Chapter Text
Despite the opulence of the palace Frigga was used to getting things done herself. She did not want a dozen servants tending to her needs and she did not want her son to grow up hopelessly spoiled. Boys became men, and men should know how to take care of themselves.
It had been a worrisome season, the war with Jotunheim left her alone and acting as regent while Odin waged war in a faraway realm. But Odin was finally home, finally victorious.
“Whose child is that?” Frigga asked her husband when he came closer to her, carrying an infant.
Odin gave her the child while he lifted Thor up and held him. “He will be ours. We will raise him as our own. The boy is an orphan and Thor could use a sibling.”
Frigga was not happy. Their son and the heir to the throne, tiny little Thor, was just a toddler still and demanded much attention from her. She barely slept as it was and would not relish having yet another child to care for so soon.
“Did you win, Daddy?” Thor asked seriously.
“Yes, I won! And I took two treasures with me. I'll show you in the morning, it is late and you should be in bed.”
She still had no idea where Odin had gotten the child, who its parents had been – or worse were. She couldn't help but question why Odin taunted that he had taken two treasures from Jotunheim when he had come back with just the casket.
And this defenseless child.
Granted, it could be one of the fallen warrior's. It looked nothing like a Jotun. She knew all too well that magic could conceal such things, so it did not ease her worries. Had her husband stolen a child?
The only child worth stealing would be one of Laufey's. He led the Jotuns, after all.
It froze her heart to think of anyone taking Thor from her and claiming him as theirs, because then there would be no hope of his return. A prisoner might be handed back, but this way there would be no hope.
The child in her arms was no newborn either, then. She knew Laufey's wife had given birth months ago, and while the boy was small it wasn't unheard of for Jotuns to have runts. Small and weak they were often dead before they saw their first winter.
Perhaps the boy had been cast aside? She could not reconcile with the idea of her husband kidnapping another king's child.
“What's the matter?” Odin asked, seeing her expression.
“Nothing,” Frigga said with a smile. “It was just very sudden.”
She knew her place. Asgard was a warrior's realm. A man's world. She may be their beloved Queen, but she knew too well how little influence she really had. How little power. Odin's word was law.
“Would you like to name the boy?”
“Loki,” Frigga decided.
Laufey left his wife in charge of his two remaining sons. They were hardy Jotun children, growing fast into men. His wife was distraught over the loss of the youngest and would need company while he searched alone for the lost babe. He feared she would tear heads clean off rather than try to find information, such was her grief. Despite the small size, he was still their son and no child of Laufey's would be left behind.
His people were still licking their wounds, and by all rights he should be too. His wounds, his bruised pride and his shattered ego.
Jotunheim was in ruins and needed to be rebuilt. He was no builder himself, and he made sure his people knew he was going to find his lost son. In his place his wife would rule. No one questioned him. They needed a woman now, a woman was always better suited to fix broken things while men were better suited to wreck havoc and wage war.
This had not been their war. They had merely wanted a place where they could thrive. Jotunheim was a barren world, a frozen world which did not support much life. He had led his people to Midgard as a means of survival, not to conquer it or to crush it's people. They would have been allowed plenty of space for themselves, the humans. He had just wanted a the colder north so his people did not have to starve for much of the year.
He had reached peaceful treaties with many of the humans living there, and it had given him hope that perhaps they could even coexist. He wasn't the monster the other realms painted him to be, but he was no weakling either. He did not bow and he did not grovel.
Some of his warriors claimed Odin had taken the boy, and his allies in other realms confirmed it. He had suspected as much himself. No Jotun would harm a child hidden in a temple. Temples were exempt from fights, they were sanctuaries for the weak and the old.
Not, it would seem, to Odin.
At the beginning of his search he had wondered why Odin had taken the child. Then, as the open taunts came, he realized that his son was a mere pawn in a bigger political game.