Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Odin was angry. Well and truly angry.

“Foolish boy!”

Flushing under Odin’s merciless regard, Thor remained silent, veins throbbing in his neck as he suppressed a heated retort.

“And you! Surely you can rein in your spouse?” Odin transferred his glare to Loki. His son-in-law had the grace not to pretend that he had no part of this affray.

“Would that he have ears in his head to listen!” Loki did not bother to keep the sneer off his face or from his voice.

They had been wed for barely half a year, but the newly forged alliance between the royal houses of two Realms seemed to be an alliance in name alone. The two Princes were as different in temperament as fire and ice--an apt comparison for Loki was from the land of the Frost Giants and Thor’s temper ran as hot as molten iron in a blacksmith’s forge.

The last diplomatic mission had not been a success. The pair of them had been sent as a test of their abilities, but it had been obvious to all that Loki was the natural ambassador and speaker. Left to his own devices, Thor had accepted an invitation to hunt and while their hosts might have forgiven him for accidentally entering their Sacred Grove, the matter of taking a shot at the Sacred Hart was something else altogether. Perhaps their hosts might have accepted that it was all just a misunderstanding, but hot-tempered words had been exchanged. What really transpired had been mired in the ungainly fracas that ensued.

Loki should have smoothed things over with his silver tongue, but he had only fanned the flames in the end with his double-edged barbs. Some perverse imp of mischief had overtaken his good sense at some point.

Back in Asgard to face the music, they stood like errant children in the throne room, discomfited by the contempt in the All-Father’s eyes and shamed by the censure in Frigga’s normally gentle face.

“I am disappointed with you both.” Odin’s brows drew together like twin thunderclouds clustered ominously over his glacial gaze. “Beardless children have more sense. Unlike callow youths, you will be punished in a manner more befitting your station.”

“What manner of--”

“All-Father!” Spurred into action, Loki looked as though he was preparing to defend himself verbally and then some. But it was too late. Odin raised his staff and brought it down onto the marble floor with a thump. Behind the king, Frigga bowed her head.

“You are banished,” Odin intoned. “Until you learn better. Until you both learn better.”

“Father--“

The universe lurched around them and everything became a kaleidoscope of colour and finally blackness.

Falling--it was all about falling at first--

The ground was hard. And the wind stung his skin, tiny razors biting at him as he heard nothing and saw nothing other than the dark maelstrom that raged above.

The storm subsided moments later, leaving only the mournful echoes that faded in the dusty air around him.

Spitting sand and grit, Loki lifted his head from the surface he had landed on. A muffled groan to his right caused him to turn. Thor, likewise face-first in the dirt and trying to lever himself up.

A terrible suspicion began to form in his mind as Loki peered across the dark, sandy terrain and down at the skin of his palms by the fitful light of an alien moon. The scrapes and tears were not healing as they should.

“No . . .” The word escaped him before he can suppress the rising feeling of panic. His magic was gone as well. His shapeshifting abilities. His natural form.

“No!” Anger replaced panic swiftly as he reached for what once was there. “He had no right . . .”

But as King and ruler, the All-Father had the right to banish his son and his son-in-law. Strip them of their position and power. Make them mortal. From where he was sprawled, Loki could see Thor slowly arrive at the same conclusion as various aches and pains refused to subside.

Sitting upright and holding his thick skull as though a fall like that could possibly hurt it, Thor unwisely opened his mouth. “Father will get over this soon. We will not languish here long—”

That was the final straw. Loki found a target for his fury, launching himself at Thor with a speed that surprised the Thunder God. “Your fault! You oafish dolt!”

They had not brawled physically before. Perhaps even in their pique, they had known that it was not done for spouses to throttle each other, not politically correct for royalty to scrap like dogs fighting over bones. Poorly matched and duty-bound, they had entered the alliance ill-prepared to deal with cultural and individual differences.

Back in Asgard, it had not mattered so much. The princes had separate suites and barely spoke to each other at the feasting table. It had been a given that their marriages would be political in nature, but they had chaffed at being thrown together for public occasions. Possibly only their monthly congress in the bedchamber resembled a marriage for they were passably good company when they did not need to speak much.

In public, they were aloof and mostly polite to each other. In private, their conversations tended to descend into verbal sniping. Thor avoided Loki and his barbs while Loki found scant joy in baiting his spouse. It might have started on the very first day of their marriage, when Loki discovered that his husband was a boisterous warrior who got drunk at any given opportunity and preferred haring off on hunts whenever there were matters of state to attend to. It might have started long before the two of them were even told of their impending nuptials.

It was refreshing to see Thor’s eyes widen in shock as Loki’s fist connected with his nose. Loki’s triumph was cut short by the pain that blossomed across his knuckles, but he used the rest of his body--his suddenly all too mortal body--to compensate.

It did not last, of course. Thor had greater mass and reach despite being surprised and Loki found himself hitting the ground again on his back with the breath driven out of his lungs.

“Loki . . .” Thor’s arm was across his throat, holding him down. “Do not think yourself blameless in this matter!”

“Of course! You can’t possibly at fault! You’re the Prince of Asgard!” Loki growled into Thor’s face as he vented his spleen. “Spoilt, brainless and thoughtless!”

Bright blue eyes flashed dangerously above him as Thor pressed him down. “You’ve never treated me as a prince! The whole court knows you think me a dullard!”

Mortal bodies were frail. Thus their blows would bruises and Loki winced as Thor gripped his wrists with crushing force. However, it also meant that his knee, when it did connect solidly with Thor’s groin, had the effect of making his dearest spouse loosen his grip. Loki did not press his advantage, suddenly feeling the weight of despair crushing him more surely than his husband.

“You are a dullard. I am without magic. Cast adrift in a strange Realm. As least in Asgard, I could revert back into my true form.”

Thor’s longer blond hair brushed his cheek as the former god lifted his head to peer into Loki’s face quizzically. “Loki,” he began hesitantly. “If it had caused you such distress--”

No pity--not from him.

“This is stupid,” Loki wheezes, shoving Thor off him even as the shame of starting the fight and letting slip his frustration crept over him. “Unproductive.”

A grunt from Thor might have been a yes or at least a grudging agreement. Picking themselves off the ground, they found themselves without their armour, without weapons and more sore than they were before the fight. But where would they go now?

There were pinpricks of light in the distance--possibly mortal dwellings--and it was agreed that they should seek shelter first and recover from the injuries sustained by their fall.

Thor did not mention that it had been Loki who started the brawl. In silence, they trudged over the rough terrain. It was a longer journey than they had expected. In their bruised and battered state, every step was torturous. Sand got into their boots and raised blisters long before the shape of a small township emerged out of the gloom. Another hour and the shape of the loosely assembled buildings became clearer.

By that time, Loki was feeling the effects of the desert at night and he was seething at the indignity of feeling even the slightest bit of cold. Him, a Frost Giant, chilled like a mortal!

No less affected by the cold, Thor took the initiative to scout ahead and returned with news that there were abandoned and empty dwellings. Loki was secretly glad for he was in no shape to be stealthy after their trek.

Rather than chance the larger buildings further away, they decided on the nearest--a shack or lean-to that had seen better days. Tight-lipped, Loki allowed himself to be helped the last few metres into the meagre shelter.

He no longer cared that Thor was watching as he collapsed onto a pile of musty canvas. Exhausted by the stressful experience and wrung out by anger, Loki let the darkness claim him.

They rested in the shed well into the second day. Having fallen asleep moments after he had closed the door on their wooden shelter, Thor lay not two feet from Loki and had slept like the dead.

He only woke when the sun was well on its way towards the western horizon. He realised a moment later that the strange sensation that had woken him was a raging thirst, the alien feeling of hunger and the urgent need to piss.

Thor stumbled out, aches and pains flaring in the wake of movement and solved one problem in the low bushes. As for the other two . . . perhaps he could hunt and find water. A look around him told him that this was no wilderness he had ever hunted in. The desert still lay to the south and no forest broke the even flatness of the plains. A road made of a dark, dense material lay just beyond the bushes. More dwellings and buildings could be seen in the yellow-gold light of sunset. Even the air was unfamiliar, every breath scented with strangeness and the heat of this land.

Thor, God of Thunder and Crown Prince of Asgard, was well and truly lost. It was not a sensation he was familiar with.

“Heimdall?” The dry rasp of his own voice startled him. “Heimdall, can you hear me?”

“Have you word from Father?” he shouted at the sky. “How long does he intend to strand us here?”

“Can you stop shouting at nothing? It’s giving me a headache.”

Thor turned to the dark head that had emerged from the shed, almost frantic. “Someone has to be watching us.”

“Or they might not be.” Already fair-skinned in his Aesir form, Loki looked paler now with bruises and minute cuts mapped out in clear relief on his face. “I don’t see Odin All-Father just sending us down for a day or two before letting us back into Asgard again—hooray, all’s forgiven, let’s have a feast.”

Loki’s sarcasm had always grated on Thor’s nerves. His clever words could always be turned to sting. “What does he expect us to do here?”

“Here is probably Midgard,” Loki said. “The constellations over the desert last night were strange to me, but this Realm is more . . . hospitable to these mortal bodies than the others. As for what we should do . . . I expect we are to learn our lesson and work together, dearest spouse.”

It would be easier if Loki did not sound as though he was saying something else every time he used that endearment. He was also, in all probability, right about their situation.

Thor could not spend every moment on Midgard arguing with Loki. He would not, Thor promised himself. “We need food and water.”

Loki did not appear to be spoiling for a fight. He merely took care of his bladder in the same way, moving carefully in a way that suggested that the fall had lingering effects on him as well. He had no spells or magic to supply them with what they needed, though Thor spied the tell-tale smear on the shed’s dusty floor that told of an aborted spell.

Without weapons, power or sorcery, they were well and truly bereft of familiar things.

Thor found water first. The old rusted spigot by the side of the road barely resembled the glided pipes of Asgard, but it yielded a trickle of tepid water when turned. After slaking their thirst, Loki stuck his head under it. He had always been a stickler for cleanliness and Thor had honestly never seen him so dusty and dishevelled before.

“If I look as bad as you do, no amount of washing is going to help,” he said and Thor realised that he was talking about the visible signs of their brawl when Loki gingerly touched his face.

“We should not look such a fright in the dark,” Thor said, allowing the long tapered fingers to examine his recently abused nose--Loki had been able to do small healing spells even before their marriage. They were not going to be feted as princes here, wherever here was.

Abruptly withdrawing his hand to push back his dripping hair, Loki looked them both up and down critically. “A fine pair of wanderers we make.”

And like rootless gypsies, they stole closer to the more inhabited areas of the town as the sun finally set. It would be better to think of this as a scouting mission, Loki had said, as reasonable as ever. They should find out the lay of the land first--needed to establish if the natives were friendly or not.

It was not Thor’s inclination to skulk about. But constrained as they were by their apparent mortality, perhaps it would be better to exercise caution.

But caution was not nearly enough as bright lights and blaring noises from speeding metal wagons ran them off the road not once, not twice, but three times.

“The roads are not for walking on,” Loki said, picking himself up from the roadside for the third time. “It’s also not necessary to tackle me every single time--I can move aside, you know?”

The peevish tone made Thor smile. Secretly. In the dark where Loki could not see. Loki’s hair was in a complete and utter disarray by now.

If they had thought that darkness would be their friend, they were proven wrong as the orange glow of lamps mounted on poles illuminated the streets. It did, however reveal the humans of Midgard going about their lives.

They were certainly receiving rather suspicious looks as they walked on.

“Look we so strange to them?” Thor was certain that they looked human enough to pass muster.

“We’re injured, dusty and tattered. They must think us vagrants and are probably wondering if we should be run out of town.” Loki’s face was rigid in the light of the lamps--set in a particular way that Thor remembered from their time in Asgard.

They moved closer to the shadows in unspoken agreement as they watched the Midgardians. Much was happening around them. More of those steel wagons clogged the streets where the brightly-lit buildings were.

“It’s some centre of commerce,” Loki murmured as he observed the transactions between the humans. A sort of paper was changing hands for food, drink, clothing and other strange items in all shapes and sizes. “And we do not have their currency.”

Thor’s stomach protested in an unprincely fashion. There were savoury smells in the air, wafting from the storefronts and backs of alleys.

“Can we not promise them that we would pay them back later?” Later, when they had the means. Thor could not imagine being in this state for long.

Loki’s eyebrows rose almost to his hairline. “You’ve never actually dealt with these sort of merchants before, have you?”

In the end, Thor followed his nose into an alley and fortune smiled upon them for not two doors away from where the tantalising scents rose from, a man was setting out large sacks outside by some large boxy chests. He moved back inside and closed the doors before Thor could speak up.

“Thor, this is a place the Midgardians throw refuse,” Loki said as his nose wrinkled at the ripe odours in the alleyway.

“But this is food--unspoilt food.” Thor had opened the most recent additions to investigate their contents. There were a lot of soft packets wrapped in shiny clear material.

“Bread?” Loki looked in askance at the sacks. “And they’re throwing it all away?”

“My patch . . . you clear off!” A hooded figure surprised them both as it peeled away from the wall of the alleyway.

Thor almost reacted instinctively, almost struck out at their attacker--but was blocked by Loki’s arm and voice.

“It’s not a real threat,” Loki whispered in his ear. “Watch . . .”

“Mine . . .” The hooded man grabbed handfuls of the packets that spilled onto the ground and moved sideways, watching them with beady eyes as he clutched at the food.

“My patch,” he mumbled, eying the rest of the bounty before looking back at them. “But you can have some . . .”

“Very kind of you, sir.” Thor tried to smile in a non-threatening manner, for the man was surely touched in the head. He was thin and unkempt in a way that suggested he was wearing all the clothing he owned on his back. Thor could have broken him with one hand, but that sort of fight would be shameful and demeaning as Loki’s whisper had reminded him.

“We’ll take what you can spare.” Loki took a packet and handed it to Thor.

“Same time every night,” the man said to the air as he tore the wrappings apart and took a bite.

Thor followed his example and discovered that the bread was practically fresh and there was some kind of meat filling inside. Like Loki, he was surprised that unspoilt food was being thrown out, but his stomach insisted that he ask questions later.

After three packets, Thor was feeling much better. Loki had eaten two and was crouched by the hooded man.

“And you say this happens every night?” he asked, watching the man carefully.

“Every night. Eight o’clock regular.” He waved his hand, still clutching his food, in the general direction of another alley. “Others have fruit. Veggies. But I like sandwiches best.”

“They are good,” Thor said encouragingly.

“Time to go now,” the man said abruptly. He rose in one jerky motion, clutching his sandwiches and looking about warily.

“But why?”

“Because his turn’s over,” Loki said, looking towards the mouth of the alleyway. Others were approaching--they had the same tattered and wary look of their current benefactor. But they also looked hungry. “We should follow his example.”

If they had moved to intercept, Thor would have fought them. But they kept their distance. It occurred to him later that Loki and himself were obviously larger and more well-fed compared to the vagabonds who had waited to take what they had left behind. Those were not people who would fight if they could run.

Asgard did not have many beggars or people who waited for the leavings to be thrown out. After collecting as much food as they could carry in their hands, they followed the Sandwich Man as he moved away, keeping an eye on their rear as they went.