Discovery- a Loki story

~A Journey- In the cold of Jotunheim~

Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel, or any of its characters. I just took them out of their box and played with them for a while. Enjoy!

A harsh wind whipped across the mass of tumbled ice and snow; bitter mist lay sprawled like a think blanket, blocking all the surrounding landscape from view.

A tall figure battled his way through the bitter, white-speckled snowfall, his long grey cloak shoved about by the fierce onslaught of icy wind. He trudged on.

Suddenly, icy spikes loomed up out of the thick snowfall on either side; their jagged precipices, rising to distant heights, shone like cruel iron in a sudden glow of winter sun, stabbing down from the seething clouds to light the distant heights.

The figure paused, cloaked head turning briefly as he looked at the two columns, like sentinels before a hidden gate. Then he strode forward again, and suddenly stood outside a wide arch. He plunged past it, into a wide hall of ice.

Out of the blizzard now, he paused again.

There was a noise in the air, eerie and out-of-place in the grandeur of the abandoned temple.

A baby, crying.

Again the figure halted, turning to pinpoint the direction the noise was coming from. from an archway to the right, a cry, more insistent now, rang shrilly in the echoing hall. He moved forward again, speeding up now; he passed through a second, smaller arch and into a wide vaulted room, like an empty sermon hall in a church.

He glanced around, in confusion at the apparently empty room, before he spotted it;

there, alone near the place where the alter would stand, lay a small baby.

its skin was a deep, smooth blue of uninterrupted summer skies. Its eyes, shining with tears, glowed from within, a gentle, but piercing, red like a berry, but the corners were streaked deeper blood-red.

It was tiny and alone.

its small mouth opened in shrieks of fear and abandonment, and its wide, bright eyes shone with a thick flow of tears.

The figure moved slowly toward the little baby, his steps echoing in the silent hall. The baby looked up, and though it still cried, its eyes held a bright curiosity which appealed to the lover of wisdom who stood watching him. As if drawn by the child's incessant tears, the tall figure bent down, holding the tiny creature gently in his large hands, like a fragile thing he feared would shatter at his touch.

Moved by the pull of those bright eyes, he gently ran a hand across the baby's forehead, feeling the flawless skin, soft as silk, cold as ice, like those of its larger kin. But so young...So fragile...So innocent.

Almost as if against his better judgement, he found he had scooped the little creature into his arms. It wasn't crying now; its tears were replaced with a kind of eager curiosity. It's skin, fading from the blue of its kin, had dissolved into the pale tan of the Aesir; its eyes, no longer red but a bright and piercing green, looked at him in a calm thoughtfulness, odd for one so young.

With a flash of selfish realization, looking into those innocent eyes, Odin knew he needed it, this little bundle. he needed to hold it, to comfort it, to take it out of this cold, dark place to somewhere it would be warm and safe.

But how could he take this, child of an old enemy?

Then an idea came suddenly in support of his desire. This child...could be leverage, a bargaining chip for peace...Hastily, before he could change his mind, he gathered the bundle to his chest and strode off into the outer storm...