ToA - The Hand of Surtur Ch 10

Next chapter...



~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~



My new Muspellheim isn't as much fun without them. It's kind of lonely without Odin or Thor or Loki to defend it, to challenge me. Even if I would just knock them down like flies, it would be more interesting than this patheticness.

The Asgardians who remain do not even try to defeat me. They bow their heads and submit. They fear me more than they feared the son of the former king when he was under my control. They fear me more now that I have erased their princes from the face of Asgard. For all they know, I have murdered those damn brothers and scattered their remains across the Nine Realms.
I wonder what Odin Borson's pretty wife would think if I told her that.

I suspect she'd scream. I suspect she'd cry and sink to her knees and wail to the heavens. I suspect she'd damn me and everything I ever did. I suspect she'd come at me in a fit of rage and seal her own fate. I suspect she'd...

I do not know Frigga well.

For all I know...she might just stare at me with the heart-broken glare of a mother.

And I know that—if she choses that path instead of screaming—I will be in danger. For I am older than humanity, as old as the gods themselves, and I know the sayings well. You have nothing to fear from one who yells, who rages in the open.

You have everything to fear from one who holds their silence.

—The Fire Demon Surtur, the Lord of Muspellheim



~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~



The pain was agonizing.

Exactly that—Thor was in agony. He couldn't register any other emotion than that. He couldn't understand, couldn't make sense of the situation, of what was happening. His body tried to reject the pain, but to no avail. He was sucked again into the blackness that cut time into pieces. How long had he been like this? A few minutes? A few hours? A few days? Was it years? It felt like it. The pain cut through reality, making it harder and harder for Thor to tell which was which.

He tried hard to separate them, to take his mind off the pain.

Non-reality, the dreams that drifted through the back of his mind, was a cool blue, and it didn't hurt as much. Reality, what was really happening, was blood-red, and words couldn't describe the pain that he felt. Being sawed in half, run over by a runaway cart, stabbed repeatedly by an Einherjar, trampled by Frost Giants, and submerged in poison all at the same time would have felt better than this.

Reality was knowing that he couldn't possibly move when the pain was making him feel like he was flopping around like a fish.

Reality was knowing that there was something important, something to protect, and not knowing exactly what it was.

Thor lay deep within the shroud of unconsciousness once more. For a second time that week, he was wrapped in a cocoon of excruciating agony, and though he realized that he had done something wrong to damage himself, he couldn't remember what. He barely remembered who he was, let alone where he was. The cocoon erased his memory, made him as dumb as an animal struck hard in the head by Mjollnir.

A cold feeling, welcomed instead of pain, pricked up his back at the mention of the Hammer of the Worthy. Why did it sound so familiar to him? It was still sitting back in the weapon's vault in Asgard's castle, wasn't it? Somehow he felt that he was lying to himself, that he was forgetting something important.

The darkness took over with a wave of ice, and then washed away into anguish. He couldn't breathe—this was different than the drowning sensation he had gotten before, when it felt like there had been water all around him. This was much different; it was too hot in his throat.
Pieces of him were dissolving, snapping, shattering...

Black spots covered his vision as his eyes snapped open. More blackness—was it nighttime? It felt wrong—a new ache stabbed icily through his stomach. He struggled to protect his stomach from the new pain, but he was weak. His lungs ached, oxygen burning away...

The suffering faded away for a moment now, but he clung to it. Loki, his dear little brother, who he vowed to always protect—where was he? He was in terrible danger. Thor knew this, but he couldn't remember why.

Terrible thoughts passed through his mind. Images of his little brother, his Loki, crying, screaming, burning, dying...

How long had passed? Seconds or minutes? The pain was gone for now. Numb. He couldn't feel. He still couldn't see, either, but he could hear. There was oxygen in his lungs again, scraping in rough pockets up and down his throat.

He tried to feel his heart, tried to find it, but it was already lost inside his body. He couldn't feel the things he should, like his toes or his fingers, and nothing felt like it was in the right place. He blinked and found his eyes. He could see the light. Not what he was looking for, but right now it was better than nothing.

There was an image before him, something he needed to see.

His eyes focused; suddenly everything was perfectly clear.

Loki didn't cry when he saw his brother. Was it truly Loki? Or was this just a hallucination that the pain was causing? Thor didn't care—it was his brother. Loki still didn't cry, but his expression was so shocked that it was almost funny. His small, perfect face shone as if it were the sun. His irises were still the same emerald that Thor remembered. Not red. His skin was still the pale, creamy ivory that he remembered. All besides his cheeks, which flamed with color. His face was so perfect that it was almost stunning. Impossible. Unbelievable.

And then Loki was gone. It had all been a lie, an illusion caused by the pain. His little brother was nowhere. Thor couldn't see or hear him. No! He wanted to shout at whoever or whatever had taken away his brother's image. Give him back!

But the weakness was too much. His arms felt like mush for a moment, and then they felt like nothing at all. He couldn't feel them. He couldn't feel himself.

The blackness rushed over his eyes more firmly than before. Like a thick blindfold, firm and fast. Covering his eyes and his body with a crushing weight that would have snapped bone. It was too exhausting to keep resisting it. He knew it would be easier to give in. To let the darkness take him over. To let it push him to a place where pain no longer existed, to a place where fear didn't exist.

If it had only been for himself, he wouldn't have been able to struggle against the dark for very long.

But this wasn't about him.

If he did the easy thing now, the thing he longed more than anything to do, then he would be hurting him.

Loki Odinson. Loki. His brother. His life and Thor's were twisted into a strand. Cut one, and both fall. If Loki were gone, if something happened to him, Thor wouldn't be able to live. He would live on in his body, of course, but he would be forever dead inside. It was the same with Loki; if Thor were to perish in battle, Loki would suffer the same fate.

But it was so dark here that Thor couldn't see his brother. He knew far well that Loki wasn't here. Where was he? Did he even know what was happening?

Nothing seemed real. That made it hard to give in.

He kept pushing against the blackness, but it was solid. He was a god, but he wasn't a Titan like that blasted Greek Atlas was. He couldn't hold the sky on his shoulders, and this was probably the same sensation the damned Titan had felt. But he wasn't a Titan. He was an Asgardian, more powerful yet somehow weaker now, and it was all he could do to keep from being obliterated.

He held the darkness of Death just inches from his face.

It wasn't enough, though. As time ticked away, the blackness of the Realm of the Dead consuming eighths of the inches that Thor had, he tried to think of something to keep him hanging on. He couldn't pull Loki's face into view. He couldn't remember what his little brother looked like.

That terrified him, and he wondered if it was too late.

He felt himself slipping away—there was nothing left to hold on to.

No! He had to survive this. Loki was depending on him. His parents Odin and Frigga wanted him to protect and take care of his little brother. Something snapped inside his mind, and an image of a young black-haired emerald-eyed sorcerer appeared in his mind.

Loki.

And then, in that instant, he could feel something. He still couldn't see, but he could feel. Like phantom limbs, he felt his arms gain strength, the strength of Odin, and push back the blackness. And inside his arms was something smaller than he was, but that something was very warm.

His brother. His little brother.

He had done it. Against everything, he had found the strength to survive. He had been strong enough to survive for his brother, to hold on long enough for Loki to grow up and master his magic and live on without him.

The speck of warmth in his arms felt so real. Like there was someone laying in his arms, cradled against his chest. Holding tight to the memory of his brother, he knew that he would be able to survive anything.

The warmth in his arms got more and more real, and the heat gradually started to move up to where his heart was. It became warmer and warmer, hotter and hotter. The heat was so real now that it was nearly impossible to believe that it was all just an illusion.

Hotter.

Uncomfortably hot. Too hot. Much, much too hot...

Like grabbing the hot part of an iron poker fresh from the fire, his automatic response was to drop the source of the heat. But there was nothing in his arms to drop. His arms were not curled at his chest, holding something there. They were dead, limp things lying somewhere by his side. The heat was coming from near him.

The burning grew—rose and formed until it surpassed anything he'd ever felt.

He felt the pulse behind the flames raging against his chest and realized something was there. Something was watching him. Something was standing above him.

He wanted to reach to his side and slay the source of the heat—anything to stop the burning.

But he couldn't feel his arms, couldn't lift one dead finger.

Falling out of a tree when he was five and breaking his arm. That was nothing. He'd take that now, a hundred times. A hundred hours in the waiting room with a throbbing forearm. He'd take it and be thankful for it. Slipping on the stone stairs during a downpour and splitting his head open when he was eight was nothing. He'd take that a thousand times. A thousand times in the healing chambers getting stitches put in his head.

He'd take that and be grateful for it. He'd even do a little tap-dance and shriek in gibberish in the village square.

The fire blazed hotter and hotter and he wanted to scream. To beg for the creature to kill him now before it got worse. He didn't want to live another second with this pain, the heat. But his lips wouldn't move. The weight was there, crushing him.

He soon realized that it wasn't the weight holding him down; it was his body. So heavy and so limp and so dead. His body was burying him in the fires that were chewing their way from outside his body, spreading the pain up his shoulders and down his arms, scalding their way up into his throat, licking at his cheeks and his lips.

Why couldn't he scream?

Why couldn't he move?

This was nothing like he had imagined death would be.

If he couldn't scream, how could he tell the one watching him to kill him?

All he wanted was to die. The whole of his existence, his meaning to live, didn't outweigh the pain.

It wasn't worth living through one more breath.

There was nothing but white-hot pain. Just the fiery suffering, and his silent shrieks, begging for death to come soon. There was no such thing as time now. Just eternity and infinity. An eternity of agony that would last until the end of time, which in this place, would never come.

The only moment of change came when the lower half of his body, deadened until this point, flared with the pain. It doubled. Some broken connection in his spine must have shifted and brought feeling back to all of his body, knitting together a perfect ladder for the pain to spread and destroy him. The endless burn raged on.

It could have been second or minutes, hours or days, weeks or years, but time had started to come back.

Slowly, but surely, he could feel the control return to his body. Though the pain did not decrease one little bit, Thor had truly begun to appreciate each lick of stabbing hurt. Once he did that, it didn't hurt as much. It was still the worst feeling in the world, but he had started to become use to it. Feeling and strength was starting to return. He knew when he was able to twitch his toes or curl his hands into fists, but he didn't act on it.

He could remember why he shouldn't scream. He could remember why he had committed himself to enduring this horrible anguish. He could remember, though it didn't seem possible, that there was something important to live for.

This happened just in time for him to hold on when the crushing weight lifted from his body. To the creature approaching him from the distance, watching him, if there was anyone there, there would have been no change. He wouldn't have moved, in their eyes. But for Thor, as he struggled to keep the screams and thrashing locked tight inside him, it felt like he had gone from being tied to the burning stake to gripping the end of it to keep himself from being pulled out of the flames.

He had just enough strength left to lie there and not move while he was being charred from the outside in.

His hearing got clearer, and he could count the strong beats of his heart. He could hear the sharp breaths escaping from his throat.

He also became aware of the quick, uneven breaths that came from somewhere close by. These moved quickly but constantly, so he concentrated on them. There were rapid footsteps, the uneven breaths growing in volume as they came. The footsteps got closer, much quicker, more desperate and clumsy, and Thor could feel a fierce pressure on the inside of his arm.

"Thor! Oh gods, Thor!"

He knew, more than anything else, that if he unlocked his teeth, he would lose it—he would shriek and screech and writhe like a dying wolf. If he opened a single eye—moved just one finger—then his fortress would fall, and that would be the end of his control.

Through the darkness of his pain that held him for what felt like endless years, he felt the blazing creature grasp his arm harder. The grip of terror returned. Against the agony ruling his body, he jolted back. His hands scrambled for purchase on the wet ground, slipping on something sharp and cold. No more pain. No more. Thor couldn't remember why, but the heat brought back terrible flashes of fresh, dangerous memory.

Loki standing above him in red armor, eyes burning like coal pits, glowing with unholy fire, screaming curses at him, hurting him, laughing at him, a vulgar grin on his face as he watched Thor struggle on the ground.

The heat was right next to him, grabbing his arm.

He lost his resolve and unlocked his teeth—he screamed, scraping his throat.

The burning sensation fell immediately at his side with an agonized moan. Thin manacles wrapped around his shoulders, seizing him tight. Burning. Burning him. Burning. He struggled and screamed in terror again, and then screeched when a broken rib shifted as a result of his movement.

Through the crimson darkness now filled with stabbing bursts of fiery pain, he heard a voice screaming for him.

"Thor! Thor, can you hear me? THOR!"

The iron-pressure moved to his fingers. He knew it would be harder not to answer this voice, because he recognized it. He couldn't place it, but he recognized it well. The voice was male and young, thick with worry and agony.

The racking flames went right on blazing. But there was so much space in his head now. Room to analyze the familiar voice and recall every bell-like note it had made, room to remember what had happened to him and to Asgard, room to look ahead to the future and wonder about what would happen, with still more than enough space for more. There was still more room to suffer. And room to worry.

Where was his brother? Where was Loki? Why wasn't he here?

The creature beside him was sobbing, iron-manacle hands running up and down his arms, prodding broken bones and flinching when Thor screamed. "Oh gods...Oh gods, this is all my fault. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to...I'm so sorry, brother..." The voice crumbled into a fit of sobs.

The creature placed a hand on his forehead. Surprisingly the hand was cool, not burning like the rest of it. On the good-side, the agony started to fade. Slowly, but it was retreating. He felt himself getting excited. The pain was on its way out...

Then more bad news: The fire in his chest grew hotter.

His heartbeat was picking up speed, moving at a frantic speed. The thumping echoed in his ears stronger than any other sound.

"I'm sorry, Thor," the voice whispered. "I'll save you."

The pain and flames outside of him and inside of him retreated from his hands and wrists, his feet and his ankles, leaving them cool and pain-free. But the agony retreated to his heart, which was now totally on fire.

The loudest sound was his frenzied heartbeat.

"It's almost over," the voice said, as if trying to comfort a child.

Thor's relief at his words was overshadowed by the roaring pain in his chest. His fingers twitched—the pain breaking through his façade. The burning creature became totally still and silent. The only sound that raged on was his heartbeat, thundering against his chest so fast that he thought it would burst through his ribcage and land on the floor.

A hand curled around his fingers. "Brother?"

Could he answer without screaming again? Thor considered this for a moment, and then the fire ripped through him like a stab. He clenched his teeth into a tighter lock than before, cracking teeth. It was best not to chance it.

His heart took off in that instant, beating like the wings of a bird, the sound almost a single thump. The fire flared up in the center of his chest, sucking the last remnants of the flames of pain from inside his body to feed the most scorching flame yet. The pain was almost enough to stun him, to make him shatter through his façade and scream again. His back arched, as if the fire was dragging him up toward the heavens.

He allowed no other part of him to move as his torso thudded back against the frozen ground he was on.

The battle raged on. His heart was losing, racing to its final beat. The fire and pain were losing, too. They had consumed everything worth consuming. The fire constricted, concentrating on his heart with a final, horrible surge. This surge was answered by a deafening thump, deep and hollow-sounding. His heart thudded twice, and then thumped softly once more.

There was no sound now. No breathing. Not even his own.

Something moved where his heart had been.

It seared to life, a dull pain this time. Compared to the last pain, this one was enjoyable. His heart restarted, hollow-bumps echoing in his ears.

For a moment, the absence of pain was all that he could feel. His mind wondered what had happened to the pain.

And then he opened his eyes and gazed ahead in shock.

Everything was perfectly clear. There was no light, since it was deep in the heart of night, but he could see. There were no stars in the cave, but he could still see. There was no moon in the cave, but still, he could see. Looking down at his hands, laying against something soft, he could see each individual snowflake. He could see the black specks of dirt, the white specks, the gray specks, the pale ones, and the ones that he didn't have a name for. He could see each ridge on the grains, learning that none of them were round like they appeared to mortal eyes. He could taste the air around him—taste the dust motes, the mix of scents as they whirled around above his head. And most of all, he could taste an almost honey-lilac-rose scent, the strongest and closest thing to him.

He heard the sounds of someone, breathing as he did. The snow shifted beside him, and his mind flared.

Danger.

Something pressed firm against his hand.

More danger.

He acted upon it. Air hissed up his throat, spitting through his clenched teeth with a low, menacing sound like a growl of a wolf. Before the sound was out, his muscles arched, twisting away from the feeling. He flipped off his back in a spin so fast it made the image of the cave a blur. By the time he found himself crouched down defensively, clutching Mjollnir in his hand by its handle, he already understood what had startled him.

Loki was leaning against the wall on the other edge of the cave, where the snow gave way to thick steel-gray rocks. Thor stared at his little brother in shock. His trembling hand was reached out toward Thor, his expression pale and anxious.

Loki was the most important thing, but Thor's restored vision and strength catalogued everything else, just in case. His eyes automatically searched for any sign of danger. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. It took him a few seconds to register that there was no danger. His brother's eyes were on him. He was the danger.

Relaxing, Thor looked into his brother's face.

How many times had he seen his brother before? How long had he watched his brother practicing his magic? How many times had he seen how perfectly his little brother could look when he wasn't trying, an easy task for him, to be so attractive without trying. It had happened more than enough times.

Thor may as well have been blind.

For what felt like the first time, Thor truly saw his brother. Loki's face shone like the moon, and his eyes radiated with the color of untainted emeralds. His skin was moon-pale, his hair dark as ebony, long for his age. Loki was wearing some terrible form of blazing armor that burned like heated coals. Thor found himself shying away from his brother's glowing armor. The memory of Surtur and his takeover of Asgard made his head hurt.

Loki moved slowly away from the wall—each step taking about half a second, each step moving with the sound of the wind moving over stones outside the cave. His shaking hand was still outstretched toward his brother.

"Thor?" he asked in a low, calming tone. "Brother? I know it's disorienting, but you're okay. I healed you. You almost died."

Thor saw the tears in the corners of his brother's eyes, the streaks marring his pale face. Loki was the creature who'd been beside him when he was in agony. Loki had been afraid that he would lose his brother, and he almost had.

"Where—" His throat tightened, and he sucked in a painful breath.

Loki chanced a step forward and relaxed when Thor lowered Mjollnir to his side now that he saw there was no danger. "Brother," he repeated quietly, "I know it's a little odd right now, but...give it a moment. Everything will be all right."

Thor knew he probably shouldn't attempt speaking again, but he tried. "Loki, what happened? I…I didn't know where you were. I panicked. Where were you?"

His words came out as a muffled jumble.

"Don't speak," Loki said, appearing immediately at Thor's side. He touched his arm. "You're cold as ice, brother. Here." He reached up and started to unhook the burning armor from his chest and arms, tugging it off. "This'll burn a bit…and I know it's not the most pleasant given what's happened, but bear with me?"

Thor winced as Loki detached the armor and strapped it into him. The transition from cold to hot was uncomfortable, to say the least. His body flared with pins and needles, and he resisted the urge to tear it off and hurl it across the cave.

Loki wrapped the crimson cloak around his shoulders. "There. Is that better, brother?"

"Wha—" Thor coughed painfully, his ribs rattling against the burning armor. "Your arm…Loki, you are burned."

Loki looked down. There was a winding burn up his forearm, turning his pale skin a dark pink. It looked tender, and Thor reached out and brushed the tips of his fingers against it.

"Oh, that." Loki looked at the ground. "The armor…burned me, I guess. It'll heal."

"Are you…sure?" Thor inhaled and tried to quell the growing pain in his ribs. He kept a steady grip on his little brother's wrist, fearing that he would vanish. "Brother, what…where are we going to go now? We can't…go home, so…what are we going to do…?" He tried to keep his voice steady, to keep Loki as calm as possible. He was the older brother, and it was his job to ensure that Loki was all right.

Loki didn't answer him immediately. He stared at the icy cliff walls, searching the light blue ice of Jotunheim.

When he spoke again, his voice was low. "Brother, I think we…have to seek help from the Frost Giants."

"No," Thor said weakly.

"Brother…"

"No. Never. We're Asgardians, Loki. They will never help us."

"Thor." He sounded exhausted and weary, as if he'd aged thousands of years and was trapped in the form of youth. Thor imagined that, in a way, he had; being possessed by a fire jotunn had to be the worst experience imaginable. Being forced to fight his family and kill hundreds. "If we want a chance—any chance at all—of defeating Surtur, for good, then we have to seek help from the Frost Giants. They're the Fire Giants' natural enemies, and if anyone knows how to defeat them, it will be the Frost Giants."

"They won't help us. Not after what I did…" He remembered how all of this had happened; like the arrogant fool he was, he'd dragged his friends and his brother into a world of trouble and nearly started a war.

Loki's eyes softened. "Brother."

He placed the palm of his hand against Thor's cheek. The sensation, the affection and closeness of the touch, sent chills through Thor's spine, cut through the burning sensation of the armor.

"We have to," Loki said in a low murmur. "For Asgard. For ourselves. For Father."

Thor looked into his brother's emerald eyes. In them he saw all the hope and love of a child, and all the wisdom of an adult. And Thor knew, in those moments, that his brother forgave him for all the wrongs he'd done, all the bad things, all the mistakes, and he also knew that Loki loved him with everything he had.

"You are right, brother," Thor said. "We must seek help from the Frost Giants."

"Then let's go."

"Loki…are you cold?" Thor eyed his brother's thin tunic and loose pants, remnants of the clothes he'd worn under the burning armor he'd shed to ensure that Thor fully recovered from his near encounter with death.

He shook his head. "Nope. Like I said six months ago, I'm tougher than you." He flashed Thor a brief grin.

Thor laughed and watched as his breath smoked around his head. "Fine. Then I'll keep my word and let you handle the first Frost Giant."

They shared a laugh, and for the first time in a long while, Thor felt a shot of comfortable warmth shoot through his body, chasing away the doubt and the insecurity.


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


The Frost Giants did not receive them well, as they should've expected. Thrym's son bellowed at them and called them "Asgardian scum" and accused them of siding with Surtur due to the fact that Thor was clad in armor crafted by the Fire Giants, until Thrym came outside to inspect what all the noise was about.

He listened to Thor and Loki's tale without saying a word, then nodded once they concluded. "I had feared Surtur's return when we felt the heat from the direction of Asgard," he said. "I am sorry for your loss…but what does that have to do with your presence here in Asgard?"

"We seek sanctuary," Loki said.

"Never!" Thrym's son bellowed, stepping forward and glaring down at them.

"Be silent," Thrym snarled, and his son took a shaking step back, bowing his head in respect. "My enemies come to me for sanctuary? How curious. However, I suppose that you are at my mercy and if the situation were not dire you would not come to me. Therefore, I shall grant you sanctuary as long as it keeps Surtur out of Jotunheim. Should he enter Jotunheim in search of you, we shall no longer grant you freedom. We will cast you out to protect yourselves. Surely you understand that."

"We understand," Loki said in a quiet whisper.

"Then enter," Thrym said, and he stepped aside to allow the brothers passage. "By my word, as long as you are in my castle, you will be treated as Frost Giants, as members of my court. No one shall raise a hand to you unless you raise one to them."

Thor and Loki shared a look, searching each other for doubts, then stepped into the gates and did not look back when they heard the ice crystals bang shut.


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


Time passed. Thor and Loki were unable to keep track of it. The days were shorter in Jotunheim, and the nights were sometimes so long they consumed two or three days.

They trained constantly. Thor sparred and dueled with some of the strongest Jotun warriors, and Loki practiced with the few sorcerers King Thrym kept safe in his castle. The Frost Giants helped Thor perfect his swings and his dodges, and taught him some moves that he never imagined the hulking Giants could perform so gracefully. Loki spent countless days in the library, searching all the books he could lift and mastering all the spells he could get his hands on: fire and earth, wind and water, ice and shadow, lightning and darkness, and so many others their names slipped his mind.

They were fast learners, and their teachers were silently proud. The Frost Giants tried to keep the pride off their faces whenever their smaller, newer pupils did right, for they feared that if they let the princes of Asgard see how proud they were, they would take advantage of the Frost Giants.

When they weren't training, Thor and Loki slept in their chambers, coiled in each other's arms to keep warm. They took turns watching the door at first, not trusting the Giants. But after a while the brothers were able to fall asleep without worry.

Once it felt that they'd been in Jotunheim for months, Thor and Loki decided they were ready to return to Asgard and drive Surtur from their home, for good this time.

And so, one day later, Loki approached the Frost Giant blacksmiths with the armor of Surtur in his arms.

He held the armor to them and then threw himself on the ground, begging them to transform it into two different sets of armor that he and his brother could use to fight Surtur. The Frost Giants stole a look at him, and after a moment of stunned silence, the eldest said in a booming voice, "When a son of the almighty Allfather comes to us and throws himself on the mercy of his sworn enemies as you and your brother have…we would have to be fools not to agree. Very well, Asgardian. If it is two sets of armor you seek…it shall be done."

Loki lifted his head up. "I…you're serious?"

"Indeed. Have I given you reason to doubt my word?"

"No, no. I just…I mean…thank you."

The blacksmiths waved off his thanks as if it were of no more use to them than his brother's tales of the other realms in the dining halls of Jotunheim, but when Loki looked closer, he saw the dark red eyes of the Frost Giants gleaming with joy; no Asgardian, or Frost Giant for that matter, had ever thanked them.

Two nights later, the blacksmiths entered Thrym's throne room with two sets of armor.

They were beautiful works of art, really. Loki's armor was melded with greens and golds and dark silvers, fastened with leather and metal plates up the arms and protecting the torsos. Thor's was a plate of metal with cloth and leather on the back and legs, bearing the round symbols of his tunic to protect him. The metal plates wound up his arms and ended in bracers. And finally, the Frost Giants had created helmets for them: Thor's made entirely of silver with arcing feather shapes rising from the sides, Loki's fastened of elegant gold with two horns rising from his head like those of a great animal.

"They will protect you from the Fiery One's fire," the elderly blacksmith tells them. "And they will grow and mold as you do. These suits of armor will outlast even the Allfather. One day, when we are battling one another on the fields, these suits of armor will still gleam as they do this day and work just as well. I hope you are satisfied."

"We are," Loki said with a courtly bow. "Thank you."

The Frost Giant blacksmith snorted, but Thor saw his eyes sparkle with something he never knew the jotunns possessed: pleasure.

Thrym towered before them, tall as a statue and just as intimidating. "Remember this, sons of the Allfather," he boomed. "Once you defeat the Fiery One, this temporary truce between Asgard and Jotunheim will be absolved. These past few days will mean nothing to us any longer, and if we should meet again, it will most likely be as enemies. But I hope you will never forget what you've learned here. I know that we shall not forget."

Thor lifted his head and stared the king in the eyes. "We are grateful," he said. "You have shown us hospitality after all we've done, and you have granted sanctuary to the sons of your enemy."

"Were the situation reversed," Thrym said, "I hope it would be the same."

"After today," Loki whispered, "perhaps it might be."

"We shall see." Thrym's wise eyes shifted over the brothers, flickering with faint hope. "We shall see."

He did not bid them farewell. It was not jotunn nature to say goodbye. They simply turned and went away, leaving the brothers in the middle of the throne room with the chance to leave when they were prepared. Their vanishing act left Thor and Loki stunned to silence, and they kept their silence as they placed their armor on.

"Nice feathers," Loki said when Thor set his helmet on his head. His eyes were teasing; a little bit of foolishness was necessary to keep them both sane.

"You looking to start something, cow?" Thor's gaze flickered to the curved horns rising from Loki's head once he settled his own helmet on his head.

Loki rolled his eyes. "Look to start something with the Mighty Thor? I would not dream of it. Do you think me that foolish, brother?"

"How do I look?" Thor asked, ignoring his little brother's question. He shifted his shoulders and studied the metal boots on his feet. He may have been prepared to march into Asgard and face the Fire Giant before, but standing in the new armor crafted by jotunn hands, he felt his courage draining.

"Like a king," Loki answered, his eyes flashing with pride.

Thor gave him a thankful look. His younger brother had always been a mystery to Asgard. While Thor had been eager to spread his wings, fight in battles against griffins and dragons, and go off on exotic adventures, Loki had always been more hesitant. True, he always had Thor's back, but sometimes it felt that he only assisted in times of extreme danger. But after all that had happened, here Loki was, standing tall at his side, prepared to fight.

As if sensing Thor's concerns, Loki smiled, erasing the fire in his eyes and replacing it with affection. "I should let you know," he said in a conspiratorial voice, "that I stole some weapons from the vaults."

He reached into his boot and drew out a thin green-bladed dagger.

Thor threw his head back and laughed. "Loki," he chided, "such a rude way to show your thanks to our guests."

Loki's lips spread over his brilliant white teeth. "Oh, it was just a dagger, Thor. Too tiny for them to use anyway. It would've rusted eventually had it been left to sit there. I'm doing them a favor and taking it off their hands."

Then after a moment of silence, Loki spoke again, confirming Thor's previous thoughts. "I've been by your side the whole time," he said, his voice serious. "You're my brother and my friend. True, we have our moments when we do not see eye-to-eye, but…never doubt that my love for you is genuine."

Thor reached his arm out and patted Loki on the shoulder, staring into his eyes. For the moment, it was just the two of them, the brothers of Asgard, the heirs to the throne, the sons of Odin Allfather and the hopes for the future.

"Now," Loki said seriously, "we have a jotunn to slay."

Thor nodded and turned his attention to the sunrise of Jotunheim. He longed to feel Asgard's sun on his face. Raising Mjollnir high above his head, he asked, "Then what are we waiting for?"

To Be Continued…