Summary: The full flashback from Before the End of Time (TVA Loki fic I'm wrapping up). Loki and his love go into the forests of Asgard in the dead of winter to find an Asgardian child lost in the mountains. Ending up in a fight for their lives, both reveal their true selves and come together as one in the heat of battle. The myth of how Loki got his horns.
Warnings: Gore, intense fight scene, angst, bookended in fluff
The playlist I made while writing this linked here
Spoilers: The only spoilers are in the Epilogue, so if you haven't seen Loki S2 E6 just don't read that part.
Author's notes: This kind of just ran away from me while writing a fic inspired by Loki S2 E6 (coming soon!) -- but there are no spoilers for most of this. This all takes place before the first Thor film.
For this, I leaned a little more towards Norse myth, where the love interest/reader is heavily inspired by Skadi, goddess of the mountains and hunting (and skiing, interestingly, but that's not represented here). That being said, if you like the reader to "wear the pants" of the relationship, this one is for you!
This was truly my imagination running wild with easily my favorite fictional character of all time, Loki, as a love letter to him and the myth he comes from. I hope you can feel the love as you go on this adventure with me!
ALSO: Thank you all so much for the support for my first fic I posted a few months ago (linked here)! It means so much to me that people enjoyed it. I'm getting more comfortable with posting fanfics, now, so expect to see more in the future. The fact that some of you enjoy my unorthodox approach to fanfic makes my heart so full and grateful.
Loki held her to his chest. Her smell mixed with the freshness of the air coming in through their window — a cool Asgardian summer night. He could feel her relaxing into him.
She looked towards their bed, where he had put his helmet moments before. The long horns coming from it curled away from the bed, white and streaks of brown matching the rich earth tones of the bed, gold contrasting in a way screaming of the old world and power.
“Do you remember when we got those horns?” She asked.
“How could I forget?”
It had been one of the deepest, most harsh winters that Asgard had experienced in centuries — as if a curse had fallen over the land and made it permanently frosted. The snow had gotten so deep that a child had gone missing, running into the forest to play and not home when they should have been — evening beginning to come over the land.
The child’s mother had come begging to her, as most of the Æsir had gone to battle in another realm. It had just been her and Loki at home, helping to move cattle between fields. Or, rather, Loki was there for moral support while she worked her magic, singing to the cattle and them responding like she was speaking their language, butting each other and blowing out steam as they trudged through snow coming up to their withers behind her.
The mother had come right up to her, casting him a wary sideways glance as his love gently grabbed the woman's arms, steadying her. The mother then described her son running into the forest and not coming back, despite her calling for him and being gone longer than he had ever been before.
By the time she had looked over to Loki, he knew they had already said that they would find the boy.
The mother cast another weary look to him, turning to her and worriedly whisper-speaking to her. He was sure she was whispering something about how Loki couldn’t be trusted with something this important, that he always caused chaos wherever he went.
His love calmed the woman then, walking them over to Loki.
“I would trust him with my life.” She gave him a knowing look. “He wouldn’t let anything happen to you boy,” to which she then looked to Loki expectedly, tilting her fur-enrobed head to the mother.
Loki stuttered over himself trying to get the words out. “O-of course. We’ll bring him home to you.”
After settling the cattle, they moved to the stables to grab their horses.
Loki came up beside her, speaking low.
“Are you sure about this?”
To his surprise, she looked to him with foreboding, no admonishment in her voice.
“This could be dangerous, Loki,” she looked ahead and began to take her draft horse out of its stall, absentmindedly rubbing its muzzle. “We can’t not go out there, though.”
He recognized her demeanor — quiet, introspective, serious.
“A premonition?” Half-whispered as they stood between their horses, fully saddled. Ice crystals blew through the barn, making his horse shake its head, pressing into his back.
She cast him a wary glance. “I don’t know yet, for sure. But we need to be exceptionally careful.”
Looking out to the forest on the edge of the city, where spruce was white with snow clinging. She sheathed a long sword into the scabbard on her saddle, the horse adjusting to the sudden weight.
“This is the kind of forest that doesn’t want to be disturbed,” she spoke, “and we’re disturbing it.”
He took the hint and followed suit, sheathing his daggers. She had always refused to take a weapon into the forest outside of a battle, and it made his intuition twitch to see her doing so now.
When they rode out to the edge of the forest it was exceptionally quiet save for the disrupting of the snow, their horses making paths through it. His horse was struggling, a couple hands shorter than hers, which moved through the feet of snow with ease. She never lost that look on her face, though — whole body tense, eyes moving between the trees.
An owl moved from one tree to another, catching a rodent. The small scream reverberated through the trees, stilled only by its echoes fading.
Loki realized he was holding his breath, then, and gasped to breathe normally again. A billow of his breath crystalized in front of him.
Her horse was suddenly next to his, and she reached down to grab his hand. Looking up to her he was met with an intensity that screamed eternal, screamed ancient in a way he had never seen in her before, as if he were looking into the eyes of a wolf.
“I love you,” she spoke, steam billowing from her lips, “stay alive”.
Loki swallowed hard, looking up at her, in all of her beauty and wildness. He reached his hand up and caressed her head, pulling it down to his, lips meeting. The freezing cold left for a minute while they kissed, her lips full and warm against his, fortifying him.
When she pulled away from him, there was a red tinge to her cheeks. Their faces hovered for a split second.
“I love you,” he repeated, “stay alive”.
They moved into the forest, feeling the difference in light like a cloak as the forest enveloped them. He quickly found small footsteps dredging their way through the snow, leading deeper and deeper into the trees. They followed them.
Loki noticed that he had lost count of how many trees they had passed after a while, all looking identical to him save for the occasional gnarled knot or branch that he would duck under.
A quiet so profound it felt like a blanket followed them, making him jump every time a vole or bird would move by them. She, however, never startled, as if she had known they were coming long before an animal would make itself appear. She would twitch her head, cocking it one direction or another, like a dog catching a sound in its soft ears, pinpointing it.
They stopped after making their way close to a mile, where the tracks of the boy stopped.
Snow was kicked up in a several foot radius, like something massive had come from the side and bowled the child over.
She jumped from her horse. Moving to the disturbance cautiously, crouching down, she ran her fingertips over a few drops of blood, moving it to her lips. The bloodied snow stuck to her lips and her tongue darted out, taking it into her mouth.
Loki had never seen her do this before, but didn’t question it. He sat in the saddle with baited breath waiting for her to say something.
When she looked up to him, her face said it all: it was the child’s blood.
“What do we do now?” Loki spoke, breaking the silence that had lasted between them the entire way through the forest.
Standing up, she looked towards a tree to her left, where massive claw marks dug into the bark, revealing the lighter pulp underneath. Her fingertips ran across it. Immediately she jolted as if struck by lighting; she whipped her head up, back stiff, eyes wide as a gasp choked out of her.
Loki leapt off of his horse and came to her side, grabbing her by the shoulders, fingers digging into the fur of her cloak. He spoke her name, shaking her slightly.
She took in a shuddering breath, turning to look at him. Her eyes were wide and crazed, shaken, as if she had seen a ghost. Her voice came out stuttering over itself in a way he had never seen from her before. For her to be this shaken by something could mean Ragnarök itself was in the forest, a great wolf waiting to swallow them.
“Whatever took him was touched by a dark force — something I’ve never felt before.”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
“What do we do?” He asked.
She looked to him again with that intense stare, the look of premonition.
“We kill this thing,” she said, “whatever it is, it a scourge on the land. It won’t stop with one life.”
The massive path of whatever this creature was moved onwards from them, towards the sharp black mountains that were a few more miles out from where they were, uphill.
They mounted their horses and made their way up the mountain, a solemn silence between them.
By the time they were approaching the edge of the forest, their horses were breathing heavily, steam coming from their backs. They had made their way into the upper mountains, where trees mostly gave way to rocky cliffs, creased with snow blowing over them. Ice shards blew into his face, no forest left to soften the wind. It was bitterly harsh and cold, the kind of place that only some of the most extreme and terrifying animals and monsters would reside in — or the land of frost giants, Jötunheim, from whence he came. A shiver rang down his skin at the thought of this birthplace.
Soon after they had cleared the trees and were up into the mountain, a boulder came into view — pressed up against the stone was the boy. His clothes were tattered, a large gash across his chest.
“There he is,” Loki gasped.
She immediately hushed him.
“It’s close,” she whispered. “It wouldn’t have left him.”
Just as the words left her mouth, the rustle of something large came from across the mountainside.
At first, Loki couldn’t see anything.
Then it moved, a mass that had looked like the shadows of many trees making its way towards them. An immense beast, with gaping, blood-coated teeth and several pairs of horns jutting from it. It towered at least fifteen feet above them at the shoulder, covered in snow-white and mottled grey scales. Several sets of reptilian eyes set on them, pupils narrowing as it began to circle them. Its eyes glowed red, a black smoke trailing from them.
A bilgesnipe, but not one like Loki had ever seen before. This beast was several hundred pounds more massive than any he had seen, and it reeked of a dark magic that Loki couldn’t place.
Loki looked over to her. She was looking towards the child.
“Protect the child,” she said, voice flat and low.
Before Loki could say anything, she moved back and ripped her blade free — one of the finest of the dwarves’ creations, a large broadsword forged with several metals, a hilt of gold.
He decided to trust her in that moment, his body flowing warm with his magic as he removed his daggers from his steed and sheathed them. He then ran to the child, concealing himself from the beast in the meantime. It felt unnecessary, though, for as Loki turned from his partner, he heard a guttural yell come from her, beckoning the beast over.
Glancing back, Loki saw their horses disappearing to the trees as she growled to the bilgesnipe, making animalistic growling sounds that he couldn’t recognize. It took the bait, bowing its head low before beginning its charge towards her.
Loki forced himself to turn his head away and focus on the child, fallen haphazardly against the rock.
The boy looked worse than he had from a distance. Blood smeared on the rock behind him, like he had been thrown against it. The wound on his chest seeped blood, soaking his soft wool shirt. Loki carefully moved the boy upright, feeling the warm wetness of blood on the back of his head, kneeling down to cradle the child in his arm. Loki bent his ear down by the child’s mouth, watching his chest for any sign of breathing.
Shallow and labored, the child was breathing. Loki gasped in relief, resting his hand on the child’s chest. Swirls of green emitted from his fingertips and into the wound, beginning to heal it ever so slightly. His magic was limited when it came to healing, but it didn’t matter — this boy was hanging on by a thread and Loki was not going to let him die.
Loki whipped his head towards the battle that was unfolding between the bilgesnipe and her. She moved close to the beast, staying just out of reach, forcing it to careen its head faster past its limit. Knowing she couldn’t take it head on, she was coming down on its back where she could, the hide exceedingly rough and difficult to get through. Her blows barely drew any blood. She had shed her outer coats, leaving a thin shirt and hide pants — also leaving her vulnerable to the beast. The smallest miscalculation in her movements and the monster would be on her.
Bilgesnipes were more a thing of legend than of fact — they were rarely seen and feared tremendously, like a dragon without its wings, lurking in the dark mountains and taking cattle that had lost their way as a snack. Their size alone made it almost impossible to take one down unless you had several men and a ton of luck, even with Asgardian warriors. Seeing her take on the creature alone terrified him — one wrong move and she was gone from him forever, the only person he had ever loved.
Her movements were almost unnatural, leaping away right as it would bring its head around to snap at her. She was taking full advantage of its blind spots, occasionally rolling away to avoid its spiked tail whipping around. Growls shook the earth they were on. The cry that would come from her as she struck the beast was guttural and extreme, the muscles in her arms quivering as she would cut into the massive beast.
He needed to join her in battle — but looking down at the child, he was barely coming out of his death throes.
“Come on, child”, said somewhat impatiently, “your time in Valhalla isn’t upon you yet.”
As if he had heard Loki, the boy choked to life, gasping, and clutching his arm like a lifeline. The small sounds he made brought tears to Loki’s eyes, laughing in relief.
Just as the child’s eyes opened, a blood-curdling scream ripped through the cold air.
The bilgesnipe had landed a massive blow across her torso with its claws, sending her tumbling back into the snow.
He screamed her name across the mountain, guttural and piercing, ringing silence following.
She didn’t move.
Loki sat the child against the boulder tenderly, sitting him up and ensuring he could breathe. He cast an illusion over the child, and he disappeared entirely.
The roar of the bilgesnipe barely registered in his peripheral as he ran over to her, knees collapsing in the snow. Loki turned her over so she wouldn’t suffocate.
Three long, deep gashes tore from her lower hip up to her face, slicing across her lips. Blood poured from her, streaming, staining the snow red — like a freshly hunted deer after you had slit its throat in winter.
Her eyes were closed, but he could see her breathing, laboring and shuddering as it was. Her face was torqued in pain, tears streaming down the sides of her face towards her ears.
This wasn’t happening.
He called to her, voice cracking, desperately trying to bring her back from where she was going. Pressing his palm into the largest wound on her chest, he flowed magic into her like a tidal wave, feeling every cell in her body desperate to repair itself. He had never revived someone before, but damn it all if he wasn’t going to do it now.
The moment his magic slammed into her, she shot up, a visceral scream ripping from her that echoed across the jagged mountains. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot and animalistic, pupils slitted and glowing yellow. Her teeth were bared and he saw that her canines were larger and sharpened, and he felt sharpened claws rip through his leather armor where she gripped it. Loki has seen glimpses of this when they had gotten into particularly heated arguments — the slight sharpness of her teeth, the look in her eyes of something untamed — but he had never witnessed her fully in this animalistic, berserker-like state.
When she looked to him, he saw that archaic thing that he had been noticing from her for years, now at its peak. He truly felt like he was looking into the eyes of a god for the first time, power coming from her that took his breath away.
After she had screamed, a deadly silence had fallen over them, and he realized that the wind no longer blew, the forest no longer shaking or making a sound. A pin could drop in the snow and he could have heard it a mile away.
Then the forest moved.
He couldn't explain it, couldn't contort any part of his conscious mind to make sense of what his eyes were seeing. The trees moved, as if they were shifting the forest forward towards them.
A cacophony of howling so loud that it rang in his ears, blurring his thoughts.
Massive streaks of brown, white, grey and black came bounding from the trees, practically ripping the spruce from their roots, backs breaking branches as they moved underneath them.
A dozen or more dire wolves surrounded them then, the same yellow eyes glowing as they looked to him, looked to her, and then immediately took to surrounding the beast, easily standing half as tall as the bilgesnipe themselves. A couple of them broke away, sending massive amounts of snow flying as they bound to the boulder where the child was, surrounding him and standing guard.
Looking back to his love, he could see the resemblance, especially with her massive head of hair knotted and braided all around her face.
He could feel her power emanating from her as she rose, bending to lift the long sword as if it were nothing. Her blood fell freely into the snow, but she never flinched as she growled, twirling the blade in her hands expertly and making her way back towards the beast. As she did so, the dire wolves reformed rank, nipping and growling, barking and tearing at the bilgesnipe at all sides, clearly distressing it. Now it bore seeping teeth and claw marks on its hide, each attack of a wolf adding more.
He noticed that they were behaving precisely the same way lesser wolves take down large prey, like a moose or wisent — surrounding it on all sides, making small attacks on all sides to exhaust it, making it easier to deliver the killing blow.
But the bilgesnipe came to its wits, lashing out and striking one of the massive furred beasts, where it flew and slammed into a tree, falling limp. Its companions cowered then, growling and moving their heads down.
Even now, the fight wasn't even.
She fought as if this wasn't the case — easily standing among the wolves, she ripped at the beast, now tearing away large chunks of flesh, distracting it and weakening it just as the rest of the pack was.
Loki suddenly felt his magic coursing through him, felt the chill of the mountain seeping into his soul, reminding him so much of Jötunheim. It coursed through him, the snow beginning to flurry and manipulate itself to his will; with the snap of his wrist, it turned it to a long shard of ice.
He felt growing pains with this magic, a familiar and suppressed power that gave away his roots that he had let go of in order to be in his place with the Æsir. He was hesitating, not wanting to allow himself to go into that place entirely — to completely yield himself over to his full power. Transforming back into an older version of himself.
Then he looked to her, seeing her in her warrior-state, blood streaming from her wounds. Entirely unyielding and releasing all of her power that she had suppressed for years, exulting cries and bared teeth. He didn't know if she, too, was of a different blood or not, but she was bearing all of her soul to this fight; screaming and howling, lashing and throwing everything into each swing of her sword, joining the wolves.
When the beast lashed her with its tail and she cried out, falling to her knees, all hesitation left his body.
When the creature turned to attack his love, a wall of ice bolted from the ground, shards of ice shoving into the creature’s gaping mouth. It reeled, letting out an earth-shaking howl, stepping back.
Loki saw her look to him with wild eyes, fully see him in his Jötun state. He froze in that moment, terrified of what she would think — would she realize that he was a monster?
She smiled — what?
No, she couldn’t be — but she was, her bleeding lips bearing her bloodied teeth, eyes crinkling with mirth.
Her voice resonated through him, more in his mind than in the air.
“Come and fight with me in our true forms, my love, my heart!” she waved her arm, beckoning him to her. “If we die today, we die as one in our true selves.”
He had never loved her more than in that moment.
By the time Loki had come up next to her, the wolves were in their full frenzy and the bilgesnipe was beginning to grow desperate — throwing its head and crying out, biting at whatever was near it. Another wolf had been knocked unconscious and others bore intense wounds, but they showed no signs of slowing.
Their cries were growing frenzied, heat rising in the air, the prey getting weaker, the time for the killing blow growing imminent.
Loki looked to her, the leader of the pack, asking with his gaze what the next step was.
She looked to him, smiling wide in the thrill of the hunt.
“It’s our time, Loki,” her words flowed from her like poetry, “when the time is right, we finish this monstrosity”.
Taking a deep breath of the frosted air, he felt it settle into his lungs like home.
The dire wolves then changed their behavior, beginning to take more intense bites, dragging the bilgesnipe by the legs, the hips, the back, throwing their weight into each part and dragging it down. The earth shook as its legs collapsed underneath it, causing so much snow to come up that it temporarily looked as if they were in a blizzard.
Loki to the chance, snow in the air, to bring an immense chunk of ice on the withers of the best, bringing it down completely. Its head trapped under the weight of the ice, it thrashed its head, deteriorating.
She didn’t hesitate. Coming down with her sword, she slammed the blade tip-first through the largest eye of the bilgesnipe, ocular liquid and blood flowing following a resounding crack as the blade was buried to its hilt in its skull.
Its body fell still against the snow, quiet settling over the mountains as its final cry rang through. Snowflakes fell and melted on the fresh blood pouring from it. The black smoke slithered from its slacked mouth and eyes, cascading over the ledge of the mountains and down out of sight.
The dire wolves stood then, howling into the dusk that had settled over the land, snow turning purple against the blue of the sky. The brightest stars and planets began to twinkle. Howling resonated in the air, the differential notes clashing and resounding, ringing and echoing in solemn victory across the wind.
She collapsed into him then, Loki grunting and looping his arms under her shoulders to support her. Her breath was ragged, blood continuing to leave her body from the gashes across her, matching the child’s but lager in magnitude — he could see her ribs between the shreds of her skin.
The boy.
Just as Loki whipped his head towards the boulder, he saw a grey wolf gently nudging the child to stand, another of white gently lifting him by the clothes onto the back of the grey. The white kept its muzzle up for the child to grab onto as he adjusted, falling forward and grabbing the grey fur of the wolf’s neck. They began making their way towards them.
Looking back down to his love, he saw that she came back to her normal form, eyes back to normal, teeth blunted and human. Her breath was ragged, crying out when he shifted his weight to support her better. Her face was dangerously pale, showing how much blood she lost. She gasped with every move she made, but she forced herself to turn and face him regardless.
She lifted her hands to caress his face, shaking and smearing blood on his blue-tinged cheeks, fingers ice-cold. Her face was bloodied, raw, and beautiful, looking at him in pure love and reverence.
“You’re so beautiful as your true self, my love,” she spoke.
Loki Laufeyson, adopted child of Odin, held her in his true form, tears streaming down his face. In all of his life, he had never felt love like this — pure and raw, bloodied and glorious, soft and furred. The love of his life looking at him in his true form and smiling filled a hole in his heart that had been aching for centuries, and the relief of it being filled brought tears to his eyes. She wiped his tears as they came down his face.
He smiled, lifting a hand and caressing her cheek in kind.
“I've never felt a love like this,” he confessed, face serious. “I've never loved anyone as much as I love you. I never will.”
Her eyes widened slightly at this; breath baited.
“Will you take me as your husband?” He whispered, looking to her perfect, scarred face.
She smiled wide in that moment, laughing despite the pain she was in.
“You were mine the moment we came together, Loki.” She leaned in, their lips brushing. “Ragnarök itself could never steal you from me.”
He hesitated for a moment, and then began:
“You will be mine and I will be yours until the end of time,
Under the leaves of Yggdrasil, we will be joined,
Two branches intertwined into eternity.”
She continued the vow:
“Of one mind and body,
Souls bound until the end;
I take you as my one true love,
In war and in peace.”
In unison, they spoke:
“The mountains will echo with our song,
The halls of Valhalla will be warmed by our embrace.
The fields will be fertile from our union,
And our love will battle through Hel itself.”
They were both crying, now, the happy tears of a wedding on a lonely mountain where their witnesses were wolves and the monster they had felled together, pouring blood upon the snow.
Their foreheads joined, breath steaming between them. They looked at each other with pure love, mirth at the edges of their eyes.
They came together as one when their lips met, the pain and ache they were both feeling melting away for that moment. The world disappeared from around them. He felt her lips against him and felt home, felt the rest of this life.
When they parted, she cried out, resting her head against his shoulder.
He sobered, looking over her shoulder to the dark mountains, stars shining over them. Her weakened body sent fear jolting through him, and the thought crossed his mind that he might lose her here.
“You’re not leaving me,” Loki said, voice lilting between a question and a statement.
She strained out a laugh under her breath and into his shoulder.
“Not this time, my love. It takes more than this to kill me.”
He held her face to his neck, arms wrapped around her, holding her warm body to him. She was the only thing in the Nine realms that mattered in that moment.
“I’m guessing we’ll need to postpone our lovemaking as newlyweds a few days,” he joked, starting to feel the deep ache of battle coming to him as adrenaline wore off.
That drew another hoarse laugh from her, making him regret it slightly as she dug her fingers into his sides in pain. Her warm breath cascaded over his neck, giving him chills.
Loki felt his body move back into its Asgardian form, the frost suddenly hitting him much harder than before. One of the wolves came up to their side, coming down on one knee and bowing its head towards them.
Despite his knowing, he still felt prickles of fear when regarding the dire wolves — again, a creature that he had been raised to fear, not fight alongside, ride on the back of. Its fur was bloodied in many places, its mouth dripping with fresh blood and scales.
But when he looked back to his wife, all that he saw was love and respect for the beast. She started moving them towards the wolf, moving from supporting herself on him to the side of the wolf. His body felt cold from the absence of her body against his, already missing her. The blood coating his front added to the chill against his skin.
She turned laboredly, gesturing to the fallen bilgesnipe. He looked to her, confused.
“Take a set of its horns, Loki,” she said, “let them serve as a reminder of our union and your true power”.
Loki nodded, cautiously moving over to the bilgesnipe. He grimaced at the grotesque state of the thing, sword still sticking from its head, eyes bulging.
It had a few sets of horns protruding from its skull, larger than Loki could even carry himself. There was one set, though, that appeared to have just started growing — only a little over a foot long and thin, curving elegantly back around, though not touching back.
He reached out to grab one, taking out a hunting knife and carving it out of the scaled head, trying to remove as much of the flesh as possible. Loki held it over for her to see, earning an approving nod.
After removing the other horn, he placed them both under his arm while removing her broadsword from the skull of the bilgesnipe, sneering at the squelching sounds that came as he did so. Both of their horses had returned a few moments prior, and he sheathed the sword after wiping it off with some snow. It gleamed from its hilt, as if exuberant over its victory. He stowed the horns in a saddlebag on his own horse, which turned to sniff at them curiously.
Loki helped move her onto the back of the wolf. He then leaped up behind her, holding her steady as the wolf rose. Her back was pressed against him comfortably, that warmth he had craved coming back to him. His hands were around her waist, grabbing some of the neck fur of the wolf, noting the mixture of coarse and soft hairs that constituted its coat. She leaned back and rested her head on his shoulder, shuddering a sigh of relief as she let some of the tension in her body relax.
He gazed down at her, still trying to figure out what he had done right to be here, with the love of his life in his arms, her warmth against his. Peace settled over him then, in a way he hadn’t felt before — it settled deep in his bones as her breaths rose into the dark sky, stars shining brilliantly, the starkness of the mountains beyond them.
Two ravens circled above them, coming together and moving out from one another in perfect sync.
They made their way back through the forest, the other wolves beginning to dive into their hard-fought feast behind them. The wolves carrying them and the boy seemed to know exactly where to go, and it felt as though they got back in a fraction of the time, their horses trailing behind. Loki flowed his magic into her the entire way, not caring that it made him slightly lightheaded to focus so much of his power for a prolonged time, working to start mending some of her wounds and relieve some of the pain. She sighed in relief as he did this, her face nodding into his neck.
They eventually broke the edge of the forest and entered back to the plains that surrounded Asgard, the full brilliance of the city on display as warm lights flickered from towers through the cold air.
Loki immediately took notice of the small crowd that was ahead of them. Men and women, most armored, were gathered around in groups, torches illuminating their faces as they began moving battle steeds out and were assembling weapons. Townsfolk, with a nervousness to their stares, watched the group. A search party was being formed, he realized, to come and find them. Even the warriors who had just come from a long battle were there, blood and exhaustion all over them. Loki felt his heart swell at this, that they would come out to find them.
Quickly, Loki recognized the armor and faces of several of the soldiers — his brother, Thor, stood out in his silver armor plates, Mjolnir resting anxiously in his left hand.
The moment they were in sight, a silence swept over the group, turning and looking out towards the two dire wolves, which hadn’t been seen this close to Asgard in centuries.
He knew they were about to call to arms, so Loki waved an arm above his head.
“It’s us!” he cried out.
“We have the boy!”
Thor, recognizing Loki’s voice, started out towards them, torch in hand. The rest of the group stood in an uneasy anticipation, unsure of whether to start readying for an attack or not.
Once the wolves and Thor met several paces from each other, a flash of recognition and bewilderment came over Thor, and he waved back to the others, confirming that it was them. Several others started coming over, then, torches in hand.
Thor came up to the side of the wolf. A slight terror that he was trying to underplay made Loki smirk a little.
“How…?” Thor’s voice was bewildered.
He opened his mouth to speak again, but Loki cut him off.
“I assure you, Thor, these are not illusions of my making.” Loki said.
He looked down to his love, who was resting on his shoulder still.
“These are her beasts?” Thor’s confusion only grew, his voice upturning in disbelief.
Loki nodded, reveling for a moment at having something cooler than his brother. It was childish, but he needed this. Just let him have his moment.
“If you’re done ogling, dear brother,” Loki began to shift her, making her gasp in pain, “my wife is injured.”
Triple-kill on Thor’s confusion, but he quickly focused on her, only taking a small step back as the wolf lowered itself and she slid off. Several rich Asgardian curses flurried out of her mouth as she landed, immediately grabbing onto Thor with a vice-like grip, knees buckling under her. He wrapped an arm around to support her. He grimaced at her front, soaked in blood and ripped.
“You’ve fought a great battle, haven’t you?” Thor asked, looking up to her face, echoing blood and scars. He smiled with sorrow in his eyes at her state.
She grimaced, looking up to him. “It would appear that way.”
Loki jumped down, turning to the wolf that had fought beside them. Behind it, he saw some bewildered soldiers take the boy from the back of the other wolf. The boy was weak, but alive, and Loki smiled as the boy’s mother rushed and clutched her child to her chest, tears of relief streaming down her face as she cried.
The wolf they had ridden in on looked down to him patiently, waiting to see what he was going to do. It was waiting for something form him, glancing over to her and then back. Loki reached a hand out to it, landing on its shoulder.
He felt a response come to him, though he didn’t fully understand it.
“Thank you,” he murmured, “for letting me have her.”
The wolf bowed its head towards him for a moment before turning back to the other wolf.
They bounded into the forest, completely silent despite their massive frames. They disappeared into the tree, back to their home.
He turned and rushed back over to her and his brother. He was doing what Thor did best, making his wife laugh to take her mind off of her gaping wounds. They had stopped bleeding for the most part, some of the flesh threading back together, but they still made him nauseous whenever he would look down at them.
“Loki!” His brother called to him, eyes twinkling.
Loki raised an eyebrow, coming over and helping to support his wife, relieve even just a touch of her pain.
Thor reached out to him, grabbing the back of his neck in the way that he did when really trying to communicate with his brother. Loki yielded, his wife leaning against him.
“She told me the smallest part of what you did up there,” he spoke gently, looking up to the mountains.
Loki gave him a confused look. Where was he going with this?
He noticed tears start to come to Thor’s severe blue eyes, dropping Loki’s obstinancy.
“I’m honored to have you as a brother, Loki.”
Loki couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“I mean it,” Thor said, putting their foreheads together.
“I will gladly fight with you until the end, brother, and then we will have our places in Valhalla together”.
Tears were stinging at Loki’s eyes, now, making his whole face ache from exhaustion.
“Thank you, brother,” was all Loki could get out.
When he turned back to her, she was smiling up at him. Her face was still pale, though, and he could tell that she was losing strength fast.
“We need to get you to a bed,” Loki remarked, looking to Thor.
They limped her over to the crowd, where Thor immediately started shouting about their glorious battle and the mighty feast that must be arranged for the two in celebration of their love and bravery. Loki was more focused on getting her somewhere where she could be healed, but there was a warmth in his heart that his brother put there, returning him to that serene sense of belonging, of love.
The official wedding was in the Spring, after she had healed and they had caught up on the newlywed traditions they had missed out on previously.
The ceremony was a true Asgardian ceremony, with lavish decorations and bountiful feasts, drinking and dancing that went long into the night and next morning.
When they repeated their vows to each other, Thor walked up to them, a helmet in his hands. It was a rich gold band with the bilgesnipe horns coming from it, curling back in spectacular fashion, polished to their full beauty.
She took the helmet, turning to Loki, tears brimming as she spoke.
“Loki Laufeyson,
This helmet, made from the finest dwarven smiths, bears the horns of the bilgesnipe that we battled on the day that we were married — on the day that we came together as one body, one spirit.”
She lifted it and set it on his head, the helm fitting him perfectly, black hair cascading out from underneath it.
“May it bear the symbol of our union under the loving branches of Yggdrasil, and your true power, for as long as you wear it.”
The cheers echoed for miles as he leaned down and captured her in a kiss, his love for her aching in his heart.
The merriment echoed far into the trees, bouncing through the mountains, where lay the bones of a mighty beast in the everwinter of the mountains.
Loki sat on a throne of shattered obsidian and gold.
Strands of time — of lives, of deaths, of freedom — came from him in all directions, each one tended by him. They ran down to the roots and through to the branches of Yggdrasil, intertwining with each other, branching into the endless cascading possibilities of time, glowing green with his power, his purpose.
His helmet sat on his head, the horns in their full glory, natural and no longer covered in gold.
He looked up at them, framing the intertwining branches of fate that were brought together by him. Now safe, under him. His true self, in a way that he grasped with an intensity and purpose that aged him, settled into his bones with such truth that it made him sigh.
A tear fell off of his cheek, echoing into the void until it landed on a branch, pulsing green.
My favourite Kittelsen story was his reaction when he heard another Norwegian artist had started drawing Trolls as well. “How can he draw Trolls?” he is said to have asked. “He’s never seen a troll.”
The kids on TikTok think that just because he was a classic country singer, Johnny Cash was conservative??? My babies he covered a Nine Inch Nails song in his seventies.
Classic country singers (the majority of which came from poor roots) were always talking about how much The Man sucked because they were taking money from poor rural folk. You’re gonna tell me that’s conservative?? Get outta here.
And somehow on the opposite side of the scale with the same exact opinion the conservative kids say “I like the old country music, because there’s no politics to it” Woodie Guthrie’s got a “this machine kills fascists” sticker on his guitar? You think there’s no politics in 9 to 5 or Folsom Prison Blues?!
For anyone confused there was a sudden and dramatic shift in the country music genre. It used to be a genre fixated on the experiences of people. Lived or common experiences that resonated with the common people. It was music that you listened to and it thrummed in tune to your soul because you had lived it yourself. And a lot of that was about ordinary people getting ground up in the gears of society.
The hyper patriotism, beer, and trucks chimera we have now didn't show up until after 9/11 and the world is lesser for it
Allow me to post the entire lyrics to the Johnny Cash song "Man in Black", released in nineteen goddamn seventy-one and written about why he always wore black onstage:
Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime
But is there because he's a victim of the times
I wear the black for those who've never read
Or listened to the words that Jesus said
About the road to happiness through love and charity
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me
Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a man in black
I wear it for the sick and lonely old
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men
And I wear it for the thousands who have died
Believin' that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred-thousand who have died
Believin' that we all were on their side
Well, there's things that never will be right, I know
And things need changin' everywhere you go
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right
You'll never see me wear a suit of white
Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that everything's okay
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
'Til things are brighter, I'm the man in black
That right there is an anti-war, anti-bigot, anti-mass-incarceration, anti-war-on-drugs (Cash was an addict in various stages of recovery who was pissed as hell about how this country treats people with substance issues), eat-the-rich protest song. And it was arguably his signature song, his personal manifesto. Notice that even the Jesus reference, which today would be a signal that the song is about to drop some racist dogwhistles, segues immediately into a line about "the road to happiness through love and charity". As in "Motherfucker, our shared god said love thy neighbor and care for the poor and the outsider, and we both know he didn't fucking stutter." He's throwing shade at self-described Christians who use his religion as a cudgel to beat people with.
Johnny Cash wasn't a conservative. I'm pretty sure if he were alive and in reasonably good health today, he'd knock Jason Aldean's teeth out (or, failing that, write a song so devastatingly memetic about how much Aldean sucks that Aldean would never work in music again).
Johnny Cash was punk rock. He just happened to be punk rock in the body of a country singer.
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• An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.
• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
• A question mark walks into a bar?
• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."
• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
• A synonym strolls into a tavern.
• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.
• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.
• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
• A dyslexic walks into a bra.
• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.
• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.
• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.
• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony
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