Forbidden Fruit. Chapter 4.

[teofse]

 

Title: Forbidden Fruit.
Author: Teofse
Rating: probably NC-17 by the time it's done.
Pairing: Fandral/Loki
Genre: Slash. Romance.
Word Count: 2602
Warnings: Unbetaed. This is a WIP. Post Avengers AU. Disregards Thor: The Dark World in its entirety.
Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. No money is being made out of this work.
Summary: He is forbidden fruit to me. He is hopeless longing. He is the most bittersweet dream I've ever dreamed and the one treasure my status as a lowly warrior of this golden realm will never allow me to grasp.

Forbidden Fruit.

 

It's strange to sit here, in the middle of absolute nowhere, surrounded by a veritable wall of clearly agitated Frost Giants and feel nothing but bone-deep numbness. My head spins in helpless little circles as I listen to the allfather's increasingly frustrated refusal to bring Loki here, despite the queen's determined insistence that he must do so.

Their heated argument continues around me as I blink dazedly, staring at them all with the kind of intrigued curiosity I've never had the time to show in a Frost Giant's presence before because each and every one of my previous interactions with this race has been tainted by violence.

They are all as tall as mountains and bluer than the midgardian oceans. Their eyes are an uncomfortable shade of blood-red, framed by thick lashes that somehow manage to make them look fiercer than they are. They wear little and are armed to the teeth, but there is a grace about them that is quite breathtaking to find in such humongous creatures. The small ornaments they carry around their necks, together with the thin straps of richly colored leather that most of them wear coiled around their arms and calves and the hundreds of small, colorful beads they have woven into their hair speak of a race who knows delicate craftsmanship and delights in seeking beauty. Their voices are low and guttural, tone sharp with increasing anger as their frayed tempers begin to unravel in the face of my king's refusal to acquiescence to their demands.

Although my own eyes see them as harmless at the moment, I can't help but look at them through the lens I know Loki will use to judge them. These are the monsters of his childhood nightmares. The bloodthirsty raiders of the nine realms he used to fear so much. This is the enemy Thor has always promised to slay on his behalf, the very same foes we fought in so many imaginary battles as we were growing up, always trying to convince him that he had nothing to fear because we -and by default all of Asgard- could prevail over these beasts, keeping him safe and out of their reach forever. My heart pounds harder with the knowledge that we have now failed to deliver that early promise, one of the very first we ever made to him. We can not keep the Jotun away from Loki because we have no moral right to try, and they clearly want him. It is pretty obvious to me that they will not renounce him, if he lives. They will fight tooth and nail to earn a place in Loki's future, just as the allfather and Thor and even I, myself, are fighting, and not a single one of us, none, holds enough moral high ground to stand in their way. At least not on principle.

This is the seemingly loving family my prince never knew he had. His mother, his real mother, and two younger brothers to boot. These creatures' carry the same blood that runs through Loki's veins. That is an undeniable fact that gets hammered deeper and deeper within my psyche the longer I'm exposed to their Queen's proud and graceful presence for I can see traces of my beloved sorcerer in most of her gestures and posture. In the tone of her voice. In her uncompromising behavior and the sharp intellect behind her every argument and poisoned barb.

Loki may not look anything like either prince Helblindi or his younger sibling, Byleistr, who is standing right beside him, but he's indisputably a much shorter, male version of their mother and this simple truth has already turned him into something that has always terrified him. Something he'd never wanted to be. Something he may have been trying to murder when he chose the horror of the abyss over the forgiveness of Asgard all those many moons ago.

I'm in shock and I'm exhausted. But at least I'm already past afraid, bewildered, outraged and even furious. I have finally come to some sort of terms with something that Loki himself won't be able to accept quite so easily: there is plenty of blame to be handed out around here, but very little of it belongs to these creatures, if any. Whatever reason they had for placing a babe at the foot of their most sacred relic in the mist of an inter-realm battle, they hadn't done it with the intention of either murdering or losing the child forever. They had done it to protect it. I stare at the soft white blanked the queen's blue fingers are clutching tightly enough for her cobalt-colored knuckles to have turned as close to white as they possibly can and don't know what else to feel except... sorrow.

I feel sorrow for us all in equal measure. My heart aches for the allfather, who is at fault in all this mess, but who is also clearly struggling against his instinct to lift Gungnir and whisk us all back home. He can't bring himself to do it, though, because we have already exhausted every other avenue and this is our last recourse. Loki is dying, that's the plain and simple truth. Odin can not afford to halt all negotiations and walk away, leaving our demanding foes stranded here forever without any possible means of ever reaching the child he stole, but loves so deeply, that he's willing to stand here and face what must be his worst nightmare: an outraged mother growling resentfully in his face, threatening to claim his youngest child as her own, steal him away from him at the eleventh hour, thus leaving Asgard as heartbroken as his actions have forced Jotunheim to be.

I feel sorrow for Thor too, who is staring at his royal counterparts with the kind of defensive defiance of a man who is grimly attempting to protect a treasured possession from a pack of hungry beasts. Brothers... Loki has two younger brothers who seem as ready as their mother to step into the breach created by Thor and Loki's painful estrangement. It must be hard for my dear friend to cope with the idea that Loki is no longer his alone to spoil and protect and fight with. Loki is not even his at all. He's nobody's really, except maybe Frigga's. For her love was the only one Loki cared enough about to accept before his final collapse, and that makes her the only one with any right to claim him at this point.

I feel sorrow for the Jotun queen, too. This strange, tall and slender creature, who looks so very imposing and fragile at the same time that I can't help but think of her centuries-long heartbreak as she mourned a child she thought long dead. A child who was raised to hate her and her kin. A child who has now murdered his own father and whose unlikely survival she's learned about almost in the same breath as the information that he's languishing in his deathbed once again, ready to be forcibly removed from her grasp a second time.

But I feel sorrow for Loki most of all. Because, although he is at the very center of the actions that have brought all of us together, everyone is far too busy throwing accusations around and suspecting the other of some new form of unthinkable future betrayal to remember how much Loki will despise the very idea of being brought to this realm in order to be treated by a bunch of strangers who will no doubt terrify him. These Jotuns may be his family. They may have always mourned his absence and be even willing to heal him and carve a place for him in their lives, but they are nothing short of monsters in his eyes. He can not be brought here alone. He can not be allowed to wake up surrounded by enemies and believe himself abandoned by us once more. He can not be forced to face this: his greatest fear, without our full support. I will not let him.

The queen is adamant about having Loki brought here at once, deaf to the allfather's patient explanation of how unstable his son's health is and how an inter-realm trip via Tesseract could possibly kill him. She lets out a pained keen that brings about a hundred icy stalactites crashing to the floor around us every single time Odin mentions the possibility of Loki's demise, but doesn't relent in her demand that he's brought here, regardless of the danger.

She is clearly furious and suspicious and determined to hear not a word about allowing her firstborn to remain under the care of Asgard's royal healers. Her argument that he is a sorcerer, that he is her kin, that whatever ails him deeply enough for the Aesir to be unable to put to rights must be something intrinsically linked to his Frost Giant heritage and, therefore, can only be treated here, where they have the right environment, trained professionals and the natural resources necessary to deliver the care every Frost Giant needs is valid indeed, but useless in this particular situation because bringing Loki here would be the worse mistake we could ever make.

Odin's face is turning more thunderous by the second and the fact that he's being forced to acknowledge that her reasons for refusing to come to Asgard are the very same ones that have brought us here in the first place isn't soothing his wounded pride at all. He's determinedly refusing to put Loki's ailing body through the trauma of interstellar travel, demanding that the queen and a small entourage of guards and healers accompany us back home, but that plan is being constantly shot down by the Frost Giants, who keep arguing against it in ever-widening circles, wasting our precious time and, more importantly, Loki's.

“I realize you wish to have your child under your roof, your Highness, but since we're honestly convinced that he will not survive the trip, and his survival is our prime motivation for being here, I can already assure you that the allfather will not be bringing the prince across in his current condition. You may be willing to argue the point until Ragnarok itself arrives but I, myself, am no longer prepared to sit here and allow any of you to keep wasting what could very well be Loki's precious last hours on petty arguments. Your son may be exhaling his last breath as we speak. This isn't the right time to squabble over 'where' he should be when you finally deign to aid him. Let's leave that fight for later. You'll have plenty of time to blame each other about how and why Loki has been brought down so near his end when he's on the mend. We have to save him now, though, or neither of you will have a trickster to argue about for much longer.” I finally find enough courage to growl into the melee of enraged demands, resentful accusations and suspicious deal-making that consumes both monarchs' attention, and every single being present halts whatever they've been doing in order to stare at me with similar expressions of astonished befuddlement. They're all clearly shocked by the notion that I, an acknowledged nobody with no rightful claim to my beloved sorcerer, have had the actual gall to raise my voice against the current state of affairs and it is clear by the look on her face that the queen of Jotunheim isn't favorably impressed by either my words or my actions.

“What right do you have to speak thus, warrior? It is not the place of a soldier to meddle in the affairs of the crown.” She speaks at last, making me shiver with the look of sheer dislike she throws my way.

“Fandral has more right to speak about Loki's well-being than you, or I, Farbauti. His actions saved my son's life when my own couldn't. He was Loki's lover once and therefore knows his heart better than most.”

“Is that so? Correct me if I'm wrong, allfather, but I've heard the rumor that this warrior has been everyone's lover at least once and, even if that makes him an expert with regards to the secrets kept by plenty of hearts indeed, it still doesn't give him the right to interfere in the affairs of his betters.” She replies unkindly, raking my rigid frame from head to boots with a look of deep contempt.

“That doesn't make his words any less true, though. Loki's health is too fragile to make the trip to Jotunheim. I will oppose every course of action you suggest that requires him to be transported here. You must come to Asgard, if you intend to aid us at all, Farbauti.”

If looks could kill all by themselves, then both the allfather and I would have dropped dead at that very second, victims of the poison pouring forth from the crimson-colored stare of our ferocious host.
“Very well, then. I shall prepare for traveling to Asgard at once, but I will not place my people in jeopardy just because you claim I can trust you. I demand your firstborn and heir to stay behind as guarantee of my party's safety. He will be treated in accordance to his station and allowed to return to Asgard as soon as we return. Your failure to grant me this simple request will be grounds for my refusal to aid you altogether. Do not forget that I have lived two thousand years mourning my firstborn already. I will not enjoy turning my back on him at this point, but I will not risk the lives of so many beloved members of my court and family for his benefit, either.”

Odin bristles at the implied accusation of deceit she isn't even trying to conceal and I tense when he takes a single step forwards and opens his mouth to speak only the Norns know what words. Thor steps forwards before the allfather's rising temper can do any damage, though, and his tongue is, for once, faster than his father's. His courage remains, as always, truly unlimited and the generosity of his heart brighter than the very stars that have begun to shine above our heads.
“I will remain here, in Jotunheim, then. Thank you, my Lady, for your kind invitation.”

“Thor...”

“Fear not for my sake, father. Staying behind is a small enough price to pay in exchange for my brothers' health. Do not forget that these Jotuns must have souls worthy of Loki and that makes them trustworthy enough for me. I will return home when the queen's party arrives back, safe and sound. Please tell mother not to worry overly much on my behalf and excuse my absence from our trickster's bedside, if he cares enough to inquire about my whereabouts upon waking.”

The queen's proud head turns ever so slightly to the side, all the better to study Thor's earnest features through her narrow, crimson eyes even as she snorts with enough amused scorn to flay the skin off his back.
“I see why they call you brave, child. Nobody has ever dared to both 'question' and 'approve' the worth of my soul to my face before. You will live in interesting times indeed, once you're crowned king of Asgard, for with such unwise tongue you shall offend every leader and high dignitary in the nine realms before your crowning banquet is over. Hold onto your heart, though. For that, and that alone, appears to be golden.”

 

TBC

Chapter 5

Chapter 3