keep the fabric from pulling on his horns. When he looked back up, he was met with a stunned look across Bjalfi's face. It took but a moment to see where the man was looking. Loki was a mess. It wasn't just the fading polar bear scars, or the sundry wounds and injuries from the war. Or even the still-healing gash on his shoulder, raised and angry and refusing to fully close. But a combination of all of them, telling a story youthful folly and poor choices all at once.

"I'm rather clumsy," Loki said.

"I see that," said Bjalfi, nodding slowly.

As Loki climbed into bed, he whistled as quietly as he could manage. A moment later, Fenrir trotted into the room and leapt up into the bed with him. His appearance drew more startled noises from Bjalfi and the women, while the children all laughed.

"Those things are not pets," Bjalfi said, turning to take off his own boots.

Loki ignored him, settling in to find a way to feel safe without Fenrir bumping into his face and keeping him awake. Ordinarily, Fenrir would sleep sprawled out on top of him like a living blanket, but Loki didn't dare. Finally, he rolled over onto his stomach, finding a position that kept his his horns from getting knocked into. Fenrir settled on top of him, a familiar weight in a wholly unfamiliar land. Once he was settled, it took no time at all from the day's excitement and travels to catch up with him.

When Loki woke, he knew not what time of day it was. It was a confusion he was slowly getting used to, though waking in a strange house in a realm where he had never spent more than a few hours at a time heightened the confusion. He could hear the wind still howling through the walls, occasionally rocking the timber frame of the roof above. Careful not to pull on his horns, Loki manage to struggle his way from underneath Fenrir and slipped out of the bed. Casting his gaze up, Loki looked not toward the roof above, but toward the sky beyond. It was a simple message to Heimdall. He was here. All was well.

Then, he cloaked himself and picked up his tunic from where it hung from the bedpost. Loki had not missed Bjalfi's expression when he saw the scars that littered Loki's body. Even to the Jötun's eye, Loki was wrong. He was not so far from Utgard that a half-breed should have been such an extreme concept, but there was something about Loki that definitely put them all at unease. Then he noticed his tunic. He had not changed to an old one before he left. While this one was not exactly fancy, it was one of his newer ones, with intricate hems and embroidered knotwork around the collar and cuffs. He should have changed, but it was too late now. It had already been seen. He had made the same mistake with his breeches, he realised. New leather, with woven straps halfway down from his knee. While nothing overly fancy, it was still the sort of thing he wore to mead halls, as Odin's irritatingly untouchable foundling, in Jötunheimr to raise mischief. He had not for a moment considered what it would look like outside of Utgard.

Once dressed, Loki walked back out to the main part of the house. While the children and one of the mothers sat at a table on the far end, the second woman was on a bench by the fire. Loki joined her, choosing to sit on the floor instead. Everything in and about the house made him feel like a child. He should have been three feet taller, but instead he was small and scrawny, and everything just a little too big to be comfortable.

"So what do I call you?" Loki asked.

The woman looked down at him. "Gudrun," she said. "Bjalfi is my husband. Ozur and Vigdís our children."

Loki nodded. "You have a fine home," he said.

"Thank you," Gudrun said. She sat stiffly, casting her gaze between the fire and Loki. Then, suddenly, she turned to him. "I don't suppose you've been seen to."

"Excuse me?" Loki asked.

She leaned close to him, tilting his face to see him by the light of the fire. Loki let her, not wanting to cause any more strife by resisting. After a moment, she frowned.

"You were cut," she said. "And very early."

"How can you tell?" Loki asked.

"The marks," Gudrun said. "They've healed beyond where the skin is broken."

Loki shrugged. He didn't particularly care either way, if it meant he was no longer in constant agony. He let Gudrun look at him, tilting his face toward the fire to cast more light where she wanted it.

"It's healed well. Very clean," she said as she let him go. Somehow, she seemed almost surprised. "Are you in pain?"

Loki shook his head. "Only when I forget about it and knock them into something."

He couldn't find a lie to stick to, and didn't dare try to probe. His presence terrified these people, and yet they'd welcomed him into their house. Whatever they thought he was, he knew only that it was bad news. And he couldn't exactly tell them the truth, as it would only be a matter of time before anyone important found out where he was. The best course of action was to neither confirm nor deny anything until he had more information to work on.

Loki watched Gudrun settle back into her seat, wanting to ask her a million questions, but not knowing where to start.

"How long should it hurt?" he asked finally.

Gudrun faced him, studying him for a long moment. "Usually, they grow quickly for the first two or three years. When the tips turn black, they slow and the bone settles."

Loki winced, wishing he hadn't asked.

"But for you," Gudrun said. "I cannot say. Maybe more, maybe less."

Eir had known nothing, and now Gudrun didn't either. It begged a whole other question.

"You don't see many others like me, do you?" Loki asked.

Gudrun shook her head. "No," she said plainly. "I have seen a few, but even they were not like you."

There was something almost accusatory to the way she spoke. Then she reached out again, this time to pull his mouth open. Loki put up with the rest, but he pulled himself away, not liking being inspected like a workhorse.

"What was done with your teeth?" she asked, taking her hand away.

"I had them filed," he said.

He hadn't thought about his teeth in years. The number of people who ever saw him in his true form could almost be counted on one hand, but he hadn't done it for them. He'd done it because looking at himself in the mirror and seeing sharp, twisted fangs was one more in a long list of items he had grown to hate about himself as time went on.

And as soon as it was safe to do so, Loki would do the same to his horns. If he never had to see them growing from his face again, he'd be happy.

Loki tried to read the woman's expression, and the way she sat back away from him again. Her concern and confusion was plain. Every word Loki said was somehow wrong.

"I do not know who you think I am," Loki said. "I am merely a humble traveller, on a single quest."

"Where are you from?" she asked.

Loki shook his head. "If I told you that, it would put your family in danger. None have followed me, but word travels fast."

Gudrun nodded. That, she understood. Loki was not so sure it was a good thing.

"I need to take my dog out," Loki said. "Where is a safe place to do so?"

For a moment, Gudrun seemed positively perplexed by the question. Then, she pointed to the wall behind her.

"There is an empty paddock, that way," she said.

Loki nodded and stood, dressing in his cloak and furs before calling Fenrir.

***

As the storm rattled on outside, Loki sat at the table and studied maps he had hidden away. Beside him, Ikol hopped about, pecking at this and that, and occasionally flapping off to find something else to peck at for a while. The bench he sat on was just high enough for his feet to not touch the ground, and just low enough from the table that he had to crane to see the maps. It was a sensation he tolerated in mead halls, when he was too drunk and distracted to notice, but now it was uncomfortable and almost demeaning. His toes hadn't struggled to touch the ground like this since he was a boy. Between Asgard where he fit, and Midgard where he was used to nearly eating his own knees, the Jötunn house had gone to the other extreme.

Finally he gave up and took everything to the floor by the fire. Sitting on the floor did little to take away the feeling of being entirely too small, but at least for not belonging. Somehow that was better than feeling like he was a child.

Odin hadn't told him much of Old Loki, but he was able to remember enough places and names to begin to mark out a reasonable search area. He marked everything he could remember with a charcoal pencil, hoping to find some sort of pattern he could use later. He hated charcoal pencils, but as one of the more durable options, they tended to be what he travelled with. But they were a tool absolutely intended for right-handed scribes. Even with the harder charcoal, Loki had to hold his hand at a twisted angle to keep from smudging his writing as soon as it was on the page. And somehow it still managed to get all over his hand.

As he worked, Ozur sat down on a bench next to him and looked down at the map.

"Why do you sit on the floor like that?" Ozur asked.

Loki looked up at him, and then at his toes scraping the dirt floor.

"So my feet don't do that," he said, pointing.

Ozur looked down and kicked his feet out, drawing shallow marks in the cold dirt.

"How old are you?" Loki asked.

"I'm ten," Ozur said.

Loki shook his head and huffed. "Ten," he repeated.

The boy was nearly as tall as Loki, and probably heavier. Loki had always thought he was too scrawny compared to the Æsir, but it was even more apparent next to other Jötnar. Even the ten year old boy seemed to have a wider frame than he did.

"How old are you then?" Ozur asked.

Loki realised he did not know. Not by Jötunheimr's calendar. He had never bothered to figure it out and keep track.

"I don't know," he said. "I was born a few seasons before the war."

"That was long before I was born," Ozur said. He looked over his shoulder toward Fenrir, where he lay beneath the loom, keeping watch over Loki and Ikol. "Where'd you get your dog?"

Loki glanced up at Fenrir. "He was a gift. From my brother."

"You have a brother?" Ozur asked.

Loki wondered if he would ever run out of questions.

"Three of them. All younger," he said.

Ozur continued to kick his feet to scrape the ground. "Are they all short like you?" he asked.

Loki laughed, almost taken off-guard by the boy's bluntness. "They are all the size they should be."

"If I had a brother like you, I'd beat up anyone who was mean to him. Do your brothers do that?" Ozur asked.

He reminded Loki of Baldur, incessantly asking inane questions with no end in sight. The thought that Viðar had robbed the palace of the same torture stung.

"Sometimes," he said. "Less now than when we were boys."

"Do you have any sisters?" Ozur asked.

Loki shook his head. "No sisters."

"Vigdís is my sister," Ozur said, pointing to the only girl amongst the children. "She wants to marry the sheep boy, but they can't until his horns cut."

"Who is the sheep boy?" Loki asked, glad to ask his own question for a change.

"His family raise the sheep flock. In the winter, they have to move the sheep into their house so they don't freeze to death," Ozur explained.

Loki frowned. He couldn't imagine the filth and the stench. "Your sister wants to spend her winters stepping in sheep shit?" he asked.

Ozur laughed. "I think she's crazy."

Loki agreed with him.

He allowed Ozur to assault him with questions, until the boy got bored and went to play with Fenrir. He was still timid around the beast, which seemed to be the story everywhere they went. Once Loki had marked everywhere on the map he could think to mark, he rolled it back up and put it with the rest of his things. Then he walked over to Fenrir and Ozur.

"He likes it right here," Loki said, reaching out to scratch Fenrir near his haunch.

Fenrir rolled over, kicking his foot in the air as if to keep up with Loki's scratching. Ozur laughed wildly, even as he backed up to get out of the way. Even after Loki stopped, Fenrir kept kicking for a few seconds more before slowly winding down.

"How did you do that?" Ozur asked.

Loki pointed. "Just scratch him right here," he said.

Ozur crawled over and furiously scratched Fenrir where Loki showed him, cackling wildly as the animal seemingly lost all control of his own leg.

"What's his name?" Ozur asked.

"Fenrir," Loki answered.

Ozur laughed some more. "Why did you name him that?" he asked.

Loki stood, shaking his head. "Because I am apparently bad at names."

He turned to see Hrapp bending to pick his map up from the floor under a bench, where it seemed to have rolled after falling from its place on top of Loki's pack. Spotting his pencil on the ground as well, Loki bent to pick it up.

"Did you write all this?" Hrapp asked.

Loki looked up to see him reading this hen scratch notes he'd left himself on the unused spots on the map.

"I did," Loki said, holding his hand out for his map.

Hrapp frowned down at it for a second more before rolling it up and handing it over.

"That's a dangerous skill to have," Hrapp said.

Loki frowned as he secured his map a bit better. Nearly every man and woman on Asgard could write. Loki was obviously missing a piece of crucial information, but revealing himself as an outsider would only call himself out. How many halfbreed Jötuns made a habit of travelling the realms on a whim?

He rather enjoyed breathing, so he only shrugged.

"Come," Hrapp said, leading Loki back toward the end of the house. "Let us find a space for you and your... dog."