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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"No everyone gets to be what they want to be," Anthony admitted. "Tell me, Steve, is that how it worked for your planet? At any time, if someone wanted to change their lot in life, did they have the ability to do it? I'd like to take the word freedom off of the table. I have only felt less than free three times in my life. Each time, I was separated from my Master."

He wouldn't go into details. Being away from Loki was like missing a piece of himself. Even the kitchen slaves with them felt that way. They served a household, not just one person. And yet they felt as if the household might suffer while a new slave was trained. And it was true. The household would.

Slaves might seem expendable but they truly were not.

Anthony exploited how uncomfortable Steve looked by upping how depressed he looked on his face. He felt it deeply and endlessly but he was measured in how much of that he showed.

"Midgardians typically have short lives. A hundred years if they are lucky, seventy or so on average. Much of that time is spend in learning. And after that, working at how they learned. I do not believe that your people have experienced the ability to be anything they wanted. There is demand for some fields. There is more work in some industries. Some can never achieve their potential. That is the way of all Realms no matter their roles. I need not know about yours entirely to know that truth. At least for my people, we all have meaning. We have vocation. And while a field hand might not care to toil, she knows that she is feeding the Realm and that brings happiness."

"No, not everyone can be something that they want to be, but I come from a country where the ability to make that choice is at the core of who we are. If I worked on the field and I didn't want to, then I could choose to try and do something else. Maybe I wouldn't succeed, but I'd have the same shot as anyone else, and I'd at least be able to follow my dreams."

He hated how logically Anthony laid it all out, because the arguments he made had a sense to them even if it was twisted and warped by the Stockholm Syndrome that they were all clearly suffering from.

"Doesn't it bother you that even your body doesn't belong to you? That your master could tell you to have children with a stranger and you'd have to do it, whether you wanted to or not? Do you think your master hasn't already got a new slave by now?"

He refused to believe loyalty could be shown both ways, anyone who could keep a slave must see them as pets at best and property at worst.

In a way, Anthony was touting a sort of communism. Maybe even a form of fascism that worked in theory and in practice, unlike it had on Earth. He did not believe that anyone could do anything. Kings were born and not made. Farm hands were strong. Warriors were brave. Kitchen help could cook. "A person is suited to only a few lives. I might long to be a warrior like Steven, to protect my master and his possessions, but I was not born to that. Many of your people were not born to what they would want to be. I do not believe you when you say that everyone has the same advantage. I saw how your people scattered when we came. Had it been reversed, my people would have come together to protect the weak. We studied your world from a far. Midgard was broken. Her governments, her people... Everyone hated everyone. So many were starving. Here I am, the Prince's personal slave. I want for nothing. And so many of you were dying. Every. Day."

It was getting to Steve. The logic. But he needed his heart strings tugged too. And that Anthony could do easily with the questions presented to him.

"If my master wished for me to mate, I would. It is my duty. But I was glad he did not want me to. I am not interested in securing my line. That's selfish of me. My children would be able to serve Prince Loki when the apples cease to keep me young and I pass to Hel or. Valhala. One day he will ask me to give him my progeny and I will do as he wishes. Or I will ask him to allow me to have get. And he will allow this too."

He exhaled slowly and tried not to let the thought of being replaced make him angry. But he was hot headed and his eyes flashed Amber as he looked at Steve.

"My prince is looking for a way to come for me. I am not replaceable. Not easily. None of us are. We have centuries of training, our skills can not just be transferred. And he trusts and cares for me. One day he will need to find another but that is not today."

It was getting to Steve, the idea that anyone could be happy in their slavery was abhorrent to him, but it was getting harder and harder to deny that this was what Tony was-- Anthony, not Tony, it was hard to remember. Perhaps this was harder from a selfish standpoint of seeing someone he cared about espouse these sort of things, when he knew how much damage had been done to one of his friends.

"And what about my people?"

Steve's expression darkened, but he kept his anger under check.

"What about the way my people were treated? Maybe you and yours accept slavery and are happy to be born into it, but you can't look at the suffering caused to my people and say that it was the same thing. You captured and abused them, don't you think that was wrong?"

He had no idea what he was going to do with this if Anthony really did believe that they hadn't done anything wrong to the people of his Earth.

"You wiped out our home, you slaughtered thousands, and made thousands more into traumatised people far from their families."

"Do not try to find a moral high ground with that argument. We watched transmissions from your world. We saw all of the ways that one group tried to pressure and control and destroy another. Your planet has wiped out whole settlements and whole groups of people over something as idiotic as skin colour!" He was getting fiery now. He could taste his temper rising.

But Anthony was so young. So impetuous. He had a master who brought out all of the chaos within him. And he had a difficult time holding his tongue. Always.

"We wanted to save you from yourselves. What we did was the same as what you've always done to yourselves. Except we have given your children the keys to happiness. Your world was not destroyed when we left it. The people we took were to be left on the training moon with food and water and shelter to sustain their population for centuries. But this is what happens when Midgard is left on their own. They destroy themselves. Is that what happened to your planet? We took a mere twenty thousand of your eight billion citizens. Did the rest destroy themselves? Likely. Just as we know that the twenty thousand we took would eventually slaughter themselves too. Midgardians without direction are brutal and horrible to each other."

"You're speaking of your own people."

Steve's own anger was bleeding through as well now. It made him literally sick to his stomach to hear Anthony talk about what they had done as though it had truly been a favour and not a sick kidnapping and torture that had ruined an entire planet. Perhaps there had been war, perhaps they had wiped themselves out after, but the Asgardians had been the catalyst.

"And if you insist that you helped them of your own free will, then we really will have no choice but to try you all for the war crimes against our people."

He didn't know whether execution would be a thing in their new society, he assumed a vote would be had on it. But they would all surely either be executed or kept imprisoned for the rest of their lives.

What was a life anyway without Loki? Anthony had no purpose here other than to try and keep and comfort his people. Perhaps Bruce had been right to worry for Anthony had had the upper hand until his temper burst out and his I know everything attitude took over. Anthony slammed his hands on the table and stood. It would have been threatening if Steve had been anyone else…or if Anthony had been taller.

“Do whatever you must,” he said, his English thick with that British accent he affected to speak it in All-Speak. There were angry, hurting, lonely tears just behind the corners of his eyes but he could not weep for what he had lost.

After all, he’d lost Loki before. And Loki had always returned to him. Loki plucked him out of nothing and made him who he was. He would not embarrass his Master by weeping openly.

“If you think any of us are afraid of your threats, you’re wrong. If you think this makes you better than us…you’re wrong there too. We gave your people a future with meaning. And you’re offering us nothing but a death sentence.” There were not many prisoners on Asgard. The Realms tended to snuff out those that they felt were criminal. It was just how Anthony assumed it would be.

"I'm not threatening you, I'm telling you what will happen because even if you're a criminal you have the right to know what's happening with your custody or trial."

Steve had already come to the conclusion that this wasn't going to get him anywhere. As much as he hated to fail, he wasn't so arrogant as to think that he never would or never could. These people likely would never have integrated well anyway, their own people were too hurt and fractured from what had happened and would never have trusted them. Perhaps, in some ways, it was better this way.

He had just stood up, preparatory to leaving, when an enormous crash shook the ground so much that he stumbled. The accompanying boom was loud enough that he could only hear a dull ringing when the dust cleared, showing that the wall had actually cracked. The apple-fed Midgardians might be hardier with their hearing, though, and so Anthony might hear a familiar pair of voices shouting in Aesir and the unmistakable feel of Loki's magic mingling with that of Mjolnir to create another localised blast.

Anthony squared his shoulders. He wanted to weep in thanks, for the last few days had felt like an eternity, but he was much too pleased to do anything but smirk at Steve. “You should run,” he said, looking almost demented as he heard his people, and Bruce, rush into the room, each with a truly relieved and exalted look to their faces. All of them knew the voices of their princes, though most here had never been a personal servant. That hardly mattered, however, as each man and woman now gathered felt a strong affinity for their positions.

No one blocked Steve Barnes from leaving, but the two Princes, likewise, were not interested in making war upon a Realm that they could not beat themselves. They hadn’t, after all, brought an army with them. Thor’s use of Mjolnir was meant merely to distract within the Midgardian settlement outside of the capital city upon Vanaheim. Destruction was preferred, but they did not wish to draw the attention of every powerful sorcerer that happened to live upon the Realm.

They merely wanted what was theirs back.

And if they could kill the cheeky, poisoned Midgardians in the process? Well that would be lovely too.

Thor, wide and proud with his hair done up in braids and face painted in blue stripes and swirls for this battle, tore down a building as Loki was left to find those stolen from his charge. He found the whole thing an amusement.

Loki had not come for amusement, he had come to take back what was his. It had been counselled against by both of his parents; the loss of slaves was regrettable and they would be rightfully mourned, but they were not so high of value that the princes should risk their own safety to recover them. Neither prince had listened, Loki's guileless tongue easily persuading Thor of the glory of revenge.

Now they were here, he was using all of his considerable power to blast apart buildings of his own and seek out the ones stolen from them. He found the bodies first, the ones the Soldier had killed, and rage flooded him. If they had slaughtered Anthony then they would pay dearly.

"Any Midgardian loyal who can hear my voice, rally to my side!"

Now was the time they showed why even the slaves intended for other purposes were taught to fight in the Village, all Aesir and Aesir slaves had to know how to fight if the time came they were called on.

"None may be left standing. Bring them alive or bring them dead, but bring them."

Midgardians fed the golden apples of life were much, much stronger than the mortal men guarding them and while they had known that, and had a Berserker on their side, none had tried to break out of their prison until they heard Loki’s rallying cry.

Immediately, the others fled to get to Loki, but Anthony lingered as Steve watched them all go.

He grabbed the blond by the shirt, stronger than Tony Stark was, and hauled him down. “You look like my brother. You sound like my brother. You made an effort to be my brother. You treated us as well as you could. For that, I’m letting you go. Return to your people, and quickly. Keep them away from my Prince or they will die.”

Anthony shoved Steve back and hopped over the table to get to the door, finally letting the tears in his eyes collect along his lashline. He was so happy he couldn’t contain them.

How could this be happening again?

Not even slightly ashamed of himself, Steve bolted back in the direction he had left Bucky, unable to contemplate losing him again. He tried to rally the others on the way, but the sight of their captors sent almost all of them into flat tailspin. Some of them attacked in desperation, some of them fled into the forests.

Loki stood at the centre of a group of slaves that had heeded his call, but his expression only lightened a little when Anthony finally joined him. He glanced to one side where his brother was easily fending off any attacks almost lazily.

"What say you, Thor? Leave them to their miserable lives, or take them to the dungeons for theft?"

Hefting Mjolnir to his shoulder, Thor rolled his eyes and headed slowly towards his brother. Most of the poisoned Midgardians had fled by that point and he stepped over those that did not. “I do not wish for more to do with this,” he said, truthfully. “We have come what we came found. Do not leave our dead behind. They will be buried as is fitting.”

Those alive, those that had rallied to Loki as he had commanded, loved Thor for his words. It cemented to them how right they were in their view point. Their way of life mattered.

“We must send their souls to Valhala properly, for they have earned this right.”

Several Midgardians cheered for their crowned prince as he left to fetch their dead. Several went with him to assist, though he hardly needed it.

In one of the partially destroyed buildings, Tony kept his arms around the girl. She could easily teleport away, but he hoped she would not. He was trembling, the return of these Asgardians was traumatizing. “They’re leaving,” he kept whispering. “Let them. Don’t get yourself killed. Stay with me,” he begged. It was not his finest moment, but he had so few of them since his initial capture.

Loki would not argue against Thor's desire to give their lost slaves a proper return to Asgard's soil. Contrary to what these Midgardians may think, they cared for their own in a way that a master should care for their slaves. They were longer lived, stronger, and more intelligent, it was their duty to care for those beneath them in the larger ways, even as the Midgardians cared for them in the smaller ways.

The other Loki sat rigid and angry, though she did not attempt to pry away from her trembling friend. Her fury was because of his distress, because these monsters had altered a good man and changed him into a fearful creature, a coward, which he was not at the heart of him.

"I do not wish to remain and allow them the freedom of escape without battle."

She knew it was wisdom to just let them go, but this was another version of her and her betrothed, she felt a personal desire to stop them as well as her duty.

“They will kill you,” Tony hissed, because it was the truth. “You’re powerful, but you’re half that one’s age. So think about it, princess!” He was a coward, yes, he had become a coward when up against these people, but he was also angry. Half at himself, and half because he knew he could not do a damned thing about it either. This Loki had killed their Thor. It shouldn’t have been possible, but he managed it. So killing a younger version of himself? That would be easy.

He could hear the heavy Aesir, thick like a more Germanic version of Bokmal, something akin to what those in the upper reaches of Norway spoke and likely a bastardized version of it considering how easily humans changed and updated their languages, could hear a voice that sounded very much like his own speaking one part and another, Loki’s speaking in response.

He hated the obvious affection in the speech. Tony was by no means a linguist, but he knew enough languages to be able to pick out sentiment.

And, indeed, outside, Anthony was covertly standing close to the taller man, fingers very lightly clamped at the second knuckle of his middle and forefinger around the leather of his tunic. “How much time has passed? Vanaheim should be moving twice the speed as the training moon but across the void, it’s hard to tell,” Anthony was saying, making light conversation that was dripping with impossible to hide love and relief. “It’s been five days for us…a fortnight for you?”

"A little over a month, the All-Father disapproved and it took time to both evade his eyes and locate the correct branch of the correct Yggdrasil."

That was just another thing that made these rescued Midgardians love their owners so much; the princes had defied the king to get them back, they had risked all for some lowly slaves. How could the Midgardians here not see how lucky they were to be owned and cared for like this?

The Loki within rested a hand on Tony's head, her fingers cool against the heat of his brow, in as soothing a manner as she could. She did not wish to die, nor did she wish for Tony to feel such terror, but it went against her very nature to cower here and do nothing.

"Then-- then I will allow myself captured, I can alter myself to look as one of their slaves and return with them. I can bring them down from within."

An utterly foolish and childish plan.

“No.” Tony was adamant. “They’re not trying to kill anyone right now, they’re going back. Just let them.” It wasn’t admirable to be stupid. No one’s pride here was at stake. “Stay here and help us close up whatever way they were able to get here. You’re the void specialist, aren’t you?” He hoped he was ticking off some of the boxes on the Loki List of Charms here. He needed her to listen to him and not to risk herself.

She was their protector, their way in this new reality, and they needed her.

Tony needed her too, but he wasn’t willing to say that outright. Even as she stroked his hair, he did her as well, soothing and maybe just a little desperate. If he couldn’t talk her out of this, her brother would turn his massive back on them and…that might well be that. “Just…stay here with me.”

"Come with me."

Loki made no move to actually detach herself from Tony yet, but there was tension in every line of her body that suggested just how unhappy she was at the idea of sitting and waiting for them to leave as though they were so much more powerful. It galled her, and she had a traitorous thought that her Thor would not simply sit back.

"You can get your revenge and prove yourself stronger than the wounds they have left on you."

She wouldn't force him, of course, but the fire was bright in her eyes as she urged him to think on it.

Tony's eyes lifted. He didn't want to put himself in harm's way, he liked to live and to breathe, he wanted to continue to exist, but there was something compelling about the princess that made Tony want to follow her.

He knew it was a dangerous thought. He knew that two people couldn't bring down a universe. What revenge could they realistically take?

And as that question laid unanswered, another popped up above it, drowning out the logic.

What if this was his life from now on? What if this was all he had? What if he never stopped being afraid and losing everyone?

"All right."

He couldn't believe what he was saying, but he nodded. "At least we'll have some fun before we die. Like Sheryl Crowe's bar friend."

It was an incredibly foolish plan and could lead to war across realities when both Laufey and Thor realised where their princess was, it could devastate the remaining mortals, and would probably lead to both of their deaths. Yet the chaos in Loki's soul demanded she go along with this and so she rose at once, offering her hand to Tony.

"Tell me how you wish to look and I will cast the illusion upon you, we must be slaves of no great means for they would all surely be known on sight."

She couldn't know that their plan would fail before it even began, unable to comprehend that every slave would be known. They would never pass as what they were not.

It should have occurred to Tony. He'd lived there, albeit in a cage with a blond who spent all day and night talking to the unresponsive tiger prowling the cage beside them, but he had come to figure out quickly that the Asgardian slaves shared a camaraderie. He had even remarked on it a few times.

He should have realized, too, that there had been less than two dozen slaves brought with them when they liberated their people and that, despite the groups being split up and half of them dying, that it would be easy to pick out that they were imposters. He should have been smarter. He should have thought about this more clearly.

But even a genius could be dumb sometimes.

"I've always wanted breasts," he said, feeling his old cheekiness return as Loki worked her illusion over them both.

Loki kept herself as a woman and turned Tony into one too, making them both unremarkable in the looks the slaves tended to have, in the sort of clothes that a lesser house servant might be expected to wear. She clasped his forearm when she was done, brilliant smile on her lips.

"May Yggdrasil favour our venture."

She slipped out of the hut first and towards where Thor had finished gathering the corpses and was preparing to encircle the slaves so that Loki may transport them all back to Asgard where they belonged.

"Wait! Prince Thor, please do not leave without us!"

Interestingly, though not for either Tony not Loki, it was not all of their previously mentioned mistakes that would mark them as imposters so much as their choice of gender. All of the slaves that had been brought from the training moon had been male and that was because the women, by virtue or fault of their gender, had mostly left either in the midst of pregnancy or as wet nurses and caregivers of the infants already born. Thor himself knew this for fact for he had left with the last of the women himself, leaving only two dozen slaves in Loki's care, all of whom were household slaves that both Princes had known and grown up with to attend Loki while he broke up camp, set up sterilizing supplies for the Midgardians left, and enjoyed his last few days at the end of a successful campaign before returning home.

He'd only had a small guard, Anthony his personal slave, Bruce, who headed their household as Odin All-Father's former favourite, and a few other slaves to attend to his needs and to assist him.

And none of those slave were women, let alone these two who were not wearing any symbol of station, Loki's colours, nor the purples of the great Borson household.

Thor frowned and nodded towards a gardener slave who had already put down the body of a dead slave in anticipation. "Bring them to my brother," he said, which might not clue the two in that their ruse had been discovered.

Perhaps the dungeon would be filled after all.

Of course all of the other slaves also knew these two to be imposters, they had spent the last few days with what was left of their fellows and there were no women among them. That meant these were the enemy. They were prepared to kill at once, but their prince said to take them to Prince Loki, so that was what they would do.

Loki and Tony followed meekly, she affected the pose of what she thought a slave would be in front of royalty, but it was too much. There was respect and there was complete abasement and the Aesir had never demanded the latter, even slaves had the respect due to those living the lives set out for them by higher powers.

Prince Loki raised an eyebrow at the two who had been brought before him, small smile touching his lips, and spoke deliberately in Aesir to them to see if they would understand.

"Tell me your names and positions, do not be afraid."

Four months, even with an alien language, had been enough for Tony to pick up the language. Anthony and Bruce had spoken in Aesir most of the time when not directing All-Speak at them and the Asgardian guards used Aesir exclusively. The Germanic-Scandenavian was familiar to Tony and the words had roots in them that he understood. But all that said, these particular words were too foreign for him to understand in total. They had been asked their names and reassured--

Probably.

Tony avoided the frowning face of his younger self, whose posture told him how dangerous this moment was, and looked instead to his princess.

She was Jotnar but she was learned and about to marry an Aesir. He would, hopefully wisely, allow her to speak for him.

Either that, or he would pretend he was mute.

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