fossilised | Jotunheimr

“No one has been to Midgard since the conclusion of the war,” Thor said after assuring Loki that none would make fun of him, though he had to promise not to make fun of them either in their odd costumes and lack of armour…because yes, Thor’s compatriots were feeling as Loki did, losing the key identifiers of rank to blend in with the mortal population. “Once Midgard was healed of the battle wounds it sustained, it was closed off. I have not been since I was a child half my height, though I recall enjoying much of it while I was there.”

Odin had brought him to Midgard not long after he’d been brought from the cave when his mother had been killed in battle. Thor had delighted in Midgard but the Ways were soon closed to it as they had been to Jotunheim.

“This is an exploratory journey only,” Thor said, though he did lean in towards Loki conspiratorially. “But it will be great fun. We will make sure of it. Pack all you will need for many weeks. But hurry. I am anxieous to be underway.”

They paused outside of the door to Loki’s chambers. “You look beautiful,” Thor said after a momoment, flushed a bit, and then excused himself to say his hellos to Bylestir.

Loki's mouth fell open a little at the unexpected compliment, and he finished his preparations with a wide smile. It seemed his plans truly were going well, that flush had been that of a young man on the way to infatuation, and he would be sure to tell Farbauti of it at a later time.

Bylestir had grown even more in just the two years that Thor had been gone, and now stood nearly at the height of his dam, imposing and muscled. He still grinned like a boy, though, when he saw Thor and eagerly greeted him. He made sure to tell him all the little gossips, and sprinkled in how much Loki had missed him while pretending not to, for he had been brought into confidence by Farbauti after he worried himself nearly sick over the regard gift mess.

It was not long until Loki sought out Thor once more, his belongings stored in a space he could reach into at will to keep him from having to carry a pack. He looked different, and Bylestir made a noise halfway between a scream and a sob when he beheld the pale skin on his eldsibb. For now he was pale, with green eyes and no Kyn lines, only his long hair remaining the same black. He wore a tailored suit and tie from the book he had been given.

"...be silent, sibb, you have seen me change into far more complicated forms and I must look like a Midgardian to travel to their realm."

Thor did not immediately recognize Loki until he spoke, and that made the Aesir do a doubletake and then look utterly bemused. “The costuming is so strange,” Thor said, his only comment on Loki’s appearance, though it was not about the appearance at all. “None wear capes. You will laugh to see what my mother has chosen for me to wear. When we return, Bylestir, I shall have you view me in my costume as well. You will rightly laugh.”

He patted the large Jotun on the shoulder and then turned to Loki, his eyes more appraising after the way Bylestir had crafted tales of Loki pining for him. He did not yet ask about why he still wore the Tear, and at the moment, he did not think he would. It would be more romantic for him to think on the reasoning himself.

Heimdall brought them to Asgard quickly after that.

Sif wore trousers that fit her legs as if they were painted upon her with a black shirt that showed off of her arms and, when she moved, slivers of her midrift. She had on a short jacket as well, which made her look a little bulky up top. The look was completed with white short shoes that had cotton laces. Fandral fared better in a green high collared heavy knit shirt with visible weaving and black trousers. Hogun wore looser blue trousers that had been torn at the knees and a shirt with buttons down the center. Volstagg, in a red shirt with lettering on it, was the least impressed…he had been tasted to shave his great beard and wore a strange hat with a partial brim.

And Thor returned once changed into heavy blue trousers that looked worn in places, a tight white shirt that showed off his physique and an open plaid shirt. He had pulled his hair back into a bun.

The others laughed and he laughed too. “Come, fellow Midgardians! Let us travel to a place called London!”

Heimdall obliged, sending them to a lovely green space where tall buildings peeked over gates in the distance. People mostly ignored them, strings coming from their ears as they strolled or ran about.

Loki was wary for the first minute or two around Thor's companions, but none of them laughed at him any more than they laughed at each other, and only for their garb rather than the hue of Loki's skin. So, after a couple of minutes, he deigned to join in and poke gentle fun at the way Thor's shirt seemed far too tight and yet offered no protection from any weaponry.

The tear stuck out a little as an ornament at the end of his long braid, his hair not quite matching the smart suit he had chosen, but he did not know enough to realise that. He fit in as far as he could see... though all of his time now was spent with his mouth open, looking around at the monoliths they were surrounded by.

"...this cannot be Midgard."

Where were the huts? The farmers?

"Smell the foulness of the air, it stinks like the worst of Alfheim's forge."

“Oh it’s not that bad,” Thor dismissed, though a glance at what he remembered being a bright blue sky looked as if it’s brilliance had been clouded over. It was not beautiful, not pristine, and yet it was so very unlike anything he’d seen before. With Mjolnir disguised as something that seemed to be a retractable shading device with a curved handle in hand, Thor made a complete turn and headed towards the nearest stationary Midgardians.

There were two of them, laying in repose under a very small tree, one in peach and black and the other in purple as garish as anything a dwarf might wear. He had never seen exercising clothes before and so the skin tight material on the women and the trainers looked almost lewd where as fully naked body would never.

He wasn’t quite sure how to address them and so he did so with a bit of care learned from his time with Loki and the command of any prince.

“I wish to be directed to your nearest house of libation.”

The women glanced up at him, one shading her eyes that trailed over his body. “Are you asking us for a pint?” she grinned and Thor, who assumed that was code for a drinking place where information might be gathered, grinned right back.

“Aye, if you could perchance show the way?”

Loki had previously thought that the tongue of the Aesir was a strange one, nothing like the rolling and cracking noises of the Jotnar language, but he revised that opinion now. The Aesir tongue was significantly more elegant and less strange than this mortal vernacular, with its harsh accent and odd way of forming the words. He watched Thor's performance with the two women, who pointed them to a building down the road that proclaimed itself "The Two Ravens", which smelled of weak ale and sweat.

This was not the Midgard he had read about in books.

Still, he had a mission here and he intended to follow it. He closed his eyes and allowed the sense of seidr to fill him, to guide him to-- Ah. There. A few thousand miles away across the ocean. He had no idea that he had just pinged the Tesseract, and that SHIELD were now in utter disarray as they panicked over why their mysterious blue cube had just lit up briefly and then went dormant again.

"...the magic is many miles from here," he murmured to his companions in an undertone. "I can track it swiftly alone, while you perform reconnaissance here, and then return to you with more news."

Splitting up seemed like a good idea and so as Loki made plans to seek out the source of the magic he felt (could that explain this world’s sudden oddity?) and Sif made it clear to the girls that their company was not a desired thing, Thor decided to send Sif, Hogun and Volstagg into the drinking establishment while he and Fandral strolled down the streets of the city.

Everything would be fine there until Thor looked in the direction painted on the sidewalk and headed out right in front of a double decker bus.

Loki would not be concerned with that bit of amusement, however, when he was much more interested in the flow of seidr coming from one particular place along a not as busy as most London street.

There was a man there waiting for him, frowning behind the door that turned to open on his direction. “And what exactly are you?”

Obviously, without Loki's interference before now, they would be the first from another world to visit Midgard in a long time. The Chitauri had not invaded, it had been a much more mundane threat, HYDRA and their experiments, that had forced the Avengers to form in this reality. Not that Loki knew that, all he knew was that this mortal had magic. Oh, not magic such as he possessed, it was diluted and thin, but it was still more than he believed any mortal should have.

So he stopped in the street and canted his head, eyebrows raised, as he assessed the man that was watching him in return. A different accent again to the girls who had been in the park.

"Just a visitor," he said, deciding on discretion. "London is a beautiful city."

“You’re not but it is,” the man said, holding the door he was standing in front of to Loki. It was a calculated risk on both parts, this, but each wanted to get to the bottom of the other and so it was s risk worth taking. “Come in. I’ll make you some tea.”

Of course, the decor inside the building was only in part in keeping with the exterior. Old woods, stained glass... but that staircase? That was like nothing Loki would have ever seen before. Midgardians used wood in so many interesting ways, didn’t they?

The man would head right up those stairs too, not quite trusting but also not looking behind him either. People with talent could feel one another.

Loki was not afraid of this mortal, he knew that he was the superior in both magic and physical strength, but he was definitely intrigued. He had never heard of mortals with magic before, and this connection to seidr felt... odd. As though it were channelled between bits of his clothing rather than running through his veins. On his finger there was a ring, round his neck there was an amulet of considerable power, and his cloak-- definitely odd.

He followed and sat in one of the chairs that he was offered, sniffing the beverage offered to him with interest. He had never had tea before.

"You are awfully hospitable to a stranger visiting from a foreign land. I can assume there is reason to this beyond mere kindness."

“I’ve made it my business to personally meet anyone that comes from outside of our world personally,” the man said, prim and proper, drinking his tea as if he did this sort of thing every day. Truthfully, this was only his second interdimensional being, and he truly was not all that amused to have this one here if he would be anything like the last.

The last one still gave him a fair amount of nightmares.

At least Loki wasn’t on the verge of passing out this time. The tea was warm and the air-conditioning of the building was cool, but having changed himself into a human, at least outwardly, did made it easier for his body to regulate. Otherwise, Stephen would be having a different conversation right now.

“Where are you from? And what’s your intention here?”

Interesting that he could tell that Loki wasn't human, what gave him away? His clothing was Midgardian, his language was Midgardian and, as a shapeshifter, his body was far more accurately Midgardian than his companions who remained Aesir in different clothing. It surely could not be his seidr, could it?

"Why do you not believe that I am not as you, simply capable of magic innately and yet of this world?"

Unless this man was not of this world either, which might make more sense as to why he was a sorcerer, of course. Though why any alien would come to Midgard and not be noticed by Heimdall before now would be interesting to find out.

"I have committed no slight that I am aware of, I have only walked your streets."

“Mmmm, you’re definitely not from around here. People don’t talk like that. Not even with your accent…which is pretty good by the way. Probably because you’re using magic to make yourself understandable.” He’d not been at this for all too long, but when you are stuck in a loop for what amounts to a near eternity trying to kill something, you get to override that steep learning curve simply by time and energy expended.

He was so powerful, seemingly overnight, because he had been doing this for a very, very long time.

He tried not to think about that.

“And I didn’t say you were in trouble. We’d be having a different sort of conversation otherwise.” He smiled. It was one of those overly superior smiles.

The smile grated on his nerves. He could accept some amount of smugness from Aesir, because they could actually back up their arrogance to some extent, but this mortal? He might have power, and perhaps he even knew how to use it, but Loki was a Jotnar Fyri. He had breathed magic since the day he had been born a millennia ago, he was far and away this creature's superior.

"Is that so?"

He smiled, his own overly polite in a way that would no doubt have had Thor or Bylestir looking for an exit for whatever vitriol or taunt might be coming.

"Tell me, little one, what conversation would we be having should I have decided to cause trouble? I should hate to offend one with such great power, after all."

“I’m not interested in a pissing contest here,” the human said. Honestly, what was with the egos of everyone lately? This was like that one time he had to deal with Tony Stark. Never again, not with Stark and not with this guy here. “So you can keep it in your pants. Imagine some great battle where you beat me if you want to.”

He was by no means anything other than an egoist, but Strange didn’t mind canning it for awhile when he had to. He’d been taught pretty well.

“You still haven’t told me why you’re here. Strolling down the street sounds pretty boring and I don’t take you for a pretty boring sort of person.”

Loki would not have brought out his own threats of power if this odd mortal had not insinuated that he held the power here, and that if he had chosen to, he could have had Loki trapped and punished for breaking some kind of peace.

He leaned back in his chair and shrugged, innocent and open. He had no reason to tell the truth, and so a lie would ultimately serve him better here.

"Your world is one that I have never visited, though I have heard many tales of it growing up, I simply wished to look around. I intend no harm, nor to be here longer than a year at the most, we have no quarrel."

“A year?” Yikes. “Don’t you think that’s a pretty long time for a vacation?” He didn’t have time to babysit someone for a year, or even to keep an eye on him for that long. There were so many other things to put his mind too. Especially since so many sorcerers had been killed in the recent past. Stephen was just one man, after all, no matter how powerful he had become. “That’s probably not going to work. One accidental slight to the wrong person could start a war and this planet really can’t afford that right now. You understand.”

This guy might not be telling him the whole truth, but Stephen believed in being open.

“It might be interesting in swapping recipes, but the vast majority of the people here don’t even know that people like me exist. So to have them meet someone like you… It’s just not a good time.” He had a feeling that whatever he said wasn’t going to matter.

He just didn’t want to send this guy through a loop for awhile until he could out how to send him home.

“I’m not trying to be rude. But there are enough wars going on right now. How about you hang out and sightsee for a week or two and then go home?”

A year being a long time... this was perhaps the first moment that Loki became truly struck by how ephemeral and impermanent the mortals were. They lived only a century, at the most, of course they would see each one of those hundred years as a long and precious piece of time. To the Aesir and Jotnar, a year was nothing, barely worth mentioning as a time to be away and exploring other realms.

He regarded the mortal sorcerer with an expression akin to pity for a moment, before his face smoothed out and he rose to his feet gracefully, straightening the odd jacket that he wore.

"I am afraid that I cannot promise such a thing. But you have my word, I do not intend harm to this realm or her people. I advise you to allow my companions and I the space we require, this should not escalate into a fight for the sake of either of our people."

Should Loki be seen causing problems on Midgard, Asgard might decide that Jotunheim was still too dangerous to be allowed after all.

"Is this an accord we can reach?"

Others? Great.

“I’ve got this feeling that it doesn’t matter what I say.” He would just keep an eye on this one and on the others. He touched the medallion on his chest for a moment before he stood, almost too quickly. “But we can’t stay here. I think one of your friends has gotten himself admitted to the hospital.”

Thor actually felt just fine. He had his strength back, he was no longer apt to bleeding, but the people on the bus that hit him were absolutely not all right. Hitting him had been like hitting a wall and he had completely destroyed the bus. He’d also been a bit dazed, and as Fandral watched, Thor was loaded into a loud, metal, flashing vehicle and whisked off.

He was almost too shocked for words and, considering that Thor would likely make a mess of things, set off to follow at a run.

He could only keep up for so long, however.

And that meant that Thor would be alone at the A and E.

Hospital was a word that Loki did not know, and so he assumed it was some kind of holding cell for those who might have committed crime or offence. Somehow he didn't doubt that the friend that this mortal spoke of was Thor, not any of the others. He was very fond of Thor, but the man was an idiot sometimes, and especially when face to face with a culture he was unfamilair with.

"Of course he has."

Loki sighed and passed a hand over his face, odd not feeling his Kyn-lines under his fingertips, and stood to stride towards the door.

"He has the brain of a drunken ox and I apologise for his behaviour, it seems I was incorrect in thinking he might be capable of caring for himself. Tell me how to find this 'hospital' and what should be offered as reparation for his deeds."

Really? The guy’s last name was Strange. He’d gone from surgeon to acolyte of magic in the span of a few short years. He’d battled a reality devouring demon. Why, then, was it so weird to meet a shapeshifting alien with magic? He didn’t know, but it just was.

“Hospital-- It’s a place they take people who are sick or hurt,” he explained, already moving his hand to open up a portal. The bright flash of gold from his finger tutting might catch Loki’s eye, but if it didn’t, he would clear his throat. He had gotten very good at popping out into janitorial closets in hospitals and that was what Loki would see through the circle. “We should probably see to this together?”

Mops, cleaning supplies, and the smell of both filled their nostrils as they stepped through the ring. The air here was cooler than it had been before, the hospital kept colder on purpose so as to not foster germs.

“Let me do the talking,” he said to Loki and pulled off his protesting cloak to roll it up under his arm.

This gave a little more insight to Loki as to where the power came from. Though the mortal possessed some small innate connection to seidr, someone or something had imbued these items with a greater amount of seidr, making them be the focal point of whatever needed to be done. An elegant solution for a race that was not naturally gifted in these areas.

He stepped out into the small room and its odd smell, and observed as his new human companion started tucking the obviously sentient cloak under his arm. He had seen many enchanted items of clothing, obviously, and so he reached out to run a finger down one seam, his voice the low hiss of the Jotnar language, like freshly fallen snow.

"Be still, there is no danger here."

Stephen would probably be surprised to find that his cloak went limp and easily allowed itself be folded then.

Strange glanced down at the cape and then at Loki before he nodded. “Thanks,” he said, genuinely. “You’ll have to show me how you did that.” For now, everything will remain more or less as is while they try to track down a newly brought in man.

“What’s your friend’s name?” He hadn’t asked Loki yet and being American, he hadn’t given his either. It hadn’t been important at the time, but now it was how they were going to find out where the other interdimensional being Loki had been with was.

He was absolutely not prepared to hear the name.

“Thor. Really? You’ve been reading too many books. Did you take a mythological name too?”

Mythological?

The look that Loki gave Strange was absolutely baffled. He could understand tales of Odin and his son being told, but how were they anything other than history or fact? Even if mortals lived so long, surely true histories were passed down through the generations?

"I am Loki," he said simply, leaving off his Kyn name and title even though it felt wrong. "You must forgive me if I do not know your myths. I can assure you that the Thor who is my companion is a real man, overly much on occasion."

“Loki. God of mischief. Right. Clever names,” Strange said with an air of someone who wasn’t buying any of this crap. He just shrugged and left it at that, leading the way through the circuitous hallways towards the nurse’s station. “Excuse me, yes hello,” he said with importance, “we are looking for someone just brought in. Thor?”

The woman glanced at him, and then through the papers that had been dropped off not long before. “Yes… Thor Odinson?”

Strange wanted to groan. He did so inwardly. “That’s right.”

“Looks like he has been taken to the psychiatric ward so we can bring him down from whatever drugs he’s taken,” the nurse said, which was probably more information than she was supposed to give out but Strange had a commanding presence and maybe a little magical know-how to get his way.

He glanced at Loki and nodded. “I know the way. Come with me.”

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omg finally home

Re: omg finally home

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