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The Queen of Asgard still wore her colors.
It brought a certain satisfaction to the ice queen, seeing the golden woman draped in green and white. Her hair was done in intricate braids and curls, as it rarely was before, and her hands and neck were wreathed in jewels like silver stars.
It was ill-fitting.
Farbauti would have never given her jewels, not a goddess like her.
In the days they had been together, Farbauti had given her flowers.
Frigga had been far more pleased with those than any sort of gem Farbauti had offered. Her magic could keep them alive forever, but every day Farbauti brought more and more, covering her garden with blooms from all the realms.
Surely her flowers were all gone now, torn out and smashed in a fit of rage when her true colors were shown.
But that was all in the past.
Now the Queen stood before her, unfazed even in the icy chill, looking harder and wearier than Farbauti had ever seen. There were new lines around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes, a new hardness in her in her bearing Farbauti had not seen.
She leaned back, and crossed her legs, resting an ankle on the opposite knee.
“After all these years, you only visit now that Laufey has died.”
Frigga didn’t look sorry, or ashamed. “He came into Asgard with the intent of murdering the King.”
“I did not say he was right in his actions.” She stated, face hardening.
“Nor did you say he was wrong.”
Farbauti almost laughed. “Clever as always. But you have not come to say what I already know.”
Frigga raised her chin, the very image of a proud Queen.
“I have come to offer you a boon, in exchange for an agreement.”
Farbauti leaned forward, raising one dark eyebrow. Her crimson eyes flashed, but her composure remained. “And what would this boon be, oh Queen of the Golden Realm?”
“The Winter Casket.”
Her breath stopped. “And your King knows you offer this?”
“In exchange for peace? He can be persuaded.”
“Can he? Too bad that I don’t want it.”
Frigga looked taken aback, but the expression was fleeting and immediately masked. “Not even to restore your kingdom?”
Farbauti laughed, high and cold. “You do not know these lands. This is exactly how Jotunheim should be! We have no use for your sunlight or your greenery, no place for your flowers.”
No place for you.
“A token of good will, then.” There was a careful smile in her voice, soft and ringing like a bell and Farbauti hated her with anger red hot and burning.
Scarlet eyes met periwinkle and hands slipped together, one bluer than the sky and the other ivory and softer than snowfall. The world stretched around them in a cloak of glittering ice, sharp, cragged spires scraping the heavens like the grey teeth of a beast.
‘You could stay here.’
‘No I couldn’t.’
‘You could! I’ll build you a palace of ice.’ She pulled her close, looping an arm around the fair woman’s waist and raising the other high, gesturing at the fields before them. ‘We could grow gardens, with blooms a thousand shades, and those trees you always speak of.’
‘Farbauti-‘
‘We could, Frigga, and we would be happy.’
“We want no peace with kinslayers. Go back to your realm, Queen of Asgard, and do not return here.” Her voice was a thundercloud, low and roiling, thick with the black touch of sorrow and a thousand words unspoken.
The skies were alight. Fire rained down from the heavens and waves and torrents and her kingdom burned.
The Queen of Jotunheim stood tall, sword gleaming scarlet in the half-light.
Behind her, the remnants of her armies stood, the last defense for the palace looming in the distance. They who had not gone to the mountains had fled there.
There, to where her husband and his guards protected their greatest treasures.
She could not falter here.
Frigga seemed to have expected this. Her face betrayed no surprise, no sign of faltering from its golden mask of careful nonchalance.
Flowers stretched out as far as the eye could see, in rows and trellises, climbing pillars in twisting green webs that snuck into the cracks of the worn white stone. Lush, violet toned peonies twisted leaves with pale sweet peas and deep crimson snapdragons. Along the edges of the freesia’s and the daffodils, buttery sunflowers raised their great heads towards the sky.
Farbauti’s eyes were not for them, nor for the cherry trees in bloom, nor for the orchids or lilies or petunias or asters. They were only for Frigga, for her golden wheat hair falling in curls around her face, for her eyes like the winter seas and the call of a bird, for the sweet curl of her hands and the soft, flushed curves of her cheeks.
She was, in a word, besotted.
“You will not reconsider?”
“The Aesir have brought nothing but ruin and death upon my people. Since the Casket was stolen, our realm grew weak. We had to be strong for it, and we have rebuilt it from rubble and the blood of our dead. We have no need for the Casket, nor for your peace. Leave my kingdom, and do not return to it, else your severed head be a message of war to your husband.”
“You’re marrying him?!”
“Farbauti, you knew I had to. The engagement is long standing, it is my duty to my family, my people.”
“You’re going to Asgard.” She spat the word like poison. “You’re leaving for a prince you don’t know!”
“I have to!”
“No you don’t!”
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
And so it would be that in anger they parted, Frigga to her home realm and then to her future one, to wed a man who would one day be king, and Farbauti to her own home, to burn the garden she had built and, years later, fight for the hand of a prince she did not love.
But for now they stood apart, Frigga resplendent in her silver gown in the light filled halls of her kingdom, Farbauti dark in her glory as she stood triumphant in the arenas of hers, and both thought of what might have been.