Archive of Our Own

“What made you believe this was behavior befitting a prince?!” Odin demanded, his one eye glaring with more than the intensity of anyone else’s two.

“... He started it,” Loki replied in a monotone, his own eyes having to divert their path to study the floor.

“You turned him into a pig!”

“He was already a pig,” Loki muttered. “I only--”

“You are a prince, Loki!” Odin snapped. “I expect you--”

“He’s twice my size and he started it!” Loki yelled back, lifting his head to return the glare.

“He’s an imbecile and, more importantly, our subject!” Odin retorted. “One of your responsibilities as a prince and a future leader is to set an example!”

“Why would I ever be a leader?!” Loki exclaimed. “I’m not even the ‘spare’, I’m not even viable! I’m your PET!”

Odin gave him a smart slap across the cheek, leaving a searing sting, and grabbed Loki by the shoulders. “You are no one’s ‘pet’, Loki, never believe such a thing. You were born a prince, and a prince you remain. Ruling a kingdom is only one of many forms of leadership, and you, Loki, are the most clever and cunning of my sons,” he said. “You will be great in your own way, and you will do great things. But only when you learn to acquit yourself as the prince you are.”

Loki clenched his jaw until it ached and glared at the wall. He didn’t respond.

“Go to your apartment now,” Odin ordered. “Remain there. You may read, but you are not to go out.”

Loki turned and stalked away. He wended his way through the halls, making eye-contact with no one, and shut himself into his room with a slam of the door. He stood still and silent for a minute, glaring without a target. “Prince,” he sneered through his teeth. “I am the prince of no one and nowhere. Certainly not here.” He walked across the room, kicking whatever his feet could find, until he stood in front of his mirror. He stared at his morose reflection for a while, and then laid his hands upon its surface and closed his eyes.

Where to go? Anywhere ‘away’ sounded good in theory, but perhaps less so in practice. Not Jotunheim, of course. Svartalfheim and Nidavellir were right out, and he wasn’t sure if Niflheim and Muspelheim ranked slightly higher or lower than that. Alfheim didn’t match his mood, and he’d be too quickly recognized and returned if he tried Vanaheim. That left the middle realm that Thor so obsessed over. Reputed to be overflowing with beauty and danger and wilderness. Most of all, wilderness. Enough to get lost in. Loki took a deep breath and began whispering a spell which was a recent addition to his repertoire.

As the mirror turned viscous beneath his hands, Loki stepped forward, and through, and out, into green that stretched on and on. The moss, the ferns, the brush, the leaves on the trees, and the light filtering softly through them, all a cool, refreshing green, and even the smell of the air was green. Loki sighed, and felt the oppression that filled every stone and beam of the palace leave him with that breath. No wonder Thor liked this place. Loki let himself smile and reached up, slipping his fingers under the diadem on his head and pulling it off. “Prince of no one and nowhere, I discharge you,” he announced, throwing it and not caring where it landed. “Pet of Asgard?” He shrugged out of his jacket and gave it a toss, walking forward with light steps. “No, I think I shall go feral!”

He broke into a run for a ways and jumped up on a fallen log that crossed his path; it’s moss-covered and fungus-riddled surface crunched perilously under his boots, but didn’t collapse. “Laufeyson? Odinson? Why should I be anyone’s son?!” he demanded of the air as he spread his arms wide, then jumped from the log, shifting form and nature before landing in the damp, dead leaves upon the ground. And there Loki stood in triumph and relief, not a prince and no one’s son, and deciding that she should be daughter to nothing but the forest that gave her shelter and breath.

“Advise Loki he may leave his room to have supper with us,” Odin told an attendant before he made his way from the throne room to the great hall. As the meal got underway, Thor was more restless than usual without companionship, and earned a few scolds from Freya as he found difficulty keeping to his seat. Some minutes in, the attendant appeared at Odin’s shoulder, and from her expression he already knew what her words would be before she spoke them.

“Loki is... missing,” she said quietly and close enough to politely keep the information between the two of them. Odin gritted his teeth and nodded, then got up from his chair.

“What is it?” Freya asked, frowning up at him.

“Loki is testing me,” Odin replied, and swept from the hall.

Heimdall turned his face to greet him as Odin arrived. “All Father?”

“Loki is attempting to make some kind of point,” Odin scoffed. “I need your eyes to find him.”

Heimdall nodded and went quiet for a moment as he glanced around. “... He’s not in Asgard,” he said with a frown.

Odin gritted his teeth hard and cursed inwardly. “All the more important that you find him elsewhere then.”

Heimdall looked out across the bridge and went silent for a long while. By the time he spoke again, his frown had become much more pronounced. “I can’t see him.”

“How is that possible?” Odin demanded.

“I can’t see you when you don’t wish me to,” Heimdall replied. “It would seem that Loki has come quite far in his magical studies.”

“Damn everything,” Odin growled.

“What shall I do?”

“Nothing. One wayward child’s tantrum is hardly greater than your duties here,” Odin said roughly, shaking his head and departing. When he arrived back in the great hall, Odin bellowed, without a care for who should wonder at it, “Hugin! Munin! To me now!” The ravens leapt from where they’d been pulling scraps from his abandoned plate and flapped quickly over to Odin’s shoulders. “Scour all the nine realms. Find Loki, wherever he may be,” he ordered, and they took flight again, winging from the hall and out into the murky dusk beyond.

Loki could hear the crash of waves and gulls calling their farewell to the sun in the distance as she roasted a rabbit over her fire. “Tomorrow I shall catch a fish,” she decided, watching a drip of fat fall onto the coals and cause a brief flair of lively flame. “It can’t be very hard. I’ll bet I don’t even need a boat... But maybe the next day, I’ll make a boat anyway.” The cave she’d found wasn’t tall enough to stand in, and it was damp and very much filled with dirt and the creatures that are wont to crawl in dirt. But what it was not filled with was anyone’s expectations but her own. And she was not a prince after all, so she required no princely accommodation. “I shall be a peasant fisherman. Fisherwoman,” she told herself. “I will build a tiny peasant-house next to the sea, and I will catch fish and collect kelp and be very happy.”

The beach, Loki decided, was much nicer than the forest. She decided this in no small part due to the fact that every time she thought she’d shaken all the bugs out of her hair, she turned out to be wrong. Sleeping in the damp, little cave had been more difficult than she’d hoped, and the dawn had come very early and inescapably without curtains to temper it. Loki promised herself a nap after she’d caught a few fish, and then she found a nice rock to sit on and pulled a few hairs out of her head. She started knotting and whispering magic to them, and they obediently grew stronger, longer and more numerous as she worked them slowly into a net.

The void in Loki’s stomach grew more insistent as the sun rose steadily higher, and heedless to the urgency, her hands grew clumsier and clumsier. Eccentric mistakes kept finding their way into the net, and as Loki grew more frustrated, she grew clumsier still. But nobody was around to witness the shame of it, and so Loki ignored the dampness on her cheeks and allowed herself to sniffle as she worked. The sniffles couldn’t stop her working, of course, because she was tired and hungry and damp, and she had bugs in her hair, but she was Loki, and she could and would make a net. She would make a great net.

“I am Loki,” she whispered to herself. “I am smarter than nets.”

“I believe it. But most knotters don’t try to work so quickly, perhaps if you slow down?”

Loki yelped and nearly fell over. When she recovered, she looked sharply up at the speaker. The first thing she noticed was that he was very nude. The next thing she took in was the way he shimmered. Sunlight reflected playfully over his shoulders and arms against the surface of innumerable little, iridescent scales. His hair looked almost black, but the bright sunlight revealed a subtle verdancy. The scales on his face were so tiny they might have been mistaken, at first glance, for a dusting of particularly glittery sand. And the face that wore them was an especially finely shaped one.

He held a salmon out to her. “You seem to work with the desperation of hunger.” When he spoke, every sound was musical, and every tooth Loki could see was sharply pointed.

“... Thank you...” Loki whispered, not moving, just staring at him.

He took a step closer and gently pulled the incomplete net from her hands to place the salmon in them. “Eat, sweet maiden,” he crooned.

“... Yes.” Loki nodded slowly, and her hand found the dagger on her belt. She did know how to clean a fish properly, but at the moment she had no table and found that she had no patience for such trivialities. She tore her eyes away from her benefactor only to comply with his wise advice, and slid her blade through the salmon’s flesh as it lay draped across her lap, drawing away a strip of it. Then she paused and looked up, needing to see him again. He smiled and caught her face gently in his webbed and clawed hands as he leaned down and kissed her. Loki whimpered softly.

When he relinquished her mouth, the beautiful creature settled down on the rock with her, and said again, “Eat. I caught it just for you.”

Loki’s heart fluttered, and she hurried to show appreciation for the gift, tearing soft, orange flesh from the skin with her teeth. It occurred to her, with a vagueness like spotting something in the fog, that she hadn’t cooked the salmon, and this was unusual because she didn’t think she’d ever eaten salmon raw before. But he had told her to eat, and she was eating, and he seemed pleased, so she must be doing it right.

“... A young and hungry maiden, working alone on the shore to make herself a net, with salt on her cheeks that came not from the sea...” he sang next to her ear, and then kissed it for a moment, making Loki shiver. “Did you have no one to catch you a fish before I found you?” He kissed down the side of her neck until he reached the collar of her tunic. “... It’s hard to believe that such a very pretty maiden could ever have difficulty finding a fisherman who would give anything for the privilege to serve her.” His hand slid up over her ribs and found her breast, squeezing gently as he said, “Perhaps I shall make a wife of you.”

Loki’s heart skipped. “Really?”

“You surely have a great number of suitors, how many scores must I defeat to win your hand?” he asked.

“No. None,” Loki breathed.

“I can’t believe that. The prettiest maiden of the shore, and none claim her?”

“... Nobody loves me,” Loki whispered.

“I know that isn’t true, for your count is certainly off by at least one,” he murmured against her ear. “Your beauty has captured me, and I will claim you as the most precious pearl in my trove.”

Loki drew a breath that shook so much it was painful, and then the next moment she was sobbing.

“Cry no more and never more, my love,” he sang like a lullaby. “Eat your wedding banquet now. When you finish, we shall be joined. Then I will take you beneath the waves to my home and give to you all that you deserve, for your beauty is unmatched above or below.”

Loki returned to eating in large, quick bites, unconcerned by the pin-bones that snapped between her teeth. She felt small tugs and heard the sound of fabric tearing as her bridegroom started dismantling her tunic with his sharply clawed nails. She’d turned the salmon over to peel flesh from the other side of it when he unbuckled her belt and cast it aside with the scraps of her tunic, then abandoned his seat to settle on his knees next to her, and carefully shredded a line down the side of her trousers. Loki’s eyes traveled slowly along the sinewy length of his tail, studying the way it curled to balance him as he knelt. Then her gaze was drawn to the patch of darker scales across his back, the color of the ocean depths and glossy as the waves, stretched over lean, shapely muscles. Loki’s bridegroom was lovely. And he loved her. He’d said so.

When she finished pulling flesh from the salmon, Loki’s boots had been dropped in the sand and her clothing lay shredded and limp about her like a discarded apple peel. Her bridegroom took what was left of the salmon from her and tossed it away, then gathered her into his arms and lifted her from the rock, walking closer to the water, where the sand was damp and smooth from the retreating tide. He set her down gently on her back, and she sighed contentedly up at the blue sky above and the gulls dancing through it. As her bridegroom encouraged her thighs apart, Loki distantly noticed a large, black figure skim by among the gulls overhead.

“Loki is found!” Munin announced, swooping in through a window.

“Where is he?” Odin demanded, pushing himself from his throne as the raven flew to his shoulder.

“Midgard,” Munin answered. “A havsman toys with her.”

Odin’s mind stuttered for a moment over the pronoun, but he didn’t allow it to slow his momentum as he strode from the throne room and to the stables, before galloping through the streets toward the Bifrost. “In what way does the sea-beast toy with Loki?” he asked.

“The father of a young daughter will not like it,” Munin warned.

“Show me, damn you!” Munin showed him, and Odin struggled to contain his fury, so as not to crack the very land around him. He approached the Bifrost and bellowed, “Heimdall!”

Heimdall cast him an unmoved nod. “How may I serve you, All Father?” he asked as Odin pulled back on the reins drawing his steed to a momentary halt.

“Midgard,” Odin growled through gritted teeth.

Heimdall nodded and moved the Bifrost into place, and then Odin was away, riding flat out as he shouted to Munin, “Go on ahead! Show me the way, and show me the villain!” Munin streaked past like an arrow.

As he continued to keep his one eye on the bridge ahead of him, he looked also through the raven’s two and the path he cut over forest and crag and sea. Munin returned to the same shoreline, where a young goddess with Loki’s face lay supine and still upon the sand, the havsman now sitting beside her, stroking her cheek. Munin swooped down closer and circled. From that distance he could see the creature’s lips moving as he sang to the girl, though fortunately the raven had no ear for such music.

Munin was circling too closely to go unnoticed though, and on his third circuit the havsman looked sharply up and gave him a vicious hiss, displaying a mouthful of shark-like teeth, in an attempt to scare the raven away. Munin dove at him, harrying the creature.The havsman slashed with his clawed hands and might have felled a lesser bird. The exchange continued in an ongoing stalemate, though hardly a useless one as Munin kept the havsman’s attention distracted from Loki, until Odin burst onto the beach in a thunder of hooves.

Odin reined his steed to a stop and glared down from its back. The havsman had frozen, staring up at him with wide, wary eyes, no more threats or songs falling from his vile lips, now as silent as he was still. “... Know you, creature, whose daughter you have defiled?” Odin growled.

He saw a reaction pass over the havsman’s face for just an instant, before he shot to his feet and made a dash for the water, foolishly believing there was anywhere in the nine realms he might find sanctuary from the castigation he’d earned. But whether or not the sea could have slowed Odin down failed to find relevance, as Gungnir reached the havsman’s back before he reached the depths. He tumbled, bleeding and twitching, into the surf.

Leaving his spear for the moment, Odin leapt down onto the sand. He pulled the cloak from his shoulders as he walked to Loki and knelt. Her eyes were half-lidded and gazing unbothered up at the sky; the entrancement of her assaulter’s song still lingering. She stirred only a little as Odin swaddled and gathered her up.

“... Odin?” she murmured, with the voice of one not entirely awake. “... Where is my husband?”

Odin gritted his teeth for a moment, lifting Loki and getting to his feet, then simply replied, “Hush, Loki.”

She went quiet, compliant and docile, letting herself be carried and brought up upon the horse’s back. After getting her arranged so he could easily keep her across his lap and not rely too much on Loki’s ability to hang on, or perhaps even notice she was riding, Odin called Gungnir back, and then took the reins with one hand, the other arm holding Loki fast against him, and urged his steed forward.

Freya was overseeing audiences when an attendant whispered into her ear that Odin had returned. After settling what she could and excusing herself, Freya swept through the halls, deciding first on Loki’s apartment for a likely destination. She encountered Odin in the hallway walking the other way, having perhaps just left their son’s company. His face was stony, and made Freya’s throat feel squeezed. “You found him?” she asked.

Odin caught her hand, stepping close to speak in low tones. “Loki was assaulted by a havsman in Midgard... I think it may not have realized it had snared a god,” he said.

“Is he all right?”

“The bedazzlement is fading,” Odin said, then gave a heavy sigh and shook his head. “There is something you will have to see for yourself in the matter, but moreover, I think a mother’s attention and guidance is what Loki needs now.”

Freya nodded, disentangling her hand and breezing past him. There was no immediate answer when she knocked at Loki’s door, and so she let herself in and walked through the apartment, anxiety increasing as she didn’t spot her son. Had he disappeared again the moment he was found? “Loki?” she called.

“Yes,” came the quiet reply, flooding Freya with relief despite the fragility of such a shrill timbre in her son’s voice.

She followed it through the half-open door of Loki’s bathroom, and then stilled, staring at the young woman sitting in the bathtub, knees drawn up and back curled in a slightly defensive posture as she stared back at her. Loki’s eyes were impossible to mistake. Freya’s falter lasted too long, and Loki averted her gaze, hugging her knees. Odin had said she’d need to see it for herself. Freya urged her feet to move and walked closer, kneeling down next to the bath, then reached out and caught Loki’s chin in her hand. “... This isn’t a glamour,” she murmured. 

Loki’s shoulders tightened and she wrenched her chin free, turning her face away from Freya. “You weren’t supposed to see,” she whispered. “I wasn’t supposed to be found.”

“Why hide your face, Loki?” Freya wondered softly. “There are many respected and even beloved gods with two aspects.”

“Not in Asgard,” Loki retorted. “Asgard dislikes anything not easily labeled.”

“Is that why you ran away?” Freya asked.

“That’s only what the eye can see,” Loki whispered. “I am at loose ends and nothing else at all here. My titles are more fake than real. I have no function or role. I can’t-- I’m sick of listening to Odin try to invent an imaginary one for me... If any role I have is an invention, I would rather it be my own.”

“But Loki, you just said yourself that Asgard had no god of a dual aspect before. Now it has,” Freya said gently, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Such an attribute may often belong to a deity presiding over balance or luck or temperance... And by the Norns, your brothers could certainly stand to have a voice of temperance around.”

Loki squeezed her eyes shut and drew a quavering breath, her shoulders beginning to tremble, and then she wailed, “I don’t want to be your God of Temperance!” She sobbed wordlessly a few times. “I was going to live in the sea! In a house made of shells and pearls and gold! With my beautiful husband!”

“Loki, those creatures have a deplorable attention span,” Freya said, catching Loki’s hand and holding it. “He would have cast you aside the moment he became bored. And that’s only if he didn’t intend to drown you the moment he got you in the water.”

“No! He loved me! He said I was the prettiest maiden he’d ever seen, and he loved me!” Loki shouted, shaking her head sharply. “He was my husband, and he loved me, and he was going to love me forever, and Odin murdered him! Odin murdered my husband!”

Freya leaned against the side of the bath, wrapping her arms around Loki and awkwardly pulling her close. “Loki, why did you love him?” she asked softly.

“B-Bec-cause he w-was lovely, and h-he gave m-me a fish!” Loki sobbed, making no attempt to fight the embrace.

“Do you hear yourself, child? Do you hear that you don’t sound like yourself?” Freya said gently, petting a hand over Loki’s wet hair. “That’s the enchantment they cast with their voices. He entranced you. He stole away your will and your ability to choose him or not. Would someone who truly cared for you do that?”

“I... I...”

“If he loved you, it was only as one loves a shiny bauble, Loki,” Freya said, voice holding a hint of fierceness for a moment before she made it soft again. “When you are old enough to marry, you can have a husband or wife who loves you for the brilliance of your mind and the passion of your heart, not just your prettiness.”

“Why? Why would any prince or princess have that privilege?” Loki asked in quiet cynicism, her cheek still leaned against Freya’s shoulder. “You didn’t.”

“... The nine realms are different now than they were then, less in turmoil,” Freya reasoned, fighting the sting of Loki’s observation. “And I didn’t have a mother to raise any protests on my behalf. She died a century before I was married.”

Loki was quiet for a minute, before whispering, “You wanted a daughter.” Freya flinched, feeling her own eyes widen, and then she bit her lip as she tried to fight through conflicting emotions and find some response, but Loki spoke again before she could decide on anything. “If I were a daughter, could you love me without forcing yourself?” she asked.

Freya pushed down a tightness in her throat. “Of course I love you whatever form you take, Loki, you are my child,” she said, voice sounding reedy and hollow to her own ears, as she let Loki go and sank back on her knees, then reached up and cupped Loki’s face. “But my hope is for you to embrace your full nature.”

Loki stared silently at her for a minute, and then nodded and turned her head as Freya let it go, putting her gaze on the bathwater. “... If it was enchantment, will it go away?” she asked. “Will I realize that I didn’t love him and feel unbothered by his murder?”

“Regardless of whatever else is real or not, it is real that you were hurt today, and that will take time to heal,” Freya said. “But understand that your father’s actions were born from a desire to defend you, not punish you.”

Loki swallowed, her tear-pinked eyes still aimed at the bathwater. “... If I’d gone away into the sea with him, I could have kept feeling that I was happy,” she murmured. “So long as I believed it, what would it matter whether it was real or not?”

“Loki, even if that were the case, it wouldn’t have lasted very long,” Freya said. “They are very fickle, changeable creatures. He would have soon tired of you and felt no qualm in abandoning you.”

“You don’t know that,” Loki spat in a harsh whisper, squeezing her eyes shut. “... May I be alone now, please? I won’t run away again.”

Freya sighed and got to her feet. “All right. I’ll check on you later,” she said, and made her way out of the apartment. She found Thor in the hallway beyond.

“I heard that Father found Loki,” he said, eyes begging confirmation.

“Loki is having a bath and wants some time alone,” Freya replied, shooing him. “It’s been a trying day.”

“Yes, Mother,” Thor said, departing.

Loki ducked herself under water and scrubbed her fingers vigorously through her hair, trying to get all the sand out. She was annoyed as she heard the sound of footsteps echoing through the water, not eager to continue any of the arguments at hand with either of her parents barely ten minutes after asking to be left alone. She surfaced, prepared to throw a tantrum if need be, and found herself even more annoyed that it wasn’t her parents at all. “Damn it, Thor, I just told Mother to leave me alone!”

“Well that’s Mother! That’s not-- That’s--” Thor protested, eyes wide, startled, flustered, confused, then he turned on a heel, facing the opposite wall. “Why are you a girl?!”

“Why are you and ass?!”

“I don’t see how that’s related!”

“How did you not run into her in the hall?” Loki demanded.

“I did, and she told me to leave, so I walked around the wing and came back after she was gone!” Thor explained.

Loki groaned, rolling her eyes, and then gathered herself up and grabbed her waiting towel.

“What-- No! Don’t stand up!” Thor exclaimed, hearing and correctly interpreting the sound of her emerging from the water.

“Oh shut up,” Loki snapped, wrapping herself snugly in the towel and walking out of the bathroom.

“But why are you a girl?” Thor asked again, following behind her, mortification apparently somewhat eased by Loki’s towel.

“It’s something my body just does sometimes!” Loki cast him a glare over her shoulder. “I hide it because I know that asses like you will be asses about it like you’re doing now!”

Thor recoiled, looking hurt. “I’m sorry, I’m just startled,” he said. “I just-- Why have you never--”

“You think I like being like this?!” Loki shouted. “You think I like being forever reminded that I’m not like you-- like any of you-- that I shouldn’t even be here?!” Thor caught her suddenly and hugged her. Loki froze for a moment, and then a sob and a sniffle slipped out of her. She was frustrated and embarrassed that she kept crying like a child. Mother said she was hurt over the day’s events, but Loki didn’t see how that translated into this argument with Thor. It must be just one more thing on top of everything else.

“... Is that why you left?” Thor asked quietly. “Were you running away to- to go be a girl somewhere?”

“No... I just thought maybe the stupid ravens wouldn’t recognize me,” Loki mumbled. “I left because I was angry. Because Odin was punishing me for turning Galinn into a pig.”

“Galinn was already a pig,” Thor scoffed.

“That’s what I said!” Loki agreed.

“... I’ve just realized I’m hugging a naked girl.”

“Well I was going to put something on. You interrupted me,” Loki retorted, pulling away from him and going to her dressing room. “Was he very angry when he realized I snuck out?” she called as she pulled a drawer out of the bureau and looked for a nightgown with enough smocking to accommodate her chest.

“Furious, because he couldn't figure out how you did it,” Thor replied from outside with a laugh. “What did he say when he found you?”

Loki was quiet a minute, slowly pulling on her nightgown, then she walked back out of the dressing room, eyes fixed on nothing, and said, “He murdered my husband.”

“Your what?”

“I got married,” Loki said, and started walking again, heading for her bed.

“You did not,” Thor spat.

“Yes I did!”

“You were only gone a day, and you’re not even old enough!”

“Well I did,” Loki snapped. “It doesn’t take a whole day just to get married anyway, if you skip the stupid party bit.”

“Who the Hel did you marry?” Thor demanded.

“A man who came out of the sea and said that he wanted to marry me,” Loki said, pulling her covers back and climbing into her bed. “And Odin said he’d entranced me, so he just-- he just murdered him.”

“Why are you going to bed?” Thor asked in confusion, because it wasn’t even supper time yet.

“Because I’m tired,” Loki sighed. “I tried to sleep in a cave last night, and I didn’t very much, and- and now I feel sick. I ate a raw fish, and now my stomach is upset.”

“Why did you-- Why?”

“I don’t knooooow!”

Thor stopped pestering and went quiet for a moment, then he crawled onto the bed next to Loki and settled on top of the covers, laying on his side facing her. Loki shifted around to mirror him. “... What was his name?” Thor asked.

“... I don’t know...” Loki’s eyes studied the edge of her blanket. “... So maybe I was entranced. A little bit,” she admitted.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Loki scoffed, and then bit her lip a moment. “... I- I don’t know.”

Thor reached up, resting a hand on her damp hair, and leaned their foreheads together.

“... If it was just some stupid entrancement, why do I have to keep crying?” Loki whined quietly, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Because you’re tired and sick and a fish-man insulted you by having the gall to trick you. Or maybe, even if he was a varlet, maybe it’s still upsetting that he’s just suddenly dead... Or maybe not, and that part will seem fine when your stomach stops hurting... I don’t know,” Thor whispered. “... I would have gone with you if you’d told me you were going.”

Loki caught his hand, pulling it off her hair and clasping it between them instead. Then she started crying because she couldn’t seem to stop it.

Loki lay on her side, staring blankly at the wall ahead of her, lit only by the sunlight that peaked around the edges of her curtains. She twisted the edge of the blanket in her hands and chewed on her lip, curling and uncurling her toes and trying not to think of anything. She started sharply and blinked when a knock sounded on her door. A moment later, she heard it open, and Freya called her name. Loki sat up quickly and drew her knees close to her before Freya came through to the bedroom, turning on the light. A maid followed in her wake, and Loki’s eyes locked onto the tray she was carrying.

“Ah, you’re awake... but still in bed,” Freya noted with a strained smile. “Well, does your stomach feel better this morning?”

“Yes,” Loki lied with a nod.

“You must be hungry then.”

“Very,” Loki agreed eagerly, daring to flatten out her legs as the maid came over and set the tray across her lap. She started eating immediately, only vaguely noticing as Freya perched on the edge of the bed.

“So, I thought that we should sit down with your father today and talk,” she said calmly.

“N-No. I can’t,” Loki said quickly, shaking her head and staring down at the breakfast tray. “I- I- I’m too upset. Still. And- And don’t want to be seen. I’m-- I--”

“All right. All right. Shhh,” Freya hushed her, putting a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “It’s all right... You need some time. I understand. How did you sleep?”

“Fine,” Loki lied, and took another bite.

Freya sighed softly. “Are you lying about that part, Dear?”

Loki nodded, pulling the spoon out of her mouth. After swallowing, she murmured, “Doesn’t matter though, whatever I say about it doesn’t change how I slept.”

“Do you want a draught to relax you?” Freya asked.

“No,” Loki said quickly, shaking her head. “It’s fine. I- I just-- I’ll be fine.” She went back to eating.

“You will be indeed,” Freya said with a tired smile, reaching out and stroking Loki’s hair. “You’re a strong child.”

Loki wrinkled her nose and swallowed, bit her lip in debate for a quick moment, and then said softly, “I don’t see why you keep calling me ‘child’... That’s why Odin saw fit to just murder him, because you’re both acting as though I were just a child.”

Freya sighed. “You’re our child. And you’re not truly an adult yet.”

“Close enough,” Loki said, and then bit her lip hard for a second, heart skipping. She quickly added, “Close enough for seduction to find sufficient foothold... He was beautiful. I can’t confidently say I would have made any different choice without the song’s influence.”

“But you were under that influence and were given no choice to make,” Freya countered softly. “And that renders it a quite different matter.”

“Should I not have had a choice in whether I wanted him to be murdered?” Loki asked, scowling.

“... Your father’s anger is a force not easily quelled, and he perceived an attack upon his child,” Freya said. “I think as you grow older, you will come to understand better every year, and when you have a child of your own, you will understand the unyielding ferocity that burns the veins upon hearing threats leveled against them.”

“... Perhaps so,” Loki whispered, and went back to eating until every dish on the tray was bare.

“You’ve mastered quite a massacre there,” Freya noted warmly. “Your apatite is making up for its absence last night. Would you like some more?”

“... Yes please.” Loki nodded.

“All right. I’ll be back soon,” Freya promised, standing up and taking the tray; as she pulled it away, Loki fussed with the blankets over her lap.

After Freya had disappeared, Loki let the blankets drop, pushing them down a bit, and put a hand against her belly, feeling the difference in its shape. She was fairly sure, not entirely but fairly, that this was not how these things normally proceeded, or at least not the pace that they normally did. She pursed her lips and tugged at the front of her nightgown; she thought the smocking across her chest seemed to have lost some looseness it had had last night.

Loki bit her lip, and then went about arranging her pillows behind her, seeking out a position to sit in where she was a bit more confident that any discrepancies in her figure weren’t easily observed. She felt it was mostly to luck that Freya hadn’t perceived any oddness, to luck and to a lack of familiarity with the usual size of Loki’s bosom, but luck shouldn’t be trusted to stay on her side. It would have been more prudent to avoid her return by declining more breakfast, but something inside of Loki was ravenous. Something she thought she occasionally felt squirm.

“Loki?” Thor called, pushing the door open without knocking, but pausing there before venturing further into his sibling’s apartment, yesterday’s embarrassment still fresh in his mind. “Loki?” He pulled the main door shut and went toward the bedroom.

“What?” Loki’s higher voice wasn’t quite familiar enough yet to tell if she was just annoyed or both annoyed and distressed.

“I’m coming in... okay?”

“Fine.”

He found Loki still in bed, despite it being late afternoon, with a hastily discarded book laying atop the covers and Loki curled up on her side, hands bunched up in her blankets and clutching them to her chest. Thor walked over and settled facing her like he had the other day, but now her eyes didn’t want to meet his. “You’ve been in here awhole day. Are you still sick from that fish you ate?”

“Yes.”

“No you’re not.”

“Then I’m melancholic and the fish is a decent excuse,” Loki snapped, scowling.

“You’re still upset that Odin smote the fish-man?” Thor asked, wondering how long the enchantment of those creatures was meant to last.

“He was mine, and it should have been my decision how he was dealt with,” Loki retorted. “Odin has robbed me of that.”

“What else would you have done? Cut out his voice box and kept him?”

“Maybe I would have done exactly the same as Odin, but it was my decision to make!” Loki nearly shouted back.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Thor said quickly, frustrated. “If it would have prevented your melancholia, then I wish you’d been awarded the killing blow too.”

Loki sighed discontentedly. “I think it wouldn’t have, but it might have lessened it. Or maybe I would have preferred to keep him for a pet with his throat scratched out a bit.”

“That would certainly have given him a longer time to regret his conduct,” Thor noted.

“... Do you think they can’t turn it off? Is it just the way they sound, and they don’t have a choice in it? Or they don’t even know they’re doing it?” Loki wondered quietly, frowning. “What if they’re stupid? Maybe they don’t understand. They could be more animal than person... Maybe he didn’t even know why he was being slain.”

Thor considered the questions for a moment, and then considered whether it even mattered. “I think he is beyond the reach of pity now, and that any effort spent pitying him will not be of help to you,” he said slowly. “So then, whether he was stupid or not, it could be better on your account to assume he was a varlet.”

“... I’m not sure any way I think of him will benefit my account,” Loki whispered.

Thor bit his lip for a minute, and then pushed himself up. “Let’s go hunting,” he said.

“No.”

“Or riding.”

“No.”

“We could--”

“No, Thor!” Loki snapped, glaring up at him. “Go play with your friends. Leave me alone.”

“Are you afraid of people seeing you like this?” Thor demanded, and watched emotions flicker over Loki’s face. “We’ll give a fat lip to anyone who dares make a comment! No, wait!” He grinned as an idea struck him. “We’ll convince them that they’re mad and you were always a girl. You’re artful enough to make anyone doubt the sky is blue, and I’ll confirm every word you say. We’ll have all of Asgard entirely confused by evening!”

Loki’s scowl vanished for a moment, and she snickered at the notion. Thor made use of her distraction to wrench the blankets suddenly from her grip. “No! Stop it!” Loki shrieked, struggling unsuccessfully to catch them, and then freezing, going still and silent.

Thor was quiet now too, staring as confusion, disbelief, and more confusion consumed him. There was a distinct swell upon Loki’s belly, more than the looseness of her nightgown could hide. “Loki, how--”

“Shut up!”

“It’s been a day!”

“SHUT UP!” Loki screamed, rolling to her hands and knees, fabric falling forward and hiding the bump. Thor managed to tear his eyes from her now hidden midsection, and he could see tears forming in hers.

He swallowed, starting to feel panicked himself. Panicked and angry, but his anger wouldn’t find much outlet since the havsman had already been punished. “M-Mother will know wha--”

“No!” Loki gasped, surging forward and grabbing onto Thor’s shoulders. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you tell anybody!”

“You don’t think they’ll notice?!” Thor demanded.

“Well the wretch seems determined to make this a quick affair,” Loki retorted, shaking her head. “I can feign illness a while longer and get rid of it when it’s out of me.”

“Get rid of it how?”

“I’ll throw it in the sea. I’m sure it will be fine.”

“This isn’t exactly up to your usual strategic standards,” Thor winced.

“Swear you won’t tell!” Loki demanded, digging her fingers into his shoulders and glaring at him.

“Fine! I swear!” Thor exclaimed. “But do you honestly think you can give birth without anybody noticing?”

Loki looked down and away, anxious fear on her face and her breath coming in short, sharp gulps. “... You’re right...”

“Loki--”

“No, you’re right,” Loki said again, shaking her head. “There’s supposed to be some screaming involved, I think.”

“Mother will--”

“You swore you wouldn’t tell! You swore!” Loki shrieked, eyes snapping back to his.

“Loki, you--”

“I have to leave,” Loki announced.

“What? Leave where?”

“Somewhere else!” Loki pushed Thor back and walked around him.

“Loki, you can’t just leave without a plan!” Thor protested. “You need- You need a midwife and things!”

“I’ll be fine!”

“You’re not fine now!”

“I have to leave! And don’t you dare forget, you swore you wouldn’t tell!” Loki snapped, casting him another glare. Then she was quiet for a moment, staring gravely at him, before reiterating in a quiet, hard voice, “Remember what you swore.”

“Loki--”

She pointed at him and shouted something in words Thor couldn’t understand. Then everything went black.

She’d learned from the mistakes of her first visit to Midgard, and the first thing Loki did differently was not waste any time playing around. Instead of a sorry little hole in an earthen embankment, she scouted around and found a proper cave carved into stone cliffs, large and dry. Then she sat down and plucked a few hairs from her head, preparing to weave herself a net right away.

Loki paused, staring down at the hairs and considering them carefully. Then she took a deep breath, and before she began weaving a net, she first wove a glamour around herself, so as not to be easily recognized by any nosy ravens this time. Now in the guise of a golden-haired and well sun-kissed girl, she turned her attention to the net. “... I need no one to catch a fish for me,” she murmured to herself. “I’m more than capable.”

The thing inside of her squirmed, and Loki cast her bloated belly a glare. “I think you’re just as eager to be rid of me. You’re certainly trying to get out of there as fast as you can,” she said. Her hands worked diligently on the net, as she continued speaking to the squirmy thing. “You’re being very annoying, you know. You’ll have plenty of space to swim after we’ve parted ways, and it would be courteous of you to sit still until we have.”

The squirmy thing failed to be obedient to this very reasonable proposal, but Loki had to admit that obedience had never been a particular virtue of her own either.

“Thor!” Freya called anxiously, disentangling the lingering magic that had left him unconscious. “Thor!”

“Mmuh?” Thor groaned, blearily opening his eyes.

“Where is Loki?” Freya demanded.

“Huh?” Thor stiffly sat up, glancing around to take in that he was on the floor of Loki’s bedroom. “I...” he frowned in confusion a moment, then his eyes widened with sudden clarity. “She- She knocked me out!” he exclaimed.

“But where is she?!”

“I- I don’t know!” Thor said. “She didn’t say where.”

“What did she say?” Freya pressed.

Thor looked up at her, several emotions playing across his face, worry most of all. “I... I can’t... She put me under oath not to say,” he said.

Freya slapped him across the face and then grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Where is my daughter?!” she screamed. If someone had known to ask, Freya couldn’t have said whether the girl in her mind's eye was Loki or a ginger-haired baby.

“I don’t know!” Thor threw back. “She wouldn’t have told me! I was trying to stop her!”

“Why?! Why did she go?!”

“I can’t tell you! I promised I wouldn’t!”

“Damn your promises! I am your mother!” Freya shouted.

“I’m no betrayer!” Thor snapped back, glaring defiantly at her for a moment, and then faltering and looking away. “She- She plans to come back. She only... She had an errand.”

“What errand?” Freya demanded, but Thor set his jaw, and his countenance shown with the stubbornness he’d inherited from his father. Freya pushed herself to her feet, and growled, “If anything more happens to Loki, you’ve betrayed her by holding your tongue.” She turned and swept herself from the room.

She made her way quickly through the halls and all but shouted as she burst into the apartment shared with her husband, “Odin!” He was already turning as she spotted him, expression grim as he heard the tone in her voice.

“What’s happened?”

“Loki disappeared again,” Freya said. “Thor says he doesn’t know where she went, but he knows something he isn’t saying.”

“Curse it all,” Odin growled, and then called for his ravens.

Loki was collecting rushes to improve her cave when a startling quantity of fluid exited her and poured down her legs. She stood still for a moment, staring wide-eyed at nothing, in shock and disgust, before the initial revulsion turned to fear. Was that supposed to happen? She looked reluctantly down and took two steps backwards, pulling up on the skirt of the nightgown she’d been wearing since her infirmity began, and confirmed that there had indeed been nothing but liquid to drop out of her. The inner sea that the squirmy thing had been swimming in was apparently gone now. And Loki could only assume the squirmy thing meant to follow it.

She turned and started running back toward the sanctuary of her cave, one arm wrapped tight under her swollen belly. She could hear herself whimpering and feel tears in her eyes, even as she tried to tell herself there was absolutely no reason to be scared. Women did this all the time. Even mortal women did it, and they often enough survived. Loki was brought to her knees by pain she couldn’t even make sense of. She couldn’t understand what part of her the squirmy thing was destroying or why it would. She screamed and sobbed and shook. And when the pain finally eased, the squirmy thing still hadn’t left her. “You- You vicious brute!” she gasped in outrage.

After a few moments of panting and cursing, Loki gathered herself up and started running for her cave again. She was brought down twice more by the mysterious, painful activities of the squirmy thing before she managed to get there. And once finally back inside her cave, the squirmy thing assaulted her again with whatever unknown thing it kept doing that most certainly did not seem to be leaving peaceably. Horror struck Loki as it occurred to her that the squirmy thing might have decided to bite its way out of her instead of just departing the same way it had arrived. “You are RUDE!” she screamed at it. “I demand that you quit mooching about and EXCUSE YOURSELF!” And then with one last paroxysm of agony, the squirmy thing obeyed.

Loki heard something flopping wetly onto the sand floor of the cave. She didn’t look at it. She didn’t want to look at it. Loki stayed crouched as she was, staring at nothing, and panting out whimpering gasps for a few minutes. But the most peculiar whining sounds clawed at her curiosity; she’d heard babies cry before, they didn’t sound like this. She hesitantly stood up and took a careful step back, then another, staring down at the creature wriggling around on the sand. It was like a water snake, but ten times too big. It was whining unhappily as it struggled.

Loki knelt down next to it, and the squirmy thing lifted its head to look at her, then slithered up into her lap with a squeak that sounded less unhappy. Loki put her hand on it and slid her fingers lightly over the smooth, cool scales, as her eyes trailed after them, tracing the pattern of deep and deeper emerald on its back. She touched its head, her thumb feeling over the little nubs of horns crowning it, as the squirmy thing puffed out a dragon’s neck frill and squeaked at her again. “... You’re beautiful,” Loki whispered, receiving another squeak. Then the squirmy thing wound itself around her wrist and spiraled its way up her arm and under her hair, coming out on the other side and hanging its head in the air level with her face. It looked her in the eye and squeaked again.

Loki laughed.

“Mamma?”

Loki sighed, drifting awake as the coils under and around her started shifting and moving.

“Mamma?” the inquiry came again.

“Yes, Baby?” Loki murmured, her throat froggy from sleep, and rubbed her eyes.

“I’m hungry,” Squirmy said.

“Okay,” Loki yawned, sitting up and running a hand back through her hair. She opened her eyes. Squirmy had grown through the night again, she noted, climbing to her feet and surveying him as he looked back up at her. She thought it seemed like about a fathom’s difference since the previous evening.

“Mamma?”

“I know, Honey, I’ll go get breakfast,” Loki assured him. “I’m just waking up.” She yawned again.

“I can help!” Squirmy suggested, puffing out his frill.

“No, Love, you stay here,” Loki said, shaking her head. “It’s not safe for you out there.”

Squirmy flattened his frill and drooped a little in disappointment. “Yes, Mamma.”

Loki bent down and cupped her hands under his chin, lifting his head and kissing his brow. “I’ll be back soon,” she promised, then went to get her net, and disguised herself in the image of a different girl before stepping out into the early morning light.

“Go off,” Odin commanded his ravens at first light, just like he had every morning for the last four days, and then shouted after them, “Find her!”

“Why haven’t they already?” Freya asked quietly, coming out onto the balcony behind him.

“... When they did so before, it was because she hadn’t properly hid herself from them,” Odin sighed, shaking his head. “She blocked herself from Heimdall’s vision, but either she assumed Hugin and Munin wouldn’t recognize her female seeming, or she didn’t think of them... This time she is being more fastidious.”

“Are you telling me we can do nothing?” Freya murmured darkly.

“No. I have ordered the ravens and Heimdall to be more fastidious as well,” Odin said. “They are looking out for any particular peculiarities, especially in Midgard. Loki has lived ever in palaces, she has no wisdom for looking after herself, I’m sure she’ll have created some debacle soon.”

“You’re plan is to wait for her to be in danger?” Freya demanded.

“Have you not marked me sending the ravens to look for her every morning, woman?” Odin snapped back at her. “I ‘wait’ for nothing. I simply hold confidence that Loki will be unable to maintain her games for long even if I cannot discover her first.”

Freya gave a frustrated huff, and walked back inside.

Loki washed her nightgown in the river and then hung it from a branch while she waded about with her net. She needed more clothes. When she’d left Asgard, it hadn’t seemed to her that anything else would fit her swollen body, and she hadn’t intended to remain away for very long anyway. She’d meant to return the thing inside her to the ocean that had put it there, and then go home. But going home without Squirmy had become impossible from the moment she’d laid eyes on him. And she was wise enough to know that bringing him home with her was equally impossible.

So it seemed that the cave was now her home and her occupation was fisherwoman from here on. She was either going to need to learn how to make clothing or how to make something she could trade to the Midgardians for the clothing they made. Squirmy ate more and more every day, so she was going to need to up her fishing game as well. She’d combined a spell of enticement with illusions to make the the fish believe the river was narrower than it was, so that they would all swim into her net instead of passing to her left or right, but she still had to wait for them to come to her, and of course the salmon wouldn’t stay in the river forever, soon they’d only be out in the fjord and the ocean. If she had a boat, Loki would be able to pull a much larger net around in the deeper water, and maybe she could even catch a seal or a small whale for Squirmy.

When she’d caught as much as she could carry, Loki pulled her damp nightgown back on and hoisted her net full of large, twitching fishes back home. She reached the mouth of the cave and was was greeted with more delight than her presence had ever rendered upon anyone. “Mamma!” Squirmy exclaimed, gliding to her and dancing around Loki as she walked in. “Mamma!” he jubilated, drawing a laugh from his mother.

“Settle down, Sweetness, here’s your breakfast!” Loki said, spilling her haul out of the net and onto the cave floor, then grabbing one of the fish for herself. “And this one’s mine.” She went to hang her net back up as Squirmy started gulping down the salmon. Loki went to her hearth and used magic to encourage it into a fit state for roasting as she gutted and spitted her fish. When he finished eating every single one of the fish Loki had given him, Squirmy glided over to her, snapping up the discarded head and guts of her own fish, and then coiled himself twice around the hearth, in a wide enough ring to soak in only a comfortable amount of heat, and laid his head in her lap.

After Loki had finished her own breakfast, and Squirmy had devoured every bone and scale she left behind, they chased each other around the cave, shrieking and laughing, until Loki collapsed and Squirmy crawled all over and around her, giggling in simple joy. “Squirmy-Wormy Baaaaabyyyy! Mamma loves you sooooo much!” Loki sang, and hugged whatever she could reach of him as he nuzzled her.

“Story, Mamma!” Squirmy demanded. “Tell a story!”

“What do you see?” Odin asked.

“I see the elves of Alfheim brewing the sweetest mead. I see the fiends of Muspelheim toiling in the burning wastes. I see the dwarves of Nidavellir hammering in their forges. I see the dark-elves of Svartalfheim striving to cultivate fetid swampland,” Heimdall said tonelessly. “I see the giants of Jotunheim hunting woolly paraceratherium. I see the shamans of Vanaheim seeking the council of nature. I see the wolves of Niflheim baying for the flesh of Hel’s inhabitants.”

“And what of Midgard?” Odin prompted.

“I see the thalls working their fields, the fishermen tending their nets, the tradesmen plying their trades, and the soldiers mustering at their battlefronts.”

Odin let out a sound halfway between a sigh and a growl, and shook his head.

“Still hungry, Mamma,” Squirmy said.

“I’m sorry, Love. Don’t worry, I’ll get more,” Loki promised, bending down and kissing the top of his head. “I’ll be quick.”

She grabbed her fishing net again, wrapping herself in her disguise, and hurried out of the cave. Worry prickled at her. Squirmy kept getting bigger and bigger and eating more and more. Even when she finished her boat, if her son’s growth didn’t stop, she wouldn’t be able to feed him much longer. It was her giant blood. He’d been born small, but now that he didn’t have to fit inside of her belly, he was growing into a giant's bulk. Only stretched out long and skinny. It would have been much more convenient if he’d inherited his mother’s diminutive proportions.

“Mamma!”

Loki drew a horrified breath and spun around to see Squirmy chasing after her through the grass and scrubs.

“Mamma, I can help!” Squirmy called to her.

“Baby, no no no no no!” Loki gasped, dropping her net and running back toward him. “No! You have to stay in the cave! It’s not safe out here!”

Squirmy recoiled at her tone and stared at her with hurt eyes. “I’m sorry, Mamma!” he whined. “Don’t be mad!”

“I’m not mad, Honey, I’m sorry for yelling,” Loki assured him quickly. “But you have to go back to the cave so I can keep you safe. It’s dangerous outside.”

“I want to go with you!”

“You can’t, my darling, you have to stay inside,” Loki insisted. “I’ll bring you more to eat, just go back home, okay.”

Squirmy whined piteously.

“Go home. I’ll be back soon, and then we can play, okay?” Loki said desperately.

“Yes, Mamma...” Squirmy relented, looping back and gliding away toward home.

Loki went to pick up her net again, eyes anxiously scanning the sky and every tree and rock she could see for any hint of black wings.

“I have seen a strange thing!” Hugin announced, flapping into the throne room.

Odin was on his feet not a second later, striding toward the door as the raven landed on his shoulder. “What thing have you seen?” he demanded.

“A young woman with a most peculiar companion,” Hugin said, and then showed Odin what he had witnessed.

A girl who was the right age, but had the wrong face, golden hair and bronzed skin had been walking through grasses, carrying a fishing net, when an enormous serpent came slithering out after her. The girl panicked, but instead of running from the creature, she ran toward it, and they seemed to converse, before the serpent turned and slithered away. The girl looked fearfully around her after it had gone, and the shape of her face might have been wrong but the expression on it rang familiar, and the eyes were unmistakable. Odin’s gut sickened as he tried not to surmise the identity of the serpent Hugin had seen interacting with the girl.

“Here, Sweetness, eat your fish,” Loki called, coming back into the cave and dumping out the net on the floor.

“Are you mad, Mamma?” Squirmy whined sheepishly.

“I’m not mad, I just got scared,” Loki assured him.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, you just made a mistake,” Loki said, kneeling down and stroking her hand over his glossy scales. “You’re still a good boy.” After he’d finished eating, seeming to sense her continued anxiety, Squirmy coiled around Loki and draped his long neck against her chest, so his head rested on her shoulder. She hugged him and murmured, “You’re a good boy.”

And then she heard hooves hitting sand and her heart stopped. Large shadows fell across the mouth of the cave and Loki looked up to see Odin, flanked on either side by Tyr and Hildegarde. He stared down at her, and then at Squirmy, and then said quietly, “Loki, explain this.”

Squirmy, sensing her terror, reared up and flared out his fringe at the intruders, attempting his first roar. “No, Honey, no stop!” Loki gasped, jumping to her feet and throwing her arms around his neck again. “Go away! Just leave us alone!”

“Now you’re smitten by serpents even?” Tyr spat.

“Stay away from my baby!” Loki screamed.

And then there was a protracted silence as long seconds slipped by.

“... Ymir’s blood,” Tyr swore.

“... Hildegarde, see to Loki,” Odin ordered quietly.

“No!” Loki shouted, and then as arms strong as solid iron caught her, she screamed outright. “NO! NOOO!”

“MAMMA!”

“NOOO!”

Blood curdling screams ripped through the palace. Freya’s heart stopped even as her feet started running. She didn’t bother to excuse herself from audiences; if they couldn’t guess what had prompted her departure, the pair of citizens she’d been hearing from were too stupid to bother with at all. She chased the sound of continued screaming, until she rounded a corner and spotted Hildegarde carrying Loki with her arms pinned, as the girl kicked and struggled for all she was worth and screamed at the top of her lungs. Most of it was unintelligible, likely not even words to begin with, but Freya’s ears picked out one phrase amid the cacophony.

“GIVE ME BACK MY BABY!”

Her blood ran cold. She shook. She couldn’t breath. She wasn’t sure how she was still standing. Freya stared, not hailing Hildegarde, and she probably couldn’t have been heard over Loki’s screams if she’d tried. Hildegarde didn’t notice her, too focused on her task and the violently struggling girl in her arms. Freya stood rooted and watched them disappear around the bend up ahead. She had to have misheard or misunderstood, didn’t she? Loki had only been gone a week. But she wouldn’t have been the first goddess to give birth in such a time frame. Odin couldn’t really have stolen a baby from his daughter’s arms though, could he?

A caw cut Freya’s next thought short, and she turned her head sharply to find one of the ravens sitting on the sill near her. She stared silently for a moment, then asked in a grim voice, “Where is my husband?”

The raven took off, flying down the hallway, and Freya chased after it. It led her out and away from the palace, into the barracks and down toward the dungeon. She reached the bottom of the stairs and found Odin and Tyr standing without the largest, strongest cell, seeming to have been in conference with each other when she arrived, now they both looked up at her and hesitated. “Freya...” Odin murmured, and shot a quick glare at the raven that had led her to him, as it swooped over and settled itself on his shoulder.

“Is it true?” Freya demanded, a growl in her voice. “Did you take Loki’s baby from her?”

Sadness and pain crossed Odin’s features, and he looked down. “... It’s not a baby,” he said.

“It’s not even a ra,” Tyr added, shaking his head. “Loki is an aglæcwif.”

Freya put a hand to her mouth. “... Oh no...” she whispered, blinking quickly as tears finally found their way to her eyes.

“... She gave birth to a serpent only days ago, and it is already several times larger than Loki herself,” Odin said. “I know not how large, or how ravenous, it will yet become.”

Freya felt a tear break free and begin its journey down her cheek as she held her hand over her mouth a moment longer, before shaking her head as horror and sadness turned to anger. “This is that blasted havsman’s doing!”

“No, it’s not,” Tyr said grimly.

“Not now, Tyr,” Odin murmured, stepping closer to Freya and catching her.

“If the havsman’s blood were the thing at work, the product of their union would have been a havsbarn,” Tyr went on anyway. “It’s Loki’s blood that caused this. Her own deformities may seem of scant consequence, and even an improvement over the ordinary countenance of a giant, but--”

“Stop it.”

“--if Loki is a aglæcwif, then any young that comes from her, regardless of what other creature was employed to beget it, be it god, huldufolk or mortal--”

“Tyr.”

“-- the offspring may be monstrous,” Tyr pushed ahead, undeterred. “For the sake of Asgard, and all the realms, she needs to be sterilized.”

“Tyr,” Odin snarled viciously as a sob slipped from Freya’s lips. “Not. Now.”

“Ignoring the problem will not solve it,” Tyr growled, and then walked past them toward the stairs.

“... What will we do?” Freya asked hollowly.

“I will find a place where this creature can do no harm, however large it grows,” Odin said.

“Loki is distraught.”

“What would you have me do?” Odin demanded. “This thing is dangerous.”

“... I don’t know,” Freya whispered.

Loki hurled insults and a chair at Hildegarde, who slapped the improvised projectile into the floor. “My sympathy for your plight grows thinner the more objects you throw at me, Loki!” she bellowed.

A loud pounding came at the door that Hildegarde was blocking, and a voice shouted through it, “I demand to speak to Loki!” The sky outside rumbled menacingly.

“Your demands, son of Odin, are not so mighty as to contradict your father’s commands!” Hildegarde snapped back.

Suddenly the door was smashed inward, hinges ripping away from the wall. It knocked Hildegarde onto her belly and landed right on top of her. Thor bounded across it, as Hildegarde grunted below the thick slab of wood, and leapt over to Loki, worry shining in his eyes. “What happened?”

“They took my baby!” Loki wailed, grabbing at him desperately.

“You said you were going to throw it in the sea!” Thor protested.

“Nooo! He’s my baby!” Loki sobbed, clinging to him. “He’s perfect and adorable and he needs me!”

Thor wrapped his arms around Loki and turned himself enough to glare back at Hildegarde, who was pushing the door off of herself and getting her feet back under her. “Why did you take her baby?!” he shouted.

“Thor, you do not understand what is happening here,” Hildegarde growled at him.

“What the Hel is going on in there?” Freya’s voice demanded as she dashed around into view and through the door. “Thor, get out of here!”

“No!” Thor yelled back.

“Thor, I have no patience for--”

“Why did they take Loki’s baby?!” he demanded again

Freya went still for a moment, staring at the two of them with something of a haunted look in her eyes, then she turned to look back at Loki’s warden. “Hildegarde, please leave us.”

“Shall I wait in the hall, my queen?” Hildegarde asked.

Freya seemed to debate for a moment and then nodded. Hildegarde picked up the door and, as she stepped out of the room, fitted it into its slot and pulled it snug. Freya turned her attention back to Loki and Thor, then glanced toward the floor a moment, before squaring herself and meeting Loki’s eyes. “Loki, you have an affliction,” she said. “Your gift for chaos is a double-edged sword, and it... Occasionally when a god and goddess has a strong chaos affinity, it will affect their ability to have children.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my baby!” Loki screamed at her, pulling away from Thor to face her more fully.

“Loki that thing is not a baby, it’s a serpent!” Freya exclaimed.

“He’s beautiful, and he’s perfect, and he’s done nothing wrong!”

“How could it be a serpent? That doesn’t make any sense,” Thor murmured, an uncharacteristic falter in his voice.

“Loki, listen to me--”

“No!”

“Loki.” Freya grabbed her by the shoulders. “Your body is playing tricks on your mind. It is a natural and very strong reflex to feel an attachment to a creature that you have birthed. In ordinary circumstances, it’s a good thing, helping a new mother to forget the difficulties of her labor, but these are not normal circumstances and you must use your reason to see past this reflex,” she said, stress in her voice and face. “That serpent has already grown past your ability to keep it fed, and it will continue to become more ravenous and more dangerous to all those near it, until it begins seeking to devour men and gods. That is the way of serpents.”

“You’re wrong!”

“We’ll get you a new baby!” Freya said, nearly shouted, her eyes beseeching and desperate. “A little one you can hold in your arms!”

Loki stared at her, breath caught in shock and disbelief as seconds slipped past. Then she felt a sting on her palm before she’d realized she was moving. “GIVE ME BACK MY BABY!” Loki screamed as she watched Freya take a step back, cupping her own cheek.

“... Perhaps I deserved that,” Freya whispered, then her gaze lowered and she shook her head. “But you cannot raise a serpent, Loki. It is a danger to Asgard, and not just that, it will kill you before long.”

“LIAR! He loves me!” Loki shouted.

“It won’t be able to help itself, Loki,” Freya said quietly. “It’s just a serpent’s nature.”

“You’re wrong! You’re wrong!” Loki sobbed.

Thor’s hand caught her arm gently. “Loki... it really is a serpent?” he asked softly.

Loki rounded on him, ripping herself from his loose grip and throwing a punch in his direction. “‘HE’!” she screamed. “He’s PERFECT! He’s MINE!”

“I know it hurts, Loki, but this isn’t what you want,” Freya said.

“You don’t know ANYTHING of what I want!” Loki wailed. “Get out! Get out! Stop pretending to care about me!”

“Loki--” Thor started, but cut off as he fumbled to block the rain of punches Loki assailed him with. “Stop! Loki!”

“GET OUT!” she screamed again. “I hate you, you vile beasts!”

“You are hurt, and you will need time.” Freya pulled Thor out of Loki’s reach as he started trying to protest again. “I will leave you for now and come back later... But Loki, you’ve run away twice and made it clear that I cannot trust you to keep to your room, and so Hildegarde is going to keep watch of you,” she said in a wavering voice. “I hope you can remember that none of the decisions in this have been hers, and do not try to punish her for the anger you feel at your parents.”

“Mamma! Mamma!” the serpent wailed, slithering and thrashing all around his confinement. “Mamma!”

“Be silent!” Odin shouted as he teleported himself inside the cell. The serpent reared up at him with a roar, flaring out his fringe and presenting rows of razor sharp teeth. When he lunged, Odin roughly rebuffed him, sending the creature crashing back into the opposite wall, and then pinned him there with the force of his will. “... Do you know what you are, creature?”

“I am Baby!” the serpent whined, squirming helplessly. “I want Mamma!”

“You are not a baby. Loki called you that because her mind has been grief-sickened over what was done to her and the torment she was put through because of it,” Odin corrected grimly. “You are the embodiment of that torment. You are the result of an attack made upon her by a predator of the abyss.”

“No no! I’m a good boy!” the serpent protested.

“The beast who fathered you was not,” Odin growled.

The serpent stopped struggling for a moment, and while his face was far too alien to interpret the expression upon it, he was apparently listening. “Father?” he asked in confusion.

“A man of the ocean folk found your mother on the shore. There he trapped her mind in a fog while he assaulted her body,” Odin explained in a hard voice as he walked with slow, deliberate steps closer to the serpent. “He abused and humiliated her, causing her much anguish, causing her to be burdened with you. And so ashamed was she of your conception, she fled her home that nobody could see what had been done to her.”

“Baby is a good boy,” the serpent whimpered. “Mamma said so. Mamma loves me.”

“Loki forces herself to say that, to believe it, so that she can hide from the agony your wretched father and your birth have subjected her to,” Odin corrected. “Your wit is raw and simple, creature, so let me put it simply for you: It was Loki’s anguish that caused you, and anguish is all you can cause her.”

The serpent made a wordless whimper, wilting slightly, apparently defeated by the revelation.

Odin pursed his lips for a moment, and then sighed heavily and shook his head. “I will seek for a place where you can live and be of no harm,” he said.

“... I’m a good boy,” the serpent whined again.

“If you are a good boy, then you will stay where I put you.”

“Isn’t there anything that can be done?” Thor asked. He’d followed Freya in a heavy silence all the way to her own apartments, and she thought it was less an unwillingness to speak out in the open corridors and more the time it had taken him to chew through the confusion and distress. “Isn’t there some magic to break the curse and turn the serpent into a normal baby?”

Freya sighed painfully and shook her head. “This isn’t a curse, Thor. That is to say, it is nothing that was cast by anybody,” she explained, turning to him. “The malady is not simply in the child, it is within Loki. She is what we call an aglæcwif... It is very rare in gods.”

“But... if it is in Loki and not the serpent or the havsman...” Thor faltered, a worried frown on his brow.

“Either as a mother or a father, any child of Loki’s may be monstrous,” Freya said quietly, shaking her head and looking away. “They may not all be serpents, there is no way to predict the form they will take. Some may look ordinary, but harbor unseen monstrous qualities... and others may even be ordinary. Loki’s chaos makes her nature, and the nature of what things come from her, a dice roll.”

“If- If its form can’t be changed, why not its size?” Thor asked. “Can’t you make the serpent small, so that it can’t hurt anyone, and then Loki could keep it with her?”

“It’s not an ordinary serpent, Thor, because Loki is a god,” Freya said, looking back at him and resting a hand gently on his arm. “We may very likely find it to have the power of both serpent and god and perhaps even greater than that... Children of Echidna have come close to wiping out the Olympians more than once.” She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip for a moment. “... This creature isn’t a week old yet, and it is already much larger than Loki. There is no telling how immense it will become before it stops growing.”

“If it’s not an ordinary serpent and Loki’s illness is so unpredictable, then how do you know it will be a man-eater?” Thor demanded, strength coming suddenly back into his voice. “What if Loki is right? What if- What if it is a baby in mind, and it only looks like a serpent?”

Freya gritted her teeth and gave him a stern glare. “You know nothing of these matters, Thor,” she said coolly. “I am your mother, and I have seen a great deal more in my time than you. I know the way of these things... And I know that if Loki is allowed to keep that serpent near her, then when the creature’s nature inevitably takes hold of it, she will become its first victim.”

Thor’s brow drew together and his mouth opened in a small, upset round, then closed, and he lowered his eyes.

“What is your opinion, Hildegarde?” Loki asked, having come back out of her bedroom to stand in front of the much larger and stronger woman. “Do you keep me and obstruct me out of blind obedience, or do you hate me and all that comes from me?”

“Nobody hates you, Loki,” Hildegarde said, and then sighed, looking down. “My opinion is... that all your circumstances over these recent days are very tragic... But I believe that your mother is right in the certitude of a monster’s appetite. I have battled a number, and even those that were once thinking and feeling creatures descend over time into the nature of their forms.”

“How many have you battled that were of godly origin?” Loki countered, narrowing her eyes. “Or were all the ones you fought born of mortal realms?”

Hildegarde hesitated, frowning. “I have not personally fought a godly monster, Asgard has been largely fortunate on that count,” she said. “Though I understand that the Olympians are much plagued by them, and the only difference is that they are larger and stronger.”

Loki glared at her. “And if I don’t believe in the validity of your speculation or the gossip you’ve heard from afar?”

“Then what you believe and what I believe are at odds, for I believe that the Allfather and Allmother hold more wisdom than a little girl,” Hildegarde replied. “And I believe that you won’t slip my watch with the same trick that overcame your brother.”

“Oh? But I think you are not a witch, Hildegarde,” Loki noted quietly, tilting her head. “Then what at all would cause such confidence that you were warded against me?”

“I may not be a witch, but nor am I a fool,” Hildegarde retorted, crossing her arms. “I should know better than to go amongst witches were I not confident in my defenses.”

“Mm, indeed,” Loki murmured with a nod. “And for such a young and inexperienced arcanist as me, it’s all just a matter of having the right talisman.” She lunged suddenly, grabbing the string of beads that hung around Hildegarde's neck and jumping back, feeling it snap, before the warrior could grab her.

Loki screamed a sleep spell, watching Hildegarde's eyes go from wide with startled alarm to clouded, a moment before they closed.

When Odin came into his apartments, he found Thor in conference with Freya in the sitting room, wearing a deeply gloomy countenance that seemed very out of place on him. “Thor, leave. I must speak with your mother,” Odin ordered as he walked toward them.

Thor’s look of gloom turned to annoyance, and he was visibly taking a deeper breath to retort, when Freya laid a hand on his shoulder and murmured to him, “Go now, please. We’ll speak more later if you have more to air.” Thor pushed out an irritated sigh and got to his feet, walking out.

“The creature is yet an innocent in mind,” Odin said, and then sighed heavily, sinking onto the bench next to his wife. “It will certainly become a beast through and through, but today it is an infant... An infant many fathoms in length, with teeth like daggers and armor harder than uru.”

“... Will you slay it?” Freya whispered, not looking at him. “Whatever else it is, that creature is your grandson.”

Odin closed his eyes and pursed his lips, feeling sickened that she asked him the question and that he’d asked it of himself many times over the previous hours. “... It’s father was of the sea, and the form its taken reflects that,” he said quietly. “If I confine it to the deepest depths, it can reside there well cloistered.”

Freya breathed out slowly and nodded. “And of what Tyr said--”

“Tyr is a damn fool,” Odin spat, a surge of fury cutting through him. He swallowed it back again. “There is no way to sterilize an aglæcwif. There is only to reason with them or slay them... Loki is brilliant and rational. Unlike her brothers, she ever favors reason.”

“... With her giant’s blood and the elemental chaos woven through her, perhaps this turn shouldn’t have come as such a shock,” Freya murmured, her eyes fluttering shut, and a tear breaking loose of one. “But I... I hadn’t quite the pessimism in me to predict this.”

Odin caught her hand and held it in his.

By guile and art, Loki made her way through the palace unseen. However startling a sight she should have been, her gender an incongruity with Asgard’s recollection and expectation, sporting a smocked nightgown ragged from days of misuse as an overslop so that its whiteness was no longer pristine and the hem was frayed and sodden, her face stony and stained by tears, but still nobody noticed as she swept past them. She descended Gladsheim’s steps and strode barefoot across the open and public pavement of flagstones, still immune to the eyes of Asgard, and made her way without hesitation to the dungeons beneath those streets.

They rarely held a significant population outside of wartimes; once a god or creature had been judged, they were slain or exiled to a suitably miserable place according to the Allfather’s will. The dungeon was only meant to hold its inmates until Odin had a moment to decide their fate, but until he had, they were built to hold gods and monsters. And so Asgard’s detention cells were well warded against magic, but Loki was a trickster god, and nobody could really ever stop a trickster from going wherever they damn well please; free movement was core and unalienable to their nature. She couldn’t get the door open, but she could crawl through cracks and vennels that weren’t even really there, to make her way into the still-locked cell where her baby was laying dejectedly.

“Baby--”

“Mamma!” Squirmy exclaimed, head lifting, and then he glided over, coiling loosely around her and pressing his nose against her shoulder. “Mamma, I’m sorry!”

“No no, Darling, don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything to deserve this,” Loki said, hugging his neck fiercely.

“White-Fuzz-Face said my father hurt you and I’m the hurt!” Squirmy whined.

Loki was silent, unable to even breath for a moment, as utter fury choked her. She clenched her teeth hard and drew a breath through them, then growled, “He lied to you, Baby. Look at me. Listen to me.” She caught Squirmy’s cheeks and pulled him away from her shoulder to face her. “There was someone who perhaps treated me ill, but he was not your father, and he had nothing to do with you... I am your mother,” she said in a stony voice, and then changed form, back to one she’d abandoned a week previous. “And I am your father. You are no one’s but mine.”

Squirmy stared back at him for a moment and then sighed with evident relief and pushed forward, pressing his forehead against Loki’s. “I love you, Father.”

“And I you,” Loki whispered, stroking his cheek for a moment, before taking a deep breath and squaring himself. “And I’m going to protect you. I’ll get you out of here, and we’ll go where White-Fuzz-Face can’t get us.”

“Where?”

“I’ll figure that out after we get out of this cell,” Loki said.

“Loki.”

Loki whipped around to find Odin standing just inside the cell’s door, which was still shut. “Leave us alone!” he snarled.

“I can’t. You aren’t thinking clearly,” Odin said.

“You just can’t stand that I’m thinking for myself!” Loki snapped. “We’re leaving. Asgard will be rid of us and safe.”

“... But you won’t,” Odin said, shaking his head. “Not in that creature’s company.”

“I won’t let you take him!” Loki yelled.

Odin’s eye flashed, and something crashed into and over and around Loki like a tidal surge, plunging him into darkness.

Loki took a deep breath, becoming aware of the sensation of the air coming into his lungs, then becoming aware of his own weight pressing him against the mattress, the weight of blankets on him. A few more breaths passed in and out, before thoughts and memories started finding their way back to him. He gasped sharply as his eyes snapped open.

“Loki?”

He looked to the side as he struggled with the blankets. Thor was sitting next to him, back resting against the headboard, knees curled up close to his chest. Obviously waiting for Loki to wake up. “Where is he?” Loki demanded, pushing the blankets away and sitting up. “Where’s my baby?”

“I- I don’t know,” Thor said, voice holding an uncharacteristically helpless sound. “Father carried you back to your room a few hours ago, and-- Loki, wait!”

Loki threw himself out of bed and ran out of the bedroom. Then he paused, gritting his teeth, thinking.

“Loki?” Thor called behind him.

Loki ignored him and went to his dressing room. He pulled out one of the bureau’s drawers to retrieve the talisman necklace he’d stolen from Hildegarde earlier. He used a mending spell to repair the broken thong, then slipped the necklace onto himself, before he started going about changing out of his worn and grubby nightgown.

“... I suppose getting dressed is a good step forward, but don’t you think you’re overdue for a bath first?” Thor asked quietly as he hovered in the doorway.

“I don’t have the time to waste right now,” Loki growled, pulling on his trousers and grabbing the first shirt is hand found.

“What are you going to do?”

Loki ignored him, tucking in the shirt and fastening his belt. Then he reached for his cuirass and put it on.

“Loki, what are you doing?” Thor asked, voice sharper. “What do you need armor for?”

“Shut up,” Loki spat, buckling it in place. Then he turned and shoved Thor out of his way as he strode past him. He got a few steps before a hand landed firmly on his shoulder. Loki paused and turned his head to glare back at Thor.

“Wherever you’re going, this time it won’t be alone,” Thor said, holding his eyes.

Loki was still for a moment, then turned his eyes forward and started walking again. “Whatever.” He retraced the steps he’d walked a few hours earlier, now with Thor close in his wake, back to the dungeon down below street level. No one stopped them, no one slowed them, until Loki’s steps slowed and stopped of his own accord, just before the cell his baby had been in before. The large door stood open, and the cell beyond it was empty. He stood, staring silently at it for a minute, his chest feeling squeezed.

“Is that where--” Thor started.

“Odin’s killed my baby,” Loki whispered.

“We don’t know--”

“And you let him!” Loki rounded sharply, turning a glare on Thor.

Thor’s eyes widened in shock, and then a hint of outrage cut in. “Loki you’ve done nothing but leave me behind and push me out since the start!” he retorted. “I couldn’t help you, because you wouldn’t let me!”

“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” Loki screamed, grabbing at his own hair and squeezing his eyes shut as tears came to them. “My baby is dead!”

“He is not.” Loki froze for a moment, breath catching, and then looked up to see Odin walking toward them. “Whatever horror he may become, today your child is an innocent,” he said in a grave voice. “I have placed him where he can bother no one and be unbothered.”

“Where is he?” Loki hissed harshly.

“I won’t tell you that,” Odin said, evenly meeting Loki’s eyes. “He will live, but apart from you. I will not see you devoured by this misfortune.”

Loki swallowed, staring back, a tremor in his frame that was equal parts misery and fury. After a long moment, he coaxed his feet to move, and walked slowly toward Odin, stopping in front of him. “... Someday...” he whispered, glaring up into the Allfather’s face. “Someday you will want to ask me ‘why’... This is why.”

And then he turned away.