Chapter Text
The morning brings no relief.
He had never been prone to emotional outbursts, though like anyone he could be pushed to one in the right circumstances. When they happened he would feel a curious numbness for days afterward, as if his mind needed time to process the onslaught of emotions that had overwhelmed him, and then Thor would make him laugh and he would find his cheer again. That is not the case, this time. He remembers it all and comes awake crying, because though his mother denies all that he said last night, tells him, “You were always loved, my dear child,” Loki knows she is only trying to protect his feelings.
His mother holds him all the long day, sings to him with a tenderness that soothes the ramble of his thoughts. She should be in the Healing Hall, with Thor’s Midgardian friends, and when he tells her so she murmurs into his hair, “My child, you are more important than anything or anyone. To leave you now would be to leave my heart at your feet.”
It is a day away from the eyes who might seek him out and find him wanting, full of a peace Loki had not known he craved until he had it. None could enter the Allmother’s chambers without her express permission, and with the door closed, the curtains drawn, it is a world away from the chaos swirling around Loki’s head. They walk in her garden and eat at her table, and when night falls once more Mamma tucks him in beside her, until all that surrounds Loki is the scent of the flowers they had picked, the silk of her hair against his cheek, and the cool, soft sheets of her bed.
It is there, in the quietness of nighttime, that he is finally brave enough to speak.
“Will you tell me the truth if I ask, Mamma?”
She brushes her lips along his brow. “Yes.”
Loki stares at the canopy above them, the pearls and patterns in the cloth, the way the night shadows reflect along the silver threads until they almost glow. His mother has stitched runes into the cloth, though he doesn’t recognize them. “Does Thor know of my Otherness?”
Mamma doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Though I wish you would not call it so, dear heart, yes your brother knows.”
Embarrassment leaps into his throat. “When did he find out?”
“You were some years older than you are now. The two of you were practicing in the training yard when you came into your flowering.”
Loki closes his eyes, mortified for himself. “Oh.”
“He thought he struck you, that he’d hurt you. Truthfully, I think you thought the same. So scared was your brother that he lifted you up right off your feet and raced you to Eir, screaming for us all the while.” Mamma strokes her fingers gently through his hair. “That was when I sat your brother down and explained to him your personhood.”
Loki buries his face there at her throat. He can feel how hot he’s blushing against the coolness of her skin. “Was he mean to me afterwards?”
“Of course not. Once he understood that this was a perfectly normal and natural part of your development, he vowed that he would always protect you and keep you safe, that he would never let anyone hurt you.”
“He always wanted to be like one of the knights in his stories.”
Mamma’s smile is warm against his temple, where she kisses him once, twice, three times. “When you found out that he had vowed this to me, you smacked him on the head and challenged him to a duel. To this day I don’t think he’s ever accepted.”
His love for his brother is a warm and tender thing, deep in the heart of him, like a little sun tucked under the cage of his ribs. “Only because he knows I’d win.”
“Undoubtedly,” she hums softly.
“Mamma, do you think I’ll be strong in my seidr again?”
“You already are. We must teach you to channel it. Now that your teachers know what you are capable of, understand the way your mind works and the way your magic behaves, you will find your studies will progress very quickly.”
“My teachers?” A bolt of cold dread goes through him. Skildir is dead, one of the chambermaids had told him so.
“Your father and I have been waiting for you to adjust to your life here with us, Loki, before sending away for them once more. Lady Groa resides here in Asgard and has already agreed to move back to the palace in service to you. Sir Ragnvaldr has been recalled from Vanaheim and will be here in the next few months, after he finishes his quarter at the university where he teaches. Each have something new to teach you, just as each have a specialty suited to you.”
Loki shivers in the dark. Everyone knew of Lady Groa, the most skilled volva in Asgard, who it was rumored had taught Allfather himself the mystic arts. But Sir Ragnvaldr? The best seidmadr in all the Nine Realms, the man who was so powerful he could duplicate himself into three exact simulacra, specters that could walk and talk independently of one another? “They were my teachers before?”
“For many years, yes.”
As if in response, his magic pulses along every nerve and vein, and he shivers. “I want to learn and become a great seidmadr.”
“I know you do,” Mamma says, a smile in her voice, as the cool white snow of her magic soothes his own. “And you will, my love. Though the time is not yet right.”
He clenches his eyes shut. The time was not right because of the way he’d behaved in his father’s hall – like a spoilt child, weeping and making a to-do because Pabbi told him no. “I’m very ashamed. I’m sorry for the way I shouted, for the words I said.”
“No, Loki. I’m sorry I wasn’t with you to soothe your fears these past weeks.”
Loki traces a fingertip along the embroidery of Mamma’s sheets, the red and green whirls a pattern Loki can’t identify. “You never answered me, Mamma. If I had friends.”
She sighs quietly, stroking her fingers through his hair. “No, you did not have many friends, but you have always been very picky about the ones you associate with. Those friends who were worthy of you were held in the highest esteem. You had no friends as close to you as your cousins.”
Mamma’s voice grows thick, and Loki suddenly knows why Baldr and Braggi have not come to see him. He wishes he could take the question back, that he could keep on thinking his cousins just didn’t want to see him. Some knowledge is best left unknown, but it’s too late. “It is my great sadness to tell you that your cousins passed away many years ago, when a terrible sickness came to Asgard.”
Loki squeezes his eyes shut, the lump in his throat unbearable, as grief tears him wide open.
That’s all this world is, sorrow upon sorrow upon sorrow, cleaving through to the marrow of him. Everything is different – Pabbi, and Thor, and Mamma too. But to know that his cousins did not avoid him, that they had died so long ago, was both a relief and a knife to his heart. “And my uncle?”
“Your uncle Villi still lives,” Mamma says softly, rubbing his back in slow, gentle waves up and down the length of his spine. “The death of his sons left him with a heartache that I fear he will take with him to his deathbed. He resides on Vanaheim at my family’s homestead, where he can be a grandfather to my niece’s children.”
Uncle Villi had been so full of life, so loud and boisterous – not unlike Thor was now. He laughed loudly and often, always had a treat tucked away in his sleeves for his sons and nephews, and was the only one outside of their small family who could get Pabbi to laugh until he was pink-cheeked.
To think of that joy snuffed out breaks Loki’s heart all over again.
.
Pabbi comes, as Loki knew he would.
The day had dawned sunny and bright, without a cloud in the sky, so he and Mamma had moved her loom to her portico, so they could take in the morning and the sun on their cheeks. Mamma’s gardens were in full bloom, bees buzzing from blossom to blossom, the air sweet with honeysuckle and lilac, and Loki had found himself a perfect spot, up in the boughs of the wildest thing in Mamma’s garden, an enormous juniper tree. Mamma said he’d planted it when he was a little older than he is now, and Loki knows this is true. The tree is twisted and wild and doesn’t make any sense to look at, but it draws Loki to it like a moth to a flame. He wants to plant its cousin here in Mamma’s garden, and she has already promised to show him the spot she thinks will be perfect.
He sees Pabbi from the corner of his eye, standing with Mamma at her loom. They’re speaking, too low for even Loki’s ears to hear. In the morning sunlight Pabbi’s hair is snow white, and Loki feels that awful lurch in his belly. What he has been thinking on for days now.
He will still be a boy when his mother and father pass away, and a young man when Thor comes to the kingship. When Thor passes away, Loki will be at the prime of his life.
He will be left alone, with centuries left to live.
“You are very thoughtful today, Loki.”
Pabbi stands at the trunk of the tree, looking up at him through the leaves. Even with his hands tucked behind his back, shoulders broad and strong, he looks like an old man. Loki bites his lower lip until it stops trembling, dashes a wrist over his eyes, and then hauls himself up further into the tree.
The bark bites into his palms, the leaves slap his cheeks, but he finds a suitable branch easily enough. He knows he’s being immature, that this was what Pabbi meant when he said Loki must act more like a prince and less like a child, but he can’t make himself come down.
Pabbi sighs from down below. Loki watches him come around the other side of the trunk, where the branches are low and strange and curled into one another. He is a dark splash of red and gold and white between the leaves.
“Well, if you insist,” he says, and then Pabbi, Odin Allfather, climbs the tree after him.
Loki’s mouth hangs wide open as Pabbi scales the branches far more quickly than anyone his age ought be able to. He’s spry, even in his royal silk robes, and when Loki catches a not insignificant look at his hosen he bursts into peals of laughter. Pabbi growls at him and Loki can’t stop, not even when his father settles himself on the branch beneath his, visibly exasperated by the whole thing and arranging his robes around himself. “Think that funny, do you?”
“Yes,” Loki says, giggling despite himself, wet and awful as he swipes his wrist across his eyes again. If only the court could see his father now, climbing juniper trees in his wife’s garden.
The breeze rustles the branches in the trees, ruffling Loki’s short curls, which Mamma had refused to slick down. It’s quiet and peaceful with nothing but the sound of the leaves, and birds chirping, and the brook that bubbled through Mamma’s garden as it flowed on its merry way. Loki knows that it flows right into the town proper, feeding a wellspring in the center of the village that was well-known for its healing properties.
Pabbi seems to be content in his silence, and it’s enough to let his father into this little sanctuary of his. Pabbi doesn’t seem aggravated anymore, only pensive, his brow curved low over the bright blue of his eye. He has leaned back carefully against the trunk of the tree, threaded his fingers to lay over his stomach. In such calm repose one would think he climbed trees all the time. Perhaps he once did before duty took hold, when he was young and free to play with his brothers.
“Mamma told me about Baldr and Braggi,” Loki whispers, the grief a shard of glass in his chest. He bites his lower lip, hard, though even he can hear the catches of his breath. “And Uncle Villi.”
Pabbi hums softly, appropriate for Mamma’s garden and the peace here. “Your uncle wishes to see you. His health no longer allows him to travel the Bifrost, but we may travel to see him in Vanaheim before the year is out.”
The words are so like his father. The flash of anger surprises him, though the guilt and unbearable loneliness that follow do not. “They were my best friends.”
“They were very good boys,” Pabbi replies quietly. “Just like you, my son.”
“I’m not. I’m not good.”
“Who else but a good and honorable young man would be trying to find out if the Jotnar eat bread?”
Loki goes still. “You know what Thor and I are doing.”
“Your brother has much to say on the subject.” Pabbi looks up at him when Loki leans over the branch. “Rather, your brother has a lot to say on most subjects.”
“He becomes Allfather.”
“Is this what you have seen?”
Loki nods. Shakes his head. Shrugs. “I feel it. Sometimes, when we talk.”
“You were, and will one day again be, the most powerful sorcerer in all the Nine Realms.”
He knows this already, but to hear his father give it voice, to hear his father speak of the son he lost, hurts Loki all the worse. “You loved him. The older me.”
“I love you more than words could possibly express,” Pabbi says, as if it is a pillar of his world, a steadfast truth. Loki ducks back over the branch so his father won’t see what the words do to him, to hear them said so honestly, so frankly, when his father has rarely said the words to him at all. “Why do you want to see the rooms?”
He should have thought to explain, the day before. Perhaps then Pabbi would have understood why he asked at all. “I wanted to know the person he was. To see the things he held dear.”
“You speak of yourself strangely, my son.”
He stares out across Mamma’s garden, tugging a leaf from the branch above him. “Lady Hilda used to say that our lives are shaped by the people around us, the same way the strings on an instrument shape the music it makes. Everyone around me is an adult, Pabbi, and busy with adult things. Thor is crown prince with a household to run, the Master of Stores, wielder of Mjolnir and your chief warrior. His idiot friends are warriors in their own right, and privy council to him. My cousins died,” and saying it makes the knot in his throat unbearable for long, long moments. “Even Lady Hilda has gone to Valhalla. I will never again be the son you knew, because the people who shaped him are not the same people who will shape me.”
Pabbi is curiously silent below him. It takes a while, longer perhaps than Loki would admit, to gather his courage enough to look over the side of the branch. What he sees has him sucking in a startled breath.
His father’s blue eye is rimmed with red, wet streaked down into his white beard.
He climbs down immediately, thankful for the wide branches and the strange way they twist and move together, and crawls into his father’s lap, wrapping his arms around his neck. He is rocked in his father’s embrace and Loki is no infant but he allows it, if only because Pabbi seems to need it so very badly. He presses his cheek to Loki’s head, his beard scratchy, the smell of him so familiar. His father’s sigh is shaky at best, and when he gruffly presses a kiss to Loki’s hair he squeezes his father just as tightly. “I’m sorry I upset you, Pabbi,” he whispers around the lump in his throat.
“If there had been another way, I would have torn the Nine Realms apart to heal you. That I have been fortunate enough to have you returned to me is a gift I did not deserve,” Pabbi says, his hand heavy and warm along the back of Loki’s head. “You are right to say that you will never be the same as you once were, but the man I raised is in you. I see your passion, and your empathy, your good nature and your love for others. You carry so many doubts, even as a boy so small.”
“I’m other,” Loki says softly, burying his face on his father’s chest. “I always have been. I even think differently from Thor.”
“How so?”
“Thor is – Thor’s thoughts follow a linear path, one-two-three. The Warriors Three are the same, and Lady Sif. Even Baldr and Braggi were like that. But I’m not. I don’t think like that at all. If Thor thinks one-two-three, where first he will meet a merchant whose cart was burgled, and next he will hunt down and fight the braggard who burgled the cart, and finally he will save a maiden who the braggard kidnapped – I think first to save the maiden, have her act as bait so I can dispatch the braggard, and then together we steal the merchant’s cart to ride back to safety.”
His father bursts into laughter, and Loki can’t help giggling. “It would work,” he says, reaching up to dry his father’s cheek with his own small fingers. “People are too dismissive of maidens.”
“People are too dismissive in general,” his father replies, gazing at him with so much love Loki can’t help but smile back. “Your thoughts aren’t other, Loki. Truth told, they are more like my own than I perhaps realized. Your plan is sound, I think I would do the same.”
“Even if you put the maiden in danger?”
“Maidens aren’t wilting flowers,” Pabbi reminds him. “Or would you think the Lady Sif likely to stand idly by while a braggard waved a sword at her?”
“Lady Sif is exceptional among maidens,” Loki argues, “but your rationale is sound.”
Pabbi smiles, and Loki lays his head back down there at his chest to listen to the strong beat of his heart. They are quiet for a time, listening to the breeze, the birds in the trees, the water as it trickled its way through Mamma’s garden. In one of the branches above a sparrow keeps flying back and forth, chirping at them as she guards her nest.
“There is much left that we must speak of, about the man you were,” Pabbi says, quietly. “Very soon, I will tell you everything you must know. For now, if you wish it, I would show you the rooms your older self once inhabited.”
“No, Pabbi. Let them serve as remembrance for you and Mamma and Thor.”
Pabbi cups his cheek in his big hand. “Are you certain?”
“I may yet change my mind. But for now it is so. Only – only, please, I don’t want to be in the nursery anymore. It is lonely there without Thor.”
His father nods thoughtfully. “You are a young man in need of a suite to make his own. I think I might know of a good set of rooms, though they still yet reside in Thor’s Hall.”
“I like being near him,” Loki says. “It’s hard sometimes to think of him as I do – he was smaller than me, and so loud and boisterous and running about. And now he is very tall and very broad, which is lucky because he has the weight of the entire Nine on his shoulders.”
“You said it best, Loki. Your brother becomes Allfather,” Pabbi replies quietly, the barrel of his chest rising under Loki’s ear in a sigh. “It is far too easy to get lost in the ruling of a kingdom, for living souls to become pawns on a board. A king spends every waking moment, and often every sleeping hour, consumed with doubts of his decisions, but the real danger is when a king no longer loses sleep over his kingdom.”
It is the most honest thing his father has ever said to him. He sits up enough to look at him, and Pabbi gazes back, smoothing Loki’s curls back from his temple. “It sounds difficult.”
“I have not always been a good king, and the mistakes I have made could fill a library. They weigh heavily on me. My word is law, and I have the power over death. One man or ten thousand, it is the most terrible responsibility.”
“But you always know what to do,” Loki says, staring at him. “You are Allfather.”
“I am Allfather,” Pabbi replies gently, thumb at Loki’s cheekbone. “And it is not a mantle I would wish on anyone, let alone my sons.”
“Is it very awful and lonely, Pabbi?”
“At times, yes.”
Loki chews on his lower lip. “And Thor is becoming Allfather. He will ascend to the throne in your place.”
“Indeed he will. Thor too will be plagued with indecision, agonize over every choice, and fill his own library with mistakes. He has something, however, that I did not. You.”
“Me? But what can I do? Thor no longer needs protecting.”
“You said it yourself. Thor often thinks along a narrow path. It will be up to you to show him what he could do if he altered his line of thinking.” He touches his thumb to Loki’s chin. “That you, young man, have already sworn to protect the mortal realm from harm tells me just what kind of advisor you will be. I am filled with peace, knowing that one day I will leave Asgard in capable and caring hands.”
He feels himself blush, and Pabbi smiles, pressing a kiss there to his fringe.
Mamma stands from her loom and walks towards them, holding her skirts up from the dew still glittering on the morning grass. She is resplendent in the morning light, her golden hair falling over her shoulder, her apron where she wiped her fingers clean of her dyes a multitude of colors splashed on white. Loki looks up at his father. “Is she going to scold you for tearing your robe?”
“Probably,” Pabbi says, wincing.
Loki starts giggling and can’t stop. “I can’t believe I saw your hosen. I can’t wait to tell Thor.”
“Loki.”
“They were blue! And stripy!”
“Loki!”
He scrambles off his father’s lap before he can swat at him and monkeys down the tree, racing past his mother, who presses a hand to her mouth in laughter, and runs out the door before either of them can catch him.
.
Over the course of the summer, Loki’s life changes dramatically. If anyone had told him at his Name Day that he would go from being the second and forgotten prince (Insurance, Skildir sneers in his head), to being the center of his parent’s world and doted on by everyone who met him, he would have laughed until he cried and called them a stinking liar. But that is exactly what happens.
Once it’s decided by Eir and Mamma that all has been done for them as could be done, the Midgardians are transported back to their Realm. The younger man never woke, not in all the time he’s spent on Asgard, but the Son of Coul is on his own feet. He is resting his weight on a cane when Loki and Thor come to say farewell at the Bifrost. He clasps Thor’s hand tightly in his before his eyes meet Loki’s, calm and impermeable like glass.
Loki is holding his brother’s hand tightly, half hidden behind his hip, when the Son of Coul comes to him. He cannot lower himself to his knee, mending as he is, but he bends at the waist until they are of an eye. His lips curve, just a little bit. “You’re a good boy, Loki. I’m glad I got to know you.”
The words startle him, and he chews on his lower lip. That he calls him a good boy, and with such warmth and conviction in his voice, makes Loki want to squirm.
“Thank you, sir,” he whispers, half hiding in Thor’s tunic, much to his brother’s amusement. He means to pinch Thor’s backside for the offense, but the Son of Coul’s eyes are blue and bright and locked on him as they haven’t been in all this time, healing in Mamma’s care. The Midgardians are very stout creatures, he’s learned, and they make up for their short lives by being incredibly discerning and insightful. He likes them so terribly much, so when the Son of Coul offers his hand, Loki reaches out and clasps it, as a man would. “Be well and safe travels.”
“Likewise,” the Son of Coul replies, and with a last few words for Thor, he turns to his beloved, lying on the special bed that Eir had fashioned for him for the journey. With a flash of color, the first Midgardians Loki has ever met are gone. Loki thinks he’ll always recognize the exact blue of the Son of Coul’s eyes in the maelstrom of the Bifrost.
Once the Midgardians leave, Loki has countless days with Mamma. She comes to Thor’s Hall to breakfast with them, and sometimes Loki will stay with her afterward while Thor is busy attending to his duties and working on their proposal for Jotunheim. It is slow going, slower even than Loki thought it would be. They miss their month-mark to bring their proposal to Pabbi’s Council, though not for lack of trying on their part. Thor had sent a formal missive to the Court of Jotunheim with a simple question – could the Jotnar digestive system support the consumption of grain – and inadvertently uncovered a terrible problem.
The knowledge of the corpus, the most basic of arts, has been lost on Jotunheim – indeed, King Helblindi hadn’t even understand what they were asking. The Jotnar had reverted to mysticism, believing that the spirits of the planet would heal and feed them.
That his horror is reflected on Thor’s stunned face is of little comfort. That Mamma is caught by the threads of fate for almost a day when they tell her motivates Thor’s desperation.
Thor had since written to healers all over the Nine Realms, looking for any who might be able to help, and had found more of the same – not many still living understood the health needs of the Jotnar. To know that the healing arts of an entire people had been lost fills Loki with a terrible sadness, an open wound that sits beneath his breast. No creatures deserve to be shunned to the point of extinction, much less a people whose only fault was that their ancestors fought a war with Asgard a thousand years ago and lost.
Thor feels the same, but unlike Loki has the power to act on it. He uses his name to reach deeply into every Realm, to put out word that he is in search of Jotnar healers, to cajole anyone who might listen to lend their aid to his search, and to convince those who would doubt him of his sincerity. Still, it is only luck that they are finally put into contact with an ancient Jotnar healer named Merlo, who resides in the House of Scholars on Vanaheim.
Loki hadn’t known that Thor went to Pabbi with the problem until days later, and he doesn’t think he will ever learn the words that were said between father and son. There is a deep respect between them that Loki doesn’t understand, nor does he think he ever will – it is something only for Allfathers to know, the younger and the elder. It is because of that respect that Pabbi doesn’t dismiss their project out of hand the night he comes to find them in Thor’s study. Thor doesn’t seem to realize he’s being quizzed – or if he does, to what end. Loki watches as his father grows satisfied over Thor’s passionate replies and the strength of his resolve.
“You have convinced me, my son,” Pabbi tells him, and Thor’s face grows slack with surprise. “Your plan is not without its flaws, but it is as strong as can be made with so many variables still unknown.”
Thor’s eyes flick down to the parchments on his desk, brow creased with thought. “What should we do? Invite this healer to Asgard?”
“No,” Pabbi says, at length.
“Visit him in Vanaheim? But what if the answers we seek only unearth more questions?”
Pabbi waits.
“Oh,” Thor says. Then, “They will never go for it.”
“Who won’t go for what?” Loki asks.
“Father means for us to reach out to Jotunheim and start a diplomatic mission.”
“Oh,” Loki says. He frowns. “Well yes, of course, that makes perfect sense.”
Thor shakes his head, shuffling the parchments back into a tidy pile. “King Helblindi hates Asgard. The return of the Casket notwithstanding, pigs will fly before he agrees to diplomatic talks.”
“You don’t know what’s possible if you don’t try,” Loki tells him sensibly, patting Thor on one big arm. “Besides, we aren’t going to ask him. We’re going to talk to Healer Merlo and explain the Jotnar’s plight, and then he is going to contact King Helblindi and do the work for us.”
Thor blinks at him, eyebrow puckered. “What do you mean?”
Pabbi has that look he gets sometimes when Loki has been particularly brilliant. Loki fights not to squirm under the warmth and praise. “Well, Healer Merlo has a reputation for – what was it?”
Thor shuffles the parchments on his desk again, searching for the letter they’d received from the Head Healer of the House of Scholars. The tone of the letter had not been a kind one. Thor skims it briefly, tapping a finger to the sprawling print. “Head Healer Vernon says he is, and I quote, ‘a bloody-minded bastard of a genius with so much contempt for the House of Laufey that he’d rather live naked like a beast under the paralyzing Vanir sun than ever step foot in that pox-riddled Utgard palace ever again’, end quote,” Thor says. He can’t help but smile when Pabbi snorts. “Colorful, this Merlo.”
“Exactly,” Loki says, beaming. “Someone with that much passion, with so much knowledge of the healing arts, and who – through our very public, somewhat desperate searching – we’ve just concluded is one of the last remaining beings alive with the knowledge to keep the Jotnar from certain doom, is the best person to convince King Helblindi we mean no harm and wish to help the Jotnar people. After all, Healer Merlo hates the House of Laufey as much as he hates us. He has nothing to lose, and everything to gain – helping his people regain the knowledge of their own health. If he can use the Asgardians to make it happen, that much better. If he can make Laufey’s son bend to his whim, even more-so.”
Loki loves that he’s put that astonished look on Thor’s face. Pabbi leans back in his seat and folds his fingers over his stomach, content.
“How did you come to be so clever?” Thor asks, tugging on one of his curls.
“I’ve always been clever,” Loki says with a scowl.
“That is blatantly untrue,” Pabbi says. “I seem to recall you once vomiting all over Ambassador Horth.”
“I was a baby,” Loki yells, as his father and brother burst into laughter. It is the worst story, trotted out at holidays and banquets, and Loki never gets to defend his honor because he’d been a tiny baby and hadn’t know any better. “That doesn’t count, Pabbi!”
His father’s eye is creased at the corner, and that awful expression has faded from Thor’s eyes, so it is a job well done, even at the expense of Loki’s pride. His brother sighs and shuffles the parchments for a moment, as if they hold some secret that just hasn’t been found yet. “We’ll send a letter to Healer Merlo in the morning. In truth, this situation is far more dire than I expected it to be.”
“What was your expectation?” Pabbi asks.
“We would give the Jotnar a percentage of grain until their own crops were recovered enough that they would no longer need our aid.”
“It’s never that easy, because living beings are not that simple. Your patience will be tested at every corner, my son, but this is what it means to be a ruler. To fight injustice not with your fists, but with your cunning, your patience, and your understanding.”
Thor looks very, very young in that moment, and for the first time since waking up in this new world Loki truly sees his brother in that adult face. He clenches his fingers together so he won’t reach out, won’t ruin this moment between his father and brother. “I feel as if I must apologize, Father.”
“No,” Pabbi says, simply. “To be king is to recognize the faults in those who came before. I did my best with the choices I had before me, but I do not claim to be all-knowing, despite my reputation for having traded an eye for wisdom. I do not know if I would have made a different choice during the war, but we are at war no longer and our peace has held for over a thousand years, recent incidents aside. It’s time to bring the Jotnar back into the fold. That it was you who saw the time had come, you who have taken the steps to do so, despite the defiance you would show your father and king, brings me peace.”
Thor stares at their father like he’s never seen him before, and Loki doesn’t know why. Father has always been so open with them, but maybe things had changed in the years since Loki was a boy. Maybe his father had closed to them, in some way, for Thor to look as if the entire foundation under his world has shifted. “I am honored to be the son of such a wise king.”
“No,” Pabbi says again, and covers Thor’s tightly knotted fingers with his own. “It is I who am honored, to be the father of such a wise son.”
.
Healer Merlo does indeed contact King Helblindi, just as Loki knew he would. What is said in his correspondence Loki and Thor are not privy to, but Loki can guess it must have been so strongly worded that even a proud king like Helblindi had bowed under its weight.
What follows is the most truly breathtaking show of politics Loki has ever seen. For two months there is a parade envoys and letters, the exchange of promises and new ambassadors. Pabbi and Thor each must give their word that there is to be no violence, a promise that King Helblindi does not immediately reciprocate, resulting in another torrent of messages delivered by harried, terrified messengers. By the time it’s all said and done, their plans are in place: General Tyr, whose reputation proceeds him as the most honorable and trustworthy of men in the Nine Realms, will serve as Pabbi’s ambassador to Jotunheim. He will be accompanied by his eldest daughter, Reya, and both recognize that though they will be received with all due process, they are hostages of a sort, because Healer Merlo is to come to Asgard in the accompaniment of King Helblindi’s younger sibling, Byleistr, who will serve as the ambassador to Asgard.
When the final signature is put to parchment, Loki is exhausted and Thor so grumpy that he takes two days to ride out with the Warrior’s Three around the Asgardian countryside, letting out his aggression by bringing down the beasts that will be served at the feast to welcome their esteemed guests.
It wasn’t at all what Loki had been expecting when he asked Thor if the Jotnar could eat bread, but he can’t say it hasn’t been particularly effective.
The weeks leading up to the forum had been barely controlled chaos, but the morning that the Jotnar party is due to arrive has all the calm, still, royal air of a state visit. Loki loves state visits, and though he’s just a boy, even he can recognize the importance of this moment. Thor had been working for years to turn popular opinion, to bring the Jotnar people back into the Nine, and all his hard work has finally led them to this moment.
The pride on Thor’s face warms Loki to the heart.
It seems all of Asgard has come to witness the event, and the streets are filled near to bursting with people wanting to catch a glimpse of the royal family traveling to the Bifrost. Pabbi and Mamma are dazzling in their finery – Pabbi in his golden ceremonial armor and helm, Mamma in her silver gown with pearls stitched in luminous patterns. Even Thor has dressed in splendor, gleaming silver armor and a red cape that drapes over his enormous shoulders. Lady Kari, the royal seamstress, had made Loki a fine tunic and coat of finest brocade, in green and silver to bring out the color of his eyes. The same brocade lines the collar of Mamma’s dress. “So I can keep you close to my heart,” she had said just for him, and Loki had beamed with embarrassed delight.
Heimdall is waiting for them at the Bifrost, as he always is, and as they wait for the clock to turn he stares at Loki, as he always does. Not even that gaze can dampen Loki’s spirits, and when Pabbi says, “Open the Bifrost,” Loki positively squirms, squeezing Mamma’s hand.
“Don’t be frightened,” Mamma says, brushing one of his errant curls from his temple.
“I’m not frightened,” Loki says at once, though he is, a little. Heimdall twists Hofund and the Bifrost explodes with color, funneling out into the stars. “Can I stay next to you though?”
“Yes, dear one,” Mamma replies softly, and she shares a look with Pabbi over Loki’s head that he can’t decipher.
Heimdall twists Hofund once more, and when at last the vibrant colors of the Bifrost fade, the Jotnar party stands before them.
Loki’s first impression of them is that they’re tall. So tall Loki didn’t think even Thor’s words could have prepared him, and his knees go a bit weak. He’s grateful to be holding Mamma’s hand, for her reassuring squeeze.
Loki’s history books painted them as large, blue, hulking, but Loki realizes they got it all wrong. The frost giants are blue, true enough, but in such dazzling shades they look as if they were carved right from evening sky. They are beautiful, and Loki swallows as the reality of what he’s seeing cascades over him. The giant who can only be Lord Byleistr is at the head of the party, so tall Loki thinks he must only come to the frost giant’s knee. In deference to the climate of Asgard, he wears only a kilt and cape at his shoulder, and both are made of fine animal pelts. He is draped in jewels, as befits his station, gold and silver and a strange, coppery-green that circles his head. His skin is the rich color of cobalt, so brilliant he almost shimmers in the golden light of the Bifrost. What surprises Loki the most are his magnificent horns, enormous and curving, which lift up high over his head and curl back behind his ears. They are so densely carved with runes that they look like a crown, which Loki thinks was likely the point.
There is a tangle of emotions in Loki’s breast he doesn’t understand, looking up at Lord Byleistr. Fear, yes, though he thinks it is only the shock of their massive presence. Mostly – mostly he feels like weeping, and he doesn’t understand why.
“Lord Byleistr, third Bairn of Farbauti, third Bairn of Laufey, sibling of King Helblindi, I greet you,” Pabbi says into the silence, and Loki almost jumps.
“King Odin, First Bairn of Bestla, First Bairn of Bor, Allfather of the Nine Realms, I greet you,” says Lord Byleistr, and they bow to one another. His voice is so deep it seems to shake in Loki’s chest, and his fingers tighten on his mother’s instinctively.
“You are most welcome, as honored guest of the Aesir,” Pabbi says, and holds out a hand beside him. “May I introduce Queen Frigga, Allmother of the Nine Realms.”
Loki startles like a frightened doe when Lord Byleistr comes to one knee before Mamma. He crosses his fist before his chest and bows twice, and Loki has no idea what is going on, but Mamma must because she goes to her knee as well, with a rustle of her beautiful skirts, and bows to him four times. Lord Byleistr looks to Loki, his eyes like polished stones, so red they shine like light from the dark blue of his face. He studies him with a quiet intensity that he doesn’t understand, but when Lord Byleistr rises it is with temperance, waiting for Mamma to stand too before he speaks. “His Majesty King Helblindi, Second Bairn of Farbauti, Second Bairn of Laufey, Scion of the Frozen Realm and Lord of the Six Moons, extends his greetings and his well wishes for a fruitful meeting of our peoples.”
“I accept his well wishes,” Pabbi says, “and hope that this meeting between our peoples will be of mutual benefit for all. I bring to you my First Bairn, Thor, Crown Prince of the Realm Eternal, Lord of Thunder, Master of Wind and Rain.”
Thor bows deeply, as does Lord Byleistr. Loki had half expected him to go to his knee again, but it seems as if that particular honor was for Mamma alone. “Well met, Crown Prince Thor.”
“Likewise, Sovereign Prince Byleistr,” Thor says. “I welcome you to Asgard, and look forward to the following days so that we might bring our people together in friendship.”
“Your words do you service. I accept your welcome and your kind greeting, and look forward to a fruitful meeting.”
There is a curious pause, and when Loki looks up he finds Pabbi gazing at him. It lasts only for a moment, and Loki doesn’t understand why. “I bring to you my Second Bairn, Loki, Sovereign Prince of the Realm Eternal, Protector of the Crown.”
Lord Byleistr inclines his head to him, and Loki’s knees feel as if they’re made of jelly. He crosses his arm across his chest, awkward because he is clutching Mamma’s hand, and though Mamma had told him that was the proper way to greet him he knows he has caught Lord Byleistr by surprise. Mamma squeezes his hand and Loki whispers, “Well met, Lord Byleistr.”
“Well met,” he replies, his voice a rumble, before he looks once more to Pabbi. “King Odin, I present to you my party. I bring to you my Fourth Bairn, Prince Brun,” and a boy who is as tall as Pabbi steps forward. He wears a kilt of woven fabric Loki has never seen the like of, and finely made. Around his neck a large medallion the same coppery green as his father’s diadem shines in the light of the Bifrost. Unlike his father he has hair, a thick black mane of it tied into twisting braids around his head, anchored at his small horns. His eyes are a deeper and lusher red than his father’s, and when he bows it is with unsteady movements, as if he is unsure how and wishes no offence. “King Odin and family, thank you for receiving us,” he says, and though his voice is several octaves higher than his father’s, it rumbles just the same.
Brun can’t be much older than Loki is, and he feels a sudden rush of glee. Perhaps they could be friends. Loki has not played with another boy his age – has not played with any other children at all – since he woke up in this brave new world.
Lord Byleistr goes on to make introductions of Healer Merlo and his student, Erli. Even in such advanced age, Merlo is as tall as Lord Byleistr, if not as wide. His skin is bleached a light blue at the creases of his joints, and he wears a simple white tunic that falls to mid-thigh, cinched at his waist with a belt filled with vials and potions. Loki would love to open each one and peak inside, and Mamma squeezes his hand because he can’t stop squirming. Lord Byleistr’s body servant, Lit, brings up the party. He is carrying several packs and bags, and behind him are strange metal chests that Loki thinks must contain what the frost giants will need for their visit.
Once arrangements are made for their things, they step out of the Bifrost. Loki is proud by how startled the frost giants are at the view before them, Asgard laid out in such splendor, gold and green and white and blue, the crown glory of the Nine Realms.
Pabbi, Thor and Lord Byleistr walk ahead of them, talking with bowed heads, and Mamma follows with Healer Merlo and his student, already speaking of the healing arts. Loki thinks perhaps Mamma has orchestrated it that way, because Loki barely waits for them to step out of the Bifrost before he says, “Well met, Brun son of Byleistr.”
The boy startles, looking down at him. They’re not so different in height, actually, and Loki thinks that Brun is perhaps a bit younger than he is, to be such a small frost giant. “Hello, son of Odin,” he replies. “Forgive me, are you Prince Thor or Prince Loki?”
“Loki,” he replies with a smile. “Though I suppose without Mjolnir, it’s easy to make the mistake. My brother is walking with your father.”
“My modir,” Brun corrects, staring at him. “What is Mjolnir?”
“Thor’s great hammer. It was crafted by the elves in the heart of a dying star. There is no other tool like it – one to destroy, but also one to build.”
Brun nods, clasping his hands behind his back. It is a decent mimicry of what his fath– his modir is doing ahead of them. He looks a bit scared, now that Loki thinks on it, when he notices Brun’s fingers clenched together at the small of his back. “Oh yes. I know of Prince Thor’s hammer.”
“I like the way your voice does that,” Loki says, because he can’t not. “The way it rumbles in your throat.”
“It is to call across the wind and sea and storm,” Brun replies, blinking at him. “Your world has no storms?”
“Sometimes!” This, Loki gets to say with glee. “My brother can make it storm. Rain and lightning. It’s why he’s the Master of Stores.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. Perhaps before it is time for you to go home, Thor will show you his seidr. Just for show!” he’s quick to add. “I think you’d like it.”
Brun hums, that low reverberating thing, which shakes in Loki’s chest and makes him grin. “Asgard is not what I imagined it to be.”
“Really? What did you think it would be like?”
“Oppressive. Hot. Though it glitters as I knew it would.”
Loki looks out across his world, the golden spires before them, the wooded green at the edge of sight, and always the water. “What is your home like?”
“Beautiful in its own way,” Brun replies. He keeps glancing at Loki out of the corner of his eye. Perhaps he too thought it would be a dreadfully boring visit. “And now that the Casket is with us once more, the sakna is gone. The world sings below our feet.”
“What is sakna?”
“Hmm. There is no real translation in the Allspeak. Loss, I suppose, would be a good word, though it is deeper than that.”
Loki’s heart squeezes in his chest. “My brother told me your world is very different. That there isn’t vegetation.”
“What is vegetation?”
Well that answered his question. “Well – you see there, in the distance, west of the castle?”
“Those green things? Are they trees?”
“Yes! Do you have trees on Jotunheim?”
“Quite unlike yours, but yes.” Brun glances at him, a small, shy smile on his face. “They are made of metal.”
“Really?”
“Yes. We call them the Ironwoods, and they only grow on Utgard. That is why Utgard is the seat of the frost throne, because without the Ironwoods nothing can be built that will last time.”
Loki’s mind is whirling, and he has so many questions, but Mamma turns and calls, “Come along children,” and Loki grins.
“Do you want to see Pabbi’s horse? It has eight legs.”
Delight fills Brun’s dark red eyes. “I don’t know what a horse is. Are they not supposed to have eight legs?”
“Horses are riding animals, among other things, and no, only four, but Sleipnir is very special.”
“Yes,” Brun says, immediately. “And – and I also wish to see the trees, and my books say that there are things called tomatoes here, that grow on small vines, and I’d like to taste them.”
“We will do all of that,” Loki says, so full of joy he can barely stand it. “Prince Brun, will…will you be my friend?”
Brun beams back at him. “Yes. Will you be mine?”
“Yes,” Loki says, giggling despite himself, and together they race to close the distance to Mamma.
.
To say that Loki and Brun get along is an understatement.
Loki – as the good host – shows Brun absolutely everything. In the name of politics and friendship, of course. The Healing Halls, where Mamma and Healer Merlo are already hard at work, and the orchard where the golden apples grow, and the river that travels through the castle from the mountains, and of course the nursery where Brun is enchanted by Loki’s few – and new – toys, especially the puzzles that come to life once completed.
They run everywhere in what Loki knows is not a very princely manner, but they can’t help it. They run all over the castle and outside in the gardens and up spires and down to the basements, and Loki shows Brun the secret passages that were once used for servants and Brun tells him all kinds of stories about his parents and his siblings and his homeland.
On the third day of the Jotnar’s arrival, he and Brun are trying to escape from Cook when they almost crash into Lord Byleistr and Pabbi coming from the room where Pabbi keeps the maps of the Nine Realms. The chicken in Loki’s arms squawks loudly and flaps its wings and promptly poops on the toe of his boot, but even that is secondary to their parents staring down at them in surprise.
Lord Byleistr recovers first, and barks something in what is not the Allspeak. Brun freezes immediately, suitably chagrined and still as he stares at the ground. There is a long silence, save for the flapping chicken.
Loki begins to think, with a growing horror, that their playing has damaged the meeting of their two peoples, when Lord Byleistr sighs. The look he and Pabbi trade would probably be very funny in any other situation, one exasperated parent to another, but Lord Byleistr only sweeps his cloak aside for them to pass. Brun smiles impishly up at his modir as they slip by, and when they turn the corner starts to giggle uncontrollably. Loki, clutching the wall with one hand and the chicken with the other, chances a peek back around the corner.
Pabbi has a small smile on his face, and Lord Byleistr’s severe and serious brow has softened. The chicken’s squawk turns into a shriek and Brun giggles and grabs his hand, yanking him down the hall.
Loki feels a bit bad about the fact that he’s left Thor to do most of the work with the aid treaty, in the first flush of this wonderful friendship he’s building with Brun, but when he apologizes to Thor that night at the evening feast, Thor just smiles. “It is good to see you so happy,” he says, cupping Loki’s neck in his big hand before ruffling his curls, even though it makes Loki wrinkle his nose with annoyance. “Do you like Prince Brun?”
“Yes,” Loki says, helplessly, because he does, so terribly much. “He has a pet kykvendi.”
“What is that?”
“I don’t know, but I want one too,” Loki says, and Thor laughs. “And, and, he has three siblings older than he, and the eldest is named Hymir and he is the crown prince, because King Helblindi lost his consort in childbirth some years ago and will never give his heart to another again. Brun says Hymir is very, very tall and very skinny, and he hasn’t yet lost his childhair, so people make fun of him and he gets into fights. Did you know that the frost giants are all bald when they’re grown up?”
“I did,” Thor replies, gazing at him with chin in his hand. “I didn’t know they had hair as children.”
“I know! Brun says that sometimes their hair is black, or sometimes it’s white. And he said that the warriors of the crown were all forced to shave their horns down for thousands of years, but when King Laufey died and King Helblindi came to the throne, he said anyone could grow their horns if they wanted to and that Lord Byleistr’s are the most beautiful in all the realm. They are, aren’t they?”
“They’re very impressive,” Thor says softly. There are so many emotions on his face Loki couldn’t hope to read them all. “I am more glad than I can say that you’ve found a friend in young Brun. What would you say if he came to Asgard to study seidr with you?”
His entire being seizes up for one long, tense second. He tries to squash the wriggling thing in his chest he knows is hope, but it can’t be pressed down. His fingers knot in his napkin. “He would study here? Really?”
“Lord Byleistr has requested that the education of Brun, who has shown some promise with seidr, be a part of the negotiation.” Thor smiles at him when Loki squirms in his seat. “Brun would live here on Asgard during the late fall and winter seasons, and return home for the spring and summer, when it would be too warm for him to stay for long periods.”
“Truly, Thor?” Across from him, Brun – sitting next to Lord Byleistr – is giving Loki the pre-arranged signal (a nose wiggle and tug of the left ear) to slip away before the grownups could stop them. Lord Byleistr’s body servant, Lit, is glaring at his young charge as if he knows exactly what’s going on. “But – but that is only if you are able to find out that we can provide food for the Jotnar.”
“It has been a delicate situation,” Thor allows, and he’s far too much of a grownup to wince, though Loki thinks he probably wants to. “You must remember, this is the first delegation from Jotunheim in over five hundred years.”
The hope in him deflates. “Pabbi is going to say no.”
“I don’t think he will,” Thor says gently, “but you must be prepared for it, brother. The Jotnar may leave without any proposal being signed. If Lord Byleistr is satisfied, he must still present our proposal to King Helblindi, who may say no as well. That is not even taking into account Healer Merlo, who is the grumpiest old man I’ve ever encountered in my life, and who may very well decide he no longer wants to be involved. They are a proud people, Loki, and have undergone centuries of hardship at our hand. To say yes to our aid would mean to swallow that pride. To say no would mean setting their recovery back for many years. King Helblindi will need to weigh all of these factors, and speak with his council and his people, before agreeing.”
Much without his meaning to, Loki’s eyes fill with tears. “If King Helblindi says no, then I won’t see Brun anymore.”
“That you have forged such a strong friendship with Lord Byleistr’s child in so little time has done more for these negotiations than you could possibly know.” Thor’s smile is broad on his face, and it isn’t the one that he hides all kinds of things behind. It is genuine, if not sad, and he tugs lightly at one of Loki’s curls. “I’m surprised by it, truthfully.”
“Brun is wonderful,” Loki says, for lack of any better way to describe his new friend. “He has a cheerful disposition and likes learning and is very inquisitive and he told me not to tell anyone, but the potatoes two nights ago made him pass so much gas he thought he was going to lift off and fly around the room,” and it startles a laugh so genuine out of Thor that Loki can’t help but grin. “I like him. He’s my friend and if we got to study together we could become best friends.”
Brun does the signal again, which he turns into a very fake sneeze when Lord Byleistr looks down at him. Loki doesn’t laugh because Thor is right there, but his brother has always been wise to him. He arches a brow, lips twitching, first at Loki, then across at Brun, and Brun beams and Loki smiles hopefully and Thor sighs. “Fine. Fine! But I’ll only hide your disappearance until Mother asks where you are. You know I could never lie to her.”
“Thank you, brother,” Loki says, grinning broadly, as he wiggles out of his seat and sets his napkin near his plate.
“No leaving the palace.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Not even a toe, Loki.”
“You got boring in your old age,” Loki replies, and giggles at Thor’s growl even as Brun slips free of his modir’s clutches and they race out of the feast hall together.
.
The treaty is signed by the end of the fortnight.
In it, Asgard will trade eighteen thousand kilos of grain every season – which when mixed with a very common salt on Jotunheim creates a hard cake called myki, a hardy bread once a staple of the Jotun diet – for one-half thousand kilos of diamonds, so plentiful on Jotunheim that there are entire glittering beaches of the hard and shining stones. Asgard will assist Jotunheim in rebuilding the underground farms of ancient times, so ancient that none of the party save for Healer Merlo even remembered of their existence. There, the Jotnar will grow their summer crops, including squashes, sprouts, and all manner of tubers, pears and currants and clementines, the seeds for which Asgard will provide. A school for healers will open in Utgard, where Eir’s ladies and Healer Merlo will teach a new generation of Jotun the healing arts. All travel and trade embargos are to be lifted, and Asgard will help rebuild Jotunheim’s Kaupstadr – market town – which was once the largest in all the Nine Realms. Jotun scholars will come to learn at Asgardian universities, and the Ambassador to Asgard, Lord Byleistr, will have a seat on Pabbi’s council, equal at the side of the representatives from all the Nine Realms.
And finally Prince Brun, Fourth Bairn of Lord Byleistr and Keeper of the Seal, will come to Asgard to learn seidr with Odin Allfather’s own son, Prince Loki.