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When the sound of hooves echoed in the courtyard, Byleistr muttered through clenched teeth and drew the curtains of wolf fur. Thanks to the light of the stars and to his knowledge of the courtyard, he managed to discern the shapes of the horse, the chariot and of his brother between the fogs. He was entering through the front gate. "Lingering in the woods during times of war!" Byleistr thought, bitterly. "Such a stupid boy…". He was ready to get in his younger brother's way and ask for explanations, but he didn't. Helblindi's width, worried face was enough to make Byleistr forget about all the threats and complains that were about to come out of his mouth.
"What is it, brother?" He asked, concerned.
"Bring me a blanket."
"But, what-"
"Do not delay!" Helblindi answered, gesturing to the bearskin sheets that rested in the parlour, beside the fireplace. Byleistr turned on his heels and hurried to get them.
"I've found a man in the snow. He's badly hurt. I believe he was wounded in battle, sometime during the Convergence." Quickly, Byleistr brought the sheets. His brother snatched them from him and went outside. A moment later, he returned carrying a small Jotunn in his arms.
"Here." Byleistr said, opening the doors of the baby's room. Suddenly, Helblindi looked doubtful. The man's body hung loose in his arms.
"Come now." Said his brother. "Do not worry about the sheets. We'll deal with that later."
"Bring some rags and hot water." Helblindi growled. Byleistr left the room to get the requested objects. Hesitantly, Helblindi got closer to the bed, and lifted the blanket. When he saw, clearly for the first time, the large wound that crossed the man's back and stomach, he froze in place. Soon enough, his brother came back to the room, carrying a basin.
"He would not make it through the night." Helblindi said, stopping his brother in the doorway. "I believe we should not bother him."
"Don't be so grim, brother! There must be something we can do." Byleistr crossed the door and stood beside the bed. Then he stopped, suddenly looking pale, as he gazed over the wounds in the small Jotunn's body. He grimaced, and Helblindi took the basin from him. "Well, let's get to work." He still said, in a strong, commading voice. Helblindi nodded, approached the bed, and carefully began to clean the tattered body.
He did make it through the night. He made it through the week too, and the brothers started to think that he was going to live.
He lay motionless and unresponsive, in the room they called "the baby's room", without noticing anything, except perhaps the light that appeared and disappeared through the glassless window. He couldn't speak (at least, not any language that they understood) and his wounds didn't allow him to move just yet. He always looked outside, maybe watching, maybe thinking, maybe not. There was very little to see; some barren land buried by the snow, and Byleistr's small figure in the distance, digging in the earth for roots and occasionally bending down to pick them up. Whenever Helblindi brought him food (goat milk with pieces of dried meat) the man ignored him. He was surrounded by a shell of silence and sorrow; seemingly unreachable.
"Is he getting any better?" Byleistr asked in the afternoons, and Helblindi always shook his head.
Ten days passed and something occurred to Byleistr. Five days later he told his brother about it, while they were having dinner.
"Maybe he's just stupid."
"What do you mean?" Helblindi asked, looking angry. Byleistr made a rare gesture with his hand, trying to explain himself.
"You know, weak of the mind. I mean, maybe he doesn't speak because he can't."
"Of course not!" Helblindi said, frowning. He looked up from his plate, and saw doubt in his brother's eyes.
"Have you not noticed how he looks at us, when we enter the room? He's not an idiot. There's intelligence in his eyes."
Byleistr had seen those eyes. They were dark, red and small; when it rained they almost looked black. Normally they showed nothing (a blank stare, devoid of reasoning or light) other times they seemed sad, frightened, or cautious; but most of the time they showed nothing. They disturbed him; he could say that much.
"Well, I'd like to hear him talk sometime." He said, looking away. Helblindi put his fingertips over his cup of tea, as if considering his next words.
"Do you remember when Laufey took the baby away?" Byleistr's shoulder tensed for a moment. He went silent for a few seconds, before daring to speak once again.
"Yes, I remember." He made a pause then, and looked down. The memory didn't hurt, not really; but it was still strange to talk about it. "The baby was too small, too weak for Laufey to claim him as his son. So he took it to The Temple, as an offering to the Gods. We didn't even have time to give him a name…"
"Mother started to act strange, after that. We talked to her, and she didn't seem to hear us. There was nothing wrong with her eyes, but she didn't seem to see anything. She couldn't speak either, it was as thought... she just didn't seem to be there anymore."
"Yes, I was there. I remember." Byleistr said, not looking up from his plate. "... but she got better. Eventually."
"She was never the same." Helblindi said. "But yes, she got better. Who says he can't do the same?"
Weeks passed, and the torn tissues healed. During the nights, Helblindi would always sit beside the man while sharpening his sword, to tell him stories about Jotunheim and the Days of Old. He was very tall, even for a Frost Giant; his skin was as dark as the night sky, and it gleamed under the light of the moon. He had black hair and big red eyes. He was a man thirsty for power and revenge; the desire for retaliation against those who had wronged his race was radiating from his body, gleaming in his eyes, whenever he thought about the Great War and the Jotunn blood spilled by the Asgardian armies. There was a softess in his heart, thought, and feelings of mercy or sympathy were impossible for him to hide.
For many days Helblindi spoke to that motionless, silent face, about the wars that had ravaged the East, of the years of drought, and of the time when Jotunheim had seen happiness and glory, during the Days of Old. He spoke of all those trifles he could never forget; the armor he used the first time he rode into battle, with golden ornaments and silver threads. He spoke of the day when King Laufey arrived to the Winter Palace after drinking a whole barrel of mead, with his armor completely broken and with a boar under his left arm that screamed so fiercely it could have raised the dead. He read him some pages of the Prayer Book and told him about the gods he worshiped. He talked about almost everything he thought, except about the baby.
The small Jotunn never answered, not even with a smile. All he did was stare at him while he was in the room, and stare at the door, when he was not. Helblindi couldn't tell if that was a significant difference, but he wanted to think that it was.
Finally one day, while the brothers were in the parlour taking some soup a sudden hustle came out of the baby's room. Byleistr looked at Helblindi, then stood up and opened the door of the quarters.
The man was walking feebly and awkwardly, for he was not fully recovered yet, and he couldn't bear the weight of the amour he was wearing. It was the same armor that he had when Helblindi brought him to the house; the one that had been removed and forgotten at the foot of the bed, in order to treat his wounds. Briefly, he wondered how the Jotunn had been able to put it back on, in the state he was in. They forced him to sit down again and he stayed there, with a serious, somewhat annoyed look, until Byleistr retired the heaviest part of the armor and let him rise. He then crossed the door quickly and began to inspect the house, seemingly exploring his new surroundings. Helblindi patted him lightly on the shoulder and told him to not strain himself too much. He sent him a glare, ignoring him completely, and continued to explore the courtyard.
Byleistr didn't say anything, and went back to the parlour to finish his soup. He felt troubled, althought he wasn't entirely sure why.
"And how shall we call him?" Byleistr asked one night, before going to sleep.
"Well, he is a grown man. He would not appreciate it if we keep calling petnames." Helblindi said, almost without realizing it. They had decided for that after concluding that "the man in the baby's room" was way too long for a name; Bite Size and Arm Rest had kind of stuck, buy they were far from a permanent solution. Byleistr only grunted in response.
"We'll have to wait." Helblindi concluded. "Surely he has a name already, and it would not be right of us to put him another. We'll wait. He'll tell us eventually."
Byleistr tried to analyze what his brother had told him. He could only conclude that the indefinite stay of the small Jotunn in their house had become permanent in a matter of seconds.
"Oh, Brother." He said then, after a large sigh. "I do hope we're not making a mistake..."
Certain things started to happen, little seemingly innocous things, that Helblindi and Byleistr decided to call recovery. Once, Byleistr found the man's small but strong hands on the other en of a tree that he had cut down for firewood, helping him to lift it from the ground. On another occasion Helblindi noticed the man's unhidden interest in bladed weapons (how he kept staring at him every time he saw him sharpening his sword) and soon enough discovered his abilities with throwing knives. Once the man found a pit filled with clean water at the edge of the forest, and ever since then he came back there every morning to fill a bucket with it. Apparently, he was tired of the melted ice that the brothers used to bite to quench their thirst.
When he had been living with them for over a year, Helblindi forged him two throwing knives and for mere impulse, craved in the handle the symbols that used to adorn the gates of the Winter Palace during the Days of Old. When they were given to him the man fixed his eyes on Helblindi and then on Byleistr. He leaned forward, took one of the daggers and threw it in the air, so that it turned five times before falling back into his hand. Byleistr laughed (more than a laugh, it was that strange sort of giggle that he made whenever something managed to surprised him) and Helblindi patted him on the shoulder. The man frowned, as if he couldn't understand what was happening around him. The brothers smiled at him, and he simply stared back, holding the gifted daggers in small, careful hands.
He did have a name.
After the night when he was gifted with the daggers, the man started to make attempts to speak again. The sounds he made most of the time meant little to the brothers, though they could recognize certain differences between the words addressed to them and those that were just quiet, private mutterings.
"What's your name?" Helblindi asked one day, earning a curious, arched eyebrow from the smaller Jotunn. Name. What you are, what you have been, what you have done and learned. Your life, waiting for a simple sound and symbol to designate it.
The man twisted his mouth, and after opening it and closing it for a couples of times, he said: "Loki."
"Loki?" Helblindi asked, and smiled as the small Jotunn nodded warily at him. "Loki." He repeated, and the man nodded again.
It took him almost five months to be able to hold a conversation, and even more so to learn to speak fluently and without hesitating. He always preferred not to, thought, despite being perfectly capable of doing so. He was already used to been quiet.