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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Loki did not feel shame for taking the material they needed in order to work, she would leave enough compensation here to recover any losses ten times over. And if they were found or disturbed, the lines of lineage on her true skin would be enough to have any villages keen to do her bidding and assist her in whatever she wanted. Though she would have to shift forms for that to work, she had remained in mortal skin in order to not burn her companion until now.

"Will this not damage you?"

She knew very little about mechanics. She was a sorcerer, her craft was with seidr and not with machines, she was no dwarven craftsman. But even she knew that something that resided within a person, especially over the heart, should not be something so easily trifled with.

Though if he assured her otherwise, she would do as she was bidden. She had no fear of what might come from putting her hand inside another body, only that it might harm him in doing so.

"It'll hurt, probably. But there's enough redundancies built in that I'll be all right until we get back." It was time for an upgrade anyway and what better way to do that than having a necessity for it? "Just the yellow and-- Wait. Alien eyes... Uh... What do you see when I say yellow?" There was nothing yellow here at all and Tony wrinkled his nose. "Uh, make your skin look yellow?"

Thankfully, it seemed that the colors translated properly...and maybe he should really get some help if seeing Loki turn her whole self yellow was a turn on.

He knew he was weird, but man.

"Okay, good to go. One big yank. Try not to let the edges touch any of those washers in there."

He was prepared for the sting and the sudden rejection of the current before it recalibrated itself. It would be about thirty seconds of cardiac arrest and while that sucked, he'd lived through longer.

Loki trusted Tony when he said that this would hurt a little but would ultimately not be cause for concern, if it turned out that he lied to her then she would hunt him down into the afterlife only to make sure he suffered her wrath. It was an odd thing to make her skin yellow, it did not feel natural, but it was gone soon enough.

At least she could alter her fingers and hand to be more suitable for the task, even slimmer and smaller than they were naturally with fingertips that were designed to clip and hold wires carefully. It helped make the process a lot smoother than when Pepper had to help, the yellow wire coming free without touching the washers within a few seconds.

She watched him carefully as it came out, her hand returning to normal.

"You are still well?"

Though Tony didn't speak as he felt the way his body immediately quieted down, the constant hum of his own blood running through his body and pounding in his ears eerily absent, he did nod. Working quickly before he felt the first stab of his heart seize up, he shoved the rest of the wires back into the socket and screwed the reactor back into place.

It was blinking now instead of that slow, steady pulse of light that Loki would now be familiar with from the number of times she'd seen him shirtless. The cold hit him first, and after that, the pain of drawing in a breath smacked him firmly against the face. He groaned and leaned forward, gripping the rim of the reactor.

If Loki came to help, or to touch him, or even looked concerned, he'd just shake his head.

It was the longest thirty seconds he'd experienced in awhile but when the reactor started to burn a steady blue once more, the color in Tony's cheeks returned and he sat back, sucking on his tongue to build moisture back up in his mouth.

"Okay, let's not do that again," he muttered, holding his hand out for the wire.

Loki held the yellow wire out of his reach in fingers that were now bright blue to keep him from snatching it at risk to his own skin. She was scowling down at him, though he might know her well enough to see some of the fear behind bright red eyes. She had thought that he was dying, he had gone grey and whey as if all the life were leeching out of him in that half minute.

"You told me that it would not harm you."

She was furious, half tempted to destroy this blasted yellow wire in a fit of pique, though she wouldn't do that if it needed to go back inside him.

"You lied to me, Tony Stark, and I will not lose you for a lie. Take out your mechanical heart again, I will place this back where it belongs."

"Woah, hey, I'm fine!" He held up both hands, palms outward, a little smirk on his lips. He didn't need to be a genius to understand what was going on here. He could see the fear in Loki's eyes, even when they were a shade of blood red Crimson. "I told you that this keeps my heart going. Well that wire is redundant. It's a backup for a backup. But taking it out like that means that the device momentarily," and he stressed that, "shuts itself off. But look? See? It's back on."

He didn't stupidly try to reach for Loki when her skin was a dazzling blue. He wasn't Thor and he couldn't make stupid, grand gestures like that.

"Everything is working just fine. I promise. And we need this wire for more than being a backup-backup, okay?" He held out his hand for it, the little metal bug he crafted sitting on the table in front of him. "Not a lot of time here, Princess."

"Does that not mean that you need this wire to power your very life should others fail? That does not seem like a wire that you can live without."

She kept it still in her hand and even took a step back and away from him, pure fury and indignation written over every part of him.

"Do you think that we are without technology on our poor primitive ice world? Did you not think that if you asked, such things might be found without placing yourself at risk? Fool!"

"I need to do something! I can't just follow you around like a puppy. I know what I'm doing!" He hadn't meant to about, but he felt a lot better now that he was. She'd called him a coward. Him. A guy that had survived far more than she herself simply by thinking his way out of situations. "I want to do this. And I want you to be safe! The moment you use magic, he's going to know where you are!"

Tony slammed his fist down on the hard crystal table as he stood and marched himself over to take that wire. Foolish, really. One touch from her like this could seriously injure him.

He knew that, but passion overtook reason. And logic evidently.

"Let me do this!"

Perhaps this was one of the reasons that they were too much like each other, when their tempers took over and they acted rashly and even dangerously without much care for themselves. Loki looked for a moment as though she might simply let him take that wire and get burned for his troubles, but she changed her skin just at the moment before he could touch.

"I do not think you are nothing but a following and useless addition, I meant that you should have asked for your metal wire, some could have been found that did not need to be taken from your chest."

Idiot.

"I do not think you can do nothing, but nor do I wish for you to use your heart to save us."

"I promise you that I will fix it when I get back," Tony said, pulling the yellow wire from her fingertips before he lightly wrapped his arm around her to give her half a hug. "And I'll show you how to fix it too in case there's ever a problem. Deal?"

Loki wouldn't be at his side forever, but she was brilliant and curious and capable and Tony wouldn't be around forever himself. His people would need his knowledge passed down. Why not have that keeper of his knowledge be a veritable God who might well live forever?

Tony carefully brushed his fingers through the longer lengths of Raven hair before pulling back and sitting back at the little bug he had spent so much time making.

A little bit of the wiring from the yellow connector caused it to buzz to life and hover over the desk. His grin was wide.

"Okay. She's ready. Now we just need to know where to send her." He was not expecting that the other Loki would be so close by though.

This sort of intricate craftwork was just as stunning as anything she had ever seen at the Free Markets of Vanaheim provided by the dwarves. She had no idea that the mortals could produce someone so skilled, but she dearly wished to take him to Alfheim and have him perform his work for the craftsmen there. Perhaps they would even apprentice him, the first of another race to gain that honour in millennia?

But for now they had to focus on other things.

She blew gently on the little winged creature and felt the spark of seidr, the idea of what to track, leave her and imprint on the electrical buzzing drone on front of them. If it hovered uncertainly then they would know that the Loki they sought had not followed them to Jotunheim, but if it had a direction... then they had a quarry to pursue.

Watching the shiny metal bug zip out through the window made two hearts sink and Tony glanced up at Loki gravely before he tuned in the handheld radio that would get a signal in once the quarry had been found. And it wouldn't take too much time either for voice to come through the radio.

Loki and Anthony had retired to their own tent. It was small, which made it feel even smaller for Thor, likely, in the tent across the way. Each were warmed through intrinsic magic woven into their fibers.

They'd been at this for about a day now, moving slowly and letting Loki get a fix in on where his other self was. Each puff of seidr used by his double gave him a momentary glimpse but that glimpse was always fleeting. Anthony could tell Loki was frustrated and maybe Thor could too because he had suggested to set up camp long before anyone had grown weary.

He sat cross legged facing Loki on his furs, unaware of the tiny metallic addition to the wall of their tent, and ignored the sounds of pleasure from the other tent nearby.

"Steven is happy," he said, trying to broach the topic to his master.

It would probably be deeply uncomfortable for Tony to hear the voice of his counterpart through the bug as well, almost identical to his own but for the lilt of his accent that marked him as being from Asgard.

Loki was unaware of the bug, he was attuned to the change of seidr in the air and the possibility of attack from Frost Giants, not from a mechanical bug with only the tiniest trace of magic about it. Even if he had seen it, he would not have known what it was and might even have assumed that it was another of the little toys that Anthony sometimes made with his spare pieces of equipment and what Loki allowed him to buy.

"Naturally, he and Thor have not to worry about being overheard here, they may indulge in one another to their heart's content."

He raised an eyebrow at Anthony, knowing full well what he was getting at but almost demanding that he be brave enough to voice it aloud if he wanted Loki to acknowledge it.

Shifting on the furs, Anthony watched the somewhat disinterested face that his master put forth towards him. He knew that was on purpose. And he knew what that eyebrow meant too, but Anthony's bravery was less at stake here than his heart way. Better to be a coward and keep whatever happiness he had, right? He and Loki would return to their usual antics once this campaign was over. There was no need to voice this.

And yet, as Steven's voice called for his Prince to fill him, and Anthony could do nothing but roll his eyes as another cry offered answer to Thor's response, he couldn't help but step out onto the frozen lake. Maybe that was not the best metaphor considering where they were but it was apt just the same.

Anthony didn't believe himself invulnerable, but he believed that Loki would always come for him. No matter what Bruce had cautioned. Loki would grasp him and bring him towards the air if he fell through this ice. He was sure of it.

"Steven knows his place. He had difficulty defying his master even for that master's own good. He is loyal. He never thinks himself better than the other Midgardians, even if his station warrants it. He loves his master with his whole heart and his whole soul and yet he wants nothing more than to stay in his service and to be allowed to continue to serve." Anthony's eyes were heated. "He and I are very different in all ways except for that. Our desires match."

Loki knew what was being asked of him without words, whether there was true depth of feeling of the sort that was not allowed, or whether he was just a slave that Loki was more fond of like Odin had been of Bruce. The sort who would gain favours and might share his furs, who would be followed in the impulsiveness of youth, but who would eventually fade without true marks on the heart.

He should not voice anything. It was against his usual nature to be so open anyway, he preferred to keep his emotion to himself for he felt it was easier to manipulate that way. But did he need to manipulate Anthony? He owned his very life, he would die on a whim for him, he did not need lies or falsehood to change his opinion.

He took a step out onto the frozen lake to join Anthony, though his gaze was on the far shore while he spoke.

"You will always be allowed to serve me and remain by my side, and I will always come for you. These words will be said but once in your lifetime, so etch them in your mind and remember them well. I take you to my bed not because you are the most appealing of bedsport partners, and I allow you into my life not because you are the ideally obedient slave, but because you possess my heart. Were you Aesir, I would take you for my consort, but you are not. The grief I showed in destroying my chambers would have been naught in comparison to the destruction I would have razed had you died."

His gaze flicked to Anthony's face, eyes bright green and intense in the darkness.

"I hope that has satisfied your wants, for I will not be repeating myself."

That was far more than Anthony had wanted. He thought he might get an embrace or a verbal acceptance that his feelings were not unwanted, but to have Loki more than willing to say those things left his heart an aching mess. He was startled, fingers clutching furs, before his brain caught up with him and his mouth was once more able to be used as something other than a fly trap.

He moved forward, reaching for his Master, and kissed him for the first time in their relatively long time together, for a Midgardian at least. It was sweet and soft, a brush of lips and nothing more. Anthony did know his place. He was not Aesir. He was not Loki's consort. He was his slave, his servant, and never even close to his equal.

"Thankfully, I have a good memory." Even as he pulled back, even after learning that he had the most precious gift of all, he didn't feel like his equal either. "I would never be able to serve you as your consort as I do now. I am happy for everything I am to you," Anthony said, sitting back down with Loki upon his lips. "And the only thing I will ever want for the rest of my life is to be allowed to stay at your side. The rest is gravy."

Loki allowed the kiss because he knew that Anthony understood implicitly what Thor and Steven had to be taught, that discretion would be needed. His Anthony would never shame them by embracing him where others could see or acting in an unseemly way when it came to affection. They flaunted the rules in other ways, but never in this one, and it's why they understood each other so well.

He rested his hand on the small of Anthony's back when he pulled away, eyes bright and searching.

"You have been out of sorts since I came for you. Tell me what it is that troubles you, did they mistreat you dreadfully?"

Sitting with the Princess, Tony couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He already knew that these two had that sort of relationship, though perhaps not so intimately. He knew the younger version of himself was completely brainwashed and no matter how it sounded, he wasn’t going to buy any other explanation. Not now at least. He rubbed a hand down his face and glanced at the girl beside him. Loki was asking about mistreatment and Tony was pretty sure that there was going to be a whole lot of exaggeration in the answer. He wouldn’t be surprised at all by anything that was said.

Anthony had paused. He and Loki were still touching, but it was minor and familiar, nothing that would be seen as strange, that was for sure. He considered the question thoughtfully. “Not exactly. They were too disorganized. They seperated us into these two large homes with plenty of space to sleep and bathe, but forgot to bring us food until I spoke to their Steven. The deaths of the other Midgardians seemed to have been eiother accidental or the work of just a few of them. Steven is their leader and he was both shocked and upset by it. He planned to put us on trial and likely would have executed us, but he seemed sorry to do it. He’s as sinsere as our own Steven. I saw very few other Midgardians. While we made a case to assure our captives and explain their role in our camp, they left us without information for days. It was unpleasant but not intentionally cruel.”

Tony actually ended up being surprised by that after all. “They’re still gonna try to kill us, but that was nice of him,” he murmured.

Both Lokis listened to this intently, neither surprised at what they were hearing. The Princess did not believe that one as devoted as that slave would lie to their master, and Loki did not even consider that his Anthony would attempt to get falsehood past him when he was so skilled at recognising it.

"Then tell me what it is that troubles you."

He did not believe that it was their mission to follow the other Loki, whatever he had said before. He had been odd since before that was announced, as if something had shifted inside him.

"You must be open and tell me all, it is an order if it must be."

This put Anthony in such a bad position and he shifted uncomfortably, mostly to make sure he didn’t childishly cling to the hem of Loki’s sleeve again. He’d been weak in that regard twice already in the last day and a half and he really didn’t want to look like a child now. The trouble was that Loki had told him not long ago that he wanted to hear nothing of his worries. Generally, he operated under a last order, first assumption, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have his insides pulled out of whack by all of this.

Dark eyes found bright, jewel-greens. “Everything they have done has been to retain their freedom. They haven’t tried to kill any of us unless we’ve attacked first. Their purpose in life, flawed as it is, is different from ours but that’s only because the order of their universe is different. Asgard had been their ally. Sort of. I think it was a new partnership. All Realms there seem to be disconnected. We’ve already destroyed their initial universe. The one they are in now is different still from theirs…and ours. I feel as if all universes must be different in grand, sweeping ways. And I don’t know if it’s wrong.”

He spoke quickly, both to get it all out and because he found that speaking quickly sometimes made listeners ignore him.

“My Prince, we need to bring to justice those that would seek to harm us. And we have. We killed many more than they did, both in their culling and when you and Prince Thor came to rescue us. Their numbers are halved again, are they not? I do not want to risk a war between yourself and another, young and inferior you. I don’t want what I know to be right and true to be destroyed. I just want to carry on being happy with who I am. There may not be a winner if this turns to war."

"My brother would hear this talk and label it treason, as would many in our realm. To talk of other ways being not so wrong, to tolerate the existence of diseased branches of Yggdrasil and risk the spread of that infection, it anathema to what Asgard stands for. We protect, we guide. It is our duty to make sure that Yggdrasil flourishes even if that means great harm to us."

But Loki was not like most of the Aesir, and he was not so quick to jump to those conclusions. Oh, he did not agree with Anthony, he knew that the tree was diseased and should be taken out. But he also saw the risk, and he knew that if war came then more than the infection would spread.

"Why do you think they fight so hard to retain a freedom that they cannot appreciate with lives as short as mayflys? Tell me, Anthony, has seeing their struggles to remain free awoken a desire to do the same in you? Would you see Asgard release Midgard from her bonds?"

His voice was mild, deceptively so, the tone he used when he wanted to hide whatever his true thoughts on a subject were in order to keep his conversational partner guessing.

"Never." He had just said as much, he had told Loki he was happy not to be his equal, nor his consort. He'd told him that all he wanted to do was serve him, loyally, until he breathed his last. And yet he knew that Loki was, at his core, not as sure of himself as Thor was. He was not an ideal Asgardian, he wasn't not born of Asgard at all. He needed the reassurances that Anthony offered and Anthony was pleased to provide them. "Steven offered us their freedom, a chance to live commuted lives of disease and unsurety, to never know if we were going to be able to eat or sleep enough, to be potentially denied basic needs. I pity them for their ways, Master."

He spoke as sincerely as possible despite the way that Loki was looking at him. He knew that look and he was smart enough to know what it meant. Loki was digging and Anthony had nothing but top soil for him to move so he showed the bedrock early on in the process to avoid being cracked open and damaged.

"I believe their motives are singular. It is all they know. It is embedded in their culture. They once enslaved themselves, Steven admitted that part of their history to me, but he now believes himself above it. Our conversation, for we had one at length, had initially swayed him, briefly, to my way of thinking. Ultimately, it was the lack of choice in lifestyle that angered him. He accused us of being weak minded, of suffering from some sort of disease-- I couldn't hold my temper either, I must say, and though I attempted to be open to his way of thinking, I just couldn't hold my tongue. I pity them. I will continue to pity all Midgardians who are Masterless. But as I know that not everyone in the training village is chosen, I know that everyone has that potential. They refuse to see it. And it is sad for them, but no reason to harm our way of life."

Anthony fell silent before he looked back up at Loki.

"I know I'm selfish. And I know you've tried to train that out of me even if it never sticks. My prince, I just want to go back home and serve you. It is cowardly, I know. But I do not worry for myself. I worry for you. You need to temper the crowned Prince or he will be a terrible All-Father."

More treason, sure, but what was a little more on top of his pile?

"You are important. You and no one else. And that's why I want us to leave them be and cut this world off from all the others as you did the last."

Loki had never once thought of the Masterless.

Just as with any in a culture that were not at risk for such a thing to happen, he did not consider how uncertain and unfulfilled a life it must be to never be chosen from the village and to go on to menial labour in a short-lived life. The labour was not the issue, it was the ignominy of an early death and life without potential.

He could not solve such a thing, though, not overnight. But perhaps the seed would germinate into something more as he tried to keep his brother from being the disaster for Asgard that he could be. A fact that had obviously not escaped him, though he frowned at Anthony for daring to voice anything against his brother.

"I will not be turned from my mission."

He expected this to be the last they spoke of it.

"Perhaps I will be moved not to slaughter this imposter, but I wish to meet him and see how twisted the disease has rendered even me."

Anthony, wisely, decided not to mention that he had been reluctant to say his mind and that he would never try to sway Loki from a mission he had his mind made up about after he was told not to less than a day before, but he didn't. Age, it seemed, had taught him how to hold his tongue a small amount at least.

Anthony did not, however, believe the other universes to be diseased, even if that was what everyone else was complaining about. How could they all be diseased to one another? And if they were so ruined, then surely that would pass to their offspring. It was petty for Loki to keep using this as an excuse, but he held his tongue, only nodding.

Tony, however, grimaced.

"Our choices are run and hide forever, get your dad and Thor's dad involved in a war, or go and meet with the prick...? Shit. I don't like any of those choices at all. Where's the ignore it and get drunk box? I'll check that one."

The princess looked no less enamoured of the decisions before them, even if there was a clear way forward that they had to choose. Running forever, or being involved in a war, were utterly unconscionable. But she did not want to come face to face with the other version of herself, she knew from watching Tony how uncomfortable it was to be faced with something you might have been.

"Can you recall your mechanical spy? Is it possible to give it a message to send, that we might negotiate from a position of safety?"

She would rather meet with Thor if she had to meet with either of the strange princes, he seemed the less dangerous of the two, which was a sad thing to contemplate when the other was her own counterpart.

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