Chapter Text
535 AD - Asgard
When Thor was born, Hela wanted nothing to do with him. He was fat and loud and looked nothing like her. Which was expected, of course. Hela looked nothing like their parents while Thor bore near perfect resemblance to Queen Frigga.
It makes Hela feel...unwanted. Outcast. She hates it. She hates him.
“I did not want a little brother,” she told her mother one evening as Frigga prepared to settled the ever wailing babe into his bassinet for the night. “I wanted a sister.”
“I know,” Frigga told her, reaching one hand out to soothe Hela’s black locks before her hand returned to the fat little baby in her arms. “But the norns have decided that you shall have a brother instead.”
Hela did not want a brother. Her mother did not seem to care so she decided to seek out her father instead. If he insisted on keeping Thor, that was fine, just so long as he promised to try for another baby so Hela could have a sister.
So the young Princess sought out her father who, predictably, was seated upon his throne despite the fact that there was no one in the room, nor were their any meetings scheduled for the rest of the week.
“Father,” Hela said as she walked up the steps with poise and grace as she was taught.
Odin hummed though his attention seemed to remain somewhere off the middle distance. He wasn’t listening, he was never listening, yet Hela tried anyway.
“I would like a little sister.”
…………………………….
965 AD - Asgard
Hela does not get a little sister. She does not get another little sibling at all until nearing four hundred and thirteen years later when she’s an adult in her room, reading, and she hears wails from down the hall.
“Those are not Thor’s wails,” she murmured as she closed her book and stood, heels clacking against the cold linoleum of the floor as she made her way down the hall. Despite being the equivalent to the mortal age of nine years old, Prince Thor is quite the cry baby, though his cries are far louder and more desperately seeking attention than these.
As she approaches the door, partly open, she can hear Thor inside proclaiming, “I want to see! I wanna see!” followed by Frigga’s soft, gentle voice,
“In a moment, Thor. He’s frightened, you need to give him space.”
Frowning a bit harder, Hela pushed open the door to Thor’s playroom - a large room connected to Thor’s own by a short passage - and finds Thor bouncing at their mother’s heels while Frigga holds tight to a bundle in her arms, the wailing having stopped though Hela can still hear soft hiccups.
“Mother?” she asks, drawing the Queen and Thor’s attention, neither having heard her enter. “What’s going on?”
“Hela,” Frigga greeted with a gentle smile. “Did we bother you?”
It doesn’t answer Hela’s question but she doesn’t get to point that out before Thor - she still hates him, that has not changed - runs over and grabs her arm, frantically tugging her over to their mother.
“Mama, Hela’s here!” Thor declares, as though Frigga is not already aware of this. “Can we see him now Mama, please please please!?”
“You must relax, Thor,” Frigga said with a smile. “You’re too excited, you may hurt him. Babies are fragile.”
Hela frowned at that. “You had another child?” she asks, unsure of how else to ask other than blunt and straight forward. She thinks over the last few months but can’t remember any sign or symptom that the Queen had been carrying. She remembers how large and ill Frigga had become when she was pregnant with Thor and yet she’s had none of those symptoms in the previous months.
Something odd flickers across Frigga’s face before her smile - albeit strained - is back on her face and she replies,
“Yes.”
Hela still feels confused, almost feels like she’s being lied to, but she approaches none the less as Frigga takes a seat in the rocking chair and Thor hopes up eagerly to her side.
“What’s his name?” Thor asked, bouncing in place as he stared down at the baby, Hela still hesitating just far away enough that she can’t catch a glimpse of the baby beyond the bundle.
“Loki,” Frigga replied. Hela stays where she is, watching Thor croon down to the baby before some sort of emotion wells within her and she turns and walks away.
She is not good with family. Never has been. She may be the eldest but that does not mean she is the favorite and certainly doesn’t mean she is the heir to the throne.
When he grows old enough, Thor will be king and Hela will be left with nothing. Although, Hella supposes, that isn’t true. She will at least be given control over Asgard’s army.
It is the new Prince Loki Odinson who will be given nothing.
…………………….
It has been three weeks since little Prince Loki was born - something Hela still cannot understand, yet she has been so busy acting as Odin’s executioner that she has not had time to question it - and the eldest royal still has not laid eyes upon the child. She does not need to though, she knows he will look the same as Thor. The same as Frigga and Odin.
Hela is and always will be the outcast and she does not need a new child to remind her of the fact.
It is early evening and she is sitting in her room, sharpening one of her blades, when there is a knock on the door and a servant enters, head bowed.
“Princess Hela,” she greets, giving a small curtsy. “You mother has requested your presence in the nursery.”
Hela sighed as she set her blade on her desk and stood, making her way out to the hall and down to the aforementioned room, wincing as she shifts her corset. Gowns and corsets have long since stopped being comfortable though Hela has yet to request permission to wear something else - trousers, perhaps - at least while within the palace.
For now, her legs are trapped within the dozens of layers of skirts and petticoats and her lungs are crushed beneath the wretched corset that she is certain even her mother does not wear.
“Hela,” Frigga greeted softly, the bundle of Loki in her arms, as it seems he always is. He does not cry though, at least not that Hela has heard. He’s unlike Thor, in that regard. He’s quiet, for a baby.
Like Hela was.
“Did you need something, mother?” Hela asked respectfully.
Her mother gazes at her softly. “Your father has requested I attend court with him in a few moments,” Frigga replied. “I was hoping you could care for Loki.”
Hela knows nothing of caring for children. “Mother-”
“Please,” Frigga said softly.
“Can’t Thor?”
“Thor is a child,” Frigga reminded her. “And he is out with his friends.”
“A servant, then-”
“Hela, why do you wish to avoid him?”
Because Thor is enough of a reminder of how different I am. Hela thought sourly. Because I don’t need another little brother who looks like the perfect Aesir to remind me that I am not.
“It’s...complicated.”
“It’s just for an hour,” The queen promised, even though they both know that the king’s meetings always run longer than he claims they will.
Hela sighs, knowing that it is expected of her. That she, truthfully, has little else to do. So nodding and resigning herself to over an hour of caring for a baby, she steps forward and accepts the bundle, not daring to gaze down upon the face of another perfect Aesir royal and instead keeping her attention on Frigga.
“Thank you,” Frigga told her, pressing a kiss to Hela’s forehead before turning and striding out of the nursery, closing the door quietly behind herself as Hela turns and takes a seat on the rocking chair.
With nothing else to do and no other way to avoid it, Hela finally looks down and gazes down at her new little brother for the first time since he was ‘born’ three weeks earlier.
Her heart stops in her chest, her lungs seem to stutter and pause and this time, not because of the corset. The baby is not what she expected. There are no blonde locks atop his head, nor sky blue eyes gazing out at her.
His hair is dark as a raven’s feather, eyes a piercing green where they stare up at her, curious. His skin is pale, matching her complexion in ways Hela did not think was possible. She can do nothing but sit and stare because the baby that stares up at her was not the baby she had been expecting.
Loki is nothing like Thor. Loki is nothing like Frigga or Odin or any other Aesir on Asgard.
But he is everything like Hela. And for the first time since Thor was born, Hela is happy to have a little brother.
……………………….
When Thor had been born, Hela had been much too young to care for him on her own and for that she had been thankful as she’d wanted nothing to do with the new heir to the throne.
When she’d heard the decree that he would take her place one day as ruler of Asgard, she had shut herself away in her chambers and refused to come out for anyone for weeks until her father finally gave her the compromise of becoming his personal executioner.
It was stupid and they both knew it was a pathetic band aid but murder was what Hela was good at - she’d always been a violent child - and so she never complained and no one said anything about it.
When Loki was born, Hela was more than old enough to care for him on her own and after that very first night, she took every chance and excuse she could get to care for the baby. It was not hard for their realm to deny the love the Princess had for her youngest brother and there was no denying that Thor knew it too.
“Hela, will you play with me?” Thor asked from where he sat on the floor nearby, a few toys strewn out in front of him though he hadn’t touched them in several minutes, instead watching over where Hela was seated on the floor, watching little Loki clamber eagerly around the room. The young Prince had just recently learned how to crawl and needless to say, you needed to keep a constant eye on him or he’d crawl right out the room.
“Not now, Thor,” Hela replied dismissively as she reached over to pull Loki into her lap before he could mistakenly face plant on the carpet when his arms went out from beneath him. Thor made a pathetic noise, beating his legs against the floor in the beginnings of a tantrum.
“You never play with me,” he whined. “You always play with Loki!”
“Well, perhaps Loki is more interesting than you are,” Hela declared, smiling down at the baby when he giggled and clapped his hands together, though it was unclear what exactly he was laughing at.
Thor crossed his arms over his chest with a huff. “That’s stupid,” he muttered. “He can’t even talk yet.”
“Well perhaps that’s why I prefer him,” Hela whispered, keeping her tone quiet to ensure Thor could not hear her while she brushed a hand through Loki’s hair, smiling when he reached up to grab her wrist, beginning to play with her slender fingers.
………………………..
In the years that followed, Loki grew quickly and before long he was a young child, happy and content and forever chasing hopelessly after a teen Thor and his friends.
He was similar to Thor when the blonde had been that age and Hela’s hatred for Thor had been at its peak. But there were three things about him that kept Hela preferring Loki over the older Prince.
1: Loki did not talk nearly as much as Thor did.
In fact, the youngest prince almost seemed to prefer the silence over noise and could more often be found hidden in a dark corner of the library with a book rather than outside, bashing his friends over the head with wooden swords.
2: He was smart and clever.
Unlike his idiot of an older brother - and had taken to magic like Thor took to weaponry. He spent days on end, locked away in his room with Frigga as he mastered spell after spell after spell and though magic was often considered a ‘woman’s weapon’, there was no denying the pride in Odin’s eye when Loki was able to successfully summon beautiful green butterflies.
3: He loved Hela.
Unlike Thor who instantly gravitated to his mother at the end of the daty, demanding her attention and insisting on sitting at her side at dinner, Loki would always quietly glide up to Hela, sitting next to her or simply, silently, taking her hand and saying nothing.
He preferred Hela and so Hela preferred him.
It’s a hot summer evening when Loki is older, a teen, and Hela is in her room in a loose fitting trousers. She had never truly asked nor gotten permission from either of her parents to stop wearing corsets or gowns but she was long since an adult and they had long since stopped giving her most of their attention.
That went to Thor.
She was lounging on the balcony, sharpening one of her blades, when she heard her door creak open. She paused, tilting her head towards the door, listening. When she heard nothing; no words, no clatter of cutlery, no footsteps, she allowed herself to smile as she looked down to put her knife away in its hidden sheath in her boot.
“Hello Loki,” she said, lifting her gaze back towards the vast landscape of Asgard just as her little brother steps up beside her.
He says nothing but Hela had expected that. Together, they gaze out over the city before Loki quietly speaks.
“May I ask you a question?”
Loki is like Hela. He has black hair and green eyes and green and black are his favorite and preferred colors. He uses knives as his primary weapons and is lithe and agile where their brother is gruff and aggressive.
“Of course,” Hela replied, turning her gaze towards him though he continues to look out over the city. “What’s on your mind, little brother?”
Loki stays quiet - he does that a lot. Asks if he can ask a question, then waits. Hela knows why. Often Loki will ask if he can speak but soon after being given permission - by his teacher or Odin or Thor - it is revoked and he is sent away without the listener every caring for what he might have to say.
Hela has never been like them. Hela has always listened. But habits formed by neglect and abuse are hard to break and so Hela does not try.
So she waits and is soon rewarded by her patience when Loki softly asks, “Why are we different?”
Truthfully, Hela does not know. She suspects why Loki is different - Frigga bore no signs of pregnancy before Loki appeared and thus he cannot be her son - but Hela cannot say why she is different. Perhaps a different mother - she knows Frigga is not her biological mother but she does not remember the women and has only ever known Frigga - but that still wouldn't explain.
She and Loki do not come from the same mother nor father, yet they are more similar to one another than Hela and Thor who do share a father. Why they are different from the other royals yet so similar to one another, Hela doesn’t know.
Young as he is, there is no denying Loki’s affinity for lies. Both in wielding them and unveiling them. Hela has watched many attempt to lie to the young prince’s face and all were torn apart as he declared their statement to be false.
But Hela does not lie, not to Loki, and that draws the young prince to her even more.
So she told the truth. “I don’t know,” she said. “But that makes us special, I think.”
Loki shifts, lowering his head before he whispered, “I don’t want to be special. I just want to be normal. I want to be like mother and father and Thor.”
And oh, but if Hela doesn’t know that feeling as well as she knows the weight of her blades. That is something she has craved ever since she was a little girl and a peasant called her a beast. That is something she has craved ever since she was cleverly gifted the title of ‘goddess of death’.
It’s a fitting title now, but it is not something you should ever tell a child, for children are impressionable and things like that leave a mark.
A permanent one.
“Come here, my little Silvertongue,” Hela murmured, opening her arms for Loki to climb into her lap, using the name she had long since gifted them when she’d learned his way with words, how he could spin simple sentences into beautiful poetry. He complies silently, curling into her lap and allowing her to stroke his hair the way she has seen Frigga do before.
“There are lies around me,” Loki mumbled abruptly, drawing a frown from Hela. She pulled back slightly, looking down at him though he did not lift his head from her shoulder.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“I noticed it a few years ago,” Loki admitted. “When father speaks to me. Whenever he speaks words of how I am his son, when he refers to me as Prince of Asgard…” he trails off and
Hela feels concern well in her veins for her favorite brother. “What is it?”
Loki shrugged. “I can’t explain it,” he murmured. “But his words mark me as wrong. It’s not a feeling so much as those words ring wrong in my mind.” Loki finally looked up at Hela, green eyes piercing into her own as he added, “I do not think I am of Asgard and I do not think I am an Odinson.”