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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And herein lay the issue. Odin did not want to punish his children for acts of love, they were to be encouraged and his heart was glad that his sons loved one another, but as a King he must punish acts of disobedience that could lead to war.

"I do not punish you for love, but for disobeying the word of the All-Father and throwing our realm into the shadow of war. It will not be a severe punishment, for your motives were good and your mother has informed me of your wisdom in dealing with the Jotnar princess. Tell me, do you believe that to be unjust?"

If he did, then he was immature enough that Odin feared for the kingdom. He needed the answer to this question before he could move on, before he could lay a heavier burden on Thor's shoulders in a few moments if he proved himself mature enough to think like a king and not just a brother.

Thor did feel as if this was unjust. Not the premise, but the target. He had done none of these things. The moment he realized that this could start conflict greater than he was willing to handle, he had backed off, he tried to get themselves out of the situation. He did not quite understand that his father was asking him to take responsibility of another and that his time as ruler would require this daily. Not in the way Odin expected st least.

But Thor was willing to take responsibility for the crimes now to spare his brother. So he puffed up his chest, and nodded.

“For my part in assisting with this foolish task, and for not seeing how detrimental it could turn out to be, aye, Father. I will agree. Punishment is warranted. I love Asgard. I respect the throne and the burden of rule. I know you can not always act as my father when you are father to us all. I nearly allowed ruin to come upon us.”

He said this tight lipped, angry and not complicit. He would indeed take punishment but not entirely for the right reason.

It was not ideal, Thor still had much to learn, but it was better than an outright refusal and so he nodded. His voice stayed firm, but it was no longer harsh with anger, and he sat back on his throne a little further.

"Remember, Thor, that as All-Father you will have responsibility for all who serve beneath you. If they seek out a fight in a foreign land, it is you who will bear that punishment. For your punishment, you will work in the kitchens for one month as if you were the lowliest of their servants."

Not a slave, that would be a punishment far too far, but he could teach humility by putting him under the few free servants who worked there.

"Now, tell me, not as a brother but as a future King. What would you do about Loki?"

Thor popped an eyebrow. A servsnt? For a month? He could butcher and clean a month’s worth of food in a day and roast it all in two. This seemed more like an amusement, like he was being wagered a task. He straightened up, the corner of his mouth lifting. Thor was not like Loki. Loki would take this as an insult but Thor? He would use this as a challenge. For better or for worse, he would certainly learn a great deal in the bowels of the castle.

Hopefully.

A snap of Odin’s fingers stripped him or armour and removed use of Mjolnir, though Thor did not yet know it. His strength would be greatly diminished, though Odin had not stripped his very nature from him. His punishment would still be realitively easy.

His smirk faded when he regarded his father. This was not an easy question. The answer was even more difficult.

“I do not wish to say.”

“Thor,” Odin presses, his good eye gleaming. Thor looked more uncomfortable.

“I believe he must have his personal slave taken from him. But I also believe that would be a mistake. My brother... is unstable at times. Chaotic, as mother calls him.”

"Then if you cannot remove the slave and cannot allow him to remain, tell me what your solution would be."

Odin had possible solutions laid out for him, but all of them came with pitfalls and none were paths he wanted to walk. He could take the slave and have him sold or killed, but this would likely turn Loki against him for good and tip him properly down the path of ruin that Frigga had seen in his future. A path paved with blood for all involved. He could leave the slave with him and do naught, but that may also lead to ruin. His son loved this slave in ways a slave should not be loved, and time might see him try to do something foolish like attempt to free and wed him. Such disgrace could not be allowed. He could strip Loki of his magic so that he would not pose a threat, but such a punishment would be needlessly cruel. Frigga had advocated, even, for a tricky spell to give him a second chance at life, to turn back the clock and make him young once more. To allow him to keep his slave, but with a relationship that could never be sexual or inappropriate again. He was reluctant to do this, it seemed as if he feared to fail a second time, and such a spell could only be performed once.

He wished to see what Thor would say.

“Give him purpose. Give him an ability to make for himself something great. His slave is his friend. He does not even see me in the light of friendship and only brings up our bond to manipulate. He rules well. His cull was perfection, all agree. Send him somewhere on a task that will take the full lifespan of his slave to complete. He will be better for it when he returns.”

Thor always thought in terms of task. He himself needed to be kept busy. A year of rule on the throne had shaped him away from loving his slave as totally as he had loved Steven. The affection was still there, as was the desire, but the love had run its course, or at least allowed Thor to understand slave versus potential mate.

He doubted a year of separation would do that for Loki, however.

"No purpose I could give him would not be seen as an insult. He would perceive it as being sent away from his home, he would make issue where he was sent, and he would insist on bringing his slave with him."

Which would be unacceptable. Not because they couldn't take their slaves places, that was far from the truth because they were expected to have their slaves in attendance, but because then it would spread his shame to other realms and other peoples.

"Tell me what purpose you believe would fit, that would require him to leave his slave for good without issue?"

Thor hadn’t thought that Loki would have to leave Anthony. If he went far away from Yggdrasil and all of her Realms, none need know him. There were other corners of the universe that did not abide by their rules. Thor knew it because Frigga often rewarded Loki with trips to those places when Odin brought Thor in campaign. It made Thor long to see them but he knew his place was here. And battle was fun enough to take his mind from it.

“You should not remove his slave from him. But he can keep his slave here and be trusted. Can he not be sent to another plane for a few hundred years?”

Thor immediately regretted saying that and was quick to do away with his words.

“Or perhaps have him wed? A consort will take the place of a slave easily, should it be the right one.”

At least Thor did away with his words quickly, for that was the cruellest of plans. If he sent Loki away to a different plane, he would surely see that as being sent away in disgrace. Out of the sight and influence of Yggdrasil, who knows what he would end up falling into over the next few decades? No, he needed to stay close at home.

"Now you are thinking desperately and not like a king. We do not force consorts on our children here, we are not barbarians. You will choose your own consort, as I chose mine, as Loki may choose his."

But an appropriate one, of course.

Frigga had told him that this other Loki she had seen was betrothed by force to the Thor there, it was abhorrent to him, much as slaves were to them.

“Then I know not the proper course of action,” Thor said, frustrated to the point where his teeth clicked together. He nearly had to pry his jaw apart with his fingers to keep from breaking his teeth with the force of his jaw. “If He were not my brother, I would have the slave disposed of and the offender flogged in front of the kingdom as is proper. But he is my brother and he is a powerful sorcerer and i know anything short of being left as is will ruin him.”

He left where he stood to get a cup of wine, always delighting in the All-Father’s drink as it was always carefully filtered against the bitter dregs served with meals.

“So what is the answer that will allow him to remain my brother and cause no harm?”

"I do not know."

That was an important lesson for Thor to learn, that even the All-Father did not always have all the answers. Sometimes there would come a situation to which there was no right path, to which every decision would lead to ruin, and yet he would still have to choose a path and stick to it with resolve.

"I am of the mind to place this decision on your shoulders, to teach you that judgement may have to be passed at any time on those you love as well as those you do not, and your leniency or harsh punishment may both lead to different wrongs. But I will tell you the counsel that I have received so that you may make your decision with all of the information that I possess."

This was a harsh thing to put on Thor's shoulders, but sometimes harsh lessons were needed as well as kind ones.

"My chief adviser has told me to kill the slave and deal with rebellion harshly, perhaps by the nature of imprisonment, banishment, or the removal of magic. My second adviser believes we should allow things to remain as they are and trust to Loki's intelligence to not bring disrepute to his name. My fifth adviser believes his instability has crossed too far and his magic must be removed now. My wife believes his insanity has taken hold, but there may be hope if he is allowed to live and grow again by the grace of a spell provided but once from the Norns. Each of these paths may lead to different ills and different gains, or you may find a new path, but the decision is yours."

“I wish time. This is not a decision I can make immediately.” And he wanted to speak to Loki. That might not be wise, his brother could escape and wreck havoc across the stars, but Thor thought that, perhaps in this case, he might not. Then sgsinC when it came to Anthony, it was impossible to predict Loki.

He knew that his brother did not see Anthony as his equal. He believed in their lifestyle and would not be poisoned into thinking otherwise. But his heart had too much to dwell upon. And Thor thought that alone would allow his brother to sit down and settle and to advise him as he always had in the past.

Odin seemed to know the mind of his son and allowed it, watching Thor leave without his strength, without his title.

Only then did he turn to the slaves he held in silence. “Brice, bring Anthony to your quarters and keep him there.”

Anthony would not be present for this talk between sons.

Thor found Steven digging up the blade he had sent into the grass some time before and Loki scowling st him. Waiting. Likely for his slave.

“We must speak,” he intoned. “In private and away from the palace. Come with me to our place.” They had not gone to the little grassy cliff with its cave in years. But Thor thought it best to do this there.

A wise ruler took time to think on weighty decisions, but not too much time, for inaction was a choice of its own with pitfalls and problems along the way. But Odin would allow Thor to make his own mistakes on this. If it turned out that he warned Loki and his brother fell completely to insanity, that would be on his own shoulders.

Loki scowled, standing tall and proud a short distance from Thor, with no affection or trust in his expression at all. "You may speak with me in either of our chambers, why would I go with you such a distance for you to tell me of the disgrace that our father thinks should be heaped on me?"

They were going to try and take Anthony, perhaps that was even why Thor had invited him to their special place, to get him out of the way so that his Midgardian could be removed or killed in peace. "Tell me where my slave has been taken to."

“He remains with our father’s favoured,” Thor said, turning to hear back inside. His heart was heavy but he had little else to do but follow the sentence of his king and father. He went to his chambers since Loki would not allow him to have the privacy he desired nor the ride to think on it, and sat upon his bed heavily.

“Master? Shall I—“

Thor immediately dismissed his slaves to the stables so that they would be alone. He wanted no ears nor eyes here for this. His brother was already in a foul mood and he might turn to kill his brother’s possessions. Thor did not want that. His slaves had always been loyal and worked well for him.

“I will cut to the quick. The All-Father is aware of unnatural feelings you have for your property. He has left the punishment up to me and I want it not but have little choice. I will not have Anthony killed nor sent away. He had been with you in loyalty and none of this is his fault. Putting down a slave of his caliber is disgraceful. But your actions are more disgraceful still. You came to me to guide me when I nearly succumbed to those desires myself. And now I come to you. Tell me how I should rule on this matter?”

Perhaps a small part of Loki recognised that Thor was attempting to do him a kindness with his reassurances that Anthony would not be killed or sent away, but to know that judgement was still to fall on his shoulders and, worse, from his brother as if he were not even important enough to be judged from the throne, stuck in his throat.

"You need do nothing. I am not the fool you were, I do not cavort with my property in public, he is treated with the decorum expected. I do not lust for him in the idiotic way you did for Steven, he does not need to be separated from me."

It was to the well that Thor had dismissed his slaves, for Loki's foul temper showed no signs of abating and he might have turned on them.

"Pass your judgement, but do not think that I will abide with it easily. You are not King yet."

“I did not nearly start a war for Steven,” Thor shouted, sending window casements rattling. “That is the difference between my folly and yours. You saved me from mine. And I am trying to keep whatever damage this will cause to a minimum. Why must punishment for a obvious wrong be a slight to you?! You know the punishment for putting a slave above their position!”

They had been to a few public whippings and had watched several slaves put to death over impropriety. And none of the Asgsrdiatn perpetrators had gone to the lengths Loki had.

“Pull your head out of your conceited arse and help me think of a way that will be punishment without having you lose Anthony or me lose you!”

"I have committed no wrongs and placed Anthony only as high as a favoured slave may be placed, the wrongs are in the minds of those around me, who wish to see me cast below my lot."

He had feared this ever since discovering his true heritage. He had feared that people would try to find ways to undermine him, to make him seem less of an Aesir than he was, to disgrace him so that he could be removed. His lip curled into a sneer and he swept past Thor towards the door.

"Only scant hours ago you accused me of sorcery and betrayal, now you wish my counsel? I do not forget so easily, Thor. If you wish to punish me for wrongs you have devised, I will not be complicit in it."

He went to stalk out, to go to his room. He did not believe that Thor would actually levy a punishment on him, and if he dared to do anything to remove his property then the last vestiges of affection would be broken.

After Loki departed, Thor sat for a long time in silence, hands hanging between parted knees. He could still not decide what to do and so he went instead to the other person whose council meant the world to him.

He strode into Frigga’s room without knocking but none stood between himself and the queen.

“I can not remove his slave for he will hate me. I can not allow him to keep his slave or he will think me weak and malleable and use this against me in the future. I can not strip him of his magic or he will condemn me. I can not send him away for I will be without him. Could Father not just have me serve the kitchens? I have no basis to pass judgement and—“

He paused mid stride and turned towards his mother. His face fell and his eyes softened.

“I am making this about my own desires,” he said, booming voice that much softer now that he had little desire to speak. “And I must instead think of what is best for our people. But he is my brother. In his mind we have all turned against him anyway. I know not how to change this other than to accept your course of action. I will lose him no matter what but he will have a chance to start again... and I will have a chance to be a better brother.”

It was lucky that Frigga had finished the spell that severed their realm from the one that had been so recently under threat and threatening at the same time. She felt drained, so much seidr in such a demanding task was much to ask even of her, but she was never too drained to speak with her sons.

Her face was soft and understanding as she came to stand in front of him, her hand raised to cup his cheek.

"I would take those burdens from your shoulders if I could, you are my son and I wish only to see you smile. Perhaps if you follow this path, you both may smile in days to come. Do not feel that you must, the other paths in front of you are viable if littered with pitfalls, you must follow your heart."

Much as she loved her Loki, this was his doing and she wished she could make him see that. Yet she had seen that darkness from a long time ago, she had just hoped that he would harness his chaos for other purposes.

Odin would claim that this was the doing of the slave. He had done his best to banish the son of his dear servsnts in hopes that he would live happily there until purchased by an artisan or perhaps a guildsnan kr craftsman. He had never once expected Loki, who had no desire even for Bruce to help him throughout his days, to go to the village and find the very slave Odin wished to never see again.

“You are saying that if we take the last few hundred years of his life from him, to live again, he will never learn? Mother, there must be a way to teach without it becoming a slight?”

Thor could simply not think of one, and in frustration, he went back to pacing.

“This is not the first time he has put Asgard at risk. His disregard for our people is escalating and— I fear choosing what I know to be the right course of action. He will hate me no matter the choice and so I can not allow that to blind me. In reverence for his position as prince of Asgard, I can not make his punishment public. But the slave can not be left with him. And he can not be easily retrieved or Loki will simply go to him.”

Thor straightened.

“I fear there is no happiness in rule. There is nothing but chains and weights.”

He would have the slave killed, but justly, so he could go to Valhalla in honour.

Frigga had serious misgivings about the slave being taken. She could sometimes see the threads of Yggdrasil that connected people who were meant to be together, across all realities and times, and they were two of them. Anthony and Loki, Loki and Thor, she and Odin.

"That is not what my words mean, Thor. Should he learn again, there are many different ways that his life could go without there being slights, without there being this darkness upon him."

She took another step forward and put a hand on his shoulder.

"There is happiness in rule as well as sorrow, you must learn to find it or you will be crushed, and I do not wish to see this. I must ask you to do something for me, if you choose my path, do not also take the slave. If you do not, the make the cut swift and clean."

Thor was too young and too proud. He might have sat on the throne for a year and half that time again just after but he was not ready to rule. Now that he felt somewhat overly coddled by his mother, as much as he loved her and sought her advice, it was too ingrained in his mind that this punishment was meant for him.

Thor should never have been put in this position, but it was much too late.

He left without a word, no sign to Frigga of his thoughts, and went to his father with his choice. “I will carry out the sentence promptly and myself and tonight I will join the kitchen servants to uphold the remainder of my punishment.”

Steven was waiting for him in the hallway leading from Odin’s chambers and fell into step behind his master, watching curiously tense shoulders as Thor headed towards where Bruce and Anthony were.

Frigga watched her son leave and sent a silent prayer to the Norns that he would find the wisdom to do the right thing, and not plunge their whole family into further pain. She did not know whether she would be called upon to change her youngest son back into a boy once more, she did not know if there would be innocent blood spilled this night.

None knew but Thor.

Steven fell into step beside his master, his face contorted as he tried to hide his sorrow into something more decorous and failed entirely. His voice was hoarse when he finally spoke up, afraid.

"Are you going to kill Anthony, my prince?"

It could not be so, the plea was clear in blue eyes. He trusted so much in the fairness and goodness of the Aesir, that he could not imagine they would kill Anthony when he had been a good slave. It wasn't right.

“You of all people know the rules as do I,” Thor said, tightly. He’d had to shut his heart off to this. He could not allow himself to be swayed from his course. “You will wait outside.” He knew, vaguely, that Steven was familial with Anthony, but he had never paid much attention to anyone’s lives outside of how they connected to his own. His learning had been incomplete, but he was still in many ways a boy. As a boy, he could not see all of the greater picture, no matter how much his father attempted to teach him by throwing him into the middle of it all.

Thor did not slow until he reached Bruce’s quarters. He had not been inside since he was much smaller, when he would storm this room demanding Loki cease his reading and go out to play with him. He knew it would be filled with ancient tomes and hidden knowledges, with a Midgardian who could berserk standing in the centre, mild mannered when he wanted to be and a demon when he did not.

Thor pushed his way inside, the hinges on the great old door crying out as if they knew what would happen next. He stepped inside and the door closed behind him with growl. He did not look at all at Bruce, and Anthony stood slowly, face a mask, eyes huge and sorrowful behind it. He could almost feel Loki’s shriek, taste the way it would rock through him, when he found out that his own inability to have a conversation with Thor spelled doom to this poor innocent.

Thor pulled the dagger from his belt, Loki’s dagger, one that had tasted his blood often, and heft it in his hand. It was too small for him, expertly balanced and edged, but it felt like a child’s toy. “You are of my brother’s heart and of my brother’s mind. You share his chaos but host your own logic. This is not your fault. It is mine. It is Loki’s. Do not become too comfortable with where you are to go.”

Thor inhaled as he flashed the blade across mortal skin, no match at all for the dwarven worked steel, and as Anthony dropped, Thor turned, leaving blood on the blade, before he left the room.

Blue eyes set upon Steven as Thor pushed the blade into his belt. “You will bring him to Loki. And then you will tell my brother that I await him in the observatory.”

With that action, Thor had signed the writ that meant that he and Loki would never call themselves true brothers again, and had set an enemy against his whole kingdom for as long as Loki might live. Steven did not even need to bring the body to Loki for him to feel the death, he was connected to Anthony in ways that even he did not fully recognise, the threads of seidr connecting them so thin and yet so numerous that cutting any one of them was agony.

Thor would hear a cry of rage and grief from the courtyard, and then the whole palace shook.

Not the paltry show of grief from before, when Anthony had been taken but could be recovered, this was an explosion of every ounce of magical energy that he possessed within him, and it burst out with enough power to chip away at the architecture of the palace and make the grounds heave as if the very earth trembled below them.

Steven did not make it two feet from his master before falling to the ground, eyes wide in horror from what had occurred and what might be about to occur.

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thunderboltsandlightning - 2017-10-23 12:51 (UTC) - Expand

check plurk, Jeni my dear, plotting must be had since we destroyed this world

throneenvy - 2017-10-23 13:13 (UTC) - Expand

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