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It is raining in New York.Fandral stands with his hands in his pockets, staring out of the window at the dark, grey grimness of the city that sprawls out before them. He sees the cars speeding on the tarmac streets far beneath them, sees millions upon millions of people milling through the crowded streets, many of them holding umbrellas aloft as they move. Midgard has changed a great deal, when once Fandral lived upon it, running through the woods of Sherwood Forest with his bow in his hand and his sword at his side, when he had danced and sung and laughed in taverns across the woods of Nottingham.Gone is the world he knew.Behind him, he can hear Thor speaking with Commander Fury, the leader of America’s SHIELD, and Commander Brand, who heads SWORD. Ridiculously named organisations, in all truth, but evidently Midgard has grown to favour bureaucracy as its population has exploded.And soon, Asgard will foster a greater connection with Midgard. There is an international summit to occur in some months, wherein Thor, crown prince of Asgard, will address the leaders of this planet.How well the situation will proceed, Fandral knows not. He is optimistic, hopeful, that all will go excellently, but Fandral is no diplomat, and he does not pretend to be. He is but a noble, escorting his good friend to a strange realm, and he does not feign himself as part of Thor’s attaché. Fandral had come out of a sense of nostalgia for the world he once knew, so many centuries ago, when he whisked a fine woman out from beneath the Sheriff of Nottingham, and married her.Marian grew old, of course, where Fandral did not. Tired melancholy bursts in his heart, and Fandral closes his eyes.“And you’ve been to Earth before?” Brand is asking, her voice sharp in the quiet of the room.“Yes,” Thor says. “Oft, my brother and I would visit the realm of Midgard, many centuries before now, with our friends. We have long-since been worshiped as gods by some peoples of Midgard.”“Your brother?” Brand asks, and Fandral turns to see that she is gesturing to him.“Nay,” Fandral says, shaking his head. “My name is Fandral, and I am but a noble of the realm of Asgard. Thor speaks of his brother, Loki.”“And where’s he?” Fury asks. “Back on Asgard?”“My brother is gone,” Thor says quietly. “He went missing a century ago. We have long-since presumed him dead.” Fandral sets his jaw, and he thinks of Loki.He thinks of lying side-by-side in the prince’s bed, Fandral having crept in via the prince’s balcony, and seeing the distant smile pull at Loki’s lips as he cupped Fandral’s cheek, feeling Fandral’s warm skin beneath his eternally cool hands. He thinks of their bodies pressed flush against each other as they shared a dance in the privacy of Fandral’s drawing room, where no one might suspect Fandral was doing aught more than teaching Loki a new waltz. He thinks of standing with Loki on the beach, watching the other man comb its shores for shells and driftwood, and feeling love bloom in his heart.He remembers the ugly, harsh sound Loki had made as he had scrambled back from the spell in the midst of the yelling crowds of the arena, thinks of Loki’s cry of desperate horror as his white skin had bled so quickly to blue, as his eyes had reddened, thinks of the surprise and noises of shock as Loki had been revealed, after three millennia as a prince of the crown, for the Frost Giant he was.“He’s dead,” Fandral says, for Thor won’t say it. Thor stares down at the ground, and Fury and Brand both look to him, their expressions grave. “He threw himself into the vacuum of space, that it might bring him peace. I pray, for his sake, that he got it.”Talk returns to diplomacy. Fandral turns back to the window.❅ ❅ ❅
“I think I could love you, you know,” Fandral says softly. Dawn is breaking, and where the light shines through the Ljósálf crystals that hang from Loki’s open window, it dapples the ground in the rainbow shades of the Bifrost. Loki looks up from the notes he has been making for some hours, now, his lips parted, his eyes deep and swirling with emotion.
“I don’t know that I could be so cruel,” Loki whispers.
“As to love me?”
“As to let you love me.” Here they stand, then, at an impasse.
Fandral will not budge.
“I will love you,” Fandral says decisively. Loki swallows hard, and Fandral wonders, not for the first time, why they hadn’t settled into this rhythm of theirs a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago.
Each of them has been widowed once – Fandral’s own heart had withered away before him over fifty years, and Loki’s had been slaughtered at the hand of one of the young Einherjar, seeing a Jötunn and thinking she could be naught more than monster. And then Sigyn, lovely Sigyn… Loki cannot bear to look at her, any more. It must be a dreadful thing, Fandral thinks, to look into your lover’s face and see the features of your own dead children reflected back at you.
And now? It is as if they are youths once more, hiding in alcoves when guards or servants pass them by, hiding their illicit union behind curtains or bushes, or behind Loki’s magic.
“To love you would be to doom you,” Loki whispers. “All that I touch turns to ash.”
“Not me,” Fandral promises. “My love for you is like a flame itself – how can outside forces burn an inferno?”
“The people of Asgard will never accept it,” Loki says. Fandral is moving across the room, and he slips his hand over Loki’s cheek, feeling the way Loki presses into the touch as his eyes flutter closed.
“What do they matter?” Fandral asks softly. “We have more than enough acceptance between us.” Loki presses a kiss, featherlight and impossibly gentle, to Fandral’s palm, and Fandral leans in to capture his lips beneath his own.
❅ ❅ ❅“You truly think him dead?” Thor asks hoarsely, when the evening’s negotiations are through. Fandral glances up from his place upon the “hotel” bed that had been laid aside for him. Thor is in the next room, but for now, they are alone together. Thor leans back against the desk, his arms crossed over his chest, and Fandral rests cross-legged on the soft mattress beneath him.“He must be,” Fandral says softly. “Were he alive, he could never remain away from Asgard for so long…” He used to. By the Norns, Loki used to – sometimes, he would disappear for decades at a time, to places unknown, but he would always come back, in the end. “My apologies, my friend, I don’t mean to appear callous. He was your brother, but he was my—” Fandral’s breath hitches in his throat, just for a moment. “But he was my friend.”“You’re right,” Thor whispers. Tears shine in his eyes. “I merely… For so long, I have hoped and prayed that he might return home, one day. Convinced myself he might be trapped somewhere, or else choosing to stay away—” Thor sighs. “But I have never known bond or fetter that could hold my brother, and I cannot imagine him choosing to stay away from Asgard, even with the truth of his birth revealed.”“I’m sorry, Thor,” Fandral murmurs. “Truly, I am.”“I too, my friend. I too.”Thor leaves him, and Fandral lies back on the bed, entirely alone. His heart aches hollowly in his chest, as it has done, every night, for over a century now.❅ ❅ ❅
“You wouldn’t leave again, would you?” Fandral asks one night, urgently, desperately. He had awoken from a nightmare, convinced that Loki had disappeared to some distant planet as so oft he did in their youth, and the relief he had felt in discovering Loki beside him, reading leisurely from a tome of spellwork and sorcery, had been palpable. “You wouldn’t disappear?”
“No,” Loki murmurs, setting a cool hand against Fandral’s hip and drawing him closer. Concern is plain on his features, and he hesitates before he says, “I couldn’t hold Asgard in my memory and take my leave of her forever. Not whilst Thor is here – not whilst you are here.”
“I wish we could be married,” Fandral says. He doesn’t mean for the words to tumble from his lips, so clumsy, so abrupt. Loki leans back from him slightly, his eyes widening a fraction, and then he relaxes – relaxes into a familiar sadness.
“Me too,” he admits, and they lie back down together.
❅ ❅ ❅“Who is this?” Fandral demands, and he snatches the photograph from its place on the wall. Whilst Thor is in some meeting that is classified even from Fandral’s ears, the SHIELD agent had been instructed to lead Fandral on a tour of the facility, but Fandral is distracted.The photograph is glossy, evidently taken from a distance, but he recognizes the features of the young man therein, sees the shine of his grey-blue eyes, sees his black hair tied up in a bun, the paleness of his white skin… There is a silver ring shining through his nose, and a bar through his ear; Loki wears rings upon his fingers and thin chains and pendants about his neck, paired with Midgardian clothing. A tight blue shirt that is splayed open at the collar, wine-coloured trousers that cling tight to his thighs, to his muscular calves—“That’s, um— He’s a mutant, from up in Alaska. The Brotherhood of Mutants were trying to court him a few years back, so we keep an eye on him, but we don’t have him registered as a threat or anything. Why, you recognise him?”“No, no,” Fandral says lowly, shaking his head. “He merely bears an uncanny resemblance to a figure in one of the paintings in Asgard’s halls.” The lie slips easily from his golden tongue, and he keeps his tone casual as he says, “What’s his name?”“Uh, Lauti,” Coulson supplies. “Lauti Henriksen.”“Lauti,” Fandral repeats quietly. “What a strange name.”❅ ❅ ❅
“How many names do you have?” Fandral asks, his mouth against Loki’s thigh, and Loki laughs.
“How many stars are there in the sky?” Loki replies.
“Tell me one.”
“On Nakom, they call me Geren,” Loki murmurs, drawing his fingers through Fandral’s hair. His fingers are pleasantly cool, staving off the summer heat.
“Another,” Fandral instructs, ghosting his mouth over Loki’s belly.
“I am known in the marketplaces of Fosta as Hevensent Asto.”
“Another.”
“When I tutored the children of Empress Fent, some one thousand years ago, they knew me as Lauti. Often I would hear my name echoing in the palace halls, as they called me to play, or for their lessons.” Fandral smiles, distantly.
“You love children,” he says softly.
“Yes,” Loki agrees.
“Would you ever have more?”
“I don’t know,” he says. His voice is full of desperate hope, and equally full of agony.
❅ ❅ ❅“Is it him?” Fandral asks, harshly. When Heimdall levels his golden-eyed stare upon Fandral, Fandral feels himself falter slightly, and he leans back, biting hard upon his own lip. With all the two centuries he and Loki had been together, Heimdall had always known, always – and Heimdall had kept the secret. For that, Fandral is grateful.Equally, Heimdall must have known of Loki’s true birth, must have known how it would ail him to realise the truth so suddenly, so abruptly. For that, Fandral almost hates him.“It can’t be,” Heimdall says quietly, staring down at the photograph. “This man… Lauti. I cannot see him.”“If he is hidden from your Allsight,” Fandral says, “surely it must be him.”“Is that your logic speaking, Dashing One, or is it desperate hope?”“Can’t it be both?”❅ ❅ ❅
“Loki!” Fandral calls, and he catches Loki’s wrist. If Loki’s skin had been cold before, now it stings like touching ice, but Fandral remains unflinching. Loki is trembling visibly, his red eyes aimed toward the ground instead of at Fandral himself. “It doesn’t matter,” he insists softly. “I couldn’t care less if you were a dwarf, let alone a Jötunn—”
“I’m a monster.”
“You aren’t,” Fandral says sharply, pulling Loki closer to him. He radiates cold like most men radiate heat, and Loki gasps against Fandral’s mouth as they are pulled flush against one another. “You aren’t a monster. It’s going to be alright.”
“How can you say that?” Loki demands, his voice sharp and splitting down the middle. “Everybody saw, and soon all of Asgard will know – they already hate me as an argr and a sorcerer, and now they shall hate me as a creature!”
“Loki,” Fandral starts again, but Loki has already ripped himself free, and his boots slap loud against the marble floor of the corridor as he flees.❅ ❅ ❅Alaska is beautiful.Merely standing on an outcrop of green grass, looking out over the splendid beauty of one of its wide-reaching fjords, Fandral is reminded of Asgard’s own bright skies, Asgard’s own green grasses. In the brightness of summer, it is not so cold, and Fandral begins to walk toward the cabin that that been marked upon the map at the SHIELD headquarters.The cabin is small, modest, and stands amidst a duo of fields, each kept carefully planted. Pumpkins and cabbages grow in one field, side-by-side in neatly segmented orange and green rows, and in the other is a herd of deer-like creatures the likes of which Fandral has never seen before. They look upon him with caution and curiosity shining in their eyes, their great antlers sprouting out from their skulls.Fandral turns away from them, and moves toward the cabin’s door, rapping hard upon the dark wood.There is a long pause, and just as Fandral is raising his hand to knock again, the door opens inward, revealing Lauti Henriksen.Staring at Fandral as if he hasn’t had a visitor on his doorstep in all the time he has lived here, Lauti blinks, once. His blue eyes shine with intelligence as he takes in Fandral’s clothes – a shirt, a knitted cardigan, some of the trousers these Midgardians label slacks – and his leather boots before coming back up to look at his face.“Hello,” Lauti says, in Loki’s voice. It is low, sonorous and cultured, and Fandral feels like his heart will burst out of his mouth.“Hello,” Fandral echoes back. No recognition shines in Lauti’s eyes. There is no stiffening, there is no defensive posture: there is not even the slightest implication that he might have the slightest idea who Fandral is. “I’m sorry, I—” There are tears shining in his eyes, and Lauti is looking at him with increasing alarm on his pale features. “I got rather turned around. Might you give me directions?”“Why don’t you come in?” Lauti asks softly, and he reaches for Fandral’s hand. Fandral can’t help the way he gasps in a breath at the sensation of those familiar fingers, so pleasantly cool and soft, against his own. Lauti draws him away from the doorstep, pushing the door closed behind him, and he brings Fandral further into the cabin. Fandral can see that the living room, which is cosy and warm, is decorated for one person. A single arm chair is set beside the fireplace, and the sofa has all the cushions rested on one arm, obviously intended for someone to lie upon.Lauti pushes him to sit beside the crackling fire, and then he reaches past Fandral, taking up a pot from the hearth and pouring some of its contents into a mug. The mug is pressed into Fandral’s hands, and Fandral stares dumbly into it.The tears roll down his cheeks, and he feels he will surely die.“Drink,” Lauti says softly. He perches upon the edge of the sofa, his hands loosely clasped in front of him, and he looks at Fandral with plain concern and confusion shining on his face. He is dressed all in black, a tight shirt clinging to the planes of his chest and belly, his trousers clinging to his form. The same silver rings rest on his fingers, and the same chains are around his neck, but obviously, Lauti has seen fit to mutilate himself more since the last SHIELD agent photographed him – as well as the bar through his left ear and the ring through his nose, another ring has settled itself through the thin fabric of Lauti’s lower lip.Fandral drinks.The tea is hot and slightly bitter, the tang hitting him right in the back of his mouth, and it occurs to Fandral that this is precisely what Loki would enjoy.A handkerchief is proffered, and Fandral takes it, wiping at his eyes. Lauti Henriksen is watching him with his thin lips pressed into a line, and he says softly, “Are you alright?”“It’s been a long day,” Fandral lies.“I see,” Lauti says. “You look familiar. Have we met?”“No,” Fandral lies. “No, I don’t think so.”“Right,” Lauti murmurs. “I can give you directions, back into town… I don’t drive, but I could walk you there.”“Really?” Fandral asks, feeling the heat of the mug between his palms. “You truly wouldn’t mind?” Lauti smiles, the expression soft and full of warmth, and Fandral feels like his heart is shattering. This can’t be Loki. He is so content, so quietly happy… When had Fandral ever seen Loki so soft? So gentle?“Not at all,” Lauti says softly. “We ought treat the world how we should be treated in turn, oughtn’t we? I will do you a kindness, as you would do me were the tables turned.” The simple philosophy drives itself like a shard of glass through Fandral’s chest, and he hides his desperate desire to sob in the mug of tea instead, mumbling a paltry thank you into the steaming liquid.❅ ❅ ❅
Fandral sits cross-legged at the edge of the Bifrost. Stretching out beneath him, he sees where Asgard’s edge gives way to the vacuum of space, an infinite blackness stretching out before his gaze. In the distance, stars shimmer and shine – planets, and nebulae, and galaxies.
Behind him, he feels Heimdall, casting a shadow over Fandral.
“He told me he’d take me to the stars, one day,” Fandral says softly. “That he’d take me to every planet he’s worshiped on. How many planets would that have been, Heimdall?”
“Twenty-seven,” Heimdall murmurs quietly. “Including Midgard. The prince searches for you.” Fandral thinks of Thor, red-faced and teary-eyed, clutching Loki’s cloak to his chest – uselessly, uselessly. Because Loki is gone.
“Why?”
“Because he wishes to seek comfort with his friends in his grief,” Heimdall answers plainly. Fandral swallows, and he flirts, momentarily, with the idea of following Loki unto infinity. Heimdall’s mighty hand settles loosely against his left shoulder, and he whispers directly into his ear, “And you ought let him comfort you in turn.”
“He doesn’t know what Loki means to me,” Fandral mutters. “I cannot stand to pretend I am not grieving myself.”
“Then do not pretend,” Heimdall advises. “Grieve together.”
❅ ❅ ❅“You aren’t a native to Alaska,” Lauti says quietly. He walks as he has always walked, his chin high, his shoulders broad, his hips shifting with every step. It is effortlessly graceful, and it is the walk of a prince.“Nor are you,” Fandral replies. Lauti laughs, softly.“That I am not.”“I’m just visiting town,” Fandral lies, surprised by how easily the words come to his tongue. “I’m actually from, uh— New York.”“I see,” Lauti murmurs. For a long few minutes, they walk in complete silence, and Lauti has a little smile playing on his thin lips.“You’re a mutant, then?” Fandral asks, desperate to break their silence, and Lauti’s smile fades slowly away, replaced with plain uncertainty. Fandral doesn’t think he imagines the fear in his eyes, and Fandral adds hurriedly, “That’s my— I don’t mean to alarm you. That’s my mutation. I can see other mutants.”“Oh,” Lauti says. After a moment’s pause, he nods his head. “Yes.” The rings on his left hand seem to shiver and become molten upon his hand, and Fandral watches, utterly spellbound, as the rings form a glove of silver so fine it shifts like silk upon Lauti’s hand. “My powers aren’t so dissimilar to those of Magneto’s,” Lauti murmurs. “But I control only silver.”Magneto. Fandral dimly knows that name from his tour of SHIELD’s headquarters.“Have you met him?” Fandral asks. “Magneto?”“He’s a very hard man,” Lauti mutters, running a hand over the top of his hair. A few strands of black hair hover around his face, and Fandral watches as he flicks the ring through his lip with his tongue, making it jump and shift against his skin. “Several times, the Brotherhood of Mutants has asked that I join their ranks – equally, the X-Men.”“Why do you refuse?” Fandral asks softly. Lauti shrugs his shoulders.“I don’t like fighting.” There is a faraway look in Lauti’s eyes, a glint of something distant and familiarly godly, something more than human. “I don’t remember much, of my life before I came to Alaska. But I recall that there was war. Fights. I practised with knives every day. I recall hating it, wishing I could be at peace, somewhere else… Now I have that peace. I won’t give it up.” Fandral inhales, very slowly.“Doesn’t it frighten you? Not to remember what your life was like, before now?” Lauti shakes his head.“No,” he murmurs. “To be completely honest, my friend, the idea of remembering frightens me more.”❅ ❅ ❅
“Come on, Fandral,” Loki calls from the waters, as enticing as any naiad, any siren. Fandral stands on the beach, dressed in but his blouse and breeches, and Loki lies back amidst the waves, letting them wash their warm water over his shoulders and through his hair. “Swim with me!”
“Is there any element, my darling, that you do not slip amidst with such ease?” Fandral asks, walking forth until he is knee-deep in the brine. “You dance upon the air – you swim with ease in the waters. Fire laps at your fingers like a tame dog, and the very earth itself seems ready to shift at your command. What power could possibly evade you?”
“Yours,” Loki says softly. “I might command silver, Fandral, but you are purest gold.” It slips from his mouth like a proposal, and Fandral feels himself inhale.
“Then let us be precious together,” he says breathlessly, and he dives into the waves.
❅ ❅ ❅“Here,” Lauti says. The town is small, but it is summer time, and the town is bustling with people. He and Fandral stand to the side of the road, and Fandral stands very still, running a hand through his hair.“Thank you,” Fandral says. “You didn’t have to do that.”“It’s no bother.” Neither of them move, and instead stay stood together, Lauti looking at Fandral for a long few moments. “You never told me your name.”“Didn’t I?”“No.” Lauti puts out a hand to shake, as these Midgardians are so fond of doing. “My name is Lauti.”“Fandral,” he replies, shaking the other man’s hand, and Lauti’s dark brows furrow, his head tilting slightly to the side.“Fandral,” he repeats. For one, hopeless moment, Fandral is convinced all shall return to him, that he shall know who he is, and who Fandral is, and they shall embrace— The moment doesn’t come. “You might write to me, if you wish. Here, I’ll write down my address.” Fandral stares at Lauti’s clever fingers draw a pen from his pocket, putting looping, blue-inked script onto a scrap of paper.His handwriting is exactly the same as it always has been.“You don’t have a phone?”“No,” Lauti says. “I don’t own a computer either. I prefer a more… Simplistic lifestyle.”“You’re beautiful,” Fandral says, the words tumbling from between his lips, unbidden. Lauti stares at him, and then he smiles. The expression is warm and slightly shy, and as one of Lauti’s hands presses the scrap of paper into Fandral’s hand, the other reaches up to cup Fandral’s cheek. Fandral’s breath catches in his throat, and he cannot breathe.“I can’t shake the feeling…” Lauti trails off, his gaze flitting down to Fandral’s mouth, and then he draws away. “Farewell, Fandral. Safe journey home.”“You too,” Fandral says, awkwardly. He stares down at the scrap of paper, and he looks at Loki’s handwriting, clearly setting out the words Lauti Henriksen before the man’s address. “Heimdall,” Fandral says, stumbling over the name, and he feels the Bifrost drag him from his place, settling him amidst the shining segments of the Bifrost’s control room.Fandral drops heavily onto a step, and he stares into the ether between them.“It is him, then,” Heimdall asks. Dumbly, Fandral nods. “Did he remember you?” Fandral shakes his head. “What will you do?”“I don’t know,” Fandral says, desperately. “Do you have any suggestions?”“None.”“You are useless,” Fandral mutters. “Has anybody ever told you that? You don’t do— You don’t do anything, except watch.”“That is what makes me so useful,” Heimdall replies, amusement ringing in his tones, and Fandral sighs, putting his head in his hands. Ought he tell the Allfather? Queen Frigga? Thor?No. Their solution would be to rush in and just take Loki, attempt to force him to remember all at once, and…The idea of remembering frightens me more.“I will write to him,” Fandral decides. “Scope this out, see— It is possible it isn’t him, or even that this is some trickery on his part.”“Very well,” Heimdall says.❅ ❅ ❅
The palace is bustling with people. There are representatives from Alfheim, Vanaheim, and even from Nidavellir, all of them milling through the halls as they prepare for the festivities. A great arena game has been planned tomorrow, and all day Fandral has been watching the dwarves lay out the enchantments around the arena’s edge, that will strip away any enchantment as the contestants enter.
Loki is planning to win, Fandral knows – he wishes to best Thor and take the crown for himself, and just the thought of it is exciting, just the thought of his trying. Fandral has faith in Loki – he is certain he has a chance of winning.
“And what will you do, my prince, when you win? How shall we celebrate?” Fandral murmurs against Loki’s lips, and Loki laughs. Fandral has him pressed up against an alcove, his hands pinned above his head, but Loki is anything but powerless.
“Do you have something in mind?”
“Yes,” Fandral says. “Let’s elope.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You’ll win the crown, take your title as champion… And we’ll run away together. Let’s get married on another planet, where two men together bats not an eye – let us be wedded, you and I, as one.”
“You’re mad,” Loki says.
“Madly in love,” Fandral agrees. He is so certain that Loki will say no, that he will shove Fandral’s hands away and flee from him, but Loki relaxes under the grip around his wrists, and smiles.
“Alright,” he says softly. “Let’s do it.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
The next morning, Loki is the fifth man to step into the arena.
It strips him down to his true skin, and Loki is left in the middle of the arena, frozen like the being of ice that he is, letting out an ugly sound of shock and horror at his very own flesh. It is the end of everything.
❅ ❅ ❅Fandral wakes from his bed in a cold sweat, trembling with the weight of his own memories. Glancing to his writing desk, he makes the decision to begin penning his letter to Lauti Henriksen.As he does so, he wonders if, with his memories restored, he and Loki might be as once they were.Perhaps not.But perhaps, his heart sings, with desperate fervour. Perhaps—Fandral dips his quill into his inkpot, and puts it to the page.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Lauti exists at the centre of a great whirlpool.The water weighs heavily down again his shoulders, against his body, where he sits cross-legged upon the ground, his hands rested against his knees. His hair is allowed freedom from its ordinarily tight bun, and the shifting currents of the water cause it to alter the way it sits about his skull, shifting as the swells of water come and go.“Aspling!” says a distant voice, familiar after all these times meditating, and Lauti concentrates upon it – he does not grasp at the thread and tug too hard, understanding that the thread will snap, but instead, he takes it very gently, and allows himself to follow it toward its source. He hears that voice, hears its chittering, insect-like quality. Aspling, Aspling—Lauti knows Aspling very well.Lauti is Aspling – or he was, once upon a time.He feels his eight eyes open, and he takes a moment to adjust to the difference in the way he must see, in—Yes. Yes. Aspling has chitinous skin, hard to the touch and brightly yellow, and he blinks his eyes in separation as he glances about. This is not a memory. Sometimes, he feels memories, remembers them although they occurred so long ago, Lauti thinks, but this isn’t that. He is in the water, still, in the water, and here…“Who are you?” a voice says. He knows not from where it comes, and he is forced to look this way and that, feeling his shining golden skin catch the light, but there is no light. Is there? There isn’t.“I am Aspling,” Lauti says.“Who more than that?” The voice is so familiar, so— He knows that voice, but from whence does he know it? Whose mouth does it come from?A pause.“I am Lauti.”“Who more than that?” Oh. Oh. No, that— It’s a fleeting, almost memory. It is gone as soon as it comes.“No more than that.”“Ha. God of Lies.” Lauti feels Aspling’s face, despite its hard edges and its lack of expression, frown. Aspling is not a God of Lies – he is the God of Storytelling, of narrative— The voice is gone, and Lauti feels himself fall slowly back into the water. He feels himself slowly rise toward the surface, feels himself rise until the water breaks around him.Lauti lies on his back on his living room floor, and he stares up at blue paint on his ceiling.Meditation has been helping. In the beginning, in coming to in a wood in Westchester, he had remembered very little – had recalled vaguely the planet he had come from, from the planet Yaro in the Fei Nebula, and had known not to admit to being an alien, but… How had he found himself like this? How, he wonders, had he been made so convincingly into a human, a mutant? Even blood tests display him as a mutant; even gene tests. How can that be possible?And the silver, the silver—He knows where he came from. He remembers not the specifics of his life, remembers only bits and pieces from his childhood, and scattered memories here and there, but silver was never a talent of his, on Yaro or anywhere else in the Lei System, and now!He feels the silver. Feels it on the air, knows where it is and feels it about him, commands it with such ease.Sickly and with a burgeoning headache, Lauti draws himself up from the ground, and he pulls on his boots to move out into the fields. The reindeer come swiftly to him as he takes up their feed for the morning, and Lauti smiles, pressing kisses to each of their noses. They are so polite about it: they come in as individuals, lean their heads down so that Lauti can move between their antlers and press a kiss to their muzzles, then step aside so that the next reindeer can move forward.He sets out their food in the trough, and then moves to clean out their barn, ensuring there’s no manure left and that the straw is clean and well for them, although in this season they mostly sleep outside anyway.It’s meant to be a farm. Lauti doesn’t think he’ll end up bringing them to market, in the end.He knows how to butcher an animal, for some reason: he knows how to drain them of their blood, how to skin them, how to separate out their pieces of meat, but… Lauti has never eaten meat. He has only ever even flowers and vegetables, mushrooms and grasses. Animals are not farmed on Yaro, except for insects, who produce silks and honeys, as well as various medicines, but none of them are eaten.And yet he knows how.Why is this?The headache is getting worse, and Lauti knows he ought not linger overmuch on the thought, not when his skull is threatening to split into migraine. He is almost grateful to move to tending the pumpkins and the cabbages, focusing on them instead. He has small bowls of beer on the fence posts, intended to draw insects away from the crop, and it works well indeed, but they need to be changed every day.It’s worth it.He does not need money, he does not think. The deeds to the property were in his name already – or at least, the name of Lauti Henriksen – and there is a well on the property from which he draws his water, and solar panels on the roof that provide his power. He buys his groceries and food for the reindeer, purchases books in the store in town, purchases stamps to write letters, but...Another mystery. From whence does the money come?Lauti lets out a quiet noise of pain, gasping and leaning heavily on the fence between the crop and the paddock, and one of the larger reindeer, Thor, moves swiftly over toward him. He nuzzles at the side of Lauti’s cheek, exhaling warm against his skin, and it does soothe the pain somewhat, makes him relax just slightly. His skull is so hard against Lauti’s own, but it is almost as if his pain is soothed by the physical contact itself, and Lauti leans right into it. Thor’s eyes are quietly soulful, and Lauti gently scratches the underside of his jaw, taking in the scent of livestock that clings to his dark hide.Patting Thor’s neck, he moves away and into the house, closing the blinds as he steps into the bedroom—He hears the bell ring on the gate outside. The post.Wrinkling his nose, he moves back toward the front door, taking the envelopes he has stacked on the entrance table, leaving it open as he steps swiftly down the path and toward the gate. “Good morning, Mr Henriksen!” says young Fortinbras, the unfortunately named son of two lecturers in Shakespearian studies, his hair as red as flame.“Good morning, Fortinbras,” Lauti says, offering him a polite smile, and he takes the pile of envelopes from the boy, which are neatly tied up with brown twine. “How fare your brother and sister?” The Foster siblings, all three of them, live together in a farmhouse on the other side of town – Fortinabras works in the postal service, Laertes does deliveries for the grocer, and Ophelia is a writer at the local newspaper, who takes her Fridays to deliver them. It’s… Frankly hideous, but Laertes and Fortinbras especially seem to have taken up with Lauti on the basis that his name too is quite unusual.“Oh, well, sir!” Fortinbras says, grinning brightly as he takes Lauti’s stack of envelopes in exchange. “See you tomorrow!” He will see Lauti tomorrow, too – Lauti writes an awful lot of letters in the course of a day.“Tomorrow, Fortinbras,” Lauti agrees, and he nods his head, moving back toward the house and waving to him as he mounts his bicycle once more, taking off down the road to the next house. Undoing the twine with a shift of his fingers, he winds it around his fingers, examining each of the envelopes for their handwriting.He recognises the handwriting of Erik Lehnsherr, neat and surprisingly delicate for a man of such hard, stiff bearing; he recognises the hand of Henry McCoy, who at the very least does not write him to desire favours of him; here is Deadpool, whose handwriting is awful, whose letters are ordinarily written in crayon, and whose letters are normally incomprehensibly full of references to mad nonsense; here is—Lauti frowns slightly, setting the other letters to the back of the pile, and he looks at the new handwriting.
To
Lauti Henriksen, Esq.
Esquire? Really?His head is aching, and he really oughtn’t force his eyes to focus on handwriting, but he is so curious. The envelope itself has a great quality to it, heavy and well-made – it is almost like parchment, and Lauti brings it to his sensitive nose, inhaling the scent. Yes, it is. Parchment.Lauti has a flash of memory, recalls laughing as he bends over his writing desk, his hand moving quickly over the page.His hand – his white hand.Not golden. Not chitinous and with many fingers. A white hand – whose hand? Lauti’s hand?The split comes to him like a bolt of lightning, and all goes black as his knees go weak.❅ ❅ ❅
Nine years earlier.
You are Lauti Henriksen.
Lauti cries out, coming awake with a gasp, and he looks blearily around himself. He’s in pain, and he is bleeding: he is aware of it as he looks down at his fingers, which are red with thick but not congealing blood, and… Lauti heaves in a breath, and he puts his hand over his belly, feeling…
The skin is split. He’s been ripped right open, and he can feel the cold air on his belly.
Get up.
“I can’t,” Lauti says, stumbling over the two syllables, clutching at the swell of his red, red guts. How can he? He is ripped open from hip to hip, his organs spilling from him like some cascading sea, and he cannot stand, how can he stand—
Get up.
He knows not from whence comes the strength, but he stands. Clumsily, like a new colt fresh from the womb, he stumbles to his feet and begins to move. He must clutch tight at his belly to keep anything from—
Go forward. Forward. You can do it. One step after the other. Your name is Lauti Henriksen, and you are a mutant.
“Where am I going?” Lauti whispers. The voice is familiar, but it comes inside his very own head, echoing inside his skull. The voice is familiar, he knows it, he knows it.
Keep moving. It’s alright, you’re nearly there, you’re nearly there – you’re safe now.
“I don’t feel especially safe,” Lauti chokes out. The voice laughs.
You will be safe. You see the house?
The house. The house. The house— Not a house. It’s a cabin, made of wood, with… Lauti stumbles, choking out a little noise of pain. Red blood is staining the dirt path he walks on, and he is bent half over at the waist, trying to keep himself in, trying to—
He falls. He lets out a harsh whine of pain, for he is but ten feet from the cabin’s door, and he must make it, he must, he must—!
The door opens. Standing in shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, there is a man, an older man. His jaw is square, his eyes cold, and he has a broad nose edged with hard bone, his hair inhumanly silver, shining in the dim light. Lauti stares up at him, helplessly, from his place prone on the floor.
That is Erik Lehnsherr. You’re safe now.
“But I—”
Distantly, within his head, he feels the tether break. Lauti is alone, now, with this man, with Erik Lehnsherr.
“Please,” Lauti whispers. “I can’t—”
“Wanda!” Lehnsherr calls into the cabin, and immediately, he is jogging forward. Lauti heaves in a breath as a broad, hard hand brushes against his cheek, feeling for the pulse in his throat… And Lauti chokes on blood.
❅ ❅ ❅Lauti groans in pain as he slowly ekes back to consciousness. Far above him, the sun is shining, and he groans quietly as he feels the shine of it in his eyes, sitting up. The headache is a dull throb in the back of his skull, and he blindly reaches for his letters on the grass, taking them up. He is lucky indeed, that today has not been a breezy day.He stumbles in trying to get to his feet, but then he shakily moves to his feet, stepping in toward the house. He throws most of the envelopes hastily onto the end table, and he moves to the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of water and drinking greedily from it. One envelope remains in his hand, clasped between his thumb and his fingers.Parchment. Thick. Heavy.He sets it down on the kitchen counter, and he reads the name on its front.
To
Lauti Henriksen, Esq.
Lauti’s head is throbbing dully, and he focuses on the parchment for a long few moments, feeling an unspeakable anxiety that burns deep in his belly, in his chest. Slowly, he turns the parchment over, and he drags his fingernail under the wax seal, which is made in bright green instead of red. The crest is not a family crest: it’s a personal one, made for an individual. Lauti sees the symbol on it, two symbols, not like the Latin alphabet, but more like the old Norse one, and… He strokes the edges of the seal, feeling the feathered pattern, the sword crossed over with a quill. For just a moment, he has a fragment of thought – the idea of this crest in its beginning stages, drawn in black ink upon a piece of parchment…A swell of dizziness takes hold of him, and Lauti has to grip hard at the kitchen counter to keep himself from falling down. Will it never end?❅ ❅ ❅
Lauti breathes unevenly where he lies back on the cot. The cabin is small, with a little bedroom with two twin beds, and then a wider room with a sofa made up with blankets and pillows. Lauti is laid upon one of the beds, and the younger woman, Wanda, a beautiful girl with dusky brown skin and deeply brown eyes, is putting some power he knows not over his flesh. It seems to sew him right together, seaming the two parted sets of flesh once more as one, and his eyes flutter shut.
There is silver in the room, silver, and he reaches for it blindly.
He hears Wanda gasp, but it doesn’t matter. He reaches for the silver as he would reach for a blanket, and he feels it settle molten and smooth over his hand, gloving the skin in easy metal and clinging tight to his fingers. Feels better than before, much better.
“Who are you?” he hears Lehnsherr demand.
“I’m silver,” Lauti mumbles, feeling delirium set slow into his bones, feeling his tongue sloppy and clumsy, now that his organs are where they ought be. Shock is beginning to set in. “Don’t take it away.”
❅ ❅ ❅He lets his eyes travel slowly over the page, taking in the looping, beautiful handwriting. The handwriting is distantly familiar to him, like a snatch of song he once heard but cannot remember when.
Dear Lauti,
I hope you do not mind that I write you so soon, my friend. I am at home in New York, now, staying at a hotel with my good friend, and I was thinking of you today. So strange, that a young man of such standing should live alone in Alaska, and yet so beautiful was your home, your farm!
There is much I would ask you, but I would so hate to overstep… Tell me, Lauti, what would you ask of me first? I shall let you begin the bulk of this exchange, for I do not know how private a man you might be. Ask what questions you will of me, and reveal what you would like – I will learn as we go.
Tell me, Lauti… I am not as widely read as I should like, but I do adore so many poets, such novelists. Are you fond of literature, yourself? I should so adore to hear your thoughts on whatever books you like most.
This is but a quick missive, a beginning to our pen-friendship…
Pray, do write me quickly. One yearns for letters, when one is left bereft.
With my affection,
Fandral Alvison
Alvison. Lauti’s eyes linger on that last signature – the first name florid and signed with a beautiful ease, but the surname lacks its flare and ease upon the page. It is almost as if the first has more practice than the surname in being written, as if the second name is in disuse (he’s never used it before) but then, with a name like Fandral, Lauti supposes he doesn’t need to note his surname down very often.Lauti feels his eyes momentarily flutter closed, and he shoves the parchment page from Fandral aside, sinking down to the ground and letting the silver clinging to his neck form a twisting hand, reaching out across the room and grabbing up the letter from Erik on the desk.He pulls it back to him, feeling the silver around his neck settle once more into chain upon chain, and he digs the letter open, leaning back against the wood frontage of his cabinets and smelling fresh paper and the metallic scent that always clings to things that Erik owns.His letter is more usual. He will not tell Lauti where he is, or why he is there, but as always he says that Lauti would be welcome to join him, and that he would send somebody to pick Lauti up. He says he is well, and that Wanda and Lorna and Pietro are well (Pietro’s name is scribbled in as an afterthought, as ever), and that all he hopes Lauti is doing similarly. He asks after the reindeer, and after the cabbages, and he wonders if Lauti might consider joining them for a few weeks in winter, as they will be taking a sojourn in Mozambique, a holiday.Erik worries, Lauti thinks, that Lauti might be his son.Lauti knows better, now.Setting the letter aside, Lauti crawls slowly from the kitchen and into the living room: as soon as he reaches the rug beside the fire place, he drops down onto it, dragging a cushion with silver beading beneath his head.He needs to sleep – properly, not just by falling unconscious.He needs to sleep.❅ ❅ ❅
Very delicately, Lauti leans upon the fencing of the cabin, watching Wanda and Pietro train in the yard. Wanda will attempt to strike Pietro, and every time, magic or not, she fails to do so. Equally, however, he cannot land a hit himself – her shielding is too much for him to work through, and each of them runs circles around the other. And yet… Lauti can see the way that Pietro’s limbs move, see the slight blur to them, and he sees him, can see him easily. It’s a little uncomfortable to look at, to be sure, but—
Wanda and Erik can’t see Pietro, when he moves at his own speed. Lauti can – why is that? His head twinges slightly, and he puts his fingers to his temple, but then shakes his head. Lauti moves forward, on his cane of silver, and both of them stop. They watch him descend the steps from the cabin, and they share a glance. “If you would, Wanda,” Lauti says quietly, and she hesitates, but then she gives a small nod, and she takes a step away and toward the cabin, letting Lauti take her place.
Lauti looks at Pietro’s face.
Pietro looks slightly frightened, but the look is only momentary, and then he raises his chin, clenching his fists at his side.
Lauti faces him, and he leans back on his heels. The cane shifts in his hand, becoming longer and broader and forming into a staff, and he faces Pietro with his jaw set. Pietro leans back, running a hand through his silver hair – he’s the very image of his father, Lauti can see, with the same square features, hard bone, inhumanly shining hair. His eyes aren’t as cold, though – they are blue, but they aren’t so coldly metallic, aren’t flecked with gunmetal grey.
“Hit me,” Lauti says.
“I’m not going to hit you,” Pietro says. Lauti chuckles, surprised at his own confidence, at his own self-awareness.
“You’re correct,” Lauti murmurs. “But I would like for you to try.” Pietro’s expression twists into a scowl, and he whips his hand out to strike: Lauti catches it with the staff, hitting hard against Pietro’s wrist before it can hit his shoulder, and Pietro blinks. “You’ll get it. Try again.”
Pietro lunges, and Lauti blocks him once again. Again, a blow, again, and again, and again, and again – until Pietro slides over the grass and taps Lauti on the back of his hip, and Lauti laughs, stumbling slightly. He remembers this, remembers it from before – sparring with a man with thick blond hair and—
He has to strike out with rapidity to lean on the staff and keep himself from falling, swept by a sudden wave of dizziness, a splitting pain that cracks down the middle of his skull, and he groans in pain. He clutches tight at the staff, his two fists gripping the length of silver so tightly that it bows under his grasp, and Pietro moves fast enough to catch him.
“Are you alright?” Pietro asks, catching him by the shoulders and keeping him upright.
“I think perhaps—” Lauti exhales softly, and he feels himself stumble. Pietro catches him by the chest, sliding one hand under his shoulder, and he walks at Lauti’s pace – undoubtedly excruciatingly slowly for him, but he does it anyway, half-carrying him into the cabin again. His expression is a mask of guilt, but there’s awe in there too, awe and bafflement as he looks Lauti right in the face, carrying him in to lie on the cot.
“Pietro!” Erik snaps. “What did you—”
“It wasn’t him,” Lauti mumbles, a little uncertainly. “I was just trying to show him something, but I… A sudden headache, that’s all.” He leans back against the wall, and he catches Pietro’s hand before he can try to pull away, getting him to sit down on the cot beside him. “My apologies, Erik.”
“You’re still weak,” Erik says. “What were you doing outside?”
“Playing,” Lauti murmurs. The throbbing pain is beginning to fade as he focuses on the sensation of the cot beneath him, of Pietro’s hot-skinned palm beneath his own, of the rapid beat of Pietro’s pulse beneath the surface of his flesh, of the smooth wall behind him. He looks at Erik, at the figure he cuts with an apron loosely tied about his waist, in a blue-knit sweater, his expression a vision of concern.
How many days has he been here, now? Three?
“Do you know me?” Lauti asks softly, looking Erik in the face.
“No,” Erik says in an undertone. “Should I?” Lauti shrugs.
“I don’t remember,” he says, and he drops hold of Pietro’s hand. Gently, Pietro touches his shoulder, his thumb stroking over the muscle there, and Lauti closes his eyes. “But I’m— I am a mutant, aren’t I?”
“From what we can see,” Erik says softly. “But don’t you remember who hurt you? You were gutted like a fish.”Lauti’s fingers move to his belly, touching it over the loose fabric of Erik’s borrowed shirt – Pietro’s had been far too small. “Wanda… If the Wolverine—”
“Father,” Wanda says. “He wouldn’t.”
“He wouldn’t were he in his right mind,” Pietro mutters. “And how often is that?” Lauti reaches up, stroking over his forehead and dragging back his long hair. He doesn’t recall anything about this man – the Wolverine. He thinks of lying on his back, his gut split, thinks of…
“It was a knife,” Lauti murmurs. “I’m sure it was, a short blade, a dagger.” He remembers it in his hand. But— his own hand? His own belly? He certainly doesn’t recall that. More pain, and he cries out with it, gripping tight at the pillow beside him.
“Pietro, get him some water,” Erik says, and Pietro flickers away in a heartbeat. Lauti grunts, hiding his face in his hands, and Erik says, “Wanda. Call Charles.” There is a long pause, and Lauti feels the tension in the room.
“Are you certain, Father?”
“Has to be done, my girl,” Erik says, sotto voce, and Lauti closes his eyes more tightly at a fresh wave of pain.
❅ ❅ ❅Lauti wakes with a yawn, and he sits up slowly from the ground. He can hear a knocking against the front door, and he pulls himself up. He is messy, his shirt creased and his hair loose about his shoulders, but he moves quickly to the door nonetheless, pulling it open. He looks Logan up and down, taking in his bloodied tanktop, the hastily packed satchel slung over his shoulder, the rips in his trousers and the burnt-rubber smell clinging to his boots. His expression is serious.“Hey, Lauti,” Logan says. “How’re you doing?” Lauti smiles, and he reaches out, taking the bag from him, and he gestures for Logan to step inside. The sun is just beginning to set outside, and he closes the door, grasping at Logan’s hand and drawing him further into the house. Logan lets him draw him into the bathroom, and he watches as Lauti turns on the taps, letting hot water flow into the tub.“Did you piss off the Brotherhood,” Lauti asks, reaching for some bubble bath as he drops the satchel heavy onto closed lid of the toilet, “or the X-Men?”“I pissed off a government facility,” Logan says.“Ah, of course. How silly of me to expect otherwise.” Lauti sits heavily on the edge of the bath, and Logan reaches out, touching the side of his neck to feel his pulse. It’s slightly thread, and Lauti swallows.“You okay?”“The headaches again,” Lauti says. Logan inhales, slowly. It’s been months on months since Lauti last experienced an episode – ever since coming to the farm five years ago, avoiding modern media, avoiding cities and towns, avoiding most everything… Things have been better. There is something about Fandral, evidently, that triggers the pain, but what? Could he be so similar to somebody Lauti once knew upon Yaro?“You know,” Logan murmurs, “it probably is a good sign. That you have the headaches, I mean – means you might get your memory back.”“Would you want your memory back?” Lauti asks, quietly. “Knowing, as I’m certain you do, that you forgot for a reason?”“You remember more of it than you admit,” Logan says, with his characteristic bluntness, Lauti clasps his hands together, squeezing them rather tightly together, and Logan watches him for a long few moments, looking up at him with his lips pressed loosely together. “You’ve been doing the meditation exercises that Prof X taught you, right?”“Yes,” Lauti says, feeling the weight in his own words, drawing his palm delicately over the side of his jaw. He had learned those exercises long ago, but it had taken him such time to work up the courage to do them – only when he had been in Alaska for three months, with nary a headache in sight, had he begun to lean slowly into it.“You don’t have to tell me, kid,” Logan says. “I ain’t here for an interrogation.”“No,” Lauti agrees, stepping away from the bubbling bathwater and taking up Logan’s bag and nodding behind him. “You’re here for a bath. Please, make haste: you stink.” Logan smiles, just slightly, and he pats Lauti’s arm. “Were you followed?”“Probably,” Logan admits.“Excellent,” Lauti says softly, and he draws the door shut as he leaves.❅ ❅ ❅
Lauti stands with his hands clasped loosely in his lap, sitting back in the chair. The professor, a bald gentleman similar in age to Erik, who leans back in a customised wheelchair, looks at him very thoughtfully, two of his fingers pressed loosely against his right temple.
After some minutes of sitting like this, like so, he puts his fingers down.
“Well?” Lauti asks, a little bit desperately. “He said you were a telepath, that you would be able to unlock—”
“No,” the professor murmurs, slowly shaking his head. “Were I to attempt that, Lauti, were I to attempt to dig into the cracks in whatever shielding your brain has built to protect itself, I would do you immeasurable harm. Lauti, this amnesia is… This may be an effect partially caused by your mutation, and to force things now truly could hurt you. You understand?” Lauti inhales, leaning back in his seat, and he draws his knees up underneath his body. The professor’s expression is calm, but full to the brim with care, and when he looks past Lauti, to Erik, Lauti looks too. “You were right to call me, my friend. We’ll take care of him.”
“As well as you take care of anyone,” Erik says, damningly, and Lauti sees the strange twitch of his hands at his sides, the hesitation. Why had he taken him in, Lauti wonders? And why worry so now, to let him go? “Go, then. I hate to look at you, Charles.”
“No, you don’t,” the professor murmurs. He says it with unspeakable melancholy and hurt, and Lauti gets the distinct impression that he is in the midst of something deeply personal.
❅ ❅ ❅Nobody follows Logan. He suspects, he tells Lauti as he chops carrots and aubergines, he must have thrown them off as he crossed the state border.That night, Lauti makes a ratatouille, and Logan complains about both the lack of meat and dairy, but eats every scrap of vegetable he has, mopping up the remainder of the stew with fresh-baked bread. Logan falls asleep on Lauti’s sofa with half a beer clasped in his hand, and Lauti smiles slightly to look at him, throwing a blanket over him absent mindedly before sitting down at his writing desk with the letter from Fandral before him.He reads the page again and again and again, until the lines stop making his head throb, until they stop making his skull split with agony. It takes hours. By the time he reads the page, from start to finish, without a twinge in his head, dawn is breaking.Lauti drops into a dead sleep on his bed, still clothed, and Logan does not wake him until the sun is rising once again.