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Being the queen of Asgard was not easy: every day, there were countless small and not-so-small matters to attend to, from arrangements for feast days to knowing every detail of the interpersonal dramas happening in the kitchens (and how to best manage the latter to avoid impacting the former).
But it was motherhood that was going to wear Frigga out.
She loved her boys. She was glad there were two of them. The first night Loki was home – once the shock had worn off – she stood in the nursery, the fretful baby finally asleep on her shoulder, and let the idea settle in. Two boys. Thor would have a playmate – thank goodness, for even toddling he was wearing her out – and when they were older, they could rely on each other. She had smiled in the dark, patting the baby's back and listening to his little sniffles.
That peaceful moment was a lifetime ago now. The boys were due at their lessons in thirty minutes, and the same shenanigans were taking place that drained her patience every day.
Taking a deep breath, Frigga strode into the nursery, which had become a sort of neutral zone and play room once the boys were old enough for their own rooms. Surprisingly, for once, both her sons' heads were bowed over the same activity, a model castle with an army of knights who seemed to be fighting...
"Are those vegetables?"
Thor looked up, beaming. "Yes! Our knights had no enemies to battle! And so we thought that we would have them fight OUR enemies!"
"...your enemies are broccoli?"
"Yes!" Thor dimpled up at her. "And the Jotun. And also a green pepper!" He waved it at her face, a little too close.
"And where did you get the vegetables?" she asked, leaning slightly away from the enthusiastic pepper.
Loki had not looked up through all of this vegetable-displaying, but now he piped up cheerfully, "Thor stole them from the kitchens!"
This resulted in an immediate and LOUD protest from Thor, that it was all Loki's idea because the knights could actually squish the vegetables with their tiny swords, and Loki's resulting whine that it "was NOT," and Frigga pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers and dreaded making yet another trip to the kitchens, where she'd inevitably get pulled into yet another overblown drama between young women still learning the concept of "this too shall pass."
She took another deep breath, and spoke in her best regal tone. "Boys." Even without shouting, her voice cut easily through the squabbling.
Not that they stopped. "BOYS," she repeated, just a bit louder, her irritation bleeding through, and they both stopped arguing and looked up at her. "Time to get ready to go."
"Where are we going?" Loki asked brightly. As though he didn't say the same thing every single morning.
"Lessons," she replied, keeping her voice level, refusing to take the bait.
"Excellent!" Thor jumped to his feet, grinning. "Let's go now!"
"First, you have to clean up your toys," she said. "And the vegetables." That turned into a process, as Thor bowed his head and wibbled that he didn't want to go apologize for taking the broccoli (and pepper) without asking, while Loki stayed bent over the toy knights, lining them up neatly in their wooden box. After Frigga caught the corner of Loki's mouth curling up while Thor pleaded, she herded both boys down to the kitchen. They both shuffled their feet and mumbled through their apology, after which Frigga was able to follow them out before anyone sought her advice.
Ten minutes to go. Frigga started wrangling the boys toward the sun room, where they did their homework (and usually left their papers), and which had a door that led outside to the path through the gardens. She gave a cursory glance over the boys' appearance – thankfully, both were dressed and had already eaten breakfast, and by some miracle neither seemed to have ruined his clothes in the past hour. Thor had some bits of broccoli somehow clinging stubbornly to one sleeve, but she decided to ignore it and hope it would disappear on its own, rather than get into another round of "but Mama, I like this shirt!"
Loki's outfit was thankfully broccoli-free, but his shirt was somehow twisted so that it sat crooked across one shoulder. As he passed her, she patted at his shoulder, surreptitiously tugging the collar free while avoiding her smaller son's usual tirade of "I can do it MYSELF, don't FIX it Mama!"
Satisfied that they looked like Asgard's princes and not grubby urchins, Frigga moved to the next challenge. "Time to put on our boots."
All chaos broke loose.
Thor, who had been running in circles chanting "time to go time to go time to go," stopped suddenly, obviously dizzy, and fell over like a cut tree.
Loki, who usually would have fallen over himself from laughing at this, merely sat down cross-legged on the floor and said, "I don't want to."
If Frigga had ever doubted that her youngest was determined to be contrary just for the sake of opposing his brother, this was proof; because Loki loved going to their lessons. Being the older brother, Thor had started before Loki. He was still young, even if he was clever, and Frigga had considered his age and his temper tantrums and thought, hmm, not just yet.
However, Loki's usual tendency to take even the smallest offense personally meant that when Frigga patiently explained that his big brother was older, and he was still just a little too small to go with him, Loki howled. It was not FAIR, he wanted to GOOOO, he wanted to go with THOOORRR, he WAS SO big enough, he liked books better than Thor ANYWAY, "Mama, please, WHYYY can't I just go with THOOORRR..."
For weeks, Frigga heard this same wailing monologue every morning as Thor ate breakfast and got dressed and brushed his teeth and lost his boots and found his boots and needed another piece of toast before he left, please. And Thor, whose blue eyes were wide with concern for his little brother's unhappiness, would ask her quietly, "Mama, can't he just come along this one time?" Unfortunately, Thor still hadn't mastered the art of whispering, which meant that Loki invariably heard him and started in anew.
Truly, it made her want to give in just to get him out of her hair.
But Loki was not only incredibly persistent, but also too clever for his own good. So a few weeks later, his abject misery having failed to make an impression, Loki turned to his powers of persuasion. Which meant that suddenly, one morning, she had a lap full of small, well-behaved boy, with round innocent eyes and his arms around her.
"Please, Mama," he said, in his sweetest voice, leaning his head against her shoulder and looking up at her, "look, I'm all dressed and everything–" (sure enough, he was neatly dressed, down to his boots, which Frigga was pretty sure he didn't know how to tie) "and I even helped Thor get ready–" (which was impressive, because Thor usually had to be reminded six or seven times of what he was doing) "so mayn't I please go with Thor today?"
Frigga had to hide her smile at how seriously he was taking this new tactic – when she gently told him no, he skipped his usual tantrum, just said "all right" and kissed her cheek.
Of course, then she discovered that he had dragged his brother into it. So now she had Thor trying his best to convince her as well. Thor had less of a way with words, but made up for it with his enthusiasm; which meant Frigga received an endless series of impulsive promises and rib-crushing hugs. "Please? I will take care of him the whole time; you know I'm good at watching over him," Thor vowed, and Frigga refrained from pointing out that while he was quite good at minding his younger brother, often enough it was Thor who was the one getting them into trouble. "He can sit next to me and I will make him promise not to make a peep." She was sure Loki would readily agree to this, and that Thor would later have to admit that none of Loki's chatter resembled any sort of cheeping bird noise. "Mama, he wants to come along so badly; I just don't want to leave him behind! He's my brother."
This was the argument that Frigga had no answer for, so she only kissed the top of Thor's head and sent him off, disappointed, to get dressed. She pretended not to see Loki, who had been hiding and listening hopefully, as he paused for just a moment with his eyebrows scrunched in thought, and then ran to catch up with Thor.
Finally, Frigga had to put a stop to it all, before it got out of control. The boys were already starting to escalate their efforts, to the point that Odin asked her about it one night after the boys were asleep. He had laughed until he wiped away a tear at Frigga's description of their ongoing campaign.
"Your father and I discussed it," she told the boys the next morning, as they sat at the table eating breakfast, "and we agreed that next fall, Loki can start lessons with Thor."
"Fall?" both boys chorused. Only when opposing her, could they work in tandem.
"Not til fall? But why?" asked Thor. He gestured at Loki with the piece of toast in his hand, and his little brother had to duck to avoid being hit in the head. "Loki will not be so much older by then! He could just start now!"
Frigga bit her tongue, refraining from pointing out that as it was just turning properly cold outside, Loki would actually be almost a year older; however, that fact wasn't likely to satisfy either boy. "That is just the way things are: they do not start new students partway through the year. He will already be younger than the other first-year students, but we've decided that as long as he shows us that he is mature enough, we will permit him to start in the fall."
Loki was brushing off the toast crumbs that had landed on his hair and shoulder, and not doing a very effective job at it, as he was paying studious attention to her words. "I understand," he said, quite seriously, and it was both sweet and heartbreaking to see that little face so solemn. "I will show you that I am mature enough, Mama, you know I will."
"I know you will," she agreed, just as solemnly, though it was hard not to laugh as Thor swept his arm around his small brother in a half hug, swiping toast across his head and leaving a smear of jam along his cheek. Loki wrinkled his nose and swiped at the sticky jam with the back of his hand, but he was grinning.
After that, there were no more morning dramas, for which Frigga was deeply grateful; it was hard enough to get Thor ready to go. Instead, every afternoon when she came to check if Thor was doing his homework, she found Loki sitting right next to him, pencil in his hand, looking over his shoulder and copying the same work on his own paper. Vaguely she felt as though she should stop this, as it had to be some sort of long game Loki was playing. But for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what it was; nor could she see the harm in it right now. And at least they weren't fighting.
In the fall, when the tutors were forced to admit that Loki was far ahead of the other first-year students and really needed to be placed in his brother's group, Frigga just shook her head. Loki beamed with pride, and Thor looked like he might actually explode with joy.
But apparently, Loki's efforts to catch up with Thor were less about staying by his brother's side and more about proving he could keep up. For as soon as they were in the same group, suddenly the peaceful afternoons devolved into –
"Give me back my pencil!" "You took mine first!" "Just cause you lost it, doesn't mean I took it!" "I can SEE it under your book!"
and –
"You're not doing it right!" "I am so doing it right, see?" "No, you weren't listening when she explained it!" "So? Then you show me how to do it." "Why should I? I was listening!" "Then stop telling me I'm doing it wrong!"
Whatever Thor could do, Loki could do better – or thought he could. And whatever Loki was doing, Thor wanted to be doing it too. Which meant that Loki didn't want to do it anymore.
In short, exactly as they'd been their whole lives.
And so, after months of begging and pleading and waiting to go to lessons, Loki had discovered that the best way to add to the morning chaos was to simply stop.
So there he sat on the floor, cross-legged, his little chin turned stubbornly up at her, eyes daring her to do anything about it.
His brother was lying on the floor next to him, out of breath. He looked at Loki, then rolled on his back like a puppy, looked up at Frigga, and said, "I don't know where my boots are. I think Loki hid them."
Frigga closed her eyes.
"I didn't hide them."
"I bet you did. You're always hiding things."
"Only my things, so you don't break them."
"NO, you hide my things all the time. And I didn't break your wolf, he was already ripping."
"He was NOT already ripping, there was only a little hole and you got his whole LEG off!"
"Well, it's fixed now, I don't see why you're still all mad about it. Hey! You hid my boots because you're still mad about the wolf!"
"I'm NOT mad about him and I DIDN'T hide your boots! And his NAME is Fenrir and you KNOW that!"
"ENOUGH!" Frigga shouted loud enough that both boys jumped, Thor sitting up and Loki sliding backwards onto his elbows. "I have had ENOUGH of this nonsense," she intoned, in the voice that could make enemies of the crown cower in fear. "The two of you have been fighting nonstop like dogs in the yard! I am half tempted to toss you out into the mud with them and leave you to sleep in the kennels!"
She watched the thought cross both boys' minds, and irritatingly, both seemed more interested in the idea than intimidated. "I am TIRED of listening to your constant arguing," she bit out. "You are princes – you are the princes of Asgard – and you will behave yourselves in the manner befitting a future ruler of the Realm." Loki opened his mouth to speak, and she cut him off before he could dig himself a bigger hole. "And I am not only the Queen of Asgard, All-Mother–" she drew herself up to her most imposing height, looking down upon the two small boys on the floor, "but I am YOUR mother, and as such you are expected to treat me with utmost respect and behave yourselves!"
Thor looked a little shocked, his mouth slightly open and his eyes pinned to her. But apparently there was nothing that would stop Loki from trying to get in the last word. "I was only saying, I didn't hide–"
That was it. Between that grating half-whine that put her teeth on edge and his brother's answering whine of outrage, she found herself on the edge of rage like she'd never felt before. Her vision actually went white for half a second. She took a deep breath. She wasn't sure what was going to come out of her mouth, but absolutely sure that she was going to scream it loud enough that they would hear it in Valhalla.
In the moment of silence before she opened her mouth, footsteps pattered down the path outside the open window. Thor popped up off the floor. "Loki! C'mon."
Loki was scrambling to his feet, and Thor was already hunting around by the door. "They're under the table, you left them there yesterday," Loki said. Thor rushed off for his boots as Loki muttered "told you I didn't hide them" while trying to push his feet into his own pair without untying them.
It was as though nothing had happened. Frigga stood still, heart pounding, still ready to scream, but there was nothing to scream at – the objects of her wrath were finishing with their boots and scurrying to find their bags. ("You left it where your boots were." "Thanks!")
She sighed, and ran a hand through her hair. These boys were going to make her gray before her time.
But they were turning their small faces up to her now, arms reaching up to hug her goodbye. Of course they had to hug her at the same time, dragging her down by the neck. "Bye Mama!" "Bye!"
She kissed each of them and they ran toward the garden door, flinging their bags over their shoulders. "Have a good day!" she called after them.
There was an answering murmur from them both, and then she heard first one, then the other shouting.
"Sif! Sif, wait up!"
"Sif! Wait for us, Thor made us late!"
"I did not! Loki hid my boots."
"I did not!"
Frigga shook her head and wished Sif luck. Thank goodness she was a tough little girl – she reminded Frigga of herself at that age. She might be able to keep up with those two.
Then the All-Mother turned away from the window, wondering if it was too early for a glass of mead. Or possibly a nap. Or both.