Chapter Text
Loki limped home from the practice arena, nursing a sprained ankle and a myriad of bruises from sparring. He hated fighting without magic. He was quick and clever in hand-to-hand combat, but Thor was beginning to recognize his fighting patterns, and made sure he knew it. His pride may have been in more pain than his body after the snide comments from his brother's friends. 'They think I'm pathetic for fighting with magic until they needed protection spells or illusions on one of their stupid quests,' he grumbled to himself. 'Then they swear it's the cleverest thing they've seen.' He rolled his eyes as he entered the ornate door of his home.
“Good evening, Prince Loki,” came a cold voice from the shadows. A chill went down his spine. No, not her, not today. His muscles tensed. With a wave of his hand, the lanterns set themselves alight, and he was faced with his old flame. “What do you want, Angrboda?” he asked through gritted teeth. She seemed to have made herself rather at home on couch near the fireplace. Despite the warmth of the fire, she still wore a thick cloak.
“Now, now,” she said in her deep, sultry voice, “is that any way to greet an old friend?” Loki narrowed his eyes.
“You and I are not friends,” he snapped.
“A guest, then,” she said, “a guest with a gift.”
He took a step back. “What are you playing at, Angrboda?” The last time they had been together, he and Angrboda had fought bitterly after he had refused to give her a magical artifact from the palace archives. They had had an ongoing affair, built more on lust than love, as well as a shared interest in magic and hunger for power. During their last rendezvous, she had asked him for the Casket of Ancient Winters, and he had refused.
Unfortunately for Loki, he had chosen a lover as equally spiteful and cruel as himself. She vowed to ruin him in one way or another. While he had been skeptical as to whether she would actually try anything, he always kept an eye out for strange ripples in the Seidr, or anything else out of the ordinary. If he were to be completely honest with himself, he never would have guessed she would turn up in his sitting room.
He tried to read the face of the woman sitting in front of him. She gazed at him as if he were some sort of insect she meant to crush with her shoe. Loki could only guess that her ‘gift’ was death, or some instrument of it. As his eyes flitted beside her, he noted a lump of blankets on the couch. He supposed this was meant to conceal some sort of artifact with which to kill him.
“Wouldn’t you like to open your gift?” she asked in mock playfulness. The blankets gave a stir and he drew his dagger, preparing to fend off whatever foul beast Angrboda meant to kill him with. “Tell me,” said Angrboda, “how many moons ago did you betray me?”
Loki rolled his eyes. “I did not betray you, woman,” he spat, “you revealed yourself as a Jotun spy and I told my father.”
Angrboda gave a hum of pleasure. “And how did Odin react when he learned his son was sleeping with one of the foul creatures he sought to exterminate? Or were you too ashamed to tell him about that?”
Loki clenched his jaw. It was true that he had avoided revealing his exact relationship with Angrboda. In truth, he'd been praised for rooting out the spy in the palace that had been feeding information to the frost giants. His family had no idea he'd only discovered he spy because he was sleeping with her.
“Oh, you didn’t tell him?” she cooed. “Too ashamed, eh?”
“What are you playing at, Angrboda?” Loki asked again, temper rising.
“When was our last coupling, prince?” she asked with a cocky smile.
“We’re getting off subject.”
“When was it?”
Loki sighed. “About ten moons ago. Now what do you want?” he asked, patience wearing thin.
“Very good,” she cooed, “oh, you must have liked it to get that close.”
“Don’t make me kill you,” growled Loki.
“At least let me give you your gift,” she said with mock affection.
His grip on his dagger tightened and he began to formulate spells and battle plans in his head. Angrboda picked up the blankets and the creature beneath them gave another stir. Loki stopped short as a sobbing noise came from the blankets.
He looked at Angrboda and the blankets skeptically. Angrboda rolled her eyes. “It’s only a sickly little half-breed, you battle-hungry Aseir cur,” she spat. Loki took one step closer, but did not lower the dagger, fearing a ruse. As he peered into the bundle on Angrboda’s lap, he saw that it was, indeed, a baby. “Why?” was his only question.
“I’ve learned so much from you,” said Angrboda. Loki didn't know if she was referring to their shared exchange of magical knowledge or the information she'd unknowingly stolen from him. “So how can you be such a blithering idiot?” she asked, her voice sharp with cruelty. The color drained from Loki’s face as he realized the weight of her previous words. They had last been together ten moons ago; it was two moons short as far as Aseir or Jotun gestation, but it was entirely possible, and could account for the baby’s sickly appearance. Angrboda grinned wickedly at his horrified face. “Now you’ve got it,” she said, “Oohhh, what to tell Father now?”
“It’s a ruse,” choked Loki, “you’re trying to trick me into giving you something.” Even as he said the words, he searched for any signs of glamour on the baby or Angrboda. He found none. “Oh, no, even now I know you wouldn’t give me anything. I think you’d sooner bash this creature’s head in than give me what I want.”
She scowled at the baby like it was some sort of disgusting creature that ought to be put out of its misery. “Why do you look at it so?” he asked. Her eyes snapped back to him. “Because half of it comes from you.” she said spitefully, “and because it’s half dead.” Loki raised his eyebrows questioningly. He didn’t know much about babies, but this one seemed to be quite alert, despite its sickly appearance. The crying grew louder, as if the child were trying to prove it was alive and well.
“It was born with the legs of a corpse,” she answered, “they’ll not move at all. It didn’t even feel when I pricked them with a needle.” Loki said nothing, for once in his life at a loss for words. Angrboda continued. “When it was born, I thought of leaving it in the snow as is done with all the runts and sickly whelps. I’m glad I didn’t. I know I can never beat you in combat, not here, anyway. I can torment you though.” Her smile and voice practically dripped venom as her eyes bore into Loki's. He contemplated killing her where she sat, but he couldn't will himself to move. The baby's crying was dying down to half-hearted fussing as it seemed to realize it wouldn't get its mother's attention. "What will you do with this pathetic product of our union?" asked Angrboda. "Will you kill it as soon as I leave? I wonder if you've the stomach for it. Will you dump it somewhere and hope someone else takes it? That sounds like you. Or will you tell Mother and Father? Will you ruin your chance to have the Nine Realms in the palm of your hand over this deformed little thing?"
The baby had resumed its wailing, and his eyes flitted down to it, breaking the hold she'd had on him.
Angrboda laughed, low and sultry, as she set the baby beside her. “Thor doesn’t have any bastards, does he? I can’t imagine any future king would.” Her lips parted in a smile, revealing sharp Jotun fangs.
“Enough, witch,” he snapped. Angrboda stood, slowly with gritted teeth. In the dim light Loki could see the pallor in her face. His eyes drifted downward and he saw that where her cloak parted, her belly was still swollen, and she was holding it as if to hold her insides together. She'd clearly just had the child and seemed to be barely functioning through the pain. He almost felt sorry for her, but Angrboda's cruelty ran far deeper than his, and he knew he needed to use her pain to his advantage. “Angrboda, when was this child born?” he asked.
“Yesterday,” she replied, “I did not wish to keep you from your firstborn.” She smirked at him, but it faded when she saw his vicious smile. He gave a short, humorless chuckle. “You can’t leave,” he said, “not in your state, you’ll drain your lifeforce and kill yourself.”
“I got here, didn’t I?”
“You got here, yes, but at what cost? How much energy do you have to get yourself back? You must have expended quite a lot of it getting yourself in here, considering you didn’t use the Bifrost and Heimdall hasn’t spotted you, so there’s also a concealment spell, a good one, I might add. That’s not to mention the fact that you gave birth only yesterday, and no doubt lost a lot of blood and energy. You look an inch from death already. I’d say if you tried to go back the way you came, you’d be dead before you even got back to Jotunheim.”
The witch said nothing, only glared at him.
“Do you really hate me that much?” he asked. “Do you really harbor such loathing that you would be willing to kill yourself just to torment me?”
She glared at him still. Loki decided to press further, for if she would be vengeful, so would he.
“You would really abandon your own child to the man you despise most? Perhaps my father was right, perhaps you are monsters.”
“You will find you and I are not so different,” she said bitterly.
He could see the anger rising in her eyes and he knew his plan was working. He needed only to distract her for a few more moments before the spell was complete. When it was, she would be bound in her place.
“I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work, Odinson,” she said, “I’m countering your spell.”
“Then you will only kill yourself faster,” he replied with a slight smirk.
“If I die bringing your ruin, I have died well,” she said through clenched teeth as the portal opened up around her.
Loki swore as she disappeared into the portal. As a last resort, he threw the dagger in after her as the portal closed. He was left with eerie silence when the portal disappeared. ‘I would very much like to wake up now,’ he thought woefully. He flinched as a sharp wail erupted from the blankets next to him. Loki turned his gaze to the child and sighed. “And what to do with you?” he asked as he sat down next to it.
The baby continued its wailing as he gingerly picked it up and set it on his lap. He supposed it was crying out of hunger, but at the moment, he could do nothing about it. Angrboda’s words echoed in his head. ‘Oohh, what to tell father now?’ What would he tell his parents? He could only hope Angrboda had been lying, and the poor, sick child was not his after all.
There was no way around it, though. If Angrboda could come and go unseen, he could only assume there would be others. He had to notify his parents of the security breach, and he had no idea what to do with the baby. He set the screaming infant aside and went to his mirror on the other side of the room, a feeling of dread building in his chest. With the right incantation, he left his mother a message. “Mother, could you and Father meet me in my chambers at once?” he asked nervously. “It’s…urgent.”