All That Are Fallen (for coldsong)

[handsofwinter]

They retreat through the storm, invisible. Engine noises deadened and buried beneath the howling gales; hulls silent in tell-tale wavelengths and shielded from prying radiation by their cloaks. For most anyone they’d be nigh-impossible to track, even with the most sophisticated and cunning of sensors.

But there’s always one, isn’t there?

Loki can follow the little fleet through the frenzied snow and the roar of wind, over the dim shadows of forests splashed dark over the terrain below, the thin ridgelines that merely hint at tricky crags and sheer precipices. They travel fast. It’s not long before they begin to descend into a shallow, snowbound valley.

They’ve been at work here for some time by the look of things. The valley is criss-crossed with long hills- no, they look more like barrows, all blanketed in a thick layer of snow and swarming with activity in and out of round doors. The transport ships join others circling above and begin to offload their passengers, adding to the general din. The three largest barrows form a great rough triangle with only a couple of smaller structures between them. There is the heart of the encampment – and the noise. Vandals and a few captains in particularly good armor move among the others, directing chaos into order. Shanks lift into the air and fly to one barrow in formation. The injured limp or are carried in one direction, some with seared and blackened limbs or armor spattered shiny with blood. A dreg shrieks as his companions try to lift his scorched armor to check the burns beneath. Other dregs are tasked with taking the dead away, laying them out under the supervision of a vandal with a different style of helm and clothing.

But others are simply packing up their weapons and gathering around the officers counting heads. And others- others who were already here, are clearly sorting booty. Beneath a rough tent crates are stacked high and others lie open as the dregs beside them lower inventory tablets and cheer for the returning army. Before them lie piles of blankets, computer parts, miscellaneous trinkets… and a lot of books.

The sorted crates are being picked up and taken to the biggest of the barrows. The one with the biggest banners hung before it, and the most disciplined and armored guards beside its door. And the one before which decorative poles have been driven into the ground. Atop them sit skulls. Most look human.

Here be monsters, then. But monsters with voices, and as their speech slowly resolves itself around him, as snarls become words and words become orders, questions, greetings-

Here, too, wait answers.

Comments

[coldsong]

They're so very, very corporeal. After all the mystery of the past weeks, that's the first thing that surprises Loki. He supposes it shouldn't. The dead may greatly outnumber the living in the universe, but there are still quite a lot of living, and they tend to want more things and show up to claim them more often. What these beings want, and who they have bargained with to get it, remains to be seen.

But this? This looks like a military camp, except for the objects they seem to have been collecting. So many books. Why so many books?

The barrows are interesting, and his first thought is to want a look inside one. Amidst this chaos may be a good time, but it would be reckless to just wander in without reconnoitering first. He circles for several long minutes, light in the air overhead, observing them treating their wounded. He feels no guilt for the shrieking injured dregs, but the fact that they are tended rather than put out of their misery summarily says something about these people.

(And they are people. They may also be monsters, but they're people.)

Jotun do not, as a rule, heal their wounded, in the world he comes from.

That observation, and the thoughts that follow, alter his approach. They have seen and clashed with armies this winter, but that does not mean there are only armies here. What if these are a nomadic people, and the barrows hold offspring? That would put a different spin on things.

He lands quietly near the biggest barrow, solid once again, but cloaked in an invisibility glamour. He'll see how long that's effective. In the meantime, he stands still and listens to the voices around him, alert in case he is spotted despite his magic.