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Shock is the foremost reason of why Loki does not immediately move upon the completion of the spell-casting that he has just read up on a travelling book.

Well, shock and a sudden, acute exhaustion. But the latter plays a smaller role, considering where he ends up: His “landing pad” is cold, albeit not as unforgiving as stone or packed earth.

But most importantly, it is blue and alive.

Humongous arms, wiry but each still the size of a tree trunk, wrap round him in a similar delayed reaction. However, while his lag of reaction does ill for his chance of freedom, the same does not seem to disadvantage his newfound captor: The owner of the arms needs not spend any effort at all – or so it seems – in restraining him.

Afterwards, even more shockingly, he does not end up an ingredient of a soup or a slave or a gladiator for the amusement of barbaric blue giant monsters.

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It is highly peculiar in so many aspects, in Loki’s opinion, that the first question his captor asks him is: “How old are you?”

An Asgardian intruder has just barged into wherever this is – in Jötunheim, though, most likely, given how cold it is and the prevalence of ice… decorations… – and his captor bothers about his age instead? Is there a certain rule in such a barbaric culture that says bitter enemies of a certain age should be disqualified from torture and the like?

Odder still, his captor immediately gets up from the ice chair it has been occupying and rushes… somewhere else… with him still in its arms… without waiting for the answer. Is he or is he not a dangerous, highly loathed captive here?

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Blue, lined skin. Black, sharp claws. Black, sharp teeth. Small, vertically conical ears. And they are just the visible changes forced upon the hapless young Asgardian, after his captor has dumped him on what may be a scanning table – doubling as torture devise, most likely.

Something has also shifted inside of him during the long series of spells he has been subjected to, cast by his captor and one other – even larger – frost giant. And that feels even more – much, much more – unnerving than almost anything else, including the physical changes.

Almost anything else, indeed. Because, until now, he has not been able to free himself from his captor by any means. And presently, they seem to be heading towards a kitchen, judging from the clacking and clanging and other vaguely kitcheny sounds emanating from somewhere yet unseen ahead. Truly, he does not want to be some frost-giant meal!

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How relieved Loki feels that he is brought not to the kitchen, after all.

Their destination is deeper under wherever he landed and farther than the source of the kitcheny sounds. It takes the form of a large pool of blue-green water, which laps mesmerisingly with gentle waves against blue-white smooth boulders that decorate its edges. The peaceful, admitedly beautiful scene is reflected on the smooth ceiling in blue-green wavy patterns and flickers.

The water feels soothingly warm on his skin, as well, when his captor carefully slips him into it, up on one of the shallower parts. Moreover, it lends a pretty shade of richer blue-green to his new skin when he feels calm enough to look about and down.

Unfortunately, however, then his captor attempts to drown him….

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With how much he flails about and panicks, it takes Loki quite a long time to realise that he is actually not drowning. The pool’s bed is still shallow enough for him to stand on tiptoes, as well.

If he could, that is.

Well, his captor seems determined to keep him under, regardless. So, currently, he cannot do anything but to breathe.

And breathe he does! Apparently, it is not only his outer appearance that has been changed by whatever spells his captor and that other jötun cast on him. Breathing underwater is a good advantage to have, at least, practically speaking, even if he must don the skin of a monster in the process.

He still struggles, hoping to eel out of his captor’s arms and up abovewater, but…. – `Eh, what are those lights? So pretty….`

And, mesmerised by the constellation of pretty silvery pinpricks of light bobbing in the water a way’s away from him, he does not realise that the arms round him have tightened considerably, now cradling him close.

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A drowsy Loki is proffered a plateful of odd pebble-like things, coloured silvery blue, once he is freed from the actually-not-so-bad pool of blue-green water.

`Ah, the poison, at last,` he thinks, as his captor tries to coax one of the pebbles into his clamped-shut mouth. Its claim that the pebble is just some iced milk would have made him laugh, if only the act would not open his mouth and allow the poison to come in.

Well, he may be young, but he is not that gullible!

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`I was right,` is the last coherent thought that Loki is able to process, once his captor has managed to insert the pebble and its subsequent friends into his – initially unwilling – mouth. The poison has at least been tasty and addicting. The forever slumber that is greeting him right now is also padded by a thick, cosy patchwork blanket.

It somehow smells – feels – like… home. In a much more visceral sense than what he got from his quarters at the palace in Gladsheim, at that.

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Waking up with ones lips latched round a nipple and suckling is the most bizarre thing that Loki has experienced to date.

Well, he has to retract that assertion once he is truly aware of his state of being, especially when he remembers what happened before he fell… asleep? Unconscious?

In any case, waking up at all is a sheer marvel, given what he endured.

Privately, he thinks that it is even more of a marvel, when he becomes aware of a huge hand softly and carefully raking through his hair. And when his captor cuddles him close, and the sense of home that he got from the patchwork quilt from earlier ambushes him with the act….

Well, this one is off the scale entirely.

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A very beautiful – if half-finished – needlework, made up of delicate blue and green wavy lines running in artful chaos on a deceptively soft piece of silvery cloth, lies somewhat haphazardly beside a rugged, ordinary-looking piece of brown rock.

A half-frost-crusted, drink-stained wooden mug is parked near a beautifully carved, pearl-inlaid stone box containing various chipped and worn tools. And both act as paperweights for a detailed, coloured map of what may be Útgarð and its surrounding lands.

Meanwhile, what looks like a stack of high-tech writing repositories is used to prop up a large stone tablet, which is full of scribbles and crossed-out lines done with what looks like bright yellow wax – of all colours.

They are all arranged on shelves that run just on one side of the room, as seen from a very limited vantage point: the – admitedly comfortable – nest-like “bed” that is a hollowed-out stone dace filled with soft furs, equally soft leathers, and huge, fluffy pillows. And Loki himself is still trapped in it. In his captor’s arms, to boot, and unable to move his head much, let alone his body.

Even with this brief, limited look, however, his feet already itch to wander among such homey amalgamation of varied items, and his hands already long to try at some of them. If only his captor would let him go, even for just a while!

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Being delivered to the kitchen – at last – is a very, very terifying experience for Loki.

At first, at least.

The giants working in it are surprisingly warm and even doting towards him, in addition to being pretty familiar with his captor. It still does not diminish the terror factor, even by a quarter, but at least he knows that he is not going to be a soup ingredient or some such.

Better yet, one of the kitchen workers, after getting some kind of non-verbal permission from his captor, puts him to work on their strange mechanism, adjusted to his size and power. The thing takes the unfrozen water from the depths of the ground for their meal of the day, it explains without him asking.

Regardless, putting his hands and feet to task reduces the scariness of his current situation by half – finally. As the bonus, it allows him to think up some vague plan to escape this traphole he has unwittingly fallen into.

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Being called “Loptr” or “Loé” instead of “Loki” is a peculiarly unnerving experience to endure. Being asked to call one’s captor “Amma” – which sounds suspiciously like “Mother” – is even more disturbing. But still, Loki does not stop it or try to avoid it, when the said captor rewraps him in the patchwork blanket, just allowing his arms some room to wiggle free if he so wishes, and picks him up, blanket and all.

He is seven hundred years old, for the Nornes’ sake. And yet some part of him, thirsty for so long without even himself knowing it, relishes in this closeness, this adoring attention, this gentleness from a brute, this baffling affection to one who donned the skin of an ás mere hours – or days? – ago.

If he unwittingly stole the identity of a runty brute named Loptr to have gained all these…. Well, that runt should not have gone away.

He certainly does not wish to be seen like this in public, or when in his æsir form, or a combination of the two. But privately, as a brief distraction, and only while in this cluttered bedchamber, he welcomes it gladly.

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“Amma knows Loé has a good grasp of seiðr. Come now, show it to Amma? Amma will guide Loé with making the details if Loé hasn’t yet learnt how to do it; do not worry about that. Now come… make a cup for Loé’s own use? Or maybe just for display?”

The coaxing tone, free of any patronisation or mockery or scepticism, throws Loki back, similar to his current placement, seated in his captor’s lap and cuddled close.

Still, regardless of how unnerved he is, a chunk of brown-grey stone, big for him but pretty small for his captor, sits innocently before them on the “small” table that his captor has dragged to the edge of the stone-rimmed nest, ready to be manipulated with the aforementioned skill. And, compared to the other aspects of this surreal déjà-vu moment, this part is familiar to him.

None of his previous tutors have ever cuddled him while making the request for a seiðr display, however, nor have they been so warmly, hopefully encouraging without straying to more negative tones.

Well, the surreality is still the dominant factor, even as he trepidatiously complies.

And it bleeds into the design of the requested water repository.

To his captor’s sorrow, instead of indignance or scorn or discomfiture.

Surreal, indeed!

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Languid heaviness of muscles from vigorous use of seiðr and/or physical exercion is rarely paired with comfort, in Loki’s experience thus far. But, yet again, this time is different.

He has been consuming more of the so-called iced milk in-between ventures into various forms of art, although his body can sadly not likewise venture out of the ring of his captor’s arms. And, just like the one time before, when he thought the pebbly things were some form of poison, lethargy creeps on him like a cosy blanket.

If he is not careful, he could so easily get addicted to this treatment, as smothering and strange as it often is….

`I must escape soon, or I will never do so.`

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The field below the balcony is a sea of blue, surging and undulating beneath the rich white light raining down from the expanse of cloudless, pale silvery sky.

Loki’s captor talks and talks and talks, passionately for once, tinged sharply with anger. And Loki himself is still held captive in their arms.

And then the said hapless captive is lifted high by his waist, like a trophy won in a competition.

A roar builds up from down below, just so, leading into a tumultuous breakage on the castle walls. It rings in his very bones, not only in his ears and mind.

Various chants sputter like sprays afterwards, then solidify into yet another build-up.

He can clearly hear what is being roared to the heavens – or maybe to him, somehow – this time, despite his total unfamiliarity of the language used:

“Áðkonnar Loptr.”

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In Asgard, Loki was – is – famous… or probably infamous… for his seiðr workings. It becomes his only comfort now, when he is paraded around, fawned on and praised as though he were this realm’s version of Thor; if younger and maybe more delicate, as the body language and expressions of those blue monsters seem to suggest.

He gives out fist-sized stones, carved into abstract sculptures by his seiðr right on the spot, in order to shut up and get rid of the more adoring audience, to show them that they are fawning over the wrong person: a weakling seiðrmandr.

But then, somehow, he gets gushed on more instead, to the delight of his “Amma.”

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Loki has been dining on milk for however long he has been trapped in this confusing, alien, supposedly wretched place. But right now, his captor seems to think that he is ready to be introduced to solids. There is a flattish stone container before him, at any rate, and it is filled with a big mound of little, round, purple, aromatic things that might be fruit, or maybe some kind of vegetable.

He is much more interested in the container itself than the meal, however. It is deeply, delicately, complicatedly carved or maybe seiðr-moulded, with artistically uneven rim, but with none of the sharpness he would expect from the edges of such sculpture: it is a work of art, not anything supposed for eating!

To think that, according to his captor, this is a gift for him from his “Amma,” to do as he wishes….

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Asgard in summer is a place of hot, shimmering air and hot, blinding light, especially in Gladsheim, where Loki and his family lived – no, live. Its people, bearing the colours that represent the summer itself, are ruddy-cheeked and more spirited in it than in any other seasons, adding to the overabundance of heat that scorches down to one’s bones.

Loki was in fact thinking of – longing for – a cooler place to visit amidst such season in Asgard – at home – when he was casting that spell from that wretched travelling book.

Not that he would like to come here, though. That stupid, stupid spell.

However, he cannot deny that the lack of heat is very, very gratifying.

Especially when coupled with this cool, soft bed and its cool, soft coverings….

And the cool, all-too-familiar, all-too-cosy body wrapped round him, too.

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Loki has only ever seen the jötnar on a few pictures; on wartime manuscripts, at that. So all that he knows about those giant blue brutes are how scantily they dress and how hairless they seem to be.

But naturally hairless people cannot possibly know how to style one’s hair and do it well, can they? He barely feels all the braids, loops, little ribbons and colourful beads on his head!

And for a folk who are terribly fond of donning just a loincloth for all occasions, somebody has made him a very, very pretty – if rather sheer – silken attire, coloured bluish white. It looks suspiciously like a girl’s gown, but beautiful nonetheless in its unadorned simplicity.

Now, he feels most like a prince, if a young and delicate one at that.

He does not miss all the heavily brocaded, constricting, itchy layers required for an Asgardian prince to properly appear in public. He does not miss the heavy golden crownlet with its large, gaudy jewels, either.

Ironic, he thinks, that for a people who claims to be foremost in all things beautiful and strong, the æsir come out… less.

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For one who seems to be the leader of all the frost giants, Loki’s “Amma” seems to be pretty fond of nooks that neither Odin nor Frigga would visit in a thousand millennia.

Right now, for example: The both of them are back in the kitchen, and they are sharing the same huge bowl of some kind of thick, somewhat savoury soup here, instead of in a dining room of some kind. And, with him still trapped in his captor’s arms, the said captor is chatting amicably with the kitchen staff – in a language untranslatable by Allspeak that he is yet to learn, but that is beside the point.

To think that they have just been from what may be the throneroom, after long hours of audience with various frost giants, and his “Amma” acted as the King – or Queen? – there….

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Beholding the non-tumultuous outside world for the first time in this place during his captivity, Loki longs to run run run run.

A thick-seeming blanket of snow on the rugged surface of the land below greets him from the large window – one of several in this room – that is finally opened by his captor. The soft breeze that blows in is brisk and damp and earthy and so inviting. And the seven-century-old finds himself scrambling up the windowsill, about to join the world at large.

The whine that escapes his mouth quite involuntarily, as his captor catches him round the middle before he can tip out of the window, is loud and heart-broken. It is also the first ever real complaint that he dares utter in the presence of the frost giant, however unintentional it is.

But that openness, that freshness, that snow, it is so worth the risk!

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Being proffered a naked, milk-heavy breast when one complains about thirst is still a brand-new, freaky experience for Loki; even now, after several times experiencing it already. He is seven hundred, not seven!

And yet, his “Amma” is one clever beast who refuses to provide him with any other kind of drinkable thing, or any other way of drinking it.

He cannot deny that a jötun’s milk is somehow addictively awesome, both in texture and taste, but the way he must get it, it is so…. It is too…. It is…!

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The longer the regular audience in the throneroom goes on, the more apparent it is that something has… shifted, for lack of a better word, making it decidedly irregular.

Loki, who is once more trapped in his captor’s lap and wearing a set of light, shimmering, nearly transparent strips of fabric mascarading as decent clothing, notices that the supplicants have increasingly been far better mannered, far better clothed, and far too interested in him.

His “Amma” seems to notice the same thing at the same time, for they stiffen and almost immediately warn those who seek audience with them not to gawk at him. Or at least it is what he thinks they say, in that language untranslatable by Allspeak.

And, apparently, there is some serious threat slipped in the terse, somehow protective-flavoured command, for the courtiers mascarading as common supplicants either hastily excuse themselves from the throng or straighten up and look anywhere but the… throne? Ice chair?

In any case, the guilty party look so much like chastised children that Loki has to stifle giggles with all his might.

But, well, then he overhears his “Amma” grumbling in a tone scarily similar to that commonly taken up by mothers on the streets of Gladsheim, when castigating the honour and decency of men who dare gawk at their almost-of-age daughters….

He cannot help it!

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It is now the next bath session, which is far sooner than the habit of most Asgardians, and Loki has just had a simple but bright idea to annoy the lunatic who has not seen it fit to either free him or ransom him to his family.

“I wish to wear a headdress.”

And, “Ah, why would Loé cover this lovely hair? Amma could arrange Loé’s hair to look as if Loé were wearing a headdress. Would Loé like that instead?” his captor wheedles.

Feeling emboldened by the response and subsequently trying to test his boundaries, the young captive objects strenuously to the proffered alternative, with inane reasons that are nonetheless delivered impeccably.

And, wonder of all wonders, despite the apprehension that he has been having about this small act of rebellion, his captor gives in.

Chucklingly, at that.

His eyes open wide. `No, I did not mean that! I hate headdresses!`

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The sadly yet-captive Odinson discovers an interesting thing as he burrows deep into the nest-like bedding that he and his captor have been occupying this however-long-it-is, while desperately trying to escape yet another nursing session with “Amma.” It is a piece of leather which is as large as an expansive bedsheet for Loki, but perhaps just a cosily sized blanket for his captor. And it lies underneath much of the layers that make up the bedding, as if hidden away by purpose.

It makes the dreaded yet awaited humiliating torture that is breastfeeding fly out of his mind, with how alien it looks and feels: It is one of the few things in this realm that is not coloured either blue, grey, black, white, purple or red. It is actually striped with some broad, some narrow streaky patterns of mossy green on deep brown. It is also thick and feels durable, but as soft as calf-skin and just as tensile. And, above all, it somehow feels like something that he should have known quite a long time ago.

The stricken look that his pursuer gives him, upon uncovering his hideout and finding him wrapped in the aforementioned bit of leather, makes the nursing session totally forgotten by both of them.

And it is also then that he learns about… his sire? Who is not Odin…??!

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“Loé, these are your kin-siblings, older than you are and each other by each a kraði,” “Amma” says.

Perched once more in their arms, Loki has no other choice but to look at the two frost giants standing rather awkwardly before the both of them.

The newcomers look younger and smaller than his captor is by a good degree. In fact, seated so high like this, he is taller than the aforementioned duo are in a way.

He cannot help the thrill of pleasure that suffuses a juvenile part of his heart on that realisation.

The concept of any kind of siblinghood that he might share with these brutes is riddiculous, bizarre and unsettling. Nearly as unsettling as the idea of having “Amma” as a parent figure for him is, or the notion that his sire was a jötun – a bigger jötun than “Amma” is. But still, however brutish the duo look, and however guarded they are behaving at present, they do look somehow gentler and more attentive than how Thor often regards him in the latter’s most caring mood. Without any whiff of I-am-deigning-to-speak-to-you-now-you-tiny-delicate-creature-so-you-had-best-behave-yourself air that he has always despised from many, many people in Asgard including his own brother, at that.

So, when “Amma” orders the three of them to spend time together, and provides them with a huge mound of pristine snow to play with, indoors….

Well, he would like to see whether these purported family members of his will be as mad as Thor usually is when met with a faceful of snow, in the least.

And if they look as flabbergasted as that oaf is, in such event….

He grins.

Being underestimated is at times so very fun.

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There is a jötun; a huge, hulking, brutish-than-many jötun; a self-claimed ambassador from “the southern plains.” And that jötun is far too persistent in pursuing “Loptr Laufey-childe,” far too outrageous in their bordering-on-traitorous political views, not to mention far too forward in their desire to enter a marriage with him in the not-so-far future.

Well, that jötun’s ugly, ugly face turns various shades and combinations of blue and purple and white within moments of their far smaller, possibly far younger, and definitely far-too-vexed target speaking. Deceptively sincere tones mask so many barbs and pieces of sarcasm that Helblindi, Loki’s self-claimed eldest kin-sibling, can be heard stifling snickers in the background.

Fortunately, the sputtering snickers are soft enough to be heard only by Loki, who has been riding high in their arms, as per “Amma’s” stern and detailed instructions to them this morning, before the both of them set out to explore the vast stone dwelling.

Fortunately, as well, this confrontation is witnessed only by the combatants, Helblindi, and any guards that might be secretly around in this deceptively deserted hallway, not by the public at large. “Amma” might have to be involved, if not. Odin-King and/or Frigga-Queen had to, anyway, in Asgard, when people complained to either or both of them for the sharp wit and barbed jokes of the one that they secretly called “that little, ergi blighter.”

And Loki would rather avoid that, if at all possible, since their single instance of disappointment, when he was caught trying to run away yesterday as neither of his “family” was watching, apparently stung worsed than Father’s and Mother’s combined. He blames the odd link that he seems to share with them, which came into being soon after he had plopped into their lap like a piece of fruit thrown by a careless child.

In any case, abrading this monstrous monster is worth the risk, in his eyes. He would fight with all that he had if his parents – his true parents, back in Asgard – would enter him into a marriage with someone he would not mind gutting, so why not here and now, in this nightmare of a reality?

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If he could choose, Loki would rather be punished as is in the custom of his parents; even Father’s version of it.

Then again, if he could choose, he would rather suffer the ambassador’s advances and bring the matter to his “Amma,” as they belatedly – unfairly, he thinks – pointed out after they received the report about his confrontation from an amused Helblindi. At least, that way, he could avoid the punishment altogether.

Because, ever since that confrontation and promised to last for an unspecified length of time, he is to be escorted wherever by his “Amma” or a trusted underling of theirs, who is also promised to be “firmer” to him in regards to discipline and courtesy even to a person he despises. And he thought being left alone only when he is within sight of his “Amma” or in the room they now share with his “elder siblings” – locked, of course – was quite bad already!

Hindsight is the clearest sight of all, truly.

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All kinds of pleading and bribery refuse to work on “Amma,” whom the jötnar largely call “Konnar” or “Ðolúkonnar,” whom Helblindi and Býleistr their younger “womb-sibling” largely call “Abý,” and whom some elements secretly call “Laufey” in a cursing tone.

Loki has not expected any of his efforts to bear fruit, indeed, since neither of his parents – his true parents in Asgard – could be dissuaded to lower his punishments once they were set, let alone negating them. But… well… given how indulgent “Amma” was previously to him, he thought….

In any case, Leí – as Býleistr prefers to be called – has told him about the ventures “Amma” still conducts to Midgard to help support the realm, and there is one piece of Midgardian food they so like to indulge in. It will not be easy to create a small cake moulded in a cup from scratch, especially when he does not really know how it truly looks or tastes, and given the fact that many – if not all – of the ingredients must be replaced, but Loki Odinson is nothing if not persistent.

Life in Asgard has taught him to be so, and apparently it applies here, as well.

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Loki cannot help squealing – no, no, yelling in fright – when, as payment for his cake-in-a-cup present to “Amma,” they bring him to the ingredient kitchen and plop him bodily – as if just another ingredient – into a very big, very alive thing that is floating lazily in a huge tub of unfrozen water.

The thing looks like a pair of decorative, elongated, flattish bowls which are hinged on one side and can flap somewhat like a flying insect’s wings, if quite slowly.

And it is about to fall shut like a mouth with him still inside of it.

So of course he… yelps… again, and frantically tries to escape, even by leaping into his captor’s arms, who began this torment in the first place.

And all that, apparently, just to stop him from trying to get out of his punishment, especially by bribery, as “Amma” then explains, while the both of them dine on the soft, somewhat slippery, somewhat gummy flesh of the very thing that has just frightened him so.

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“You will be in trouble again,” Helblindi – or Dié, rather – points out, after not managing to convince Loki not to proceed with what he is about to do, for the sake of not getting other people in trouble. But to this argument, Loki gives the same answer, namely nothing. And of course, he keeps going with his preparations.

In short, reluctantly accompanied by his purported siblings – although he is still very much in firm denial about this ludicrous notion – and also by Llúða his captor-assigned minder, he begins to explore the cliff to the west of his huge, baffling – in more ways than three – prison.

By climbing it, of course, with the aid of a crude harness , a pickaxe, and his own – or rather, this monstrous, hideous form’s – detestable claws.

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“Amma” is fed up with their little prisoner’s continued defiance, escapism, and reluctance to do anything with them or their people or this land, apparently.

But not in a thousand millennia would Loki have guessed about what has actually made them so upset for so long.

Or rather, he could guess, and he did guess, but the guess is quite unfortunately solidified as fact the moment his mad, mad, mad captor speaks.

And what a concept! – Him, their only surviving womb-child? Him, her only viable heir to the throne? Him, Loki, the second prince, the spare child, the ergi trickster, the delicate would-be warrior, the pretty boy, the “bookish little cub,” the unmanly seiðr-worker, a crown prince?!! Future ruler of a populated realm that would accept him???

He shakes his head bitterly.

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Boluðúrna, called Bolthorn in Asgard, the sire of Laufey (“Amma”) and Bestla (their?… her?… elder womb-sibling, mother of Odin Borson), is old, judging from the somewhat papery feel of… their… skin, and the look in their eyes, and their even-more-gravelly-than-an-adult-jötun voice. But they do not look old, at all.

Some say that their seiðr was wounded severely during the abrupt uprooting of the Anchor (the Casket of Ancient Winters) during the end of the war with Asgard (an invasion, people here call it), as they were in the process of building a massive Working to shield a whole village from the æsir. It is further said that they were subsequently incapasitated for centuries. But they do not look the least invalid, either.

When Loki blatantly asked them, in the “family dinner” just now, they said that they are fifteen-millennia-and-four-centuries-old.

He doubts it, very much.

One does not reach fifteen millennia in Asgard while still able to swing and swoop and fly a hapless seven-century-old – not even a baby! – round and round and round, so agilely and tirelessly. In fact, people of that age are supposed to be… very, very, very old and thus rickety… or dead!

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Stuck on the top of a flight of stairs, Loki glares down at it, with so much heat which would have melted that pesky patch out of the way if mere wishes could have ever come true.

The giant and giantly spaced steps, built for giant feet, and lacking any kind of railing as in other stairs round here, could pose a real danger to his bones if he dared try navigating down them on his own without any kind of aid. In fact, he is usually carried like a toddler in places like this. Or, when nobody is around and he manages to sneak places alone, he goes down on a temporary slide that he fashions for himself with his seiðr; but that is toddler-like, as well!

And he is so finished with being treated like a little child by everyone. What his purported grandparent did last… morning? Afternoon? Evening?… well, last time, was just the last hit.

Now, he is determined to behave his age – his real age, as acknowledged in Asgard, not here. And in Asgard, as a prince of the realm, he could lead a company of soldiers in three more centuries. As it is, he is already eligible to lead a battle group.

Mere flights of stairs will not defeat him.

So, with grim focus and tenacity, utilising the very, very rare chance of being left alone such as at present, he builds a permanent addition to the side of the stairs.

First, he gathers water from the damp air round him, packs it into blocks of ice, then stacks and fuses those blocks on the very corner of the stairs to form steps that he can actually use, all with his own seiðr. The railing comes next, of course, fashioned similarly and on his height. And then off he goes, down the stairs of his own making, carefully leaning on the brand-new railing since his head feels a little woozy from the intense seiðr-work and concentration.

Only once he is safely at the bottom does he realise that his “Amma” has been there the whole time, and he realises it only because that woman uncloaks herself from her own Working.

So humiliating!

Chapter Text

Taverns in Jötunheim – or maybe just here, most likely in Útgarð, given how Laufey is here – are strange, Loki decides.

Or at least, the one that he has managed to slip into after ditching his “family” and guards is.

The main room is… clean, and not packed with people, drunken or not. The things that people order for are not all drinks of any kind, either. And… well, with how hideous the jötnar are, there cannot possibly be any tavern wenches around, right?

He scrunches up his nose. He must remember: He is in the body of a jötun, now, as distasteful as it sounds – and, apparently, looks, too, from what he observes thus far. He must find a way to change back to his æsir form and go home.

But firstly, he is going to sample what kind of alcoholic beverage that might be offered in this place. In Asgard – at home – he had – has – no fondness whatsoever for the ale and meed offered in the taverns, which Thor introduced to him after his first successful command of a battle group in a war game a few decades ago. He has no enthusiasm for the overly sweet red wine that accompanies Asgardian meaty fare, either. `But that yellow thing in that crystal tankard smells nice….`

Chapter Text

“Loé,” Laufey begins, but then stops, sighs, and closes her eyes.

Loki refuses to feel guilty or, Norns forbid, sympathise with her. He did no wrong by going to that odd tavern and trying to sample some alcoholic beverage. He did not even manage to do the latter before Laufey herself marched into that place, shocking all the occupants in it including Loki. And, worse, after exchanging a few turse words with the very, very, very apologetic tavern-owner, she soon marched back out without a word to him while dragging him by the ear.

`I am seven centuries old! If I am old enough to lead soldiers, then I am old enough to drink with them, and I am not going to budge on this point. She is not my mother, besides, so she cannot tell me what to do and how to behave.`

But then, she changes right before his eyes, shifting into a form much more familiar and palatable to him; with hair the same black as his, and eyes just a few shades paler than his, and face just a touch different than his.

And she looks so tired and heartsick.

His caustic rebuttal dies a choked death in his throat.

She looks too much like him, and so damn sick of him.

Apparently, he is a disappointment everywhere he is, including in the land of the brutish monsters.

Chapter Text

The blizzard has just blown away, or so it somehow feels. So Loki, who is even more tightly guarded now than ever, utilises every trick in his repertoire to escape outdoors.

In the end, he does not manage to do so without being escorted by his two so-called “kin-siblings.”

The moment he claps eyes on the main ground of the stone dwelling, however, the irritation vanishes like a sliver of mist in a brisk breeze.

It is as if an invisible hand had repainted the scenery, turning it wilder but at once more beautiful.

Much, much more beautiful.

A blanket of pristinely white snow hides any imperfections on the stone layering of the “lawn,” while a coating of blue-green ice clings in artistic ruggedness to all other structures, including the walls of the dwelling itself. The sky above seems brighter, also, with the dense bands of stars and star clusters twinkling even more brilliantly than the usual, as if one’s diamond-coated dress had just been polished to a shine.

The youth gapes, and does not even stir when a pair of arms picks him up into a cuddling embrace. Mesmerised as he is, he does not even notice – or care to notice – that he has been avoiding this particular person ever since their last altercation over his visit to the tavern.

Chapter Text

“Do not go outside, Loé.”

Helblindi – Dié, the eldest “kin-sibling” – does not even look away from the book which they are reading through a humongous wall projector-scanner contraption.

“It is the storm season, now,” Býleistr – Leí, the younger one – explains when, practised in ignoring everyone here by now including the both of them, Loki keeps his trajectory to the door towards the bedroom, which he now knows as more than just a place meant for sleeping but also for relaxing, holding family meetings, and even a makeshift training salle.

He tells them and himself that he terribly wishes to see the grounds transformed by the storm again.

But, well, really, he can do better by spying on Laufey’s court, for pertinent information that he can bring home to Asgard. These two brutes need not know about that one, though.

However, unfortunately for him, Leí has much longer legs and arms than he does, and good reflexes as well despite their size.

He does not manage to evade the pair of claw-tipped hands snagging him, mere paces away from the door.

Chapter Text

“What is that?” Loki demands in his brattiest voice. He hopes that, by annoying his constant minders, they will get fed up with him and leave him be.

Unfortunately for him, Dié, who is in the process of eating some kind of crunchy, dark-green stick the size of his æsir-form’s forearm, just shoves the said stick into his mouth and retracts it only after he has chewed and swallowed a mouthful of the thing.

Well, shockingly, it tastes like the stalk of some herbal vegetable when eaten raw: crunchy, watery, fibrous and rich.

“It is just some krachu,” is Leí’s explanation, then, as per usual. “To stave off hunger before a meal. Could be a walking meal, too, if you are in a hurry or in a long journey. Usually a parasite on the trunk of a bush or a tree or a ploughed field or – mmh!”

The not-untasty stick has suddenly found a new home by force in their mouth, courtesy of a scowling Dié, stopping them on their tracks… well, by force.

Their bug-eyed look of surprise and outrage is so comical to Loki that, before he can prevent it, laughter sputters out of his grinning lips.

But this time, he is quick enough to dodge most of the pillows and cushions the irked youngish jötun throws at him.

He throws the ammunitions back, albeit to a slightly different target, when the usually silent Dié laments out loud – for once – why Ýmir has given them such pesky younger siblings to care for.

Chapter Text

“Are there storms here?” Loki wheedles in his most innocent tone. Meanwhile, one of his fingers (He tries not to notice the fingerclaw at the end of it, truly he does!) traces the coastline bordering the continent that bears the capital city of this boring, barbaric, stormy realm. –

The map is pretty advanced for a barbaric realm, he supposes grudgingly. It is projected on three-dimensioned image from a strange contraption sitting on the floor by his feet, after all.

But….

“Abý won’t let you go anywhere any time soon,” is Dié’s blunt, indifferent answer, without looking up from yet another book.

Loki glares at them. He approves of studiousness in people, usually, but now….

“I want to see what a beach here is like,” he demands in the bratty tone he used before.

Still with little to no effect, sadly.

All that that jötun says – still without looking up, at that, although it is the longest and most emotive that Loki has ever heard them say since the beginning of their forced acquaintanceship – is, “Then you should have considered your behaviour and mannerism more carefully. I and Leí wouldn’t have gotten away with this much without a very, very sound punishment from both of our parents, each time, when we were your age.”

`I need no lecture from a barbaric monster of a giant!`

Worse, there is no Leí to land all his frustration on, seeing that they have been called to a private audience with his captor… and he has not.

`Damn. I should not have envied anybody for meeting with a frost giant!`

Chapter Text

Loki looks uncomprehendingly at the black, huge, somewhat ellastic ball which he is supposed to….

“What am I supposed to do with this?” he asks in his politest, most mature voice.

Considering the fact that it is his pretend childish whinging that has brought him here, to the packed training salle, by force at that (namely by being picked up like a sack of flour on Dié’s way out of the… family nest), he figures that an indirect apology might bring him back to the safety of the room they – or rather, Dié – have just stormed out of.

Far, far away from all the red, glowing eyes from huge, blue monsters that are now locked on him.

But, to that, Dié just gives the ball a few lazy nudges with their strong, humongous, long-toed, bare, clawed foot, shifting the looming sphere a few hand’s breadth without much effort.

His heart sinks.

His so-called elder sibling wishes him to fail in front of eager audience, apparently.

Dié is no different from Thor in a bad – or overly good – day, then.

Chapter Text

The slab of stone is sturdy, even, and already rather glossy by nature, in addition to being a nice dark silvery colour. It is supposed to be somewhere Loki can doodle to his heart’s content, instead of him vandalising the walls of the naða – the family nest – or other, “even less acceptable” places. Leí gave it to him just now, before they and Dié left him here to fulfill their own errands, after they had caught him trying to doodle on one of their spare loincloths.

But maybe, he could make it serve a better purpose than such a childish passtime which he has recently resorted to doing.

So, with that in mind, he carefully begins to work, carving delicate things on the surface of the slab with a tendral of his seiðr. Something that will never be achievable otherwise, especially by the current available technologies in all the Nine Realms.

Once done, and after fashioning a pair of – stylish, if he says so himself – stone handles from a stray stick lying in a dusty corner with some intermediate-level alchemy, he sneaks to the kitchens. Figuring where the meal that is intended for the Monarch is prepared (by asking some hopefully unintrusive questions to the kitchen staff), he replaces the tray that is supposed to serve it with the one of his own making.

“Do not tell anybody!” is what he last says, before making his succuitus way to the training salle. He hopes that he will be able to blend in among such multitude of jötnar, and avoid being caged in the naða for the far foreseeable future for this latest semi-successful escape of his.

Chapter Text

Running and leaping and shooting and sliding and slipping through throngs of fighters training on their own specialties is familiar and, in a way, peaceful.

A fierce grin never leaves Loki’s face as he moves and shoots out blobs of coloured seiðr at random targets, living and not. He is both delighted and terrified with the full knowledge that he is antagonising not the familiar, nearly-of-a-height Asgardian warriors at home, but frost giants in their own land and stronghold.

The experience is made more delicious by the evident lack of any keeper and/or watcher scrutinising his every move, his every word, his every perceived intention.

The sudden squawking, clinking, clattering, crashing and thumping sounds that he causes just egg him to new heights of creativity and agility in tagging his targets.

Shockingly – and shockingly delightful – though, instead of just raging at the invisible disturber to their serious training schedules and routines and/or retaliating with the weapons they got in hand, the jötnar retaliate in kind. They pelt him with no-less-colourful blobs of seiðr and even some that follow him wherever he goes!

Chapter Text

It is rather unsurprising, somehow, that the one who is most irate with Loki’s unplanned, simple, simply chaotic, childish prank is themself a child. He supposes so, at least, judging from the height, and also the lack of craggy face and rumbly voice.

Getting a face full of neon-green blob of coloured seiðr, they squeal and promptly give him a hot chase.

Literally hot.

They pelt him with spheres of hot water all the while, abandoning their target-shooting post by doing that.

And faced with such ire, Loki lets out his first ever laugh in this alien land; long and loud and utterly free.

Chapter Text

The offended jötun child turns out to be the spawn of Laufey’s state secretary.

Loki finds it out only when, still neon-green-faced, scowling fiercely and spewing what must be swearwords in the pesky language these sly brutes like to use instead of anything translatable by Allspeak, they manage to drive him outside of the training salle and into a huge room.

The mother is sitting with Laufey, and, upon finding the child, immediately squawks scoldingly, “Álti!”

It is quite the indication….

The exasperated, scandalised, helplessly fond tone feels all too familiar, to Loki’s perturbation. It makes him miss Frigga, and… well….

He surreptitiously glances at the other jötun, who is seated on the other side of the huge stone desk.

Laufey is reading a holographic projection on the surface of the said desk from a large, bulky, complicated version of Dié’s usual reading machine, apparently. And she is not looking back at him in any way.

His heart twinges.

`But is it not what I wish? Yes, it is!` – Not treated like a child. Not getting reprimanded as though she were his mother. Not getting touched by a frost giant. Not getting entangled with the ultimate leader of the frost giants.

But then, after berating the child severely, the State Secretary gets rid of the neon-green seiðr paint, and picks the maybe-named Álti up into their arms.

Loki discards all pretences of a blasé attitude. He hastily excuses himself in a mumble.

Before he can turn round and flee the awkward scene and atmosphere in the room, however, Laufey stands up, gives instructions to the state-official-turned-mother from the sounds of it, and mimicks the latter with him as the victim as though it were the most natural thing in the universe.

He gets casually kissed on the head, even!

Chapter Text

Laufey seems to take Loki being driven into the room where she and her glorified secretary were gathered as permission – or maybe some sign? – to get close to the latter again.

A part of the hapless ás – `And I am not going to think about myself as anything else, no I am not!` – relishes the gentle, affectionate physical closeness and oft undivided attention. However, another part of him – a much bigger part, he’d like to think so – feels even more caged than before.

Álti, who turns out to be indeed the child – the last child, in fact – of the state Secretary, is now his ally – temporary, he hopes – in getting himself further away again from her.

Messing up with the foodstuff to embarrass and/or infuriate Laufey is out of the question, because he does not wish to starve should the stock he would use turn out to be the last, or should the kitchen staff get angry with him. So, they have to improvise.

As the result, shortly before Laufey is to have her regular audience with the brutish masses, they brew up a concoction that mimics the smell, colouring and consistancy of a fruit jam – but much, much more sticky – and slather it on the seat and back of the throne. Then it is Loki’s job to layer some undetectable seiðrwork over the whole mess to cover it up from anyone’s perception.

They hide at the very back of the throng of supplicants to watch, and… well….

Loki can only rue and gribe about that childish, emotional, touchy brat’s overexultance on the success of their joint venture.

Chapter Text

Loki would rather be punished with being sent to bed without meals, imprisoned in the naða without any company or any way to amuse himself, or even imprisoned in a real cell in a real prison.

This punishment is humiliating.

What is the use of him drawing about himself, if not to humiliate him? He is not that vein, to be fond of portraying himself in every occasion. He is not that good in sketching people, at that. And there is also the matter of his currently blue skin and red eyes and stupid, barbaric, scar-like silvery markings.

`I am not going to sketch myself being a jötun!`

Even worse, he must endure the punishment while sitting in Laufey’s lap in front of all those jötnar, as she is resuming the rest of the audience.

Damn her shrewdness and cruelty, damn álti’s overexcitement and big mouth, damn him for recruiting that child in the first place and unable to escape his current predicament… and damn Dié and Leí for laughing at him from the sidelines.

No, no, he is not going to have anything to do with these creatures. If he must demean himself like this, by the Norns, he will have his own choice on how he is going to do it, and he refuses to draw himself as other than an ás.

Chapter Text

Loki has been telling himself over and over again that nobody else’s opinion here is worth any consideration, let alone to be placed above his own. And still, he finds his heart pounding as Laufey scrutinises his finished drawing wordlessly for what feels like an eternity.

The drawing itself was made with strange, oily coloured inks seeping out of pen-like tubes with variously shaped brush heads, on a thin but sturdy chalk-white slate. And, of course, it depicts his æsir form – black hair, green eyes, fair complexion. In fact, he has chosen to depict the moment he was about to participate in his first war game for this strange punishment. He would like to let her and her kind know that he is not some sniffling babe to cosset and coddle.

There are unfortunately only the two of them here in the naða, the audience has been concluded for the day some time ago, and Laufey does not seem to have any pressing matter to attend to. And Loki wishes – very, very, very much – that it were otherwise. He should not feel this jittery!

`What is wrong with me? Her regard should mean nothing to me! It is Father’s and Mother’s that should matter, never hers.`

But still, when those solemn, unreadable, monstrous red eyes are finally lifted up from the damning slate and trained right into his own monstrous eyes, he cannot help but swallow and ever-so-slightly curl into himself.

Shockingly, incredibly, disbelievingly, his eyes begin to prickle with wet chill that feels uncomfortably much like heat, when he notices an unfeigned something in those alien, unnaturally coloured orbs that looks suspiciously like raw grief.

Damning, without damning him.

The wet, burning chill transforms into water droplets when the owner of those sad, sad eyes transforms smoothly into her… æsir?… form, without breaking eye contact with him, and takes his hand – his own greyish blue, white-marked, black-claw-tipped hand – into her own – so familiar, like Mother’s – white, smooth, warm, pinkish-nail-tipped hand. Without hesitation, without reservation, and still without words.

And then she murmurs in his native tongue, with a sad smile on her face and in her voice, with gentleness that pierces him deep instead of soothing him, “Whether in this form or your true one, you remain my child, Loptr, child of Laufey, called Loki Odinson in Asgard. Or do you think that all who call themselves Asgardian are purely æsir?”

Next, still in the same form but without a word, she props the slate with the drawing on it on the top of the long row of drawers, among her other cluttery little treasures, before she wanders away to what he figures as her study nook in the multifunction room. As if nothing but a breezy, casual conversation had occurred between them.

Left alone, Loki weeps bitterly under a mountain of blankets and pillows that nonetheless fails to smother him.

Chapter Text

Loki glares at the various virtual books open before him, projected on the wall of the naða that is indeed meant for such function. The facts – as the jötnar view it – glare back at him.

The skin that he has known all his life and believed to be his is actually an evolution of the jötnar thousands of millennia ago. This specific shape-changing skill has been grown and honed and perfected through long generations, meant to facilitate their survival in “hot-weather” climates and places.

More than a few of the jötnar have long been explorers to the other places in the Nine Realms and beyond for various reasons, hence the adaptation in their bodies. And they have also been breeding with the natives of the realms that they have visited.

The family tree of Laufey’s bloodline shows Bestla, Cúl, Vili, Vé and Voðen on the line of inheritance right beside and tied to Laufey’s own line, which shows Loptr and Loki under her name.

There were three factions to the war at the end of which Loki – this Loki – was born; not only Asgard and the entirety of Jötunheim.

All these titbits are connected to each other, he knows. Dié would not have basically shoved these seemingly unconnected tomes at him after Laufey suddenly stormed out of the room some time ago. But he refuses to delve further into what he might find in conclusion to all this.

Instead, he busies himself washing his hands with a bar of soap in the cleaning area of the naða, desperately trying to get rid of what he knows that he cannot.

Chapter Text

“Not even Amma could hurt Abý that much, you know, and they led one of the opposing factions in the war, forced or not, in addition to being Abí’s spouse at that time,” Leí says dryly as they drag Loki away from the washing basin; by the elbow, since his hands have been scrubbed raw a long time ago. The basin itself is now opaque and bubbly with soap-suds and soap-oil, and vaguely silvery blue with jötun blood – Loki’s own blood, now so alien, coming from his alien body.

“Can you not just be glad that you have a dam who loves you so?” the entirely too soft-hearted jötun adds, after a sigh that seems to have come from deep inside, in response to Loki’s wordless, half-hearted struggle. “You were more amenable to them, before they told you who you are. What changed, Loé?”

To that honest, accurate observation, if gently spoken, Loki can only open and close his mouth soundlessly, still.

No sound escapes him, even after many tries and a lot of effort, while Leí leads him to the middle of the pile of blankets and pillows that is usually occupied by him and Laufey.

The most that he can at long last say after all the turmoil, which has been stirred up further by Leí’s words, is ironically: “Don’t leave me alone here.”

Chapter Text

“May I go to the library?”

“May Loé go to the library.”

Loki frowns, trying not to scowl.

“Well, may Loé go to the library, then?”

“Yes.”

“May Loé go outside?”

“Where.”

“The city.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“May Loé go to the kitchen?”

“No.”

Loki fidgets, and now focuses all his might on not scowling.

“Why? You – all right, all right, Amma – allowed… Loé to go there, last time.”

“What did Loé do last time.”

“Well…. I – Loé – promise it won’t happen again?”

“No.”

Loki breaks first.

“Why are you suddenly so cold and distant to me?! Don't you want me not underfoot? I wasn't trying to escape!”

But to that, Laufey only stares back impassively at him.

Chapter Text

Leí, after lots of cajoling and bribery from treats smuggled from the kitchen, courtesy of Loki’s knack for sneaking around, finally told the latter about the tunnels criss-crossing the underlay of the palace, which is – surprisingly, different from accounts kept in Asgard – more like a small, semi-underground town than a big house.

Dié, after a period of nagging longer than Leí’s bribery had been, partly because Loki had tried to bribe them also without any avail, at last agreed to lead him to one of the shortest tunnel leading outside that has the easiest access and route.

But now, as he – all alone – tries to navigate the tunnel on all-fours with slow, struggling success and lots of effort, he begins to regret trying to escape the palace – and maybe Jötunheim proper – this way. He never thought there could be any tunnel this low and narrow and fiddly and disorienting anywhere in this land of giants!

Worse, then sensations of disembodied hands ghosting over his bare legs and equally bare arms begin to bombard him, with neither physical presence nor seiðrwork to be sensed all along.

He stops moving when the sounds of æsir dying brutally begin to reach his ears, although his eyes, already seeing no light since almost right after the start of the journey, do not catch any shred of light still, and his nose does not catch any whiff of blood or other bodily fluids.

`It is just an illusion,` he tells himself. But still, he curls up tightly into a ball and tries to constrain his frightened wail to the confines of his head.

Yet when a pair of real arms pick him up, he does wail, loudly.

Chapter Text

A scene plays before Loki’s eyes. Overly bright after the lengthy, total darkness of his previous surrounding.

It seems so real, but at the same time quite incongruous. He knows that arms are wound tightly round him, anchoring him, and yet he witnesses nobody hugging him.

There are only the clashes and screams of battle all round him, and the sensation of thumping heart and flying legs of his own, which is mostly drowned beneath acute fear of his own life and his little sibling and his unborn littlest siblings. His abý is running fast and fighting ferociously beside him, against a pack of those stinking æsir midgets, trying to defend them all – including that half-apparent rounded bulge on their belly.

But then one of the æsir pigs bashes Abý’s belly with a spiky club and Abý is screaming and crunch goes the whole arm of the pig by Cousin Féna’s doing and little babies are screaming and Leí is running with the elder one and Amma’s henchpeople want the life of the younger one in exchange for Abý’s and… and… and… and…!

Loki is wrenched back into his own mind, violently, with a wail of horror and grief reverberating in his throat.

Chapter Text

It has been days or even months, it feels, since the last time Loki talk – could talk. Likewise, it has been a long, long time since the last time he attempted to go anywhere or do anything that everyone round him would be displeased of.

Where can he go, anyway? What can he do? What would everything that he – only half of the whole – does be worth, here?

Or even at home in Asgard, for that matter. He has sharp eyes and ears and mind, after all, and commonners and nobles alike are fond of gossipping behind one’s back, especially about him and his… inadequacies.

Inadequacies that might not be there, if that one were around, alive.

A baby. There was a baby in the waking nightmare – in Dié’s own experience, transferred to him by the enchantments in the tunnels as he was held by the latter.

A baby. One of two from the same womb – Laufey’s womb.

And if he were indeed Laufey’s spawn, and Laufey seems to think so, and there is indeed something – undeniable, always present – that connects them to each other at a deeper level than the mind after he was turned jötun, then it would mean….

It would mean that there was somebody else.

And his primal instincts do not – cannot – deny it.

The other baby – `I! I! It was I!` – was spirited away, saved, stored away – by Leí – but this one….

He can no longer suffer Dié’s touch or gaze.

He does not wish to die. Nor does he wish that one to have died. `Died on me. – Don’t leave me!`

Then again, these days, during the “nest times,” he is usually a tiny ball mostly buried under the pillows, cushions and blankets.

Buried, but still comfortable, still alive.

Unlike that one.

“Loé, please, talk to Amma? Amma is so, so, so sorry for ignoring Loé that time. Amma was just so… vexed.” Laufey tries again, begging, as a monarch should never do.

Loki wants to answer, this time, but he cannot. Not even mentally, as she offered many times before.

But then, if she knew what he is thinking, what he is wishing for, she might regret ever asking him, and he would be cosseted even tighter.

Because he wants to follow his other half. Away.

Chapter Text

Chapter warning: past infanticide

“Loé… wants… what?”

In another time, certainly before that day, Loki would have been so, so proud to be able to cause the nearly unflappable “Monarch of Ýmirheim” to gawk and stutter. But not now.

Not now, because he wishes – he wants to know – he needs to know, to see with his own eyes what has become of the other half.

He stares blankly at the jötun – the other jötun – and cannot help but wonder if, like his, that one’s face would have been similar to this one, the one who birthed them in such desperation and agony.

But above all, he just wants to see, see for himself what has torn that one away from him, what has made him only literally half an existence, something that he has always been aware of but not known why.

So he insists, like never before, certainly like never since that day.

And, with heartbreak written on every part of her craggy face, which oddly makes her look less monstrous and far too much like an ás, Laufey complies.

She carries him down, down, down lower than the tunnels, lower than the abandoned storage rooms, to a cavernous space that feels all too silent, all too still.

An underground burial site, with jötnar bodies of many sizes – and sometimes of various deathly wounds – each encased in what looks like transparent, perfectly formed blocks of ice.

None of them belongs to a half-to-term newborn, however.

Not until Laufey’s faltering steps bring the both of them to the farthest, most secluded corner, an eternity after, to a large spot free of any other “coffins.”

And there, nestled in a cushioned and half-blanketed box as if for comfort while sleeping, encased in the smallest “coffin” he has ever seen along the way here, lies a tiny, rather skinny creature with pallid blue skin and all-too-familiar markings, with its tiny, somewhat chubby, totally innocent face set in a rictus of confused terror, and its spindly little limbs caught in a flailing motion.

“Your womb-sibling,” Laufey croaks, then, barely stirring the still air round them, “Loki Laufey-childe.”

The other half.

And it has clearly been encased alive in the ice.

Chapter Text

Chapter warnings: depression, reference to past infanticide

Laufey has never been a verbose speaker. However, after the visit to the place where the other half was… stored – which was certainly not a resting place, given that horrible expression captured for eternity! – she is totally mute and withdrawn. She even refuses to get out of the naða, or to eat, to drink… anything, let alone to rule from the throne all day long.

But, despite the marked difference between the before and the after visit, and despite the fact that many – the family, at least – know about and/or have born witness to the persistent request that led to it, nobody blames Loki. They make sure that he never leaves her side, instead, and ply the both of them with care and attention – genuine care and attention, too, it seems.

But then again, no, they need not blame him. He already blames himself.

Chapter Text

Being woken up by a grinning wolf only stirs up Loki’s sluggish curiosity – no, no, no, not Loki, not anymore, Loki is dead, and the remaining one is Loptr, only Loptr – instead of his alarm, let alone defensiveness. Being sniffed and licked all over by the humongous, toothy animal only nets the effort a tiny whine as the beleaguered sleeper tries to burrow deep into the side of his shelter to escape it.

But it does get a response from the said shelter.

The overenthusiastic muzzle is shoved away clumsily and none too gently, but even a lethargic Loki – no, Loptr – realises that it is the very first action Laufey does after so long, after that time.

And the bothersome wolf does not stop there. Carefully but persistently, using its front paws and gentle application of its teeth on an arm or a leg that it happens to catch, it drags… Loptr… away from his shelter, who in turn stirs enough to try to catch him.

And, without any of them realising, by the time the wolf transforms into a proudly grinning jötun – Fenris, one of Loptr’s supposed cousins – the both of them find themselves perched on the edge of the pit of cushions, blankets, pillows and furs they have wallowed in all this while.

“Welcome back, Nalla, Loé,” the wolf-jötun says. The wolfish grin turns into a sad but hopeful smile, now. “Want some dinner? Ýto Jori made it, and Nalla knows how rare this occasion is.”

And, unbelievably, although Laufey says nothing verbally or by gesture, she picks her dumbfounded child up and carries the latter to follow her sister-daughter.

Chapter Text

In all the times before, preoccupied with his escape attempts and/or his misery of still being trapped in Jötunheim, Loki – Loptr? – did not notice – refused to notice, sometimes – many things about his then captors… who are also his people, now he cannot deny it.

The markings round their nearly naked bodies – or even plainly naked bodies, usually children or youths or in the nest – for instance. He himself sports very intricate “kinlines,” mostly in braids of four lines, similar to Laufey. Dié and Leí are similar, just in reverse regarding the placement on their bodies. But not everyone sport such intricate kinlines. Many surrounding the Monarch have less intricate four braided lines, or three, sometimes two – the kitchen staff, mostly.

Dié and Leí explain that the different lines signify both personal and familial markers. The number of lines braided together also shows to which class the person belongs to. Those who have the markings of four lines braided together on their skin – the four-liners, they say – belong to the highest class. Meanwhile, those possessed of single lines on their bodies – the one-liners – belong to the lowest class.

“Do the classes also signify other things?” the not-ás asks, huffing with muted displeasure to find that, just like in Asgard, there is a cast system here and it might mean he cannot interact with those of the lower ones except in official capacity.

Dié gives him a knowing look. Leí grins outright.

“Abý has many ‘inappropriate’ family and friends, so why not you?” Leí is the one to answer.

“Nabé’s nanny and bodyguard and second mum is a one-liner,” Dié offers, next, with a smile in their whole being – eyes, face, voice, and feel.

Nabé… Nar Bestla, the purported late elder sibling of Laufey, Loptr’s supposed aunt, who has the same name as King Odin’s late mother. – He shied away from the information when it was firstly given to him, some time in-between his escapades, and he does the same now, by asking, “Where is she, now?”

“Abý has been persuading them to return, to introduce them to you,” Leí pipes in, excitedly, before Dié can say anything else.

“That good?” Loptr cocks his head, his curiosity peaked by Leí’s joyous eagerness.

“That good,” Leí grins again, toothier than before, showing Loptr a glimpse of why the æsir would portray the jötnar as fearsome monsters. – The rows of sharp teeth are fearsome indeed! – But the childlike fondness and hero-worship shining in this jötun’s eyes quite defeats the image. Especially when, from their storage dimension – which many people can create and do use, here, unlike in Asgard! – they retrieve a portrait of the subject of conversation.

“Their name is Ké Kí-childe,” Dié expounds as Loptr scrutinises the person portrayed with vivid details and likeness and colours on the sheet of bendy metal – a jötun with single lines sparsely flowing down their body, holding a sleepy child who bears markings as intricate as Laufey’s familiarly and cosily in their arms. “Their lines are simple, their name is simple, but there is nothing simple in their mind.”

`No, there is nothing simple in their mind,` Loptr agrees, as he meets the eyes of the portrait, which seems to stare right at him with long-suffering fondness and shrewd knowingness. `Maybe, I need not hold back from interacting with commoners, here, despite the norms, if my… well, others already did that before.`

Chapter Text

A commotion is breaking not so far away. Loptr, having been long bored, perched on one corner of his… mother’s… writing desk closest to her, perks up and hones in on the open door, guarded by a squad of four guards.

Without saying anything, he scrambles to the edge closest to the door and jumps down, wishing to investigate, to do something – anything – to alleviate this awkward stagnation, as the monarch of this realm is trying to catch up with previously abandoned work, having no time for her child… just like Odin did.

Without saying anything as well, two of the four guards tail him, as silent as he is and unintrusive, gaining themselves not even a glance as they traverse the not-so-empty hallway.

And, at the end of the hallway, a child slightly younger than Leí – or at least they look slightly smaller – but with single lines on their body is barred from passing through not only by guards but also by a few courtiers – court loiterrers, as the family name them, quite unfavourably – who contribute to most of the commotion.

As Loptr arrives to watch closely, an adult who bears a close resemblance to the child hurries to the child’s side and argues – pleads? – for… something.

He grits his teeth. The continuous use of a shielded tongue that he has barely known outside of the family vexes him mightily, especially because he needs to ask somebody else and trusts them for the translation.

But if he does not do something now, the commotion will either reach the study or end up needing royal intervention, and his… well, the Monarch is frazzled enough as it is with the piles of backlog. No need to frazzle her further.

And pull her attention even further away from him, a teeny tiny part of his heart whispers, but he stubbornly ignores that stupid voice.

For now, at least.

So, steeling himself, he turns partially to the right and asks one of the guards accompanying him, “What did they say?”

He is distracted when one of the courtiers lets out a very familiar laugh, one that the courtiers in Asgard would indulge in about him once they thought they were beyond his hearing. But, thankfully, before he can wallow further, the guard narrates in an Allspeak-translatable language, “Little Ala was invited by Aslakonnar’s mother to meet Aslakonnar. Their mother is trying to explain to everyone else surrounding them, now.”

“No rit of summons they can show as proof?” Loptr is puzzled.

“I believe Aslakonnar’s mother forgot to issue it,” the guard replies frankly.

“The child’s name is Laufey Ýakkla-childe,” the other guard jumps in before a huffing Loptr can barge into the fray.

Loptr freezes. “Named by the Monarch? Or after the Monarch? Or unrelated at all?” he ventures out cautiously, his thoughts and emotions tangling hopelessly.

“Named by and after the Monarch, I believe,” the guard affirms. “Their mother calls the Monarch Ýto Fié.”

A title for a close elder relative or friend, when put in this context.

`Well, if that is so….`

Loptr is both eager and reluctant to find whether the “assigned playmates” here will be just as unsuited to him as most of those his parents – no, Odin and Frigga – gave him in Asgard.

But, in any case, he is thoroughly eager to put the laughing and obstructing courtiers in their places.

Maybe, it will draw the Monarch’s attention to him, too.

He can only hope, and act.

Chapter Text

The courtiers cannot determine where the clumps of dirty snow come from.

It rains on them, nonetheless, and they disperse accordingly.

It is a tricky bit of seiðr manipulation on an environment that does not naturally produce dirt or grit and snow – ice, yes, but not snow, and perhaps some fungi or mold. And it is made even trickier by the fact that the courtiers can detect whose seiðr is in use if the user is not careful, unlike those in Asgard. But Loptr does it, and it goes well, and he does not even need to involve the Monarch in the scheme.

He is not sure if he should not involve her anyway when the attention of the mother and child home in on him and him alone, afterwards.

The problem is not the attention itself, truly. He is used to such, in Asgard. But he is not used to such attention – such fascination, such curiosity – lingering on him, and it is not in the negative spectrum, at that.

They only briefly ask about his mother. The rest of the conversation, after he tells them – stiffly, stiltedly, but they thankfully neither ask about it nor linger on it – that the Monarch is busy catching up with matters of governance, is spent talking about him.

Not his background, at that: Who he lived with, how he came to be here, why he calls his own mother “the Monarch,” all that.

They instead talk about his hobbies, points of interest, studies, favourites, plans for fun – him, just him.

He feels seen, and he is not sure if he loves it or wishes to run far, far away from it.

Álti never delved this deep, and their mother even less, and both are his only points of reference thus far.

Ala is certainly much less chaotic and daring than Álti, though.

And he finds that he really wants to see how the two might or might not jive with each other and himself in the long run. Somehow.