fossilised | I come from a land of ice and snow

I come from a land of ice and snow

Asgard sat atop the branches of Yggdrasil since time began, and little had changed in their society in the years since. Each Asgardian was long-lived into the millennia, their lands were fertile, their people brave and strong. They had their vassals, their allies, and their enemies. Yet even those who opposed them respected the might of the Golden Dias, and the royalty who sat upon it. Currently that was Odin Borson, though he grew weary more easily now and had begun to consider passing the throne to his eldest son.

He had been blessed with many children, but only two that he considered worthy of his lineage and status. His firstborn, Thor, strong and honourable and everything an Asgardian warrior should be. His second son, Loki, was not natural born, though none knew that but his wife. He was different, a creature of magic and mayhem, of sharp intelligence. Both were worthy, but together they would take Asgard to a new prosperity, he was certain of it.

Midgard, where the mortals dwelt, was a land raided every few centuries for stock. It was seen as a breeding ground, much like a corral for cattle. Mortals were lesser, short-lived and weak, they were fit only as slaves. The last raid had taken place when Loki had been but a baby, nearly a thousand years ago, but the mortals that had been taken had been bred and cared for so that a healthy slave population still thrived. Slaves were given a weakened mixture of Idunn's crop with their food, to extend their natural lives to at least a few centuries in order to make them worth the effort to train. They had no rights, but they were taught well that this was their natural position.

All slave children were raised in a central pen and taught the same when small, those that then displayed talent at cooking, riding, hunting, housework, artisan skills, or singing were then measured off to be specially trained for higher masters. Every five years those who could afford to buy a slave, or those of high enough status to simply demand them, came to the corral and chose. Those who were chosen were special, were envied, and those who were not ended up working the fields out in the far reaches of Asgard, the most menial of work.

Anthony and Steven had been friends since they were little and being raised in the large pens together. Both had excelled, Anthony at crafting and Steven at warrior's skills, but neither were chosen when they were five, nor ten, nor even fifteen. Now, at twenty, it was their final chance to be chosen before they would be assigned to one of the meanest farmers beyond the borders of the great capital. Steven woke Anthony as the dawn rose, mingled excitement and nerves on his face.

"Anthony! Wake up, I've got news! I heard the overseer talking to one of the passing guards, and Princes Thor and Loki are coming to the corral today."

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There was no part of Steve that wanted to snark right now. He could have told Bucky that it was just all right or that he could try it again later, but instead, Steve pulled his husband down, kissed musky tasting lips, and wrapped his naked body up in Bucky's cooler, clothed one. The man was shorter than he was but it didn't matter when they were laying down and Steve could bury his head in his neck or lay his cheek on his chest.

There was that tiny spit fire again, all worn out and panting happily in Bucky's arms.

As much as Tony got to Bucky, every time he made him feel angry and stupid, he managed to make a step forward too in his relationship with Steve.

Maybe Bucky needed that irreverence to spur him on.

Maybe he did, maybe having that to contrast Steve being endlessly understanding was what pushing him out of his comfort zones and made him angry enough at the world and at himself to change things. That didn't mean that he thought Tony should get away with being a dick to people and have them think it was okay.

Not that he was even remotely thinking about Tony right now, all of his attention was on Steve and the way he fit so perfectly into Bucky's arms.

"We're a coupla idiots, you know? I never could've been happy settling down with some dame and just having you over the fence."

"You could have done just fine. But I'm glad that wasn't in our hand," Steve said. Bucky could do anything. He could have come back from war and married Dot or Cathy and he and Steve could have found two houses in the suburbs and said hello to each other leaving for work and coming back from work. And on date nights, Bucky's kids could have come over and Steve would have spoiled them. He didn't hate that life, the one that should have been. But he didn't want to default back to it anymore.

Steve pulled up the tucked in part of Bucky's shirt from his pants and lightly traced the skin along his spine in heart-shaped patterns because Bucky was the only one that would know and he never minded if the other man made fun of him.

He'd grown thick skin metaphorically before it had happened physically.

"I love you, Buck. More and more. And not just because you... You know." Kissed him down there. He couldn't say it.

"I know, I love you too."

He wouldn't have been satisfied with that life. Maybe he would have pretended that he was, even to himself. He knows that he would have been a good husband, maybe a little free with the money for smokes and drinks, but generally a good guy. Maybe Dot or Cathy would have loved him and grown old with him, and maybe he would have loved her in her own way.

But nothing like this.

Steve had always been his whole damn world, ever since he met that stupid punk kid with his beat up face getting up time and time again. He bent his head and kissed into blond hair, nose staying in there for a moment.

"You make me feel human. That probably doesn't sound like a good compliment, but Steve, it's the best thing I know."

"That's a damned fine compliment," Steve said immediately. He was happier now than he'd been that morning, happier than he'd been securing a safe passage for their people. The orgasm helped with that, but even moreso, Bucky's ability to step forward into their relationship. Steve snuggled in, sighing a little with the remains of pleasure on his tongue, and told Bucky about the plan he'd worked out with Vanaheim.

Literally worlds away, Anthony flopped back into bed, feeling happily exhausted from bedding his master. "I can't wait to go home," he said, curling his fingers in the sheets as he arched his neck up towards Loki. They'd had some snags here and there but after they closed the ability to return to that poisoned Midgard, all had been well again. Everyone in that end of the tree's branches had been snuffed out, and rightly so. Their universe was saved. Their slaves were birthing fantastic and beautiful new children, and Loki would be shown the glory be so rightfully deserved.

Anthony was excited to see what fanfare their return would bring. He had already visited the offspring his double had produced with both seasoned slaves and those used only as broodmares and he had to admit, he was proud of them already. He liked especially that he hadn't been asked to bed any of those women himself.

Loki took enough from him as it was and he would hate to have to deny his master to be put into breeding rotation.

Loki had been displeased that in his watch, several slaves had escaped for the first time in their history, but it had not been a huge blemish against his achievements for he had wiped the cancerous Midgard from the branches of Yggdrasil thus likely cleansing those who had escaped for they surely would have gone to their home.

He wound his fingers through dark hair and tugged on it just shy of painfully, enjoying the sight of bite marks on Anthony's usually smooth skin. They would be hidden by his tunic, of course, but they would be a constant aching reminder of just who he belonged to, as though he needed any.

"You are impatient as ever, my Anthony, we have not been here overly long and think of those poor unfortunates who will never be taken to Asgard. Their purposes have been complete, their young will live good lives, but they are beyond saving."

Such a pity and a waste that Midgard would allow its inhabitants to grow so disgustingly disobedient.

"They'll be fine here. They won't miss us. Have any of them even realized how good they could have it?" He winced a little, not so much at the tugging as at the thought that anyone of his race could be so stupid. Humanity was a perfect slave species. They were good workers and hardy and capable and clever. Most knew their places. Not all masters were good or kind but at least having a master gave a person a purpose. None of the people they had gathered would ever understand that. "And they'll be fine here until they die out. Plenty of space and buildings and food. They're a lot luckier than any one else. And you're right. Their kids are going to get snatched up from the training villages before their first knots. That's something to be proud of."

He actually felt a little more sorry for the third knot slaves that hadn't been chosen. The moment the babies came of age, they were done for. Right into the fields with them. They'd be worked for a few years until they died and would never know how blissful service could be.

Anthony shifted to lay his cheek on Loki's shoulder.

"I don't want to wait the week. No one else is due to give birth before we go right?" Why did they have to stay?

He knew that the slaves enjoyed their freedoms here. Steve certainly was. But he longed for the palace.

Even the slaves who ended up in the fields and had no other purpose than to till the soil until they died had a purpose, for each one helped to feed the rest of Asgard. Perhaps they would never know the joy of a master of their own, but they assisted in keeping the whole realm prosperous and Loki thought that was a purpose noble in itself.

Though he would not allow the intimacy of this embrace should anyone else walk into his tent, he did not mind allowing Anthony to use his shoulder for a pillow for now, though his fingers did tighten a little further in his hair in mild warning.

"This raid and these slaves were my conquest, I cannot leave before the time is at an end and I must be the last to go, that is my duty here."

He would not give anyone the ammunition they might need to say that he wasn't up to the task or that he had failed at any part of what had been set out for him to do.

"Thor has already left, there is little left to do but wait, is that such an onerous duty?"

Thor, Anthony thought, was forced to leave. Especially after James and that other Steven got the best of him. He'd been shamed, though only Loki knew the extent of it. He'd taken Samuel back with him since he was not part of the breeding rotation and that had been that. Many of the other Asgardian Warriors had returned with him as well, and every day, another skiff or longship would set out towards home. Anthony was jealous of them.

He paid little attention to the warning hold. It was too late in the day for anyone to bother them. The four or five dozen warriors left behind to help tend the slaves would not come to find them. And Anthony wanted more than anything to have this quiet moment with his master. He knew how it looked but he loved him endlessly. And that sometimes translated into moments like these.

"It's just stagnant. We're just waiting. There's nothing exciting-- I think we've been through all of your books too. And I ran out of metal a month ago."

Anthony was bored. He was too chaotic to enjoy laying around.

"Tomorrow the next regimen is going with the last of the babies. I think our slaves are just enjoying their last few days drinking too much. But they're ready to go home too. It's where we belong."

Loki understood the boredom, he too was far too mercurial to enjoy sitting and doing nothing even for so short a time as a week, but the thought of his accolades when he achieved this whole duty from start to finish kept him strong. He thought of the feasts in his honour, of the All-Mother and All-Father publicly praising him, of Thor for once in his shadow.

That last thought was so vehemently delighted that it had kept him strong from the boredom for the last two full months, and he wasn't about to fall at the final hurdle. This time the tug to Anthony's hair would be painful, though only for a moment, and his voice reproving.

"I have told you once why we must remain and I do not expect to repeat myself a third time, a week is naught in our lives and you will endure it. Should you truly lack for tasks, you may clean out the birthing stables."

He would not actually force Anthony to do this unless he really riled him up, but the threat was there all the same.

"Why do you not set yourself a different challenge? Speak to the chaff left and see what it is that compels them to disobey even against their own betterment."

Loki had to have been bored too for him to react this way. He was always fairly lenient, in private, especially after a bedding. But not tonight. Anthony huffed a little. He never expected much from Loki, but he'd been hoping to sleep in his arms. Not tonight evidently. He sat up, rubbed a hang through his hair to his aching scalp, and shook his head.

"Do you need anything before I go?" he asked, pulling on his tunic and then his trousers and boots. He would probably try to find Bruce. Or Steven. Or someone he could talk to. Loki was no help in that department tonight.

And he was not risking having to clean those stables. That was a warrior's task.

And now his slave was sulking. Loki rolled his eyes, but he did not forbid Anthony from flouncing away, he would do better getting over his little temper tantrum and then returning so that they may enjoy their last few days at leisure rather than at odds with a fractious slave who would need to be disciplined.

It would be Steven that Anthony found first.

He longed to be back on Asgard, gifted once again to his rightful owner now that this year was over, but he had been one of those breeding new slaves and so he could not leave until all the babes had gone. He would be found eating a hunk of meat and bread disconsolately outside the main sleeping barracks.

Loki didn't understand what it was like to be a slave without a purpose. The day to day routines of Asgard might bore some, but Anthony liked it. He enjoyed warming his master's furs too, but that happened on Asgard as regularly as it did here. On Asgard there was more privacy too. And always something new to be assigned to. This week, he knew, would be longer than even the last.

So seeing Steven look as miserable as he felt was heartening. Anthony plopped down beside him, back to the wall, and legs stretched out in front of him.

"I'm over this moon," Anthony told Steven, scooting over to lean against him. They'd been friends since they were toddlers, Steven had been his only friend. And Anthony was grateful every day that they had remained capable of being friends once they had been chosen.

That said, he was happy that Steven would be back under Thor's care.

"One week until you're back in service. What do you plan to do first?"

Steven was always heartened to see Anthony, his was a face that was synonymous with comfort and friendship. When other slaves had shunned him for being dangerously opinionated when it came to protecting the weak, he had found a kindred spirit in Anthony who had been opinionated in whole other ways. He looked forward to them being friends throughout this life and then waiting together in Valhalla for their masters to join them in the next.

"Polish his armour," was the prompt and immediate reply. "When he doesn't have a personal slave, he either forgets it needs it or he sends it to the palace slaves who don't have experience. After a whole year, it's going to be an absolute wreck."

Though he was sort of complaining, it was with a beaming smile on his face. He knew that Anthony understood, if he were separated from Loki then he would pine after all the mundane jobs that must be done to ensure their princes lived good and comfortable lives.

"I know that it's an honour to be here, but I agree. I want to go home and smell Asgard's fields again."

Anthony had already experienced separation from his Prince. He'd been captured and abused by others. He'd been used in ways that had nearly broken him, sure that Loki would cast him out for it. Sometimes he still thought of those foreign hands on his body and he had dreams of Loki growing disgusted with him, but it never happened. He was allowed to live and love in service.

So when Steven came to join him... After the jealousy and fear of being removed again passed, at least, he could understand more than most what it felt like to be put back into the right groove.

"I'm going to dust the bookshelves and fetch a proper meal. I miss having real fish, not the salted and dried stuff we have here. Prince Loki has been subsisting on the diet of field hands. It's awful."

They grinned at each other and Anthony dropped his head to Steven's shoulder.

"How many children bear your mark?"

Anthony was unlucky that his prince enjoyed books so much, that much parchment and that many shelves built up dust very quickly and needed cleaning often, it was a time consuming task that he knew he wouldn't enjoy. But then he wasn't Anthony, who could devote his mind to invention while he did such tasks.

Steven puffed up with earned pride. It had been a truly grand day indeed when it had been declared that his descendants for generations would bear his mark as a brand on the sole of their left foot, a reminder of strong blood.

"Seventeen healthy babes, though there was one more that died for the mother refused sustenance all through the pregnancy. A truly selfish act to kill her child, which could have had a future, as well as herself. But that is still seventeen with my mark, twelve boys and five girls."

"All blond haired and blue eyed?" Steven's pride flushed Anthony with pride too. They were brothers, not bound by blood for blood among slaves mattered only in lineage and not in family structure, and so Steven's triumphs could be counted for Anthony too. "Did you meet their wet nurses?"

The female warrior slaves could only have a single child in the breeding season here, after all, and so would foster many of the children birthed by foreign mothers to be left upon this moon. And what a great honor that was to their masters who would have first pick of their litters before the rest were sent to the training villages for rearing once weened.

Anthony was glad he was not a woman, though. He didn't want Loki to have any other salves for quite awhile. Surely he could be enough?

Not that he could ever see Loki raising a slave child either--

And Anthony sure as Hel wouldn't be!

"Of course, I met each and every one and they were all women of honour and pleased to be caring for a marked babe."

Steven was diligent in everything he did, of course he would have found each wet nurse and made sure they knew that this baby was his progeny and that Prince Thor himself had allowed the marking of his descendants for many generations to come. He leaned back against the curved wall of the outbuilding and slung his arm loosely around Anthony in comfortable companionship.

"Tell me, were you not saddened that your master didn't allow you to be part of the breeding? He should have allowed you to have at least one child, it could have been raised to take your place when you pass on."

Surely Anthony would prefer that Loki's care be left in his bloodline, than pass onto a stranger?

"If he wants someone of my lineage, he can have one of the children that older version of me had. Nine all together, five girls and four boys. Bruce says he was identical to me, genetically, so it won't matter." But Anthony didn't want to think about it.

When he was gone would already be too late anyway. Loki would replace him when he grew too old, as soon as the apples stopped working.

At least he knew what he would look like about the time that happened.

"Maybe he'll have one of yours when he discards me. Any with dark hair and eyes?"

Steven couldn't understand why Anthony seemed so reluctant to breed himself. Surely those exploits when he had been captured by bandits had not put him off, for he clearly still enjoyed rolling in the furs with his prince. Having offspring to further serve the Aesir was a great honour, sometimes Anthony made no sense.

"I doubt he will ever discard you. When we are in our dotage, he will have gifted you quarters and a metalwork store of your own. He has never had a personal slave before, you cannot think he would throw you aside when you grow too old."

Some masters would do that, simply casting out any slaves old and tired to replace them with new ones, but he doubted either prince would do that.

"You cannot have one with my mark, all bear my hair and eyes."

"Would you really deny me one of yours? Or Loki if he wanted it? Doubtful," Anthony laughed. He was still too far from old age to worry about what would happen and he hoped to die protecting Loki so that he would be remembered long after he passed to Hel. Or Valhalla if he was so lucky. He'd be able to serve Loki there again one day. Like James would be doing for Thor. And Steven too.

"I guess it doesn't matter. If he wants one of yours, he'll probably take a grandchild or a great grandchild in a few thousand years. Or he'll start all over again at the training village. I don't know. If he wants me bred, he'll breed me. Maybe he's just being picky about my mate?"

But he didn't want anyone but Loki. And sometimes Bruce.

Even if Bruce wisely kept him at arm's length.

It wasn't worth trying to untangle the mess of reason and madness that made up prince Loki or Anthony, so Steven just shrugged and pulled his arm tighter around Anthony's shoulders to pull the smaller man almost onto his lap.

"Maybe he just fears they will be born with your mouth and not your mind," he teased, for that would be a terrible thing. Stupid and chaotic.

"I have been thinking that if Prince Thor will allow me, I'd like to take on training some at the village for one day a week, to show them that even if they reach their third knot then all is not lost. Would you like to come with me?"

Half in Steven's lap, Anthony twisted around to look up at the blond. "Are you serious? Odin's Beard, you're serious. Yes! If my prince will allow it, I'll go. I could teach practical skills-- I'll be terrible at it but I could try." He could make a difference. "As long as I'm not needed-- when we get back and you get permission then maybe your master can suggest it to mine."

Keeping Steven out of the palace sometimes would probably be a huge help in the relationship Thor had with him. No more public, romantic sexual escapades. Less temptation for them.

Anthony wanted Steven to prosper. Not fall into the same pattern again. His master couldn't afford to collect him again if he was turned out once more.

He reached for the back of Steven's neck to press his forehead to the other's.

"This makes up for that mouthy comment. Don't think I didn't hear it."

"You know how mouthy you are, don't pretend as if that's a surprise insult."

He snorted, it would be like saying that Steven didn't have a moral compass a mile wide, or like Bruce didn't need his peace and calm. It was just a part of Anthony and there was nothing wrong with that because he had learned to temper it when necessary and he still had his intelligence to more than make up for it.

Steven smiled as his forehead pressed to Anthony's, enjoying the closeness.

"I just remember how hopeless we felt as our third knot approached and we had nothing, if we can help others from feeling as if it's too late then surely that's worth doing. You could train them in metalworking, make them attractive to the guilds or even for sale to Alfheim."

Oh he laughed at that. Not at Steven's words but at the thought of helping to make slaves better. He and Steven had been trained rigorously, taught everything they thought would be needed, but the trainers were trained to train. They had never lived a life outside of the village. They didn't know. He and Steven could really help the kids in the village learn to make themselves more attractive. Not physically, most slaves were already attractive by virtue of breeding. A good slave needed more than aesthetics.

"You're earning your legacy," Anthony said, stealing a piece of that meat from Steven's hand. He chewed on it thoughtfully. "The new generation we're bringing back are lucky. Ask Bruce as well. He knows the palace better than anyone."

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