It was a dark and stormy night. Most nights on Jotunheim seemed to be, Hogun reflected as they tromped along through the snow. They were surrounded as they went by a small squad of Jotun. Once upon a time, this would have marked them as prisoners being herded off to meet some grisly fate. Now, however, he knew that their escort had been sent as an honor guard, meant to see them safely through the blinding snow and treacherous terrain to their ultimate goal of the King's grand hall – where, hopefully, there would be a fire and food awaiting them after such a long trek.

Barring the occasional curious glance and a hand up out of an occasional difficult snowdrift, the Warriors Three were largely left to their own discussions and thoughts. They were regarded with lingering wariness but no outright hostility that Hogun could see. Though, of course, that made sense. The King would not have sent to collect Asgard's chosen emissaries any Jotun that might have so far proven reluctant to let go of the past.

Asgard and Jotunheim together had been resolute – no hardheaded fools would stand in the way of progress and peace any longer.

"Is it just me," Volstagg mused beside him, glancing around at the alien, blue-skinned figures surrounding them on all sides. "Or are they growing giants smaller these days?"

It was true that some of the frost giants that had been sent as their escort did not, strictly, qualify for the name. "Ordinarily, I would say it was just you and your vast girth, my friend," Fandral piped up. "But it is true that those Jotun born, shall we say, smaller or weaker than the rest have found fresh support as of late. Their Majesties are…particularly sympathetic, to their plight."

One of the first joint efforts of the two kings had been to do what they could to stop the traditional killing of Jotun runts, even if it meant sending them to Asgard to live in exchange for their service. A surprising number of parents had seized upon it as a way to get rid of their unwanted children, and a surprising number of runts that had survived childhood only to be driven into hiding had emerged to take advantage of the fresh opportunities. Those who hadn't departed entirely had found that there was always a place open to them in the king of Jotunheim's court, particularly since Jotun runts were fast proving to have a genetic disposition towards magic.

"Yes, I suppose they would be," Volstagg agreed with a nod. He took a fresh look around, then, as the cliffs and hillocks grew more pronounced around them, enough to keep off the worst of the snow, and added with grudging approval, "The place has certainly tidied up nicely, hasn't it?"

It had, now that Hogun took a second look. At first, he hadn't even seen the buildings at all, mistaking them for natural formations of rock and ice. Now that the snow was easing up, however, and now that he was really looking, it was evident that this was a deliberate choice. All the same, there were clear signs of habitation around them, of community. For the longest time, Fandral had been used to the idea of giants as wandering warbands or raiders, of hulking scavengers in the shadows. He hadn't even known any sort of plants could grow here, but there was evidence of concentrated efforts to farm the thick blue moss currently coating most of the rocky walls.

It was clear that they were passing through the outskirts of a city, with the wilds of Jotunheim growing more and more tamed and more and more giants being visible as they pressed on. The ones he could see out and about weren't attacking, or preparing for an attack. They were going about what he could only think of as "daily lives" – bringing home food, tending to tools, harvesting the strange moss, talking to one another.

It was unworthy of Hogun to be surprised at such simple things, he knew, especially when one of his own friends could be counted among their number. Old prejudices were slow to fade, that much was undeniable. Even now, he didn't doubt just by the looks they were getting from their honor guard and the giants they passed by that the Warriors Three themselves were the subject of the same doubtful scrutiny and the same reflection on old rumors.

Progress was being made, however. That was all that mattered. There were giants that came to Asgard to stay and Asgardians who actually came back from trips to Jotunheim. The Warriors Three were not the first delegates of peace and reconstruction to this frozen world, and it was hoped by all that they would not be the last.

Progress was being made, day by day and step by step, and that was all any of them could really ask for. All they could do was inch their way forward and stop other idiots dragging them back into the dark.

Hogun hoped once again, as the castle became slowly visible through the mist in the distance, that there would be a fire and food awaiting them. This was a daunting task they had been dealt, and a long walk to reach it.

Even those mundane thoughts were driven out of his head, however, as the castle came fully into view above them. Even he couldn't quite stop an impressed sound from escaping him along with the other two.

None of them knew if this castle had existed before the war, or if the new king had used his power and people to construct it afterwards as a sign of Jotunheim's fresh start. Either way, it had become an undeniably magnificent structure now that there were actually people living here. It looked more than a bit like a mountain itself, its walls and spires ascending from a broad base to form a distant peak. The ice that had helped fashion it, however, had been worked in such a way as to catch whatever scant light managed to make it through the clouds and reflect it a thousand times over, a thousand times brighter, so that it literally seemed to shine like a beacon or perhaps even a second sun. No one could look upon this structure and doubt that here was the seat of power for a new Jotunheim.

Their guards called for the gates to be opened, which they were by the three guards – two normal-sized Jotun, and a smaller one that left her perch on the first's shoulders to scale the wall quick as a spider to undo a hidden latch. The crystal double-doors swung inward with barely a sound, and they were escorted across the courtyard and into the castle itself. The front doors were hanging open, and why wouldn't they? The most biting arctic cold couldn't bother a Jotun.

It could bother Asgardians, however, and that was why the Warriors Three let out a collective sigh of relief when they stepped into the throne room to find a merry blaze of green mage-fire burning in a pit in the center of the hall. There was really nothing to burn in Jotunheim, but magic could fill in the gaps nicely. The first impulse of most frost giants was to shy away from heat, but they were slowly learning that it had its uses.

Something very big and dead was roasting over the flames, and Hogun couldn't blame Volstagg for fixating on it immediately. Fandral, however, had noticed something at the other end of the hall, and Hogun followed his gaze instead.

The hall was empty, beyond a few of the smaller Jotun skulking around as guards just in case. They were the king's personal guards…and apprentices in the ways of magic. The king himself was lounging on his raised throne of ice, in a manner that would have oozed insolence if the ruler of an entire planet could be insolent. He hadn't looked up at the arrival of the Warriors Three, but that was because he was busily wrapping up a conversation with someone else that only he could see and hear.

The sorcerer-king of Jotunheim cut a strange but imposing figure, dressed in a wild mixture of animal skins and furs and metal ornamentation beneath a green and gold coat that was undeniably Asgardian in style. He wore a helmet of leather and bone, bedecked with the actual horns of one of Jotunheim's mightiest beasts and etched with eldritch designs. Perhaps the strangest part of all, at least to the Warriors Three, was to even see him as a Jotun, all deep blue skin and ridged clan lines and blood-red eyes, after knowing him for centuries in another skin entirely.

It was growing less and less strange every time, however. They'd all changed since then.

"Ah, yes, and here they are now," the king was saying to a flickering phantom image before him. If Hogun squinted, he could just make out who it was supposed to be, and then he understood why Fandral was grinning fondly. "Ready to eat me out of house and castle but most certainly not frozen to death. Well, I suppose I had best hear the news they've brought me in person, and you had best return to work." Loki smiled with undisguised affection, before banishing the projection with a wave of his hand.

"We'll speak again soon, brother."

Wow.

Just...wow.

I know I should say something pithy and eloquent right, now, I find that all that comes to mind are two words that no writer can ever say enough to anyone who ever reads this far.

Thank you.

Not to mention those two little words that every writer both dreads to face and longs to write with every tale they tell. The moment for them, however, has finally arrived.

THE END