Asgard had more than satisfied Fjolnir's expectations. He didn't know why his mother had been so anxious about coming; everything had been great so far. Their accommodations in the palace were amazing, he'd made friends right away, and there was so much to explore.
The best part, though, was Asgard's princes. He'd thought for sure that two adult brothers as powerful and important as them would be too busy with serious things to spend any time with a boy from another realm, even if he was their third cousin. He'd been wrong. They weren't like lots of the grown-ups on Vanaheim. They were fun.
Loki was Fjolnir's favorite (despite being just dreadful at snowball fighting). That was good, because it meant that he and Leif didn't argue over which prince they would each pretend to be as they battled imaginary foes in the front garden of the Aesir boy's manor on the outskirts of the city. They had crafted crude approximations of winged and horned helmets out of parchment and glue, and Fjolnir had used a transmutation spell he'd been studying in recent months to get them a little closer to accurate. He couldn't quite change the substance of anything yet, but he could at least make them shiny and metallic for the duration of the game.
At the moment, they were battling ogres (two of Leif's brothers) to protect a peaceful town of elves (the twins—a brother and sister who weren't quite toddlers anymore—and the baby brother). They couldn't be as loud as they liked unless they wanted one of the older sisters to storm outside and yell at them for disrupting their lessons, but it was still a good game.
Halfway through a dramatic death scene after being slain by "Thor," Rolfe shot to his feet with a shout of, "Father's home!" and went sprinting off towards the gate. All three elf civilians squealed in delight and ran after him, and Fjolnir brought up the rear with Leif and Alaric.
The little ones intercepted Lord Volstagg halfway across the garden. He laughed and leapt down from his horse so that they could tackle him. Alaric happily joined in. "Ah, I see we have a guest," said Volstagg from under the pile of giggling children. "Welcome, young son of Freyr! I hope you've all been good hosts."
"Oh, yes, Pabbi," said Jargsa. "I shared some of my favorite tarts!"
"What a good girl you are," said Volstagg, making her shriek in protest when he rubbed his beard against her cheek.
"Look at what Fjolnir did with our helmets!" said Leif, pulling off the silver wings and holding them out for his father to examine. Fjolnir removed his golden horns and held them out too.
"Ah, I see you've been playing the roles of the princes," said Volstagg. Fjolnir thought he made kind of a funny face when he looked at the horns. Were they the wrong shape?
"If you're home already, Lord Volstagg, does that mean they are too?" said Fjolnir. "Mama said they might be gone for days or even longer."
"Yes, they've returned," said Volstagg. "It was a successful quest, all told!"
"Brilliant!" said Fjolnir, while the Volstaggsbarn all clamored to hear the story of their father's adventure with the princes. "I should head back to the palace, then."
"Er—I'm not sure that's a good idea at the moment," said Volstagg. He still had the funny face.
"Why not?" said Fjolnir.
"Prince Loki is...ill," said Volstagg. "I don't think now would be the best time to visit."
"If he's ill then he needs visitors even more!" said Fjolnir. Surely the illness couldn't be too terrible if he'd been fine at breakfast that morning. What could've happened? He started running towards the stables to fetch Hvitfaxi. "I'll see you later, Leif!" he yelled over his shoulder.
"Bye, Fjolnir!" Leif yelled back.
X
Nobody else in the lab was paying Natasha or Clint much attention, now that the intern had already commented on their cyberpunk warrior and space cowboy outfits, respectively. The scientists were testing how well their transporters had done on the mission while Sif and Fandral explained the situation of the four gray aliens to a pair of palace servants.
"So how do you want to play this when we get to HQ?" said Clint.
"Think we should do the debrief like everything's normal?" said Natasha.
"It'd buy us some time. We just hold back on handing over any alien tech or dangerous intel until we talk to Fury."
"And if Sitwell notices the injection site from your translator?" She leaned over and poked at the hairline on the back of Clint's neck. Hers stung a little when she touched it, but at least she could hide it with her hair. Clint's was fully visible and still red and swollen. It didn't really look like a bug bite.
Clint frowned. "Would he buy it if we said we had to get some kind of basic shot to protect against alien diseases?"
"Maybe. But if we put that idea in his head, we might just end up in quarantine for a month."
"There's a good chance Fitzsimmons will want us there anyway."
Natasha sighed. "It's not like they wouldn't have a point."
The door opened and Thor strode in. He made straight for them.
"How's Loki?" said Natasha.
"He's going to be fine," said Thor, beaming. "Thank you for everything you've done for us."
"Glad we could help," said Clint. "Did you want to escort us back to the Bifrost yourself?"
"What?" said Thor. "No, no, I came to tell you that you're to be honored tomorrow at the banquet." He clapped them on their shoulders (Natasha barely managed to keep her footing). "We'll be celebrating our closer ties with Earth!"
Receiving public honors wasn't something spies typically did, but if it made the alien warrior race happy, who was she to say no? "That sounds great," she said.
"If you want to return home in the meantime, you can, or you can stay in guest quarters here in Gladsheim. There will be fresh clothing laid out for you in the style of what you wore when you arrived—or our seamstresses' best guess at it, anyway. Coulson would be welcome at the banquet too for his assistance when Loki and I were on Earth, and..." He glanced over at the other people in the room, and when he spoke again, there was something different about the way the words sounded. He must be using that encrypted language he'd explained on Sakaar before they carried out their plan. "Barton, your family would also be welcome, if you'd like to bring them—it's the least I can do after the risk of how long Sakaar might've kept you from them had we been less lucky."
Clint's eyes lit up, but he looked torn. "Thanks," he said. He reached out and clasped Thor's arm the way Thor was always doing instead of Earth-style handshakes. "I know they'd love to see this place. I'll think about it."
X
Loki knew he was home as soon as he woke up. The air carried a faint smell of apple blossoms and sunshine, and even though his body still ached, he felt better than he had since his and Brunnhilde's initial battle with Maw.
He opened his eyes and was surprised to realize that he was still in Jotun form. Usually the temperature in the palace was oppressively hot and the lighting far too bright, but Eir, or perhaps Gerd or his mother, had ensured that his room in the healing hall would be tailored to his comfort in this form. Heavy curtains had been hung over the normally bare window to keep out most of the light. A soft blue glow to his left drew his gaze. Atop the spindly table beside his cot, alongside a stack of clean linens and a pitcher of water, sat the Casket of Ancient Winters. That must be the reason for the room's temperature. It felt wonderful. He looked down at himself and saw that someone had swapped out the armor he'd worn to Sakaar with a soft green tunic.
A quiet scratching sound from his right made him look around. The corners of his mouth twitched up. Fjolnir Freyrson was sitting cross-legged on a chair a few yards away, head bent over a sheet of parchment he was furiously scribbling on with a stick of colored charcoal. He'd taken his pendant off and hung it from the arm of the chair—it would've been difficult to see to draw in here with half-Ljosalfr eyes rather than half-Jotun. In the few seconds Loki watched, Fjolnir dropped the charcoal he was using into his dimensional pocket and summoned a new one of a different color with barely a pause in his work.
An idea struck Loki that made him grin. Careful not to make a sound, he reached for the pitcher of water. The motion made him wince, but it wasn't too bad. What he had done on Maw's ship seemed to have broken through some of his blocks about frjosleikr. It was about feeling the ice, not sending it mental commands. He dipped his hand into the pitcher and drew out the heat. It was only a few degrees above freezing already, so there wasn't much for him to do.
X
Once he'd delivered his message to Barton and Romanoff and satisfied himself with the lodgings for their new guests, Thor went straight to his chambers to wash up and change into clean armor as Odin had suggested. He wasn't sure Eir would let him in to see Loki if he came back still covered in the smell and grime of battle and Sakaar. He hadn't thought it was so bad, but more than a few of the servants and guards he'd passed had wrinkled their noses or coughed while performing their usual salutes.
He had barely opened his mouth to ask the first apprentice healer where he could find Loki when she pointed wordlessly to one of the doors without pausing in her work. He thanked her and proceeded to the door. He opened it slowly, careful not to make too much noise in case Loki was still asleep. The chill wasn't too bad, but he had to squint to see in the dim light. First, he saw Fjolnir looking around at him from a chair, and then he saw Loki on the cot, sleeping peacefully. The next second, a white sphere collided squarely with Fjolnir's ear and splattered all over him. He shouted and sent his parchment flying. Loki dropped the illusion, revealing that he was actually sitting up in bed and very much awake, enjoying a hearty laugh.
Thor held in his own laugher, watching for Fjolnir's reaction. After a moment of frantically digging snow out of his ear, he froze and stared at Loki. "You—you hit me with a snowball!" he said.
"Did I?" said Loki.
"I have to go tell Mama!" said Fjolnir, bouncing on his chair. "She'll be so excited to start the next part of your lessons." He snatched up his pendant, then shivered and swatted more of the snow away when he transformed back to his half-Ljosalfr form. "Oh!" he retrieved the parchment from where it had fallen and bounded over to Loki's cot. "I made this for you."
"Thank you," said Loki. He looked at whatever was on it and chuckled. "This is very good. I shall treasure it."
Fjolnir beamed and scampered for the door. "Hi, Thor!" he said on his way past.
"Hello, Fjolnir," said Thor, amused. He picked up Fjolnir's vacated chair and moved it to Loki's bedside. He tilted his head so he could see Fjolnir's drawing, which Loki made no attempt to hide. It was a picture of Loki and Fjolnir, both blue-skinned, riding their horses through what looked like a field in the middle of a snowy winter.
"He's not a bad artist for his age," said Thor. He looked at Loki. He really needed to learn more about Jotnar. He had no idea if this shade of blue was a healthy one, and he didn't think Loki would appreciate it if he was always asking. "Should I take it as a good sign that you're already well enough to pull a minor prank on our young cousin?"
"I hope that's the last frjosleikr fever I ever have, but yes."
"Maybe you'll even be able to attend the banquet tomorrow," said Thor hopefully.
Loki's jaw tightened and his brow furrowed a little. "I'm not sure that would be wise."
"Why not?"
Loki was silent for a moment. Thor waited. "Am I remembering right that I reappeared on Asgard in the middle of a crowded market square?"
Thor grimaced. "Yes. Banner said he'd take a look at the transporter to find out why it didn't bring your group straight to the palace. Sif was sure she set the right destination."
Another pause. "Did the people know what I am in your other timeline?"
"Word got out about it in the year after you fell from the Bifrost," said Thor. "Next to everything else going on, I'm not sure they gave it much thought." He fought a grin, at which Loki narrowed his eyes. "By the time Ragnarok was approaching, you'd written a play about your life. I distinctly recall the actor portraying Father describing the day he found you on Jotunheim." Here, Thor stood, held one hand over his heart and the other out in front of him, and tried his best to replicate the performance. "You were merely a little blue baby icicle that melted this old fool's heart."
He yelped when a snowball smashed against his collar. It was made of particularly wet snow, and most of it slid straight down his back on impact. He danced on the spot, trying to shake it out, while Loki laughed. "So cruel," Thor complained, resuming his seat. "The people cheered, you know. It was a very touching production."
"Shut up," said Loki, rolling his eyes. "Do you think it'll be so easy this time? They don't have the shattered Bifrost or my apparent death to distract them. This could complicate any efforts we make towards an alliance with Jotunheim."
"I hope it will be easy," said Thor, "but even if it's not, you'll have me and Mother and Father through all of it."
"I know, Brother," said Loki. He gave Thor a smile that was a bit embarrassed and uncertain. Paired with his simple tunic and the curls he hadn't slicked back, it made him look very young.
Thor felt light and warm despite the chill of the room. Loki was sitting here in Jotun form, smiling. He hadn't even been back in the past a whole month yet, and they'd already come so far. But he wasn't able to enjoy it for long. As had so often been the case when he tried to hold onto his happiness, storm clouds seemed to creep over his heart. His face fell and his shoulders slumped. "I should've planned better on Sakaar. My thoughtlessness got you captured and tortured."
Loki groaned. "Must you force me to be the optimist? You were right when you said there wasn't much time for planning, and I should've been paying attention to what I was drinking in that mead hall. It was also my choice not to retreat and give Maw the slip when I had the chance. Regardless, we all emerged victorious and whole in the end, and Thanos will not learn anything about the Space Stone from me."
That brought Thor's smile back, though it was fiercer this time. He nodded. "Can I get anything for you?"
Loki stretched and shifted his position with only a small wince to betray any lingering discomfort. "I'm sure I can persuade Eir to release me soon, but you could send for some food. I haven't eaten anything since before we went to Sakaar, unless you count the spiked drinks."
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