Fic Hamartia Chapter 8: Unexpected Answer

[bookishwench]

Less than an hour later, a very sullen Loki was sitting astride his horse. Hours passed while he watched Thor’s mount clomping through the dense underbrush along a path that the crown prince swore was a shortcut to the dire monster that was ravaging the farmland of the north. Loki was hungry, he was nursing a headache from too little sleep, and above all he was annoyed. If that last bit was expressed by random nuts, branches, and the occasional bird dropping landing on Thor’s head with slightly too much precision for it to be coincidence, the golden-headed son of Odin didn’t seem to notice, which put Loki in an even worse temper.

“How much further is this Norns-forsaken shortcut of yours?” Loki yelled, making his horse start so much he nearly fell off.

“We are nearly to the half point, brother,” Thor called cheerfully over his shoulder. “I know you long for the thrill of battle as much as I do, but be patient!”

“I long for the thrill of Sif’s shapely thighs,” Loki muttered under his breath. “If we ever get out of here, I am going to concoct vengeance so sweet that the bards will write of it with awe and terror.”

Thor blithely continued on, completely oblivious. Loki’s stomach growled so loudly that his horse snorted at the sound. Thor had managed to eat Loki’s entire breakfast and there had been no time to replace it before they left.

The day passed slowly. By the time noon arrived, Loki hated everything: the stinking horse, the blazing sunlight, his grumbling stomach, and most especially his brother. He snarled to himself, repeating internally along with every clip-clop of his horse, “I-hate-this-quest-I-hate-this-quest-I-hate-this-quest…”

“Brother! Do you think it is time to stop and eat yet!” Thor called gaily over his shoulder.

“YES!” Loki bellowed back, startling several large birds from the trees.

“Fine!” Thor said, bringing his horse to a halt near a small stream and hopping down.

Loki barely managed to suppress a snort of rage as he alighted, then tied his reins to a nearby bush.

“What do we have to eat?” Loki asked.

“I thought you would tell me,” Thor said, looking confused.

“Thor, you are the one who packed the saddlebags!” Loki shouted.

“Oh,” Thor said, coloring slightly. “That’s right. In my excitement to do battle, I forgot about such paltry concerns as food.”

Loki pressed both hands to the sides of his head in frustration and narrowly avoided fratricide.

“Can you not look for some berries or aught else that might slake our hunger?” Thor said. “You know about that sort of thing.”

“It’s the wrong season for berries,” Loki snapped.

“Can’t you use magic to make them appear?” Thor asked.

“No, I cannot!” Loki said. “There are rules to this sort of thing, and the natural world doesn’t like to be forced to bear fruit before its time.”

“What about your pocket whatsit?” Thor asked.

Loki closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on how upset their mother would be if he rearranged Thor’s limbs.

“My ‘pocket whatsit,’ as you so charmingly call it, doesn’t include food since it tends to spoil quickly for reasons I have yet to understand,” Loki said.

“That’s disappointing. You really should remedy that, brother. I suppose we can hunt for small game and then roast it,” Thor said. “It may take precious time away from our quest, though. Perhaps we should simply press on through hunger to arrive the more speedily at our journey’s end.”

“Do we at least have water?” Loki asked.

“Of course,” Thor said, rummaging through his bag. “There! One for you, one for me.”

Loki swiped the bottle out of his hand and uncorked it. It wasn’t much, but at least his stomach wasn’t rumbling quite so loudly.

“Thor, you said hours ago that we were more than halfway there,” Loki said. “How far are we now?”

“Oh, we should reach the farmlands by nightfall,” Thor said, rubbing stray drops of water from his mouth.

“Nightfall? You intend to fight this beast in the dark?” Loki said.

“I hadn’t considered that, but I suppose so. Why not?”

“Why not indeed,” Loki said, shaking his head. “Fine. If we are to be roasted before moonrise, we might as well get on with it.”

Loki leapt back into his saddle, stuffing the bottle into a pocket of his cloak and spurred his horse onward with a burst of magic-enhanced speed that was more than any horse, save Sleipnir, could hope to match. In moments, he had left Thor far behind. It was like being able to get a deep breath of air for the first time in hours. Blissful, Loki shut his eyes for a moment, feeling the wind against his face.

That was why he didn’t see the hole.

Both Loki and his horse screamed as they tumbled downwards. Instinct was the only thing that saved them as Loki automatically cast a spell to soften their landing, but they both had the jolt of their lives.

“Wonderful,” Loki said, and the horse snorted at him. “Oh, shut it. You didn’t notice the hole either, did you.”

They appeared to have tumbled into the remains of an old, dried-out well. The bottom was sandy, and the sides were ludicrously smooth. It was like being trapped in a bottle.

“THOR!” Loki yelled. “THOR, YOU GREAT BLITHERING OAF! GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME BEFORE I CURSE YOU, YOUR CHILDREN, AND YOUR BEARD!”

Absolutely nothing happened except that the horse decided to show his displeasure by producing a truly spectacular amount of manure. Loki gave the beast a look of disgust, but the horse merely ignored him.

Taking a deep breath, Loki tried to decide whether or not he should teleport the both of them out of the hole. He didn’t like the idea since it would significantly deplete his store of magic right before a battle. But even if Thor did chance upon them, he wasn’t likely to have brought enough rope to pull both his brother and a war horse out of a forty-foot well, and that was if he even chanced to pass by this exact spot, which wasn’t likely. Loki did have a wide variety of odds and ends stashed in his pocket universe, including rope, but he would need to levitate it out of the hole and blindly find something solid to attach it to, knot it securely, and then climb out, followed by pulling the horse out by himself. He looked at the horse, which was still regarding him judgmentally, wondering if he should just leave it down here for now.

“No,” Loki said with a resigned sigh as he patted its nose. “It wasn’t your fault. We both get out.”

A green shimmer obscured horse and rider from view, then they reappeared safely above. Loki felt the telltale signs of the strain of hauling such a large load that far. He would need to conserve energy for whatever the blasted thing was they were supposed to slaughter.

“Come on, you,” Loki said to the horse, which had begun chewing on some clover. “Not one word of this to my brother, understand?”

The horse whickered as though pointing out exactly how stupid of a statement that was and set off at a mild trot, rider and mount keeping their eyes peeled for any other obstacles. Loki couldn’t help thinking it was odd a well would be here, in the middle of nowhere, with no signs of habitation around. He supposed it must have been very old and the cottage it had once supported had disappeared centuries ago—unless it hadn’t been a well but a booby trap. That would explain the lack of water and the abnormally smooth sides. He frowned, but continued on, and eventually his brother caught up to him.

“Loki!” he called out, with a level of enthusiasm Loki thought should be illegal in every realm. “Did you see that great hole back there?”

“I am quite thoroughly acquainted with it,” he said.

“I nearly fell in. Odd place for a well, is it not?” Thor said, riding abreast of him and nearly shoving Loki into a bush accidentally. Loki’s horse, who really had been through more than any mount count be expected to stand in a single day, expressed his displeasure by stopping.

“Ehm,” Loki said, “we appear to have a problem.”

“Your horse isn’t lame, is it?” Thor said, stopping his own horse. “What have you done?”

“Nothing!” Loki all but screamed, and the horse bucked once and deposited his rider on the ground.

“Perhaps we should rest here,” Thor said delicately, and the mere fact that he had finally realized that Loki was seconds away from exploding, possibly literally, was enough to convince him to agree.

“Fine,” Loki said, swatting a fly out of his face. “We can make camp here for the night and continue in the morning. It will be dark in another hour or so, and as we don’t know if there are any other holes in the area, I would prefer not plummeting into another one in the darkness.”

“I would dearly love to face the monster tonight, but you make a fair point,” Thor said, swinging himself down from his mount.

Loki lit a fire. Unfortunately, they had nothing to cook over it. Thor attempted killing a few squirrels, but in the fading light they were impossible to catch, and he quickly gave it up as a bad job.

“My marksmanship is poor this night,” Thor said, shaking his head. “I am ashamed of myself.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Loki grumbled as he unrolled a blanket from his saddle, his own stomach growling loudly in protest. “You would have needed to catch at least thirty of those things to even put a dent in your insatiable hunger.”

“I do have rather a famous appetite,” Thor said with a grin. “I believe I will try to sleep, the faster to let morning come, and with it, the glory of battle.”

“If these blasted flies even let us sleep,” Loki said, swatting at another one as he laid down on the ground and tried to find a spot that didn’t have a huge rock digging into his spine.

Thor didn’t seem to have the same problem. In only a few minutes, he was snoring so loudly that Loki wondered that the ground didn’t split open.

Hours passed. Loki, unable to sleep, grew steadily more bored—never a safe situation. He drummed his fingers and thought of what he would rather be doing with Sif. That didn’t make him any more likely to sleep, so he eventually sat up and stared into the smoldering remains of their fire, trying to make the smoke take on different forms: a dragon, a castle, a horse, a mermaid who had Sif’s features. His magic was already recovering from the earlier adventure that had sapped him, and while he wasn’t quite at full strength, he still had enough power to cause a bit of very modest mischief to amuse himself.

Loki rarely slept near Thor. As princes, they had never had to share a room, and he was glad of it since Thor not only snored but had a tendency to talk in his sleep. A thought occurred to Loki, and he grinned.

“Amuse me, brother,” he murmured quietly, a soft green glow leaving his fingertips and hovering over Thor’s still-sleeping form. “Tell me something that I do not know.”

“The wheat will not serve this year. It is too scant. Father says we must buy more from Vanaheim. A shipment will arrive next month,” Thor said in a detached, flat voice.

This was indeed most likely true, Loki thought. It had indeed been a poor year for wheat, and Vanaheim was a logical choice to remedy the situation. No one had bothered to tell him about the trade, but then that was nothing new.

“What more?” Loki asked.

“Fandral has bedded Inga but found her wanting. He will not bother with her again”

Loki’s eyebrows raised. He had observed Fandral with the red-haired daughter of one of the court several times, but not in the last week. This was a useful bit of information to tuck away for potential use someday. One never knew what opportunities might be unlocked with the merest hint of blackmail, and accusations of an illicit relationship could well ruin her opportunities for a future marriage. He continued to listen with renewed interest.

“Go on,” Loki said. “What else do I not know, brother?”

“My ankle stings from the new ink upon it.”

If Thor was sporting a new tattoo, Loki knew nothing of it, but it could easily be hidden beneath his riding boots. This was particularly amusing since he was well aware their father and forbidden Thor from adding any more permanent decorations to his skin, calling the markings crass and fit only for brigands and peasants. Loki decided to see if he could catch a glimpse of whatever Thor had scribbled on himself.

“Very good,” Loki said, thinking perhaps he should leave well enough alone. Three queries was a good number for a spell like this, and the enchantment might weaken if he pressed it further. Each question went deeper into the sleeping person’s psyche, producing richer results, but if one delved too deep, the truthfulness of the reply was less certain. However, Loki’s curiosity was piqued, and he decided to push one more time.

“Once again,” Loki said, smiling. “Tell me one more true thing, and then sleep deeply and well, my brother.”

“I love Sif. She is fairer than the sun itself.”

Loki felt the color drain from his face, and despite the warm night air, he shivered. Thor knew Loki’s heart belonged to Sif, though they had not spoken of it for decades, but he undoubtedly was unaware that they had become lovers. Jealousy kindled in Loki’s brain, burning into the pit of his stomach like poison. He had always been second best to Thor, and more times than he could count, his older brother had claimed for himself whatever Loki had wanted: the best stallion from the royal barns, the best treasures from their adventures, the best position at feasts, the best place in their father’s esteem.

Thor had gone quiet. Loki glared at his sleeping form.

“She is not for you,” he said, spitting out the words.

Thor rolled over and continued to snore.

Loki spent a sleepless night staring up into the branches overhead and watching the slow path of the stars as they moved across the sky until morning came. His jaw clenched in defiance, and as the sun found him, he looked haggard and bitter. When dawn came and Thor drew on his boots, Loki noticed the dark blue image of an eagle marking his brother’s ankle, the skin still pink from the recent tattoo. He said nothing.

Not more than five minutes after Thor awoke, the monster crashed through the trees towards them, screaming in a voice like armor being ripped asunder. Thor raised Mjolnir, grinning, ready for a fight, but there was none.

Instead, Loki had gotten silently to his feet, spread his fingers wide, and a bolt of green magic shot forward towards the creature. The single motion made it explode, splattering the foliage with gore. The forest went silent.

Thor stared at his brother, but Loki said nothing. He mounted his horse and left, heading back towards the palace, leaving Thor standing in the clearing where they had slept.

“I still say that’s cheating,” he mumbled to himself.