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Chapter Text

Helblindi kept pace as Thrym strode towards the bifrost site, his long youthful limbs flashing in the snow flurries.

“Those monsters will kill you on sight!”

“They have codes of honour, just as we have. They are not so savage as you imagine.”

“Think you so?” Helblindi scowled. “I suppose they did not come to destroy our stronghold in revenge for the trespass of but three wayward Jotnar – three they had already slain!”

Thrym stopped in his tracks and spoke sternly to the princeling. “Young one, do you not think that I have considered all this? Have you ever known me to act rashly in anything?”

Helblindi lowered his gaze, anger giving way to uncertainty.

“Is he really my brother? The sorcerer?”

Thrym raised Helblindi’s chin with his fingertips. “You saw as well as I did what happened in the fray.”

Helblindi took a step back and then nodded. “Take me with you then.”

“So I make it back alive only for Laufey to strike me down for endangering his crown prince? Get you back to your dam’s hearth.”

Helblindi was just a speck in the distance when Thrym reached his destination. The wind and fresh snowfall had eroded the markings left by the bifrost, but a faint outline was still perceptible.

Thrym raised his face skywards and breathed in until his lungs were at capacity.

“GUARDIAN HEIMDALL, HEAR ME...”

*~*~*

Laufey’s eyes glinted as the cold light of the stars refracted off the ice pillars of the throne room deep within his stronghold.

“Firstborn, tell me this – where is Lord Thrym?”

“I don’t know,” Helblindi replied, head held high and chin square. “Why, is he not within his own keep?”

“My spies tell me he is not.” Laufey sat back, legs splayed and restless, spidery fingers tapping upon the armrests. After a moment’s contemplation, he added: “I regret nothing so much than that I gave that scheming traitor the raising of you.”

“Lord Thrym is no traitor to this realm!”

Laufey made a sound of amusement. “At least he was not able to teach you his trick of hiding his intentions. You bear the scars of a man, Helblindi, but the open face of a child.”

*~*~*

A small gathering had formed upon the edge of the bifrost comprised of Heimdall, Thor, Loki, Sif and the Warriors Three (the latter four had tagged along uninvited out of curiosity).

Behind Heimdall there stood an eight foot tall Jotun, who observed the argument in progress with a look of attentiveness.

“I say again, Thor, he poses no threat,” the guardian stated, leaning upon his broadsword. “Heimdall sees all, even into the hearts of men.”

“He does not appear to be armed,” Fandral chimed in.

Sif gave him a haughty look. “Fool – their very bodies are weapons! Have you not seen with your own eyes how they call forth spears of ice upon their arms?”

The sound of many hooves announced Odin’s arrival. The Allfather alighted from Slepnir’s back and strode forward to hail the interloper with a look of recognition.

“Hail Thrym of Thrymheim, commander of the eastern armies.”

When the frost giant finally spoke his voice was such a deep rumble that it made the Asgardians’ teeth rattle: “in the time of the Great War I had that title, Odin Spearbreaker. Now we are at peace.”

“Are we?” Odin asked, single eye glittering.

“For now.”

“And what is your business here Thrym – cementing harmony or fomenting war?”

“I am for peace, though your son looks as if he does not share my enthusiasm.”

Thor bristled, Mjolnir gripped tightly in his throwing hand. “Do not listen to him, father. Whatever that monster would say to you is a trick!”

“Silence, foolish boy!” Odin barked. Turning back to the Jotun, he continued in more measured tones: “speak on, Thrym. Do you bear a message from King Laufey?”

“Not from Laufey, it is a request of my own.” In just a few long strides Thrym was before Loki, bowing his head in seeming obeisance. “Prince Loki, I, Lord Thrym of Thrymheim, scion of the high kings of the Jotnar, have come to seek your hand.”

“My... hand?” Loki appeared baffled by the form of address.

“In marriage,” Thrym clarified.

“Ah. On whose behalf?”

“On my own.”

Loki’s mouth fell open in utter shock and the Warriors Three and Thor burst into raucous, disbelieving laughter.

“Why are they amused?” Thrym asked. “Have you other suitors?”

“No!” Loki blurted out, looking scandalized. The warriors behind him continued to guffaw.

“Then consider my proposal. You are a prince of two realms, Loki – who better than you to be a maintainer of our peace?”

Loki blinked, mouth working soundlessly, then took one large step backwards and disappeared.

“Forgive Loki’s rashness, Thrym of Thrymheim,” Odin urged. “There is much he still has to learn about his heritage.”

“What do you mean,” Thor intoned darkly, “his heritage?”

“Ah,” said Odin.

*~*~*

Head reeling with Odin’s revelations, Thor stalked through Asgard’s halls in search of Loki (luckily for him, finding Loki when Loki did not want to be found was something Thor had become adept at).

He did not let the locks on Loki’s chamber door deter him (Mjolnir made short work of them), nor did he fall for the magical ruse that made the room appear empty. He reached out upon the apparently unoccupied bed and grabbed hold of a booted ankle, making Loki yelp and kick out at him as he flickered back into a visible spectrum.

“Brother, we must talk.”

“I am not your brother! I have never been your brother!” Loki hissed, his expression somewhere between fury and utter despair.

“You are a fool if you think that. Can such a small matter as blood unmake bonds of kinship that have been forged for centuries?”

“I am the nightmare we hid beneath our blankets from as children, Thor. I am one of those things you railed at upon the bifrost, whom you declared to be savage and untrustworthy by nature. Were it not for Odin’s glamour my skin would be as his and my touch would freeze you.”

Thor sat down upon the edge of the bed, hands dangling between his knees and back bowed in seeming defeat. “How long have you borne this burden of knowledge alone, Loki?”

“Some weeks... since we went to Jotunheim. One of them touched me and I was not harmed. Father– Odin confessed my true origins when I confronted him.”

“But...” Thor’s pale blue eyes were wide and imploring, “why did you not tell me?”

Loki snorted. “Why do you think!”

The argument followed a predictable course after that – Loki was full of righteous anger and bitter, hurtful words. Thor was loving and contrite, and in the end Loki’s recriminations fizzled out and Thor was able to pull his forever-brother (only half resisting) into a crushing embrace.

“Yet...” Thor finally observed, furrowing his golden brows, “none of this really explains why a man wants to marry you.”

Loki’s cryptic reply was: “have you ever seen a frost giant woman?”

Thor blinked uncomprehendingly for several moments before deciding to put the riddle aside for the time being. Rising from the bed he gave Loki a hearty thump on the shoulder and smiled at him. “At any rate, you must hie to Asgard’s gateway once more. The Jotun stays to await an answer and says he will not move until he hears it from your own lips.”

*~*~*

Loki approached the chamber at the edge of the rainbow bridge to find Heimdall standing with his back to the road, leaning upon his sword with the faraway look in his golden eyes that meant he was scanning locations millions of miles away. Nearer to the archway stood the Jotun, as upright and alert as a sentry.

Loki crossed his arms over his chest as he addressed Thrym. “You have stood here a full day. Why?”

Thrym took a single step forward, forcing Loki to come the rest of the way in bridging the gap between them. “Patience is a quality that comes easily to those who know only changeless winter.”

“You would not come to the castle.”

“I would not suffer the indignity of an armed escort.”

Loki inclined his head to acknowledge the wisdom of this. “You have taken no rest or refreshment.”

“I am not of this realm, I seek no welcome from it – only from you, Prince Loki. Will you give consideration to my proposal?”

Loki made a sound of impatience. “I realise it is different in Jotunheim, but here men do not marry other men.”

Thrym regarded him with what looked suspiciously like pity. “We have a story about the Aesir. We say that millennia ago, in their pride and viciousness they angered a power greater and older than themselves. For this, the greater god punished them by cleaving them in twain, and now they must go about as unhappy, longing things, never knowing what it is that they lack. In our old tongue we called them The Divided Ones.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “The races do not think well of each other – I take your point. So?”

“Give me your hand.”

Loki blinked for a moment before realising that this time Thrym meant it literally and was offering his open palm. Warily, Loki placed his own on top of it.

“Does my touch burn with cold, as it would to an Asgardian?”

“You can see that it does not.”

Thrym brushed Loki’s fingerbacks with the pad of his thumb, calling up whorls of blue. “See how your true colour longs to be summoned forth from beneath this false covering.”

Loki snatched his hand away, flexing it until the blue receded. “No.”

“Will you forever deny your true body’s wants, Loki? You must long to be out of this oppressive sunshine.” Thrym’s red eyes held his gaze. “And you must yearn for another’s touch – will an Asgardian give it to you? Will they allow you to bear and raise your children, as you are now of age to do?”

“My... I am not a milch cow! You know nothing of me or my wants.”

This seemed to amuse Thrym. “Not yet, Prince Loki, but I hope you will allow me to know you better. Regardless of your final answer, come to Thrymheim as my guest.”

“And put myself at your mercy – why should I?”

Thrym considered this for a long moment before making his reply. “Because you need to prove to yourself that what you are is not monstrous, as you have been since raised to believe. And because your brother is anxious to meet you.”

“My brother?”

“Helblindi Laufeyjarson. I have been given the honour of his fostering.” Loki was surprised to discover that Jotun features could exhibit affection. “Do think on this invitation. A great many things will be clearer in Jotunheim.”

With a shallow bow which brought his head level with Loki’s serving as his farewell, Thrym turned and made his way towards Heimdall and the passage home.

*~*~*

“I wish you would listen to reason, Loki...” Thor bellowed over the roar of the snowstorm.

“And I wish you had not insisted on coming along,” Loki called back. “So, clearly, we cannot always have what we want.”

Within view of the bifrost site stood the imposing figure of a very tall Jotun, who leaned upon an ice-frosted pole from which fluttered a banner depicting a roaring bear.

“A guard?” Thor asked.

“An ensign, I should think.”

“Hail, Prince Loki,” the Jotun called in greeting.

“Are you in Lord Thrym’s service?”

“I am,” without elaborating further upon his role (which Loki felt must be that of guide), the Jotun turned and made off through the snow at a rapid pace.

“Talkative, aren’t they?” Thor muttered.

“Some people might find the silence soothing,” Loki commented. To their guide, he called: “is Thrymheim far hence?”

“No,” the Jotun replied. “Not more than thirty rôst.”

When Thor baulked at this Loki shrugged philosophically. “It must seem no great distance to those who are nine feet tall,” he said. Privately he wondered how the natives of this place could navigate in such a landscape, which must shift and change hourly.

*~*~*

“You are most welcome, Prince Loki.” Thrym met them at the entrance of his keep to conduct them within. “And you are welcome too, Odinson,” he added as an afterthought. Thor glared at their host resentfully, accustomed as he was to only the most effusive and obsequious of welcomes.

As he took in their weary and bedraggled state, Thrym asked: “wherefore have you walked all the way when one of you has the power of teleportation and the other of flight?”

“Your guide was on foot,” Loki answered.

“He would have told you the direction if you had but asked him.”

Thor’s glare intensified with the suspicion that Thrym was somewhat amused at his expense. Then he shivered miserably and out of pity Loki cast a discreet warming spell on him.

*~*~*

They were shown to a chamber to take some rest before dinner (Thrym’s servants did in fact try to direct them to separate rooms, but ever-suspicious Thor was having none of this). The suite was large and high-vaulted, but contained little in the way of comfort so far as Thor could see. There were sturdy chairs and a low pallet bed spread with furs. There was no fireplace, but there was a brazier – seemingly for the purpose of providing light rather than heat.

‘You would think they would have the courtesy to provide dry clothes to those who have spent the whole day tramping through frozen wastelands,” Thor groused as he tried to use the meagre heat source to dry his boots.

“Thor, they do not wear clothes,” Loki reasoned, lowering his own bare feet to the flagstones and wiggling his toes. Thor glared at him as if he had gone native.

Loki smiled with seeming concern. “My poor brother – I am sorry to say you shall no doubt be very uncomfortable here.”

Thor looked very petulant indeed at this. “You’re not sorry in the least, Loki.”

*~*~*

Thrymheim’s library was of grey, vaulted stone, but the shelves themselves (unlike most of the furniture Loki had seen so far) were wood – probably to stave off the cold and damp from the books and scrolls housed there.

As Loki entered, Thrym looked up from where he had been examining some papers spread out over a table and greeted him with: “ah, there you are, my prince.”

What is the difference between Thor Odinson and a frost giant? Loki’s mind readily quipped. Frost giants can read.

“Is everything to your liking in the room?” Thrym enquired.

“Everything but that my overly paranoid foster-brother has installed himself in it too.”

“I would ask a boon of your foster-sibling,” Thrym said, crossing to stand nearer to Loki (but not so near that he would appear to loom over his guest). “You would be the best person to communicate it.”

“Yes?”

“The hammer he carries...”

“Mjolnir.”

“Ask him if he will leave it upon the carved stone pedestal in the great hall.”

“Do you fear he will try to wield it against your household?”

Thrym shook his head. “No. It will serve a purpose that he need not know of. Tell him simply that my thanes have heard of its great fame and would like to gaze upon it. Thor need fear no treachery, as he well knows none may heft it but he.”

“What if he refuses?”

“I do not think that he will. Already I see that you are the one who has his ear.”

“Much good that usually does me...” Loki muttered.

“Ah, has he not accepted your heritage yet?”

Loki sighed, wondering if Thrym had hit upon the heart of the matter by accident or design. “In truth, he has... better than I myself, I fear.”

“I think I have found something that will aid you. Come,” Thrym gestured to a slanted reading desk. When Loki approached it he found that the surface was at chest-height to him and the tome resting upon it of such a size as to make it not easily maneuverable at such an angle.

Seeing his uncertainty, Thrym quickly provided a stool and held out one hand for Loki to ascend.

Loki opened the book and perused it, finding it to be partly in a runic script, partly in gothic and partly in a much more primitive looking letter form Loki found unfamiliar, but supposed must be native to Jotunheim.

“It is magic,” he said hesitantly, “but not such as I recognise.”

“Jotun magic uses very different principles to that you have mastered.”

“Are you a sorcerer?”

“No. This book belonged to my elder sibling – a mage of great skill.”

“What became of him?”

“He fell in the Great War.”

Loki glanced up from the pages to study Thrym’s expression, finding sadness there but no anger. “Odin robbed you of your family, and yet you can give hospitality to his son?”

“The war was brought about by the malice and ambition of one – and wily as Odin is, that one was not he.” After one of his substantial pauses, Thrym added: “this realm was never a rich one, nor an easy one to carve out a living in, but it had its treasures, and its dignity. Once.”

“You mean that you blame Laufey?”

“Do not speak his name in these halls, Loki – there are spies among my own thanes. Trust none but myself and Helblindi. And remember that the less Helblindi knows, the less he will have to conceal.”

Loki nodded to show his understanding and then glanced down, wanting to step back onto the floor but wondering how to do so without looking ungainly. Thrym offered his hand again.

“This is humiliating,” Loki huffed, hesitating to accept the offered assistance. “I feel like a dwarf.”

Thrym blinked at him. “Why should a shapeshifter care about his size? Become taller if you wish it, or scorn to alter yourself.”

Loki wondered at the giant’s apparent indifference. “You would not wish me to be of your own stature – my appearance pleases you as it is?”

Thrym’s eyes swept over his features. “You must know how fair you are.”

Loki flushed at the unfamiliar praise. “I am hardly what is considered so in Asgard.”

“You are the image of your sire Fárbauti, and he was the fairest of that age.”

Thrym was studying him now with that evaluating gaze that Loki recognised from his and Thor’s first conference with the frost giants – from the moment just before chaos broke lose. “You say you are not thought desirable in Asgard – have you ever been kissed?”

Loki swelled with indignation. “I am not a child, Lord Thrym.”

“No...” Thrym considered the issue further, “but you must have held yourself apart from them, knowing your difference. You will not have shown them your real form. You will not have taken or been taken – those are joys you have yet to know.”

Loki felt his whole lower half tingle and his loins give a single, powerful throb – it seemed that his body, at least, was keen to acknowledge that it understood Thrym’s meaning. Loki’s mouth opened, but (for possibly the first time in his life) no words came out.

Thrym offered his hand once more and Loki took it between both of his own, using it to draw the lord of Thrymheim closer. Thrym’s hand was large and hard – not rough or calloused, but speaking of a latent strength which had to be formidable. Loki imagined it caressing his bare skin and his body throbbed again.

They watched each other closely for a long moment. Thrym appeared to be curious about whether Loki would continue the overture, but when he did not Thrym simply lowered his head and kissed him.

Dazedly, Loki thought that it had never occurred to him that frost giants knew how to kiss. What had he foolishly believed – that they rutted in caves like animals?

One of Thrym’s hands settled at the small of Loki’s back, the other brushing through his hair. Loki leaned up against Thrym’s broad chest (the lift given to him by the stool made their heights almost comparable) and gripped the Jotun’s shoulders, opening his mouth to feel the other’s tongue flickering against his own. Thrym made a deep and resonant sound in his chest – a sound of pleasure that was somehow intimidating.

When the kiss broke Thrym took a step back as if to remove himself from further temptation.

“Go,” Thrym told him. “For it is almost dinner hour and the Odinson must be hungry as well as miserable.”

Loki nodded, feeling himself stupid with the heaviness of desire. “I will ask of him what you instructed.”

Thrym looked amused. “Then banish the blue from your lips before you do so, or he will not listen.”

This time Loki allowed Thrym to help him to the ground. He then went swiftly from his host, feeling the grain of the stone beneath his bare feet as he walked, and realising, belatedly, that ‘cold’ was a word he understood only because others had told him what it meant.