Frank Tries Blue Moon
Loki arrived back at the palace late. It was the middle of their evening meal when he sat down, exhausted and began eating as much as he could.
Thor looked over at him. “Why do you eat like a starving man, Loki?”
He swallowed, having run home all the way from the forest. It had taken him three hours. The shortest route to the cave by foot took three hours to get there. He needed a better mode of transportation if he was to continue going. “I am hungry. I missed the midday meal.”
Lady Dagney raised a brow at him, but said nothing. All of his mother’s ladies often liked to tease Loki, most affectionately, about his studious habits and how time got away from him. He found their jests endearing. He blushed and drank deeply from his goblet of water.
Jörmungandr slithered onto the table to eat crumbs of bread, though he was not quite as hungry as Loki because Darcy had fed him earlier. Thor made a sound of disgust at his brother’s friend. “Loki, get it off the table. It’s dirty.”
Loki tried not to feel hurt as he looked from his brother’s dirty fingernails and sweaty palms to Jörmungandr’s sleek scales. “He is not hurting anything.”
“He’s hurting my appetite.” Thor complained, taking a bite of roast quail none the less.
In defense of his friend, Loki chose to move to a different seat at the end of the table where Thor would not be displeased with him. There, Loki quietly assured the little snake. “You’re not dirty, Jörmungandr. You’re just different. Like Darcy said, different doesn’t mean bad.”
The little snake did not seem troubled about his difference, licking at a droplet of water that had settled on the table.
That night, after his bath, Loki sat in bed, reading the book Darcy had given him. He found that he could not put it down. It was a truly enthralling story. He must ask her questions about it!
The Black Thing, it was so evil. The personification of evil! And the sacrificed star, Mrs. Whatsit made him smile along with her friends Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which.
But the most interesting thing was this tesseract. A tesseract! He had heard of one before when skimming through a book on arithmetic structures of curiosity. But this seemed a whole new idea! That a tesseract could travel through dimensions…like realms? Was the bifrost a tesseract of sorts? Or vice versa? He must learn more.
Loki put down the book, its pages loved by him as well as Darcy.
***
Darius pushed his sister aside on his way to the kitchen. “You’re so slow.”
Darcy pouted, crossing her arms. “You could have just asked. I would have moved.”
She sighed making her way to the kitchen for lunch. It had been thunder storming all day and she wished Loki was there. He was so interesting and he always listened to her talk. None of her friends liked to talk so much but she loved to talk. And she liked to listen. Loki was smart too. He could explain things to her in ways that made it easy.
But the best part was that he seemed to really like listening to what she had to say. Sometimes if she talked to her mom, she could say anything she wanted.
“Mom?”
“Hm.”
“Darius pushed me down the stairs.”
“Okay.”
“My friend has magic superpowers.”
“That’s nice.”
“I have a pet snake.”
“Honey, Mama’s trying to pay taxes. Can you go somewhere else to play?”
***
Loki rubbed eyes. He had been in the library since early this morning and had found a lot of information on the tesseract, though different realms tended to describe it differently. Mathematically, a tesseract was a cube of sorts with a different geometric structure.
Asgardian legend claimed that the tesseract was an actual object that could work as a way to shorten the distance between realms. Much like the bifrost. He looked back to the book A Winkle in Time. “A line is not the shortest distance between two points.”
He sighed, Jörmungandr slithering onto his hand. He was getting a little bigger, his body was now the length of Loki’s middle finger. “I think I am beginning to understand this. I only wish I had a model of sorts.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked a smooth, comforting voice.
Loki’s gaze shot up to a girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes. He recognized her as a daughter as one of his mother’s ladies. She was beautiful. Like Darcy. Only her smile was shy and unsure. He quickly came up with a response, not wanting to appear surprised. “My friend.”
The girl looked into his hand and saw the little snake. “Why isn’t it hurting you?”
“He does not wish to. Plus he has no teeth yet.”
“Oh.” She said, clasping her hands behind her back. “Forgive me, Prince Loki.”
“It is no trouble Lady…?”
“Sigyn.” She said, meeting his eyes. “The Allmother sent me to give you this book.” In her hands she held a large book with English print.
He held his hands out in acceptance and read the cover. Human Biology. Perfect. “Thank you, Lady Sigyn. Have you read it?”
“No, Prince Loki.” She responded, reddening further. “I cannot read any midgardian languages.”
Loki nodded easily. It was not common that Asgardians learn all the languages. He was royalty, and hence the exception. “I understand. Would you like to learn?”
Sigyn opened her mouth to say something, lights in her eyes when a loud voice made her jump. “Lady Sigyn!”
Fandral strutted into view, a willowy look on his face. “I thought you were going to the afternoon sparring to watch me pummel Prince Thor.”
She nodded, looking down at her toes. “Indeed. The Allmother gave me a task.”
“Ah.” Fandral said in a pitying tone, eyes flicking to Loki and back to her. “Well, it seems your task is completed.” He offered her his arm and she took it, not glancing back at Loki.
“Good day Prince Loki.” She muttered, walking away.
He waited till they were gone to open up his new book and tried to compose himself. Why could he not make any friends on Asgard? Was it because of his hair? He was not blonde like his mother or Thor. Or maybe his eyes. Were they too green? Was it because he was small? He thought of Darcy in her glasses. Maybe he should express his concerns to her. She did not shy away from him as others did. She hugged him.
Reading for ten minutes, he found that mortal life expectancy was only 60-90 years. Less than a century.
He swallowed. That was how long Darcy would live? Only 70 years? Thor had been friends with Sif for at least a thousand! How was that fair that he should only get a friend for 70 years before she died? She said she was nine. Her life was already over 10% finished! He had at least a few thousand more years to go before he could choose to be immortal or not.
Angrily he snapped the book closed and Jörmungandr curled up on his hand comfortingly. Jörmungandr did not care if he had green eyes and dark hair. Jörmungandr did not care if he was small and liked magic and reading. Neither did Darcy. Darcy thought he was important.
Calming down, Loki picked up his notes and books, leaving a few of them on the table to read later and taking his back to his chambers. There he added them to his shelf, standing on a chair to reach the highest shelf. From there, he shrunk Darcy’s book down so it could fit in his pocket. He decided it was time to speak with his father about gaining freedoms. He was almost at his time to begin the transition into adulthood and felt that he should have access to a horse and passage out of the city.
Gently, he walked through the halls until he came to the throne room, where Odin stood speaking with a group of nobles. He waited by the door till they dispersed before approaching the Allfather.
“Father.” He said, nearing the throne, trying to keep up a mature demeanor. He was a prince, he should speak with grace as well as purpose.
“What is it you need, my son? I suppose it is something to do with getting a new weapon as Thor has been given Mjolnir?” Odin asked, a glint in his eye.
Loki raised his brows in shock. He had not known that Thor had gotten his hammer. And Mjolnir was a fine weapon indeed. “No Father. I was here to ask your permission for my desired endeavors.”
“For once.” Odin added, chuckling and beckoning for Loki to approach the throne.
Loki tried not to run, willing to prove his maturity and the responsibility he possessed. “What is it that you wish, Loki?” he asked, taking his son’s hand.
“I wish to have permission to travel into the forests again. I do not wish to kill things, only to discover. I’ve learned so much from books, but I have not truly gone out to test if what I’m reading is all right.” Loki explained, voicing the truth in the form of a lie.
Odin sighed, a sad smile on his face. Loki feared that he would not get permission until Odin laughed. “If you were Thor, I would say no.” he chuckled, taking both his son’s hands and leaning forward to speak in hushed tones to him. “But you are very intelligent, Loki. I will have a guard escort you to the stables and tell them that Prince Loki is to have free reign of his own horse and allowed his freedoms.”
Loki could not hold back the smile. “Thank you Father.”
“You’re welcome, Son.” He said, sitting back in his chair. “Make sure you are armed with more than one dagger, if that is your weapon of choice and ask if you are to stay gone longer than a day’s time.”
Loki nodded respectfully, turning to leave when Odin called to him. “And Loki, do not tell your brother. He would be most furious.”
“Yes Father.”
The next thing he knew, Loki and Jörmungandr were sitting on a fine steed he named Hel. She was quite old and was the possessor of one of Loki’s earlier spell malfunctions. She had broken her leg after racing too much with other horses and Loki, being her master, had tried to heal it with magic. Well, it didn’t exactly heal her per say. It actually killed her and Loki had cried all night at his mistake. But when the stable boys went in the next day, they found that Hel was only half dead, one side of her body entirely skeletal while the other full functioning blood and flesh.
Hel was not very well accepted on Asgard, though. She ran faster than most and could only carry a little weight. So she spent most of her time on Nilfheim. But it felt wrong to abandon his pet, especially since it was he that put her in such a condition.
“Let’s go, Hel.” Loki said, patting her fleshy side affectionately.
In no time at all, they were through the city and past the fields, dashing through the forest. Jörmungandr sat in Loki’s pocket, head poking out and tongue blowing in the wind. Loki didn’t want to risk hurting Hel by taking her through the thicker wood, so he made a detour, taking grassier planes across the land to reach the hills. One of which contained his cliff and the cave.
Hel listened to his direction, trotting along through a patch of worn shrubs before approaching the passage to Midgard. He dismounted, sliding off Hel with a little uncertainty. She was very fast, but also much bigger than her small prince rider.
“Hel, I’m going to be seeing Darcy for a while. We might not head back to the palace till morning. Stay by the river or nearby. Try not to fight any bilgesnipe.” Loki said, rubbing both the smooth bone of her shoulder and the silky mane that poured down one side of her head.
She neighed, gleefully stomping her hooves and bumping his head with her nose. He took that as encouragement to go. Eagerly, with Jörmungandr’s head poking out of his pocket, Loki dove into the cave, laying down on his back. Midgard, Midgard, Midgard….
“Daddy, can I stay up a little longer to read? Please?” pleaded a girl’s voice.
“Darcy, you have school tomorrow….”
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?”
“Sweetheart…”
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?”
The man sighed, “Alright. Ten minutes. That’s it, then you have to sleep or else your mother will cut me into tiny piece to feed to the dragon in the basement.”
“That’s not a dragon, Daddy, it’s a furnace.” Darcy reminded and Loki wondered what a furnace was.
“When did you figure that out?”
“Darius said I had to go down there and look at it or else he was going to tell all of my class that I still have stuffed animals in my bed.” Darcy explained. “And I learned that there’s only the furnace and no dragon.”
The man laughed, “Your brother is a stinker. Sleep tight, Angel. I love you.”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
Loki watched as a set of heavy boots clomped across Darcy’s purple floor. He waited till the door was closed to slip out from under her bed. “Was that your father?”
Darcy sat up, her long hair damp and she smelled…sweet. Perhaps she had just taken a bath. “Loki! I knew you would come!”
Jörmungandr slithered onto her hand, his toothless mouth wide open in greeting. “I pinky promised.”
Her smile glowed in the darkened room. “Did you read the book?”
Alight with joy, Loki didn’t hesitate to sit on the edge of her bed and pull out A Wrinkle in Time. “Yes. It was marvelous. I loved it! The writer must have been very smart to have produced such a magical novel.”
“Madeline L’engle.” Darcy said, just as enthused as he was. “What do you mean, ‘magical’?”
With steady hands, Loki pulled out his notes, handing them to Darcy. He explained what he knew about the tesseract in the different realms and how Midgard thought of it.
All the time, Darccy read. He noticed she did not read fast, her eyes drifting across the page slowly. It may have been the only thing Loki saw her do with patience. Her little eyebrows came together. “Loki, what is this word?”
He looked over at his notes. “svartalfheim.”
She nodded and kept reading, her finger trailing under the words as she went. He admired her. According to her, she was only nine. He could not even speak when he was nine. Then again, Darcy would not live to be as old as he would either.
Darcy finally put down the notes, eyes wide. “Wow. You’re really smart. I didn’t understand some of that. The tesseract is a real thing? Or is it a shape? Is the tesseract on Earth? Or is it one of those other places? What’s the tesseract made out of? What is a Yggdrasil?”
Loki considered every question. “Well, that’s what I’ve been researching. According to Asgardian knowledge, the tesseract is real and a very powerful…uh…thing. I don’t know exactly what it is, only that it is powerful and not much is known about it. I don’t know where it is, either. Yggdrasil is the Nine Realms. Sort of a tree that encompasses them.”
Darcy stared at him blankly for a moment. “Can you draw a picture of it?”
Loki’s mind sparked. “Of course. Do you have a pen?”
Hastily, she stood, running to a white desk in the corner of her room and opening a drawer. “I have crayons.”
“Can I write with them?” he asked curiously, unsure of what crayons were.
She nodded earnestly, handing him a long cylindrical piece of colored wax. He figured it would work well. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She replied, throwing herself back on the bed, scrambling to sit close up next to him. “Go ahead.”
Smiling at her eagerness, Loki pulled out his journal, opening it to a blank page. He drew out lines like his father had many years ago when explaining Yggdrasil to he and Thor when they sat on his lap in the throne room. “This is Asgard, Midgard, Vanahiem, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, Jotunheim, Nilfheim, Muspeulheim, and Helheim.” He explained. “Midgard is Earth.”
Darcy traced her finger over the circle that represented Jotunheim. “So, this is space?”
Loki nodded, “Most of what is known.”
She traced through Nilfheim and Muspelheim. “Is the tesseract on one of these places?”
“Probably. According to Asgardian books, the tesseract was lost a very long time ago and was passed around under-hand for a long time. We don’t know.” He concluded, running his hand over his journal.
“Well,” Darcy sighed standing up, “I guess we’ll just have to find it.”
“What?”
“We have to find the tesseract.” Darcy repeated, going over to her bookshelf and studying the books. “I’m going to need to finish the series of a Wrinkle in Time. After that, I’ll go to the library and see what they have there. You can do research on Asgard. We can even get maps and stuff! It’ll be great.” She whispered, flying around her room and picking up writing utensils and paper.
She sat at her desk, Jörmungandr slithering onto the end of her pencil and biting the pink tip. “Darcy, the tesseract has been lost for a really long time. We cannot find it.”
She turned to look at him, blowing a lock of brown hair out of her face. “My Dad says you can do anything you want if you work really hard. It’s out there somewhere, Loki. Please?”
He looked back and forth from her pleading expression and how her bottom lip pouted a little to Jörmungandr’s gaping mouth as he slipped to sit on top of Darcy’s head. Really, the idea seemed fun. Think of how impressed all of Thor’s friends would be if he found the tesseract. And it would make Darcy happy. “Okay…I suppose we can. But we must be careful. My Father says the different realms can be dangerous.”
Darcy tapped her chin with one hand and reached up to take Jörmungandr with the other. “Hm, well, I took a Karate class last year. But the instructor told me I wasn’t calm enough to take karate. She said I was hyper. I told her that her class was boring and we didn’t kick stuff enough.”
“What did she say?”
Darcy shrugged sitting down on her bed and clutching a worn looking stuffed horse. “Well, she didn’t say anything else. But my mom said I should try something other than karate.”
“What is Karate?” Loki asked interested.
Darcy stood on her bed, flattening out her hands and slicing the air with them. “It’s this awesome fighting thing! You break boards with your hands and stuff. Well, that’s what it’s supposed to be. But my instructor didn’t know anything about karate. She said I had to learn to be calm to break boards.”
Loki cocked his head curiously, “Why would you wish to break boards? Is it a custom on Midgard?”
“No. I just think it would be cool.” She sighed, moving around several of the fluffy pillows on her bed. “I could be like The Karate Kid. Or something. My mom let me and Darius stay up late and watch it a little while ago. That’s why I wanted to learn karate.”
He was confused by this. “What did you watch? A kid? Why?”
She giggled, stacking the pillows until they were sitting in a small barricade of bedding and animals. “No, the movie. Have you seen it? Do they have movies on Asgard?”
“What are movies?” Loki asked abashedly. Would she think less of him since he knew very little about her society? Jörmungandr didn’t seem to care about movies or what they were. He was too busy staring skeptically at one of Darcy’s fake, plush snakes.
Darcy jumped up on her bed, causing the barricade to break. “Movies are awesome! Hold on, I have a movie player in my room. We can watch Mulan! Or do you want to watch the Karate Kid?”
Loki was warmed by her excitement. Of course Darcy would not judge him for his ignorance. “Whichever you prefer.”
She stacked the pillows again before kicking them off her bed. “I don’t know. Mulan is my favorite but…okay, how about we watch Mulan and then after we can watch The Karate Kid?”
“Whatever you like.” Loki replied, unsure.
She bounded up, excitedly flying to the door where she stopped. Jörmungandr curled up on Loki’s knee, staring at Darcy as she pressed her ear to the door and peered through the crack between it and the floor. After what looked like much heavy contemplation, she carefully turned the knob, the door pulling open with ease. She smiled at the dark hallway. She waved her hand for Loki to follow her. “I have to check to see if my parents are still up. Usually when my dad is home, him and my mom go to bed early. They usually lock their door too. Darius says it’s because they’re vampires, but I think my mom just doesn’t want me to wake them up in the morning. I always wake up early.”
Loki nodded at her whispers, carefully treading in Darcy’s footsteps as they padded across strange carpeted floors. Midgard was so different the Asgard, but he liked it. The walls were not stone or wood or metal, rather something else. And it was not quite as regal. Everything was open and painted different colors. The room they were in now was painted a warm yellow hue he suspected would look nice in the sun.
Darcy took his hand as they reached a set of stairs, “Follow my footsteps. These stairs squeak. Sometimes when Darius and me get up to find our presents on Christmas morning, he accidently steps on the stairs that squeak and my parents wake up.” She explained, pressing her small feet in different places on the stairs.
“Okay. Darcy, why are we sneaking?” he asked, “Are you not supposed to leave your room?”
As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Darcy tapped her chin, “Well, I’m not not supposed to leave my room. I’m supposed to be asleep, but I’m not tired. And you’re here!” she ended loudly, quickly covering her mouth with her hands. “Oops.”
They laughed silently for a second, looking up the stairs to see if anyone was coming. Sure that they would not be caught, Darcy ran through the open house, into an area with sofas, plush leather chairs and a large flat black object of sorts. He watched was Darcy bent down in front of a cupboard and extracted two plastic cases.
She walked back to him, creeping on her toes, avoiding certain spots on the floor. Darcy must sneak around her house often, perhaps as often as he snuck around the guards when exploring places he shouldn’t. Like the prisons, or around the city. He felt again a bond with Darcy he identified as friendship. He smiled to himself, feeling warm inside. Or perhaps that was his hunger. He had not eaten for quite some time now.
“Alright, now…” she trailed off as his stomach made an offensive noise. “Are you hungry?”
Loki, stuck between his need for food and polite mannerisms. “I am, but I shall be fine until I return to Asgard.”
She handed him the plastic cases, “Are you sure? Because my mom got more ice cream. It’s blue-moon.”
“Ice cream?”
Her eyebrows disappeared behind her hair, “You’ve…!?” she began, but Loki quickly clamped his hand over her mouth. Her face relaxed some as he pulled away. She continued in a whisper, “You’ve never had ice cream?”
“No, I do not think we have it on Asgard. What is it?”
In no time at all, he and Darcy were back in her room, a small screened device she called a ‘movie player’ between them. They shared a glass bowl full of the most delicious confection he ever had in his life. It was cold and creamy and sweet and Loki decided that he would ask the cooks on Asgard if they could recreate such a thing. Jörmungandr sat happily on the edge of the bowl, occasionally dipping his head into the melted bit of cream at the bottom of the bowl.
Darcy was preoccupied, setting up her furniture in different ways to hang her blankets on them. “Are we going to watch the movie yet Darcy?” Loki asked, setting his spoon down to save her some of their treat.
She huffed as a purple blanket fell from her lamp. “I’m trying to build a blanket fort. Darius used to make them in the living room. But he stopped when he got his PSP.”
“Why would we fortify ourselves with pillows and blankets? Who is attacking?” Loki asked, only partly joking.
She grumbled angrily as her pillows toppled over. “It’s just for fun. You just sit under all the blankets and feel cozy and stuff.” She explained, standing on her toes to reach the lamp again.
Loki stood as well, helping her. “Perhaps if we try it this way….” He suggested, moving the blankets and pillows so they stacked against her bed and the covers stretched out over their sitting space, creating a canopy for them to sit under. He tucked the end of the blanket into a drawer on her dresser so it stayed hanging. “Hey, I never thought to do it that way! Thanks Loki!”
He smiled openly at the praise, helping her move the obscene amount of animals into their fort along with a few pillows for them to lie on. Darcy snuggled up in them, her purple night-clothes obscured by a number of stuffed horses. She took a bite of blue ice cream, grinning in satisfaction. “Mmm, I love ice cream. Blue-moon is my favorite. But I like mint chocolate-chip too.”
“On Asgard, we have cake for deserts, flavored with fruits and honey.” He commented, taking a bite himself. Jörmungandr, now completely covered in ice cream opened his mouth in absolute glee, tongue flicking around. Darcy giggled at him, turning on the little movie player, and putting the ‘DVD’ mulan inside. She pressed a button and the flat screen began to play images and music.
He watched in fascination. “What is this?”
“A movie.” Darcy explained through a mouthful of melting blue cream.
Loki’s eyes were glued to the screen. He found himself caught up in both the story of the girl Mulan and how she had to stand up for her father by taking his place in battle, and how a small screen could do such magic. On Asgard they had scrying glass and spells that could make images appear in thin air, but this…
This was so different.
Perhaps it was the disc that cast the spell? A two-part system?
His absorption with the story won over his curiosity of the device at most points. The little dragon, Mushu, and his schemes to become powerful made him laugh. Darcy hid her face at all the embarrassing moments and sang along quietly with all the songs. Overall, Loki very much liked Mulan. He first thought he might compare her to Sif, but then thought again, Sif did not want to be a warrior to save anyone. She only wanted to prove herself and would never dress up as a man to do so.
He watched the movie till the end, irritated with General Shang. Mulan had been a valiant warrior, had she not? And yet he cast her out because she was a woman. Even at the end when he came to his senses and went to Mulan for forgiveness, Loki still thought that he should do more than return her helmet. Though, Mulan’s grandmother’s input did make him laugh. “Darcy, why doesn’t Mulan tell him no? Why doesn’t she stay with the Emperor? She could be a very powerful woman and prove herself further? Or is it that she does not wish to prove herself anymore?”
Darcy did not reply and he looked down at the small Midgardian girl to find her curled up into his side, her hand clutching a stuffed yellow fish. Hushing himself, Loki found Jörmungandr, still coated in melted ice cream, happily dozing in the bottom of the ice cream dish.
Silently, he cast a spell to clean his pet and placed the snake in his pocket. He gently moved Darcy off of him, surprised to find her so light. He barely had to use any muscle to lift her into bed. Where all Midgardians this fragile?
Darcy sighed in her sleep as Loki replaced her pillows, blankets and stuffed animals. Loki found her lolling mouth and soft snores rather endearing. He left the bowl on her nightstand and glanced down at the movie player.
Oh, he wanted to see how it worked. Darcy wouldn’t mind, would she? He would only borrow it for a day or two and he wouldn’t break it. He just wanted to see how it worked. Perhaps he should ask.
“Darcy?”
She stayed asleep, her eyes not even fluttering.
“Darcy?” he tried again.
This time she moved a little, her mouth lolling open. “Uuh.”
“May I borrow your movie player?” he asked in a whisper.
“Mmmfbrgh.” She replied, her face buried in a pillow.
“I promise to return it.” He vowed, picking up the device and shrinking it to fit in his coat. He bent to slide under the bed when a small hand brushed is shoulder.
“Loki?”
“Yes Darcy?”
“Don’t…don’t forget about the tesseract. We have to find it.” She slurred, hand slinking back under her pillow.
“We will Darcy. Even if we must travel to Jotunnheim, we will find the tesseract.” He assured in a whisper, gently patting her shoulder.
“Cool.” she sighed, the exhaled air blowing her messy brown locks over her face.
Jörmungandr stirred, slithering onto Loki’s shoulder as he lay underneath Darcy’s bed, waiting for the passage to open. “Come, Jörmungandr, let us return home. We have much work to do.”