Chapter Text
The winter storms have finally come to Asgard, with their biting wind and heavy snowfalls. But here, inside the sitting room connected to the library at Fensal, with its fireplace built around a carefully and magically maintained lava pit, it is warm and cozy. Shadows are dancing on the tapestried walls, but the two boys sitting between their parents are not looking at them, but rather at the illusions spun by their father as he tells a tale as only the Allfather can.
“In the beginning there was nothing. No life, no realms, no Yggdrasil. Only the vast, empty expanses of Ginnugagap were there, until a great heat and a great cold met…”The illusion of darkness pulls together and then expands suddenly.
“And exploded!” Thor says excitedly, and Odin chuckles indulgently.
“Indeed it did. But from that meeting, that explosion, grew Yggdrasil, and nestled amongst its branches, the nine realms. So you see, great good can come from great differences.”
“After they explode,” Thor says decisively, but Loki is frowning.
“How know you that it was good?” he asks.
Frigga is the one to answer. “It was life,” she says. “’Tis true that life can hold cruelty, but it also holds kindness. Neither would exist without life to experience it.” She throws a worried glance at Odin over the heads of the two boys. Loki’s questions are of some concern.
Thor is frowning. “Father? If the Ginnugagap is nothing, where did the great heat and the great cold come from?”
Odin shakes his head. “That is a good question, and one I know not the answer to.”
That captures Loki’s attention as well. Both boys look at their father with incredulous eyes. “You know not?” Loki asks. “But you hung from the Yggdrasil for three days to gain knowledge of the cosmos!”
Odin nods. “For three days, yes. And then I cut myself down and returned because some things are impossible to look at without losing one’s mind. I saw much, but not what was before the beginning of the cosmos. If you can find someone to answer that question, Thor, you will have found a wise person indeed.”
The boys look at one another, and then turn as one to Frigga. “Mother?” they chorus.
Frigga laughs, and Odin huffs in mock offense. “I know not either, my darlings. But is this not better? Were all the mysteries of all the realms already answered, there would be no need for us to seek further knowledge.” She pets Loki’s hair, and he grins up at her.
“Father, you forgot to dismiss the illusion,” Thor points out, and indeed, the illusionary Yggdrasil is still turning and changing.
Odin shakes his head. “It was on purpose. You see, how it still changes? The realms are safe within the branches, but new sprigs grow, much like real trees. Once, I knew which paths to take to walk the branches, but those old paths have grown over, now.”
“Is that why you and my namesake built the Bifrost?” Loki asks. At Odin’s confirming nod, he pauses in thought for a moment, before asking “has anyone ever tried to walk on the outside of the branches, rather than inside where the paths change?”
“Some have tried,” Odin replies heavily. “I know of none who have returned. Cast such thoughts from your mind, my son. I much prefer you to live.”
The silence after that drags for a while, until Loki says, “I shall have to find the paths inside the branches, then.”
“You must wait until you no longer flinch at lightning, first,” Thor says in his big-brothers-are-not-always-nice voice, and Loki turns to protest that he is not afraid of lightning when the sky outside the window lights up as the storm breaks loose for real. Loki whimpers and hides his face against Frigga, who strokes his hair soothingly.
“Hush, my sweetheart,” she says fondly. “Fensal is well protected against such storms.”
Odin murmurs agreement and rests a hand on Loki’s shoulder, but his eye is on Thor.
Odin has travelled all over the realms, at least the ones he could physically set foot on, and he has experienced storms several places. One thing that, strangely, is the same all over is that people, when seeing lightning, start counting until they hear the thunder in order to tell how far away the lightning was. This has always struck Odin as strange, since they all insist that each number is a measure of their own units of measurement, which often vary. But people count, even here on Asgard, and so it should not surprise him that Thor’s counting quietly – except Thor is counting backwards.
“Three-two-one,” Thor mutters, and then grins as thunder roars immediately afterwards.
Loki whimpers. “Stop it!”
“I am not doing it,” Thor replies, and then adds, “yet”.
“You expect to control the thunder and lightning?” Odin asks, giving his elder son a considering look. He had wondered if Thor had somehow not inherited the power of either parent, but it would appear it has simply taken another form.
“I can feel it singing in my blood,” Thor replies. “One day, I shall bend both to my will. And rain, too,” he adds, with the blitheness of a child who has never experienced either flood or drought. Odin, older and more experienced, shudders inwardly at the thought of the damage Thor could end up doing.
“That’s not fair,” Loki protests, fear forgotten. “He gets instinctual control over storms, and I must study for some silly illusions?”
“Like the ones I use?” Odin asks dryly. “The talent itself is unimportant, my sons. What matters is how you use it.”
“Besides,” Frigga puts in, “what you have to work for is often more worthwhile than that which comes easily to you. And now, you two, it is time for bed.”
Both of them begin to protest, but Odin cuts them off. “No, she is right. We have to speak to some artificers. Unless you have some great wish to listen to us discuss irrigation…?”
Loki grimaces, but looks like he would rather not be alone in his room while there’s a lightning storm outside. Thor looks like he’s almost interested – in irrigation, of all things, why can he not show that amount of interest in history – but also like he’s sleepy. He throws an arm around Loki’s shoulders.
“Come, little brother. Mother said that Fensal is protected, and even were it not, I shall make certain that nothing touches you.”
“You said you could not control it yet,” Loki points out.
Thor gives him an affronted glance. “What, I should let myself be stopped by what is currently possible?”
Two hours later, when Frigga goes to check up on them, they are both fast asleep in Loki’s bed, fingers tangled in one another’s nightshirts.