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Chapter Text

Odin stood in the middle of a battlefield, lifeless bodies lying around him as far as the eye could see. Yes, the Aesir had won the battle against the Frost Giants, but they had still lost many good warriors. Odin didn’t want to look at his dead Einherje. However, that was a little difficult if he didn’t want to stumble over their corpses.

Paying as little attention as possible to which of the disfigured beings at his feet had been acquaintances or friends, he worked his way towards his army’s camp. The other gods were probably already waiting for him. After all, he was their leader.

Suddenly he heard a noise. Was there still a breath of life in one of the bodies lying on the blood-soaked earth? Odin looked around attentively. Nothing was moving. A few vultures were already circling in the sky above him. They seemed to be waiting for him to finally give them free passage or to collapse himself and become yet another piece of their lunch.

“You can wait forever for that”, he thought. Odin wouldn’t give up this easily. Especially not if he would be doing the enemy a favour. In this case, the vultures were the enemy.

He turned his gaze away from them again. He shouldn’t care what they did or didn’t do – he had a different mission. Where was the source of the noise he had heard earlier?

He moved cautiously past the corpses, circling the occasional explosive weapon and climbing over corroded pieces of armour. There – a movement!

He slowly approached his target, but could not yet recognise what exactly it was. Its figure appeared... small. Very small. As if it were a child – no – a baby!

Odin stumbled. Just before he fell onto the severed torso of a frost giant, he managed to catch himself. Lucky him! But what was a baby doing in the middle of a battlefield? How had it got here? Surely it hadn’t fallen from the sky? Who had forgotten it? Who had been cynical enough to bring it along with them onto a battlefield in the first place?

Questions upon questions circled in Odin's head, parallel to the vultures above him. He found it terrible when he didn’t know an answer, which was the case at the moment. All his wisdom couldn’t help him there.

Finally, he reached the baby. It turned out to be a little frost giant. Slightly bluish skin; fathomless, deep, light blue eyes; bigger than normal babies – well, not by much. For a frost giant, this was a very, very small baby.

Odin considered turning away, pretending he hadn’t seen the little one, but his conscience got the better of him at the mere thought. It may have been the child of an enemy, but it couldn’t help it. No one could choose which family they were born into. Besides, Odin himself had a young son who would certainly be happy to have a playmate. And Frigga, his wife, would surely not approve of him leaving a baby on a battlefield, no matter whose baby it was.

Sighing, he bent down, stretched out his arms, paused for a moment, looked into the little creature’s face and finally picked it up, letting out another deep sigh. He had to admit he had already grown fond of the little one, however hostile its parents might be towards him. They were probably long dead anyway.

Then another thought flashed through his mind: what if they weren’t? What if the child’s parents were part of the small group of frost giants who had managed to escape? Would they want to get their child back? No, surely they wouldn’t. Even if they were among the few survivors, they had left their baby in the middle of a battlefield. They certainly didn’t care. And even if they did, they would hardly know who had taken their offspring home with them.

The bundle of life in Odin’s arms gurgled. The shadow of a smile stole its way onto Odin’s face. Life – that was exactly what he needed right now. He was the only one far and wide who hadn’t lost his own and now he could find that someone shared his fate. Someone who needed him, who depended on his mercy. Someone for whom it was not yet too late.

Someone he could help.

With a little more regained confidence, he glanced at the little frost giant. The baby looked at Odin with wide eyes. It seemed to be looking directly into Odin’s face, almost into his soul. Then – quite suddenly, without warning – its shape changed. The previously light blue skin turned a rosy colour like Odin’s, the fathomless eyes, which had looked more like two small hurricanes, took on a variation of clear, light blue tones, and finally Odin could even see a fuzz of black hair that had not been visible before. The child’s size also changed suddenly, making it small enough to fall through Odin’s arms. He almost dropped it! Now it was the size of a small Aesir – almost a whole head smaller than his son had been at his birth.

Odin stared at the child in his arms, stunned. One could have almost thought it was his own, only its size betrayed the lie. And then Odin made a decision: the little frost giant was to be a little Aesir from now on. If Odin wanted to raise it as his child, there probably was no other way. But in order to be able to name him an Aesir, something unavoidable would have to be done first...

With the softly murmured words “Sorry, little one”, Odin took a dagger from the ground, carefully cut into the small hand and held his own bloody hand on it.

He closed his eyes. A strange feeling flowed through him, a mixture of the icy coldness of the Frost Giants and the favoured warmth of the Aesir. It ran through Odin’s body like waves of emotions, one moment hot, then cold, one moment he felt heart wrenching sadness, then pure happiness.

When it was over, he removed his hand from the child’s, opened his one eye and was amazed to realise that the baby hadn’t cried. Strange little thing! Its mouth was slightly open in curiosity and its eyes scrutinised Odin as if they were seeing a friend whose face they had long forgotten in him.

Shaking his head but surprisingly content, Odin looked at his new-found little blood brother one last time before making his way to his army camp. He carefully tried to hide the little creature, whose veins now also flowed with divine blood, as best as possible from the horror of the outside world, while he thought about what he wanted to call the child. Was it a girl? A boy? Neither? Odin didn’t want to look – not now, not here. So he decided to trust his instincts: a boy. Nevertheless, he would choose a gender-neutral name, just in case. He could think of a few, but none of them seemed to fit until a variation of letters that formed a completely new name struck Odin like a lightning bolt. He stopped dead in his tracks, lowered his gaze to the tiny face and spoke it, the name that would henceforth be forever associated with the little creature, even when it would no longer be little.

“From today on, child, you shall be called Loki.”

Chapter Text

Frigga knew Odin was home even before she heard his footsteps. She couldn’t have said why she knew, the atmosphere in the palace just seemed to change. Then the footsteps came – heavy and tired but trying to be somewhat quiet. Odin liked to surprise his wife when he came home from battles or long journeys, so Frigga pretended she hadn’t heard him, although she couldn’t suppress the tell-tale beaming smile on her face.

He was okay! Odin had come home. He is alive!

Suddenly (if not surprisingly), two strong hands grabbed Frigga’s shoulders from behind. “Hello, my love”, a calm and firm voice greeted her quietly.

Although she had expected her husband to try to scare her, Frigga had been startled by the grip of his hands. She had been expecting words, not touch!

“Hello, Odin!” she greeted him, laughing and looking up into his friendly, blue eye. “You never fail to surprise me, do you?”

He let himself sink onto the floor next to her and winked. “I am a warrior, dear – surprises are part of my repertoire.”

Frigga slung her arms around him but backed away when she felt him flinch. “Where did they hurt you this time?” she asked with worry in her voice.

Odin brushed her question away like an annoying insect. “Here, and there. Nothing dramatic. How are you? How is our son?”

Although she wanted to investigate further on Odin’s wounds, Frigga decided to let that wait until later. She sighed. “We are well, Thor is in his room at the moment, he fell asleep while playing with his toys.”

“Is this why I found you sitting on the floor, surrounded by small wooden figures?”

She smiled. “It is. I was cleaning up the mess when you arrived. As you can see, I am long not finished. Perhaps you want to help me?”

Odin nodded and they started to pick up toy after toy. A comfortable silence settled between them, as they sat there together and put Thor’s wooden figures into the boxes they belonged in. After a while, though, Frigga noticed that Odin was becoming increasingly uneasy, like there was something he needed to tell her, but he didn’t know how. So, Frigga made the first step.

“What is it, love?”

He looked at her surprisedly. “What are you talking about?”

Frigga rolled her eyes, although she knew that wasn’t how a queen was expected to behave. “You know exactly what I am talking about.”

He sighed. “Right. There is something I need to talk to you about…”

His eye found the high ceiling with its golden ornaments, studying them as if Odin had never before noticed their beauty. Frigga gave her husband the time he needed to sort his thoughts and find the right words for whatever it was that was making him look this insecure. When he was ready, Odin spoke.

“It would probably be better if I showed you what I brought with me.”

What he had brought with him?

Frigga frowned. “I will not accept any more enemies’ weapons in this household.”

Odin smiled. “I know this. Maybe I should have said who instead of what.”

“Excuse me?”

“You will see in a moment. Wait here!”

Odin stood up and left the hall. Utterly confused as to whom in the name of the Norns her husband would bring to her, Frigga got on her feet and walked a few steps towards the door.

When Odin came back, he held a dark green blanket in his hands – the same blanket Frigga had wanted to wrap Thor in when he had been born, but Odin had brought a different one back then, dark red with golden ornaments. It was a beautiful blanket, and Thor loved it to this day. The green one, on the other hand, had been put aside and never touched again, since Thor hadn’t wanted to trade his favourite red blanket for a different, green one.

“I found it on the battlefield. It is a miracle that it survived.” Odin walked closer to his wife and carefully lifted the blanket in his arms to give it to her. Frigga took it just as carefully, unsure what she should expect to find wrapped in it, especially now that he had said it was alive. Odin had never been someone who brought home stray animals and wrapped them in fine blankets, he normally either left them be, saying they could survive on their own, or he ordered someone else to take care of them.

When Frigga took the blanket from him, she was surprised to find it wasn’t nearly as heavy as she had imagined it to be, given how filled it looked. It soon turned out that this appearance had been deceiving – between the many folds the blanket had thrown around the tiny being in its centre, Frigga found a delicate, rosy face with closed eyes and a soft fuzz of black hair.

Frigga stared at the baby in her arms. “You… How…?” She was at loss of words. “A baby, Odin!?”

She had no idea what she was feeling as she looked at him completely aghast.

Odin seemed to shrink beneath her gaze. “When the battle was over, I found it lying between the corpses of… well, other beings that had not been as lucky as this little child.”

Frigga slowly shook her head in disbelief. “But… Why? Who would even be foolish enough to bring a baby to battle?”

Odin shrugged. “I do not know. I know only that this is the child of frost giants. It changed its appearance when I…” He was hiding something, she could tell. “…when I lifted it into my arms. But before, it was visibly a little frost giant.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know how frost giants look like, dear.”

Frigga nodded in slow motion. “Of course, you do. I just… I cannot believe how anyone, frost giant or not, could take a child to battle with them, especially a child as young as this one.”

Odin sighed in agreement. He still looked like he hadn’t told her something important.

Frigga raised her eyebrows. “What else is there that I should know?”

With a small smile on his lips, Odin stepped closer to his wife and put an arm around her shoulders. “You know me too well.” He laughed quietly. “Of course, you are right. I thought… No, that is not entirely correct. I know that this lost little being cannot survive on its own. Thus, I brought it with me, as you might have already guessed.”

“Get to the point, love.”

“Right.” When he continued speaking, his eye looked almost pleading. “We already have two wonderful children, but Hela has long ago found her own home and Thor would certainly be happy about a playmate, or what do you think?”

Frigga had expected something like that. “You want to keep the child?”

“Yes?”

“Although it is the offspring of our enemy?”

Odin shrugged. “When I found it, I thought to myself, ‘Frigga would not want me to leave a baby in need of a helping hand on a battlefield, not matter whose baby it is.’ Was I not correct in this assumption?”

A smile stole onto Frigga’s face. She looked at her husband, then at the sleeping baby in her arms. She had already grown fond of the peaceful little face with its adorable black hair, which reminded her of the soft feathers of Odin’s ravens, Hugin and Munin. “You were correct. It was the right thing to take this child with you, or else it would most probably be dead now.”

He nodded. “There is another thing I need to tell you before you decide if we will keep it and raise it as our own.”

Raise it as our own.

The child of frost giants? Thinking about it like that made Frigga unsure whether she should agree.

This adorable baby in her arms? That she could imagine easily.

“I had to let Aesir blood run through its veins.”

Frigga looked up from the child and into Odin’s eyes. “You gave it some of your blood?”

Odin nodded. “I had to.”

Now, it was on Frigga to nod. “You had to”, she echoed silently. “Have you already thought of a name?”

“Yes. I decided for the name Loki.”

“Loki? What an unusual name.”

“I do not think it existed before I gave it to this child.”

“You might be right about that.”

“I wanted the name to be neutral, although I am fairly sure the little one is a boy. So, what do you say?”

One last look at the baby – at Loki – and Frigga knew her answer. She smiled, carefully running her hand across the little face. It was surprisingly cold, but that probably came from the frost giant DNA of the child. Loki moved a little in her arms, opening and closing his mouth in his sleep.

“Why not? I think Thor will love to meet his little brother.”

Chapter Text

Thor knew he loved Loki as soon as he saw the little face. He knew he would forever protect his new baby brother as soon as Loki’s small fingers closed around Thor’s thumb. He knew nothing would ever come between him and his brother as soon as his mother carefully lifted Loki into Thor’s arms. He knew he would never put anyone before Loki as soon as he met the gaze of the big bright blue eyes.

“Can we keep him forever?” Thor asked in a pleading voice. “Please, please, please!”

Frigga laughed. “Of course, darling! He is now part of our family. You never outcast a family member, no matter what.”

“Yayayay!” Thor danced around with baby Loki in his arms. Only when he almost let go of his brother, he calmed down and reluctantly placed him in his mother’s waiting arms. In their mother’s arms.

“I love you, little Loki.” He placed a gentle kiss on Loki’s forehead. Loki stared at him with his big bright blue eyes and stretched out a tiny hand. Thor let him grab his index finger, giggling. “You’re so cute!”

“You’re so small!” Thor frowned at his brother. Loki was nearing his 100th birthday, and still he looked like he was barely 50 years old. At least to Thor, who was a good 260 years old. “Why won’t you grow?”

Loki surprisingly didn’t answer – he only spoke very few sentences yet, one of which was “Lif’ me, For!”, which could be translated to “Lift me, Thor!”.

Thor sighed. “Well, you’ll grow, I’m sure. Someday…”

His little brother didn’t react. Instead, he crawled to the picture book laying beside Thor. It was a book full of stories about Asgard’s residents – at least some of them.

“You wanna read this?” Thor took the book out of Loki’s tiny hands and started turning the unusually strong pages. Mother had told him the pages were this way so that small children reading the book wouldn’t tear or crumple them. She had also told Thor that his baby fingers had been much thicker, not as thin-to-the-bone as Loki’s appeared to Thor.

Loki climbed onto Thor’s lab and hit the book with one hand, looking up at Thor expectantly. “Read me about Hamdal!”

Thor smiled. “You mean Heimdall?”

“Hamdal!”

“No, Heimdall. Speak after me. Heim…”

“Heimmm…”

“…dall.”

“…daaal.”

“Heimdall.”

“Hamdal!”

Thor sighed. Sure, Loki had spoken his first words at a very young age, his first sentences, too, but he hadn’t evolved much further yet. Thor couldn’t remember how he had expressed himself as an almost-100-year-old, of course, but he liked to think his way of speaking had been a little more eloquent than Loki’s. (Which it hadn’t been.)

“Alright, sure. Hamdal.” Thor shrugged, opening the page about the god in question.

“Nooo, Heimdall!”

For a moment, Thor was too surprised to react. Then, slowly, he turned to his little brother. “What did you just say?”

Loki grinned like he knew exactly what he had done. “Heimdall!”

Almost in slow motion, Thor shook his head, as Loki continued hollering. “Heimdall, Heimdall, Heimdall!”

“You’re so weird”, Thor murmured under his breath, as he started “reading” to get Loki to stop screaming the name of the god who could literally hear the grass grow. The thing was, Thor couldn’t read, but he made his brother believe he could in memorising what their mother would read and reciting the text as close to the original as possible. Loki fell silent and listened attentively, as Thor explained and occasionally pointed at the pictures. When he turned the last page of Heimdall’s story, the book had come to an end. So, Thor decided to investigate on the new skill his little brother had mastered, which was pronouncing Heimdall’s name correctly.

“Loki?” he said. Loki looked up from the book.

“What’s the name of this god, again?” Thor pointed at one of the pictures of Heimdall.

“Heimdall!” Loki exclaimed.

“Okay…” Thor nodded, eager to find out the answer to his next question. “And what’s my name?”

Loki only ever said “For”, mother had explained that he just couldn’t pronounce “th” at such a young age, that this was perfectly normal, and that he would certainly learn it very soon.

Loki tilted his head, as if he had to think about the question for a moment. “For?”

Thor sighed. “No, Thor! Try again.”

“For.”

“Thor.”

“Pffff…or!”

Thor couldn’t help but laugh at his little brother. “No!” he giggled. “You know what? If you’re gonna call me For, or Pfor, I’ll call you Loli.”

“Loki!”

“Nuh-uh, Loli. Or… Loko.”

“But I’m Loki!”

“Lolo? Yeah, how about Lolo? That sounds good.”

Loki crossed his little arms around his chest. “Stoobid Thor.”

Thor slapped his hand against his forehead. “Now you can suddenly say my name, or what?”

Loki grinned in the same mischievous way as before. “Stoobid Thor, stoobid Thor!”

But Thor couldn’t even be annoyed about being called stupid – or, well, “stoobid”. His little Lolo was just too adorable!

Chapter Text

When Loki was about 170, nothing and no-one was safe from him anymore.

Little Lolo, as Thor liked to call his brother lovingly (or sometimes mockingly), would run around the palace, laughing slyly and hiding from anyone who would try to stop him – much to his mother’s worry. Of course, she was happy about how lively her child was discovering his surroundings, but it meant that he could get in danger at any time. There were so many dangerous things for a small child in this palace, even if you didn’t count all the weapons.

And one sunny day, it happened.

Loki disappeared without a trace.

Thor did, too.

The boys didn’t know how dangerous the heat could be to Loki, how could they? Until this day, Frigga had always kept watch over Loki on warmer days, making sure he wouldn’t leave the palace for longer than an hour at most. But now… She could only hope to find her children inside, or at least sitting in the cool shadow of a tree.

Frigga, Odin, and the palace guards and servants searched everywhere, but neither Loki nor Thor could be found.

Meanwhile, the brothers were in the middle of their first real adventure outside the palace.

“Look, Loki!” Thor had climbed onto a rock next to the lake in the gardens of Asgard. He had jumped into the deep blue water from up here before, but never with Loki near, only surrounded by his friends or under the watching eyes of his mother.

“What are you doing?” Loki stood up from the grass he had been sitting in to carefully study the shimmering water, and ran towards the rock. Even with his noodle-thin arms stretched high above his head, he couldn’t nearly reach Thor’s ankles.

“I’ll show you how to fly. Watch and learn, little brother!” With that, Thor took a step back, ran across the rock, and jumped.

The cool water embraced him like a friend, calming his skin that had got warm from the sun, and dampening every sound. It was fairly dark down here, but when Thor looked up, he could see the light breaking on the uneven surface.

When Thor broke though the surface, he found Loki kneeling beside the rock, watching his big brother with the greatest interest. Thor grinned. “See? It’s as easy as breathing!”

Loki got on his feet and clapped. “I wanna fly, I wanna fly!”

Thor climbed out of the water and only now noticed that he was still wearing his normal clothes. Huh. Not the smartest decision he had made. But the sun was rising, and it was getting warmer and warmer by the second, so he didn’t have to worry about staying wet for long.

“Alright, then let’s make you fly!”

Together, they climbed onto the rock. Thor helped Loki, but to his surprise, his little brother was pretty skilled at climbing. But of course, Loki had always tried to climb everything, including his family members and the sofa, but also tables and heavy curtains hanging to the floor. Not only once had he fallen, but he had always got up and kept trying again, maybe after a few minutes of crying, but still.

Thor told Loki to stay exactly on the spot on the rock Thor had placed him on, until Thor would tell him otherwise. Loki nodded and watched as Thor jumped into the water once more, this time hurrying to reach the surface again, so that he could get ready to catch his brother. When he was, he screamed, “Now, Loki! Jump!”

Loki ducked, getting ready to gather all his power and jump higher than Thor would have ever thought possible, but when he peeked across the rock, all the way down to his waiting brother, all courage left his body.

“I’m not sure I still want to jump…” He clutched his body as if to hold onto something.

Thor sighed. “You don’t have to be scared, Loki. I’ll catch you!”

Loki timidly looked at his bare feet. His shoes were waiting for him at the bottom of the rock, Thor had advised him to leave them there. “Promise?”

“Even better, I swear on my honour.” Thor put his right hand onto his chest, right above the heart, and looked at his brother in a solemn way while his left hand was paddling in the water, a little hurried to keep Thor afloat, now that the other hand couldn’t help anymore. “Nothing bad will ever happen to you as long as I can prevent it from happening.”

That made Loki a little more confident – and gave him just enough courage to gather all his will, carefully step forward… and jump.

For a moment, Loki felt weightless. The air he was falling though was caressing his skin, and while he was still a little scared of how it would feel when his feet would hit the water, flying felt amazing. When he finally immersed in the water, its cold welcomed him like the winter’s snow he loved so much, even if it was gentler, not as freezing.

Loki’s feet almost hit Thor in the face. He ducked away but managed to catch Loki just before his whole head disappeared below the surface. Swimming to the shore with his brother in his arms wasn’t easy, although Loki was still very small, and very thin.

As soon as the brothers climbed onto the slippery grass, Loki got up and started jumping up and down. “Again, again, again!” he screamed, a grin as bright as the midday sun lighting up his face.

Thor laughed. “Did you like it? Did you enjoy flying?”

“Yeeeesss!”

Thor let himself fall onto the soft grass. He could smell the wet earth he was lying on. “Alright, then let’s do it again!”

Countless of jumps later, Thor and Loki both were exhausted, so they chose to leave their shirts to dry in the sun, put on their shoes and went to look for a warmer place, since the grass was damp from their endless climbs out of the water. Thor was a little cold, though the now rather hot sun that had almost reached its zenith. Loki, though, didn’t seem to mind the cool water.

The drops on their skin soon had dried, and Thor finally felt warm and comfortable again. They had reached the warmest spot Thor knew of, which was a stone terrace in the back of the palace, where the stones stored the warmth of the sun for hours, especially on a day as hot as this one. After all, Thor had promised his mother to take care of his brother, and he didn’t want Loki to catch a cold.

“What do you say, little Lolo? I promised it would be fun outside. Isn’t it great to go on adventures?”

Loki nodded sleepily. “Yeah”, he breathed, “it’s awesome.”

Was his hair still wet from the lake, or were small pearls of sweat forming on Loki’s forehead? Probably the former, after all, Loki’s hair was significantly longer than Thor’s at the moment, because Loki hadn’t let any scissors or blades near his head for a long time, while Thor had burnt his hair a few weeks ago, when he had wanted to light a fire in the living room all by himself, to surprise his parents. The blackish remains of his blonde locks had been trimmed to not more than a few fingers length. It was definitely more convenient to have shorter hair, but Thor missed the look of it being longer.

“No need to worry, darling”, his mother had assured him. “Your hair will long have grown back before your next birthday.” His next birthday would be when he would turn 350. Then, he would finally be old enough to compete in the junior sports games which were held every 100 years.

Suddenly, Thor was snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed his brother lying down on the hot stone floor. Why was he doing that?

“Uuh… Loki?”, Thor said. “You probably shouldn’t lay down here. You see, as long as we’re sitting, there’s still a layer of cloth between us and the hot stones, but we aren’t wearing our shirts.”

Loki tried to get up, and Thor’s heart skipped a beat when his little brother fell down again, seemingly too weak to sit up by himself. What was happening with Loki?

“Brother?” Thor grabbed Loki by the shoulders and gulped when he felt how hot Loki’s skin was. That wasn’t good, that wasn’t good at all!

“Let’s get you out of the sun, alright?”

Thor didn’t care to wait for an answer, he simply put his arms around his brother’s upper body and carried Loki into the shadow of a nearby tree. When he laid him down, he spotted Loki’s pale face and almost white lips. Thor opened his mouth to ask his brother what in the nine worlds was going on, but froze when Loki blinked wearily and mumbled, “Brother, I’m not feeling very well.”

Thor nodded. He could see that… “It will be alright, you’re in the shadows now. Don’t worry, little Lolo!”

But Loki didn’t seem to hear him. “I wanna go inside and…” He trailed off, closing his eyes. His chest was rising and falling unevenly, his breath running way to shallow and unsteadily.

Thor’s heart stopped. “Brother?”

Loki didn’t respond.

“Loki!”

Thor was almost screaming now, his voice etched with worry. “Loki, please answer me!”

No reaction.

Scared to death, Thor put a hand on Loki’s front and immediately pulled back when he felt how hot it was. “Oh, no.” His voice had been stripped of all sound, only a whisper was left. “No, please, no!”

He had no idea what was happening, or what he should do to make it stop.

“Loki, please!” Thor didn’t even notice the tears streaming down his cheeks, although they burnt and were making his sight blurry. All he could think about was the promise he had broken. The promise to keep his little brother safe, no matter what. Nothing bad will ever happen to you as long as I can prevent it from happening.

He could have prevented this from happening.

He should have listened to their mother, who had told Thor never to take Loki outside in the heat. Thor had never understood why, neither had Loki.

“I’m sorry, little brother”, Thor cried. “I’m so sorry! This is all my fault.”

A sob escaped his throat, as Thor crouched in the grass, as close to Loki as possible without touching him, which would have only meant more warmth. What should he do? He needed help, but he couldn’t leave Loki alone – not in this state!

Feeling more helpless and guilty than ever before in his life, Thor stayed right at his brother’s side, crying and screaming for help as loud as he could. He sounded desperate, his voice unusually high and shrill, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything except his unconscious little brother. Nothing but Loki was important anymore, and Thor just wanted him to be alright again, to see him get up and laugh again, he wouldn’t even have been mad if it would have turned out to be one of Loki’s jokes.

But this was no joke, Thor knew that.

This was Loki’s first life or death situation.

Chapter Text

Frigga found her sons below the shadow of a tree, just like she had hoped she would. But she wasn’t glad, much rather the opposite, since she had found them because she had heard Thor scream as if his life depended on it. And though it didn’t, Loki’s life did.

When she fell to her knees next to Loki, a handful guards and servants surrounding her and the boys, Thor stumbled, “I… I didn’t want that, really… Of course not! I’m s-so sorry, mother, I’m so sorry, I should have listened, I…”

She waved her hand to make him stop, and Thor immediately fell silent. “I need to bring him to the infirmary immediately.” She pointed at a few of the guards and servants. “You and you, come with me, you take care of Thor!”

With that, she scooped up her unconscious son, pressing him tightly to her chest. His skin was so hot! Oh, hopefully he would be fine… He had to be fine!

Thor didn’t leave his room for the next few hours. At first, he hid below every single one of his blankets, which he had piled up atop himself. But lying below them all quickly got too hot and breathing became a little difficult as well, especially because he couldn’t stop crying. So, after a few minutes, he removed the blankets again and crawled into the crack between Loki’s bed and the wall, where he stayed for the rest of the day.

Yes, Loki’s bed. The two shared a room. Loki had gotten the bed that had been Thor’s before Loki had moved from the cradle inside their parent’s room to the room he now shared with Thor. He had wanted the one further away from the door, and Thor hadn’t really cared – he had been too excited to finally share his room with a playmate to care.

Now, he crouched there, between his brother’s bed and the wall, his heart filled with shame and worry. A few meters in front of him, he could see the window, but he tried to ignore it, because it reminded him of his failure to protect his little Lolo.

Why hadn’t he listened to his mother? Why had he been such a fool to search for the warmest spot so Loki wouldn’t catch a cold? Of course, his choice had been well intentioned, but he should have known better. Hadn’t Frigga told him repeatedly not to take Loki outside in the heat?

But of course, Thor had wanted to go on an adventure with his little brother, ignoring the warm weather and later misinterpreting the signs that had shown how close Loki had been to passing out as tiredness.

He should have known better.

It was his fault that Loki was in the infirmary now, wasn’t it? Would Loki be alright? He couldn’t just die from the heat, could he? No, please no! Thor couldn’t be responsible for his brother’s death, he had just wanted to have fun with Loki, to protect him, not to lead him into a life-threatening scenario!

He really should have known better!

Loki had been right, he was stupid. Stupid, stupid Thor. Oh, what had he done?

In the evening, Frigga knocked and came inside without waiting for an answer.

Thor heard her stop in the middle of the room. She seemed to be looking for him.

“Thor? Where are you, dear?”

Thor didn’t want to make a sound, so he tried not to breathe, but quickly had to give up due to the lack of oxygen. Instead, he then tried to be as quiet as possible, so that his mother wouldn’t find him. He was too ashamed and feared she would be as angry with him as Odin had been. Not that Thor could have blamed his father for being angry – after all, he had made an incredibly huge mistake.

Wait. What if Frigga was here to tell him that Loki hadn’t made it? Oh no. No, Thor didn’t even want to think about that, she had to be here to scream at him or whatever else, but Loki had to be okay. He just had to be!

Frigga waited patiently, but when Thor didn’t answer for more than a minute, she finally said, “I talked to Odin. He’s sorry for shouting at you and he realises it was our mistake as your parents that we didn’t educate you better on what the heat would do to Loki.”

Still no reaction.

“You know”, Frigga suddenly said carefreely, “I’m still wondering where you might be hiding. In your cupboard, maybe? Or below your bed?”

Thor swallowed dryly. Was there any point in hiding? Sooner or later, his mother would find him anyway. He couldn’t escape whatever was coming, however scared he was.

He sniffed. “I’m not here.”

Frigga laughed silently. “Oh, what a pity. If you were here, I’m sure you would like to see who I brought with me.”

Thor’s head shot up from his knees, where he had rested it. “Loki?” His voice was high with hope and his heart was fluttering like a butterfly’s wings, when he got to his feet and turned towards his mother.

Loki was standing next to her, holding Frigga’s hand, and smiling faintly. “Hello, Thor!”

With a sob of relief, Thor stormed towards his brother and stopped dead in his tracks when he stood directly in front of him. He didn’t dare touch Loki after what had happened. What if he would hurt him again?

But Loki didn’t seem to care, as he now flung himself into Thor’s arms before his big brother could even flinch. He giggled, and Thor started laughing as well now, insanely glad to have his brother back unharmed. “You’re here! You’re okay!”

While he swirled Loki through the air (gently, he didn’t want to hurt him any further), he showered him in questions. “I was so worried about you! Are you alright? What happened? Did you only just leave the infirmary? Was mother with you the whole time? I’m so sorry, I should have protected you better. But you’re fine now, right?”

When he put Loki down again, Frigga was laughing. “Oh, Thor. What happened was not your fault, even if you both should have listened to what I told you again and again.”

“Don’t go outside in the heat”, the brothers mumbled at once, staring at their toes.

“Exactly.” Frigga nodded. “I hope this will be a lesson you don’t need to learn twice!”

They nodded guiltily, but Frigga was too glad that her youngest was fine to lecture her boys at the moment. Instead, she held out her arms to embrace them both. They melted into her warm hug like honey.

“I love you two little rascals.”

“I love you too, mother.”

Loki giggled. “I love you and Thor!”

Thor freed himself from his mother’s embrace to ruffle Loki’s hair. “And I love you, little Lolo. I promise, from now on, I’ll take better care of you!”

Chapter Text

Frigga was walking up and down the hallway with her new baby, the little Loki, in her arms. She was looking for Thor, closely followed by Odin. Their son hadn’t been in his bed, where she had hoped to find him, since it was where he would have been supposed to be. It wasn’t new, though, that Thor went for little walks around the palace when no-one was watching. Who knew which adventures Frigga’s son was experiencing in these moments! After all, secretly running away on his own seemed to excite Thor more than anything.

“Dad?”

Frigga couldn’t hold back a small screech when Thor suddenly stood next to her and tugged at Odin’s sleeve. Odin, too swirled around to look at his son. Neither of them had heard Thor coming, and now he was standing in the hallway as if he had been there the entire time.

“You’re back, dad!” Thor stretched out his little arms with a wide grin and waited for his father to lift him into a hug. Odin laughed quietly when he embraced his son. “You cheeky little man! You even managed to scare your own father.”

Thor was giggling when Odin put him on the ground again. He looked at his mother with sparkling eyes and noticed the blanket she was holding. Frowning, he tilted his little head. “What do you have in the blankie?”

Smiling softly, Frigga knelt down to show Thor the bundle in her arms. “We were looking for you to show you why I am carrying this blanket around half the palace. There is something very important we need to tell you about, you know.”

Thor leaned over the blanket and squinted. “What’s that?” he asked before his mother could even start to explain anything. She couldn’t help but laugh out loud, which made Thor look at her with eyes wide from surprise.

“Who!” Frigga clarified, still laughing. “Not what. This is our new family member, your little brother – his name is Loki.”

Thor looked at Loki suspiciously. “Brother...” he repeated slowly, pronouncing every syllable of the word like it was the most unusual thing he had ever spoken aloud, and his tongue had to get used to it.

“I am sure you will get on well!” Odin joined in, heavily sitting down on the ground as well and giving his wife a meaningful look. Frigga knew all too well what he what he was trying to tell her with his lone eye, and silently nodded her consent. She didn’t want their son to find out about Loki’s true identity either. What would he think about having a frost giant as a brother? What would all of Asgard think? No, keeping this secret was probably for the best.

On the other hand, that meant keeping it a secret from Loki, too. Hopefully this plan wouldn’t go backwards… What if he would, one day, find out? But no, Frigga didn’t want to think about this right now. The baby had just arrived here, why would she already worry about his future?

Thor had been looking at their new family member with the greatest interest the whole time and now seemed to have come to a decision. A beaming smile spread across his face. “Brother!” he giggled and ran his small, chubby fingers across Loki’s head. “Awesome!”

When Thor touched his head, Loki sleepily opened his eyes and looked at the three unfamiliar faces around him. His eyes were the colour of a cold winter morning and filled with the greatest interest in his surroundings. Loki’s curious and cunning look made Frigga love this baby even more.

Suddenly, Thor stretched out his hands for Loki. “I want to hold him, too!”

Frigga thought about it for a moment, but then decided she trusted her son’s strength enough to let him hold his new little brother while both of his parents were right next to him, watching. So, she gave the bundle with Loki to Thor, who took it more carefully than Frigga had ever seen him hold anything in his short life. Oh, had he taken this much care of the vase he had broken the day before…

After tenderly studying Loki’s face for a moment, Thor looked up at his mother with pleading eyes. “Can we keep him forever?”

Frigga stared back perplexedly. What an… interesting question.

“Please, please, please!” Thor begged.

Now, Frigga couldn’t hold back a laugh any longer. After a quick glance at Odin, who was smirking as well, she said, “Of course, darling! He is now part of our family. You never abandon a family member, no matter what.”

“Yayayay!” Thor began to dance in little circles, Loki still in his arms. He was clutching his brother tightly, seemingly aware of the possibility of Loki falling down from all the movement, but only when Loki really almost fell, Thor made a shocked face and gave the bundle back to his mother, who decided against scolding him for it. Thor was so happy about his new brother – she didn’t want to dampen his joy.

Just when she completed this thought, Thor leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Loki’s forehead, whispering “I love you, little Loki.”

Frigga and Odin watched in awe as Loki reached out a tiny hand in response and Thor offered him his index finger to clutch. He giggled when Loki’s baby fingers closed around his own. “You’re so cute!”

Frigga raised her head to exchange a relieved look with Odin. Thor didn’t only not mind having a new family member – he loved it!

A warm smile settled on Frigga’s face, which Odin gladly returned. No matter Loki’s heritage, he now was one of them – a part of their family. Thor loved him already, and Frigga was happy to admit she did so, as well. She could see already that this baby would grow up to be a gift not only to this family, but to all nine realms – she was rather sure about this. Sometimes, a mother simply knows something others may not yet see.

Little could she have imagined just how true her intuition would turn out to be…