Sigmund's getting better at kissing, but he isn't great at sex. That's not a criticism. It's an invitation to practice. Which I'm sure we'll be doing a lot of at some point in the future. Hopefully soon in the future, when we get out of this miserable mountain.
I wait until Sigmund is long asleep before moving. It is nice, lying there, feeling the weight of his body and the coolness of his skin. The way he snuffles softly and nuzzles against the pillows when I stroke his forearm, his shoulder, his chest.
His neck.
My hand is clutching his throat before I realize I can't move it.
(no!)
("you owe me a debt, boy. now you will repay it")
My whole body is frozen. I scream, or try to, but my lungs won't breathe and my lips won't open and my hand won't move, the flesh of Sigmund's neck soft enough for me to feel the thunder of his pulse beneath the skin.
("what do you see in him? this hearth-warming weakling?")
(he fucking stabbed you through your filthy black fucking heart just fucking fine, you piece of shit!)
I laugh. Except it's not me who does it, the sound crueler and more broken than I'm used to hearing from my own lips.
"Perhaps if I gut him in his sleep, my love will slither out amongst his bowels." Loki's not speaking English, which is nice, even if Sigmund is still asleep and, Jesus Christ, I hope he can't hear.
The hand—my hand—moves away from the exposed flesh of Sigmund's throat.
(if you touch him, Sigyn will kill you)
Loki sighs, wistful and frustrated. He won't actually hurt Sigmund. I don't think. But he's not great at making life choices, either. And if it came down between the two, I know which Sig he would choose.
I know which I would, too.
Loki extracts himself from the bed. Careful not to wake Sigmund, despite his earlier threats. This is the problem with Loki. This is always the problem with Loki. The word mercurial is only a start.
(get the fuck out of my body!)
This earns me a scalp covered in flattened feathers. "This body is mine," Loki hisses. "You are merely a mask I wear to amuse my heart's inscrutable designs. Do not think highly of your independence."
He is everywhere. In my hands, my limbs, my tail. The tiny muscles at the base of every feather and the taste buds on my tongue. Everything, and there's not a single thing I can do to push him aside.
I try. Christ, but do I try. In the end, all I succeed in doing is screaming inside our head.
"Hush." Loki pads across the room, lighter and faster than my own movements. Lithe and feral. "You promised me a debt. Now it is time to pay."
Fuck. I did do that, didn't I? In exchange for a single bullet fired into the center of a shield.
Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.
I scream my silent scream. If nothing else, I'm going to give my asshole alter ego one hell of a fucking headache.
We cross the floor. Well, he crosses the floor and I come along for the ride. As we do, our flesh rearranges on our bones. Our bones rearrange beneath our flesh. Shrinking, skin turning a rich bronze beneath the firelight, wool and fur and gold weaving their way into existence. Real Viking-style clothes, the sort we used to wear, back in the day.
Back in the day when we were short. The smallest æsir.
When our room door opens, it's Loki who slips into the corridor, padding along on fur-lined boots.
Oh fuck he better not be about to do something fucking stupid. This is supposed to be the easy part, now. The going-home epilogue, the kiss in the sunset and the Happy Ever After, riding off into the distance in the dark-skinned arms of—
"Oh just shut up!"
(fuck you!)
"Tssch. Fuck this, fuck that. Yes yes, we've heard it before. Now quiet. If you do not wish to pay the price for the deals you make then do not make them."
(I am not taking life advice from you!)
I imagine punching myself in the head. Hard. Loki gives another annoyed suck of breath through his teeth, but otherwise says nothing.
Instead, he slips outside, into the warm damp air of Sindri's eternal night, cast in soft blue bloom from the enormous waving mushrooms. Ahead, just beyond the fence of Brokkr's hall, firelight flickers, cut by the long dark shadows of the þursar that gather 'round and . . .
Oh.
(oh)
"Yes. Now you see. So hush."
He wipes his palms against his tunic, the wool soaking up his nervous sweat. Somewhere beneath his rib cage, my heart begins to speed up in sympathy with his own.
He skirts the edge of the camp, a shadow amid shadows, finding what he's after only on the far side. Three shapes, settled down around a fire. One little broken family, huddled in the dark.
Loki steps into the light, chin raised and hands balled to hide their shaking. His mind is a jagged whirl of fear and shame and an endless, aching hope. He works hard to slam all of it down, back into the bubbling black pit wherein he lurks. Away from me but, most of all, away from the three pairs of eyes that look up at his approach.
For a second, nothing. Just the sharp pop-snap of the fire and the distant murmur of the other þursar.
Then Valdís stands. Her eyes are very, very wide, feathers on end as if she's seen a ghost.
Finally, she says:
" . . . Father?"
And I look away.
* * *
I said before Thor was an imperfect man and an amazing father. Turns out he learned those traits from somewhere, and it wasn't from his own coldhearted shrike of a dad.
The stuff that comes next is a family thing. It doesn't need retelling.
Especially not by an outsider like me.
* * *
It's a sort of peace, for a little while. But of course it doesn't last.
I hear the shouting, first. Dvergar voices. Not angry or hurt, just shouting. A startled trail leading from up the hillside down into Sindri.
"What's that?"
Valdís rears to full height, peering into the gloom. She's fucking enormous when she stands straight, without the hunch, maybe ten or eleven feet all up. I don't know where she gets it from, particularly given her shortie of a dad.
A dad who's currently helping Eisa with her archery. She's good, and Loki doesn't really have a lot to teach her. But he can offer her paternal approval and, more important, she can offer him a daughter, if for only a few hours.
They both stop now, though, turning away from the target to where Valdís is pointing.
"There! Something comes!"
Something does come, descending in a tattered swoop of blue-black feathers. Before I've even registered it, Loki's bent down, scooped up a stone, and lobbed it into the sky. He really is an excellent shot, particularly when he's showing off for Eisa. Somewhere in the distance, we hear a squark, followed by a thud.
Then we're running.
We get to the downed intruder the same time the group of dvergar do. They're kids, mostly, and one of them is holding a slingshot. When he sees Loki he flashes an awed and jealous rainbow and says, "Was that you?"
On the ground, something black and feathery flops around, cursing up a storm.
"You!"
"A rock!" Munin rights itself, one wing dragging a little as it stares up at us with a glossy eye. "A freakin' rock?"
"Die, æsir spy!" yells the dvergr kid, lunging forward.
"Enough." Loki lunges, too, catching the kid even as Munin hops, squawking, out of the way.
"These beasts are Ásgarðr's spies," the dvergr protests, even as he backs away from Loki. "They do not belong here."
"Hey hey hey." Munin flutters up onto Loki's shoulder. "I'm a free agent, thank you very much."
"Make trouble elsewhere," Loki tells the kids. Then, before they can answer, he turns, trailing his own children as he moves back to the jötunn camp.
"A rock?" Munin is still saying. "Really? A rock?"
"Why are you here?"
"Could ask you the same question. Thought you were dead, was looking for the other one."
"You found me. Speak."
Munin bobs and caws in a way that might as well be a shrug. "Sure. Forseti has a message for Thor's kids. He wants Mjölnir back in Ásgarðr. Now."
"Why?"
If Munin had lips, the damn thing would be grinning. Ratbag little shit always did love giving bad news.
"Because," it says, "there's gonna be a war."
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, I'm me again, Sigmund is awake but only just, and Þrúðr is scowling at both of us across a table. Valdís takes up a third side, Uni is on the fourth. Munin, meanwhile, stands in the center, preening and radiating smugness over the mayhem that it's bringing.
"I will not allow Ásgarðr's destruction." Þrúðr has been clear on that point, several times.
"And Þrymheimr will not allow Mjölnir's return." Valdís has been clear on that one, too. "Too long have we suffered under Ásgarðr's violence, helpless as your father slaughtered jötnar by dozens. We would rather die in battle than return to those unhappy days."
"Father did no such thing!" Þrúðr snaps. "He defended Ásgarðr, not— not hunted you for sport."
Valdís scoffs, I roll my eyes, Sigmund says, "Er . . ." and even Uni looks away. Munin, meanwhile, hops from foot to foot, grinning a gape-beaked grin.
"Ásgarðr has no quarrel with the jötnar," Þrúðr says, but with the soft flush of her faltering conviction.
Valdís growls. "I was born like you," she says. "Hidden in my skin, cursed by a decree passed down from Odin long ago, that none who walked Ásgarðr's halls could show horn or feather."
Þrúðr looks away at that. "I remember," she says, voice tight. She also remembers she used to call Valdís by a different name, among other things.
"By my brother's blood was this curse lifted. Too painful a price by half, yet now I walk the Realms as I was born to be. As does Father." She glances at me, now painfully aware I'm not quite the monster she calls Father.
I shrug. "It's nice," I admit. Then, grinning, "I can fly now. When some assholes haven't clipped my wings."
Beside me, Sigmund startles. "Wait. What?"
"I do not see what this has to do with Mjölnir," Þrúðr says, ignoring Sigmund.
That's a fine strategy for her but not so much for me, so I turn to him and say, "Yeah. Clipped right down to the shaft. See?" And I open my wings.
They aren't small, and Munin squarks and jumps aside, lest it get a face full of feathers. Valdís just shifts to peer around me, and Þrúðr pretends not to be startled by the show.
Behind me, I can hear the grin in Valdís's voice as she says, "Odin is dead, and his edicts are fraying. Much jötunn blood was spilt to make this so. We will not allow things to go back to how they were."
Meanwhile, Sigmund's fingers are poking beneath the covert on my wing. "Damn," he says. "They cut these down to nubs. Will they grow back?"
"I, er. I think I have to molt first."
Sigmund makes a startled exclamation, mind suddenly offering him up a variety of images of enormous orange and gray feathers littered all over our apartment. Because, yeah. That'll be fun. What on earth am I going to tell the cleaner?
"Mjölnir is mine," Þrúðr says. Then corrects herself just as quickly, "Ours. I will not allow my brother's sacrifice to be in vain."
"And what 'sacrifice' is that?" Valdís snarls. "The knowledge that he is the very thing he has been told to fight against? That you all are?"
Þrúðr sits up very straight. "I am ásynja," she snaps. "My brothers are æsir."
"An áss with horns and feathers?" Valdís says. "We all saw it. Soon, all of Þrymheimr will know the shame and hypocrisy that Ásgarðr holds."
"No! How dare you. I will not allow you to sully the name of my family."
" 'Sully' it with what? The truth?"
"I am ásynja!" Þrúðr's fists slam down on the table. Hard enough that Uni winces.
"You are jötunn," Valdís counters. "Beneath the false and frail skin. Beneath the rune curse Odin laid. You are as we are. As was your father."
"No!"
Sigmund's fingers in my feathers are nice, but the fight is getting sort of heated. So I say, "Actually, he was."
Þrúðr falls silent, and I look up, shifting and folding my wings back into nothing.
"You remember I told you I was there for the birth?" I ask. She nods, just a fraction. I know she remembers. "So I saw him, fresh and bloodied and covered in down. Little tail twitching."
Valdís snaps, "Hah!" even as Þrúðr whispers a denial under her breath.
"Vala, please," I say. Then, back to Þrúðr, "His mother, Jörð. That just means Earth. You've never met her because she isn't real. Just a story, as if Odin wanked off onto the dirt and, bam! Suddenly, Thor. So think. Þrúðr. Why would Odin be so keen on hiding the legacy of his giant-killer son?"
" . . . No," Þrúðr breathes.
"She was a jötunn. A risi, actually. Like me." That's one way of explaining it. Þrúðr doesn't need to know the other. Not after all these years. "That makes your dad a þurs, same as Valdís."
Jötunn genetics are complicated and nonsensical enough to make a biologist weep. Needless to say, the þursar are who they are—and are where they are—because they have æsir blood. All of them.
Þrúðr is silent, shoulders hunched and eyes fixed on where her hands now wring beneath the table. Uni reaches out as if to offer comfort, then pulls back, unsure. Even Munin isn't smirking any longer. Inasmuch as a bird can smirk.
"You know it's true," I say.
One long, drawn out moment. Then Þrúðr says, "Father . . . had a tattoo. Like yours. Like— like Magni's." She takes a deep and shuddering breath and adds, "Like mine."
"Yeah." And the worst part? That tattoo, that blood link? That's what allowed Móði's binding spell to work. It broke when Magni's tattoo did the same. Good for me, bad for him. Irony all round.
Þrúðr is a smart girl. She can see where all this is headed. She asks, "Who knows this?"
I shrug. "Don't know, really. Me. Odin. Honestly, I'm not sure anyone else did. Not even your dad." Ásgarðr's best-kept secret.
"And now all will know the truth. That . . . that the children of Thor are"—I can feel herself forcing the word—"jötnar."
"Well, not really." And then all eyes turn to Sigmund. "I mean," he adds, "you have jötunn ancestry, I guess. But you said it yourself, you're ásynja. Like, my parents are from all over the shop, but me? I'm an Aussie, mate." He tries a grin. "It's about more than just your blood."
Þrúðr nods, eyes downcast. She's had a long few days. One thousand years as a teenager followed by a crash course in adulthood. "Yet blood matters," she says. "Else Odin would not have sought to hide it."
Sigmund nods. "Yeah. Yeah, it does."
I feel Þrúðr make her decision, muddied whirl of emotion snapping into one single bright point of clarity. "There will be no war," she says. "And Mjölnir will return to Ásgarðr." Before Valdís can protest, Þrúðr turns to her. "Valdís of Þrymheimr, to you I entrust Járngreipr. You and your people have seen the price my brother paid for wielding Mjölnir without the gauntlets' grasp. No others will try the same. The hammer is my father's, and I will have it. But it will no longer be used to shed the blood of jötnar. Will this be enough for peace?"
Valdís narrows her eyes. For a while, she says nothing, and Þrúðr, to her credit, doesn't shy from the baleful stare.
It's Valdís who backs down, snorting and looking away. "We shall see. I will take your message to Þrymheimr, tell our warriors to stay their claws."
Þrúðr nods. "Thank you," she says. "There has been too much bloodshed. I will not make the mistakes my father made."
"Nor I," says Valdís, looking everywhere but me.
I just grin, leaning back into the tiny, uncomfortable stone chair. Sigmund is a cool and solid presence at my side, Loki a proud beat within my chest.
Viva la future.
* * *
Not long after, we're riding out from beneath the mountain. Riding Sleipnir is only slightly less uncomfortable than riding a horse but, on the other hand, is significantly more fun than running. Besides, I have Sigmund's waist to wrap my arms around and his neck to nuzzle into, and, all in all, leaving is much more pleasant than our arrival.
Þrúðr rides beside us, on the horse she brought from Ásgarðr. Her brothers don't accompany us on the journey. Uni promised to take care of Magni in recompense for Tóki's betrayal, and Móði stayed to comfort his brother.
Eisa and Valdís, meanwhile, take both their army and Járngreipr—the true Járngreipr—back the Myrkviðr, to try to persuade the þursar to stay their collective hands.
Overhead, in the sky, Munin caws mirth into the breeze.
On the ground, we ride, soil churned by a thunder of hoof and claw.
Meanwhile, over the horizon, a bunch of idiots prepare themselves for war.