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Chapter Text

Thor looks around, limbs numb from the snow they fell into. It's packed hard, and he struggles to pull his arms free. It has all been a blur; Father’s death and then Hela’s arrival, the Bifrost, the attack that dropped them on Jotunheim. Jotunheim, of all realms. 

He looks around, trying to find the source of the gasping breaths and grunts amidst the white landscape. 

Snow falls from the sky, and there are distant mountains on all sides. Closer, there are shards of ice that reflect the absent sunlight so cleanly they appear to have a slight glow. 

“Loki?” Thor calls, once his upper body is free and thawing. “Brother?” 

An uncertain, low keen makes Thor work more urgently to extract himself; has Loki been injured?

“Loki!” Thor manages to haul himself out of the snow. He cannot feel his legs very well, but he drags himself towards the sounds until he sees Loki. 

Loki is out of the snow completely, and Thor doesn't need to wonder how. His skin is a dull, dark blue, and the fingers of both his hands are sharp as they dig into his face and draw blood. 

He stares at his reflection in the icy structures until Thor speaks. 

“Loki, are you well?”

Thor has known Loki is Jotun for years, but had never been told he has such a form. His black lashes are stark, surrounded by darker blue etchings marking his face. It looks almost the same as his regular appearance with the clothes covering most of him, though the face and hands are difficult to ignore. 

“Thor… I don't…”

Thor grimaces and puts his hands on Loki’s, gently pulling them away from where they are buried. 

“Loki…” Thor puts his hands against Loki’s ribs to slip into a hold. The snow is cold beneath his knees. “Don't hurt yourself.”

With the fragility of the snow around them, Loki shakes in his grasp. He brings his arms up and clutches at Thor's back with sharp hands. It feels as though he is trying to pull Thor away, more than anything. 

“Thor. Look at me.”

Thor places a hand on the back of Loki’s head. His hair is the same as it as always been. “I saw,” he comforts. “You’ll be hale.”

An amused cackle breaks through the air and Thor locates the source: Hela, still buried to her waist some distance away. 

“Realm of the frost giants.” Hela barks a laugh. “And we’ve found one already.”

Thor holds an arm around Loki's torso, covering him but also trying to keep him safe from her should she attack. They are in no state to handle an attack. 

Loki’s breaths get more difficult to listen to.

“I didn't know he picked up a runtling.” Hela jeers. Her legs are still buried in snow, and she stops trying to claw the snow away to point at them both. “And what are you supposed to be? You said you were brothers! You look nothing alike.”

Loki snarls, and the skin of his lips draw back to show teeth and gum. They're sharp teeth, and even his lips are black in this form. Thor does his best to ignore the dread dripping down the back of his mind, drop by icy drop.

“We are brothers,” Thor denounces, “regardless of what you may think.”

“He's a frost giant —don’t tell me Asgard lost control of this pathetic realm.” She tilts her head in false consideration, “Or is he actually a slave, and you're set on calling him brother?” 

“He's not—” Thor cannot conceive such a thought. “Why are you so horrible? We have no quarrel with you!” 

She laughs. “You stole my throne, and dropped me on this pitiful realm! Your father—”

“ Our father.”

Hela sneers, “He’s no father of mine!” 

A breath is stuttered behind him and Thor tightens his vice grip on his brother. When he looks, Loki has his sights on Hela, and is overtly struggling for breath. 

Thor remembers a time when Loki rejected their father as well. Strange, he thinks, for it to happen twice. 

Not unexpected, for even Thor considered it, once. But now Father is dead, and there is no rhyme or reason to such a declaration. 

No, Thor hasn't been able to face him in their grief. Instead of denouncing him, Thor had run. 

“Loki,” Thor holds his face within his hands, “Loki, Loki, Loki, look at me, you need to breathe.”

Loki's eyes move from Hela to Thor, vitriol in them. He struggles for breath like a soldier wounded in battle, one whose lungs are pierced by an enemy’s blade. For a moment Thor wonders if Loki had been injured in their fall to this realm, but there are no signs of injury, no blood beyond the healing spots on his face, and the red staining Loki’s fingertips. 

“We need to get off this realm.” Loki wheezes. His hands pull the thin leather fabric of his clothes tight in tense fists. “Or I'm stuck like this.”

“How are you stuck—”

“I don't know!” Thor's arms fall away as Loki pushes at him. Even on the ground with hands  and knees in the snow Loki looks more at ease than when Thor shows him concern. 

Loki looks to the ice mirror and turns back to Thor. “We need to leave. Bifrost isn't an option.”

Thor grimaces, remembering that Skurge is in charge of the Bifrost. Without the ability to observe the realms, the Bifrost’s attention only remains on one realm. Without contact, they cannot have Skurge shift it from Earth to Jotunheim. 

Hela has almost dug herself out. Her voice is high, and cranky. “What do you mean ‘the Bifrost isn't an option’? It's Asgard’s greatest asset, as the rightful Queen, it should be an option.”

“As the current King,” Loki says, “it's not.”

She barks a laugh. “You?”

Thor sighs awkwardly. They're both wrong. Thor is the heir, therefore Thor is the rightful ruler of Asgard. 

“I should kill you both, snivelling worms.”

“You'll never get off this realm.” Loki threatens with a shaky voice, but she does not contest his words. She seems to accept this truth. 

“Then I destroy it, or we make a deal.”

“No,” Thor snaps at the demoness. “Why should we?”

“I can kill you now, rather than d-delay it.” Hela pulls herself out of the snow, and looks a disturbing sight with the snow layered into her hair, and her teeth starting to chatter. 

Her arms shiver as she attempts to summon a long, black sword, and they shake more as the blade cracks and falls to the snow. 

Jotunheim’s frost is ill-famed and fabled. The temperature cannot be withstood by beings of most other realms, and Thor feels it settle into his own bones as well. They will need to hurry. 

“A bargain,” Loki suggests. Thor turns to Loki when he speaks, surprised that he would agree to such a thing. His face is healed, but Thor sees the way his eyes flutter around, and knows how Loki speaks when in pain. “A bargain must have conditions.”

She grins, wider than sane. “You seem clever. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

Chapter Text

Loki cannot sense rifts between the realms, but he can see them, jagged and colourful, thin veins of reality found in hairline breaks of rocks or mountains unlikely to move over centuries. They carve spaces for themselves, uniting the Nine Realms together in a cross-stitched tapestry, threading the constellations of one planet to any other in the array. 

The paths that cross Jotunheim are often linked to caves, so that is what they look for. 

They make their way across the fields of snow, Thor between him and their sister as if it would ever make a difference. As if any of them haven't been mistreated by Asgard, as if Loki is his brother and needs his protection.  

As if Thor ever provided it when Loki was in the condition to beg. 

It's been some time since he has been to Jotunheim, let alone explored the realm. It's not as cold as it used to be, nor as windy. He doesn't know if that is an effect of his own form, or the seasons. 

He thinks about it, of course, now that he has turned away from the first glance of his reflection. His reflection seems an unfair misrepresentation of a face he had never seen before. 

He sees his reflection again as they near the mountains—covered in snow and ice so pure they stand in fine sleets reflecting everything around. 

The mountains of Jotunheim give the impression of a labyrinth, made worse by the endless ice in all directions. 

Every time he catches a hint of blue in the corner of his eye he wonders if it is a monster, or just himself. 

Kill it, he thinks, kill it, kill it, kill it. 

But they see no other signs of life as they walk through the valleys and climb the iced cliffs—neither a speck of green nor any creatures that breathe. 

They see no caves, no sources of food.

There is only Loki, and his reflection. 

Thor shivers beside him. There is no warmth on this realm either—no sunlight, nothing that can comfort, nothing that can be burned, only snow. 

Thor's cloak wraps around his shoulders, and the rich fabric is stiff with frost. His beard looks frozen too, yet he doesn't look as pale as Hela, and he doesn't rub his arms like she does. He doesn't drag his legs as terribly as her, even though Thor had said his joints feel they would cease moving soon. 

Her clothes are evidently too thin, and Loki has little to offer even if he were to want to. 

We’re the same, Loki thinks of her, almost. 

A monster raised by Odin and cast out, though for different reasons. 

He treads with Hela warily, aware that she is Thor's true blood. Aware that he is not. 

She does not speak to them, and they have no need to speak to her. Their goals are clear; their truce is sealed. They travel in silence. 

Jotunheim is a dead realm, nothing but a devastated landscape that still stands. Cold, heartless, cruel, it is a frozen remnant memorialising war, ruin and death.

Loki thinks he is the same. If Jotunheim is a dying realm, what's one more frost giant for the ice?

Even if he starves, he does not truly think the cold will kill him. Though the frigid temperature threatens the other two, it passes over him, and all he thinks is that he does not want Thor dead. 

What little he does have is his own cape, currently stored away. He does not want to give it to Thor when Hela needs it more, so he keeps it to himself, silently. 

“Is that a cave?” Thor whispers. He looks to Loki for guidance, as if he had not thought Loki dead a day ago. 

He looks to Loki for guidance, because Loki sees better in the snow. He is reminded of his change in skin and holds his heart still, begging it to be patient. It will go away, he swears to himself. This skin is merely keeping you alive, for now. 

And Loki has ever been kept alive.  

Loki looks where Thor looks, knowing his limbs are too stiff to risk pointing. 

It is a cave. A small one, tucked between two rock faces of the mountain. 

Loki sees no iridescence exuding from within, but they'll need to enter to be sure. If there is a rift, they can leave this realm, and no one will freeze to death. 

The cave is large enough to shield them from most of the harsh wind. It has to be enough for them to recover, Loki thinks, or they will not be able to continue searching a rift for long. 

Loki brushes snow away with his boot and helps Thor slowly lower to the damp floor. The cave’s shelter will have to be enough. 

The walls of the cave are close, and reflect the small space with a contorted tilt. Loki ignores the scene they make on the surfaces, he ignores the way his skin crawls when he looks down at his own hands—he can warm the space with a small fire, but there is nothing proper to burn. 

There is a dark blue algae tucked in the cave corners, and Loki wonders if that, at least, is edible. He has no appetite, but perhaps Thor is starving enough to eat with a frost giant sitting beside him.  

“Loki.” Thor groans, low. He's concerned. “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing in particular.” Loki lights a small fire in his palm, and then puts it out. “You should try to rest.”

Thor shakes beside him, wrapped in his deep red cloak. His teeth clatter together, and Loki wants to warm him, but he knows a small fire won't do much. 

The wind whistles as it passes by the cave; a thin breeze enters and leaves, and Hela swears. She sits closer to the entrance than them both and an attempt to block the cave entrance with a sword sits shattered by her feet. She has tried to wedge herself into a small dip against the cave wall, but Loki doubts that can bring any warmth. 

She doesn't have a cloak, or a cape. Her magic seems limited to weaponry. 

Loki looks at his own hands and resists the urge to pick at them. They’re blue and have indentations he does not feel particularly fond of. 

He rubs his fingers along them, and glares at the blackened, dirty nails. 

The skin, at least, is negligible. It looks blue, but Loki will still bleed red. The nails seem more permanent, as if the stains will stay when he changes back. 

He digs his nails into the skin, watching the colour lighten to a pale blue where he presses, scratches, into skin.  

Peel it off, Loki thinks, like a layer of armour.

Loki ignores the sound of light, crackling ice on cloth as Thor shifts next to him. A hand reaches in his direction from under Thor's cloak, so pale from cold that he can see the purple runs of blood under Thor's skin. 

“Do not hurt yourself.” Thor’s eyelashes do not hold up as much snow as Thor's beard, but his gaze doesn't waver. Loki admires the specks of ice for clinging so adamantly.

“I’m not.” Loki turns his hand over, showing Thor both sides. “I'm just looking.”

He has changed forms, unintentionally the first few times, intentionally the last few, but he has never stopped to see himself. He cannot stand to look at his reflection now that he is unable to change, but his hands are almost negligible. 

His hands are too important to despise even with the change, even if Loki wanted to cut them off. 

Thor should be the one troubled, he's the one forced to look at Loki’s changed face. 

“You should rest t-too,” Thor argues. Their hands touch, and Loki flinches away. 

“I will,” Loki promises, “but if you both can't handle the cold…” Loki looks beyond Thor, at Hela. “I’m not tired. You're the ones freezing to death.”

“Brother…” Thor puffs out an amused breath that is visible in the cold air. His lips pull his beard when his face falls. “I just got you back.”

Loki is used to disappointing those he loves. 

“Take care of yourself too, Loki.”