HEYO, BACKSTORY TIME!
So if you follow thevesselverse on tumblr, you already know I was planning this story! My beta reader finished (yes, I have one of those temporarily, it was a marvel and I should do it more often) and so here it is, in all its glory.
The title is mostly for alliterative purposes - really, this is the story of how Slepnir was born, which you already know if you're familiar with the story of Loki and Svaðilfari. If you're not, you're going to be! Sorta. So Slepnir himself, of course, doesn't show up until the end. Just so people know, I have attempted to portray a pregnancy realistically while also making sure it's not too graphic.
There will be Norse words in the story - I'll put translations at the end. There will be notes on mythology and culture at the end, so if you're interested in that take a look at the author's note when you're done.
Enjoy!
In hindsight, allowing the giant inside Asgard at all had been a bad idea.
He'd been persuasive, certainly, and not so easily recognizable as a giant; he was closer in size to Loki. Yet Oðin had to have known him for what he was as soon as he'd laid eyes on the visitor. Such a thing as size or clever words could not fool the Allfather easily.
But the giant had managed to talk his way in, and his offer had been attractive enough to make most of the gods sit up and pay attention. Including Loki.
A high wall was what he wanted to give them, strong and thick, to keep Asgard safe from anyone and anything that wished them ill. It was something the Æsir were in need of, what with giants crossing the river Ífingr into Asgard whenever they pleased, or so it seemed to the gods. The problem was his price: the sun, the moon, and Freya.
Freya had refused outright, as soon as the doors had closed on the giant. Even all the gods assembled couldn't change her mind - and, well, she had good reason to not want to. Even without mentioning how recently her husband Oð had gone missing, who would want a giant as a replacement?
Loki had often privately pondered whether or not he should point out the hypocrisy of that, since so many gods had taken Jötun wives or mistresses, but there was no point in making them angry. They might just toss him out there to convince the giant to lower his price, and that was not what Loki intended to spend his day doing. So he said, instead,
"Why not make it impossible for him to receive his prize?"
When the gods turned to look at him, puzzled and curious, Loki ignored them and spoke to Oðin alone. "Tell him he can have what he asks for-"
"You little- " Freya snarled.
"-but give him an impossible deadline," Loki finished. Freya stopped midsentence, still sour-looking but marginally less murderous.
"And leave us with a half-finished wall?" Thor scoffed. "That would be worse than no wall at all."
"Half-finished would protect some, if not all, of Asgard," Freyr pointed out. "Not worse, but still not as good as a whole wall."
"Then judge the deadline carefully," Loki said, again to Oðin; and the rest of the gods quieted down, because none of them wanted to be the one to say that they did not trust Oðin to make a wise decision.
"And what if he has help?" Bragi questioned nervously. "What if he brings other giants to his aid?"
"I'd think Heimdall would be able to give us a little warning," Loki said, with a grin, but no one else laughed. Heimdall looked a little annoyed at being singled out.
"Warning, yes," Heimdall said. "But not prevent them from coming in, or else we'd be accused of cheating him, and then what?"
"Well, I don't know," Loki retorted, exasperated. Why did it fall to him to come up with a plan? "Tell him he can only use the horse he rode in on for help." That got a few snorts from up and down the table. Freya, however, still looked steaming mad; and Oðin was still quiet and thoughtful.
Their þing didn't end there, of course. Everyone had their own ideas about the deadline, or about whether Loki had the right idea, and whether they shouldn't just build their own wall and not trust this rather giantish fellow who none of them had ever seen before. There were a hundred suggestions made, and a hundred suggestions picked apart and shot down.
it was Oðin who made the final decision, in the end; and Oðin agreed with Loki, to Loki's smug satisfaction. The giant had until winter's end to finish his wall, if he wanted his prize - and no help, except for the horse.
Loki lingered, when the rest of the Æsir had dispersed and Thor had gone off to tell the giant their conditions.
"A short timeline, for someone who wants a mostly-finished wall," he said. "That is, of course, assuming any of us actually intended to pay his price."
"When one is dealing with giants," Oðin said, giving Loki a very pointed look (he was good at those, even with only one eye), "I have learned through experience that it is best to assume that they will trick you."
It had seemed as though they'd worked it out pretty well. There was no way he could finish in time, building a wall around all of Asgard by himself with only his horse to fetch rocks to build with. Oh, they'd sworn that he would be safe in Asgard while he worked, and that they'd keep their end of the bargain, but no one had really believed they'd need to.
They really hadn't counted on the horse.
Svaðilfari was - well. There were many things that could be said about the giant's horse, most of them impolite and accompanied by sideways glares cast at Loki, if he was in the vicinity. Loki could guess what they thought; that he was in league with the giant, that he'd known about the horse's strange abilities, that he'd somehow messed up their chances on purpose.
"They're so quick to blame me for things that haven't even happened yet," he complained to Oðin, who did not seem to be at all sympathetic. "It's because they're all bored from being kept inside for so long, I'll bet."
"And once winter is over, we shall see whether you are received in a more friendly manner," Oðin said. Loki huffed, giving him a dirty look.
"He won't finish. There's too much for him to do, even if he does have plenty of stone. Svaðilfari can only do so much to help."
Ha! If only.
"Three days until winter ends and all he's got left is the gate, " Tyr snapped.
"And that's my fault?" Loki wrenched his arm, at last, out of Tyr's grip. They'd dragged him all the way back up to Oðin's hall. Oðin had barely even looked up when Thor had slammed the doors open.
"It was on your advice that we agreed to this plan!" Thor rounded on him. " Your idea about the horse-"
"That was a joke , for the Norns' sake!" Loki cried. "You thought it was funny, too! Do you truly think I want to give him any of the things he's asked for?"
"You're the kind to think it would be amusing and then regret it when the Nine Realms lost all their light," Tyr growled. "You and him come from the same place."
"Oh, how could I have forgotten that all Jötnar are mystically connected and sworn never to oppose each other!" Loki yelled. "Don't act so stupid, Tyr, you do it so often it's gotten boring."
"Insults aren't going to save you," Thor said, one hand on his hammer like he thought Loki might try to run away. "Joke or not, this was your idea, Loki. Someone has to stop that giant."
"Why don't you, then?" Loki countered. "Do you not think yourself up to the challenge?"
"I could kill ten times as many giants as him!" Thor shouted, temper fraying. "But because of your solution to this problem, I have sworn not to harm him! I am no oathbreaker!"
"And you think I am?" Loki scoffed, trying to disguise his nervousness.
"You're clever," Freya said acidly. "You had better find a way, or else I will find a way to make sure you won't be able to enjoy the consequences for long."
"That's just unnecessary," Loki muttered, averting his gaze from Freya's. Why did it always come to death threats?
"Not if it gets you to try," Freya said.
Loki was, if anything, very good at self-preservation, and his self-preservation was telling him not to argue with a lot of angry gods.
But he couldn't fight the giant, even if he hadn't sworn not to, and he couldn't harm the giant's horse, because that would infringe on his work too obviously. Subtlety was the only way he'd be able to get around the oath they'd all sworn.
Svaðilfari was the key. Without him, the work would go much slower; and slowing him down would stall the giant for at least as long as three days. He could not finish an entire gate in three days on his own.
But there were not a lot of foolproof ways to lure a horse away from its master without the master noticing something was up. Loki had experience tricking men and gods, but that was because he usually had some inkling of how their minds worked. The same could not really be said for horses. To be sure, there were some basic factors that were similar between the two groups, but that couldn't be relied on. A horse wouldn't pursue a woman the same way a man would.
Loki paused, and backtracked on that thought. It couldn't work in the usual way, but maybe ...
He knew the horsemaster, vaguely, in the way that everybody knew everybody else in Asgard; it was too small for anyone to go unnoticed or unrecognized. Auðunar was good with horses, and that was the extent of Loki's knowledge. He didn't need to know any more than that; what he knew now suited his purposes.
If his purposes also involved changing his shape to that of a woman, that was his business (and if his business was going to involve persuasion, he might as well enjoy himself doing it).
It also involved a little more than just the addition - or vanishing - of certain body parts. Loki had to change his face (not just shave his beard, but physically alter some features) so that he would not be easily recognizable, and other little things like eye color or skin tone mattered as well. But Auðunar had no reason to recognize him like this; Oðin would have, and perhaps Freya, but not someone who Loki barely ever saw.
Auðunar did not notice him for a moment or two; he was busy with a horse that Loki thought might have been Viðarr's. When he did look up, Loki smiled, making sure to keep it small and demure and not in the least smirky. Auðunar stood up a little straighter.
"Sorry," Loki said. "I just - I'd always wanted to come by to see the horses. I didn't mean to bother you."
"You're not," Auðunar said, putting down the grooming brush. "I'm almost done." Loki would have smiled wider, if it wouldn't have given the game away. Show a man a pretty lady and he'd immediately forget what he was doing.
"That's kind of you," Loki said, and brushed his hair out of his face. He'd considered whether or not to leave his hair its usual shade, but he'd turned his skin darker to imitate a more Vanir ancestry; eventually, he'd settled on a subtler shade of reddish brown.
"You like horses?" Auðunar asked. "Do you ride?"
"Sometimes. Not as often as I'd like." Loki made sure to eye the horse appreciatively. "What's his name?"
"Flotavindr. He's a fast horse, not easily frightened. Lucky for me," Auðunar joked. "The more nervous ones are more likely to kick me in the face if I do something unexpected to them."
"It's a more dangerous job than I thought, then," Loki laughed, because he was clearly expected to be amused.
Auðunar shrugged, still smiling crookedly. He was clearly trying to look like he wasn't bragging. "There's no swords involved, but a hoof to the face isn't pleasant."
"Have you been kicked often?"
"A few times, when I was younger and cockier than I could back up with action."
"And now?" Loki leaned on the low wall of the stable, which had the added affect of making him lean closer.
"Never," Auðunar said, grin widening slightly. "Would you like to come in?"
"Oh, I shouldn't-"
"I insist. Some people don't appreciate horses properly; it's rare to meet someone who likes them for who they are and not what they do."
"Well...if you say so."
As Auðunar let him in, unsubtly eyeing his chest, it was much harder to transform a triumphant grin into a more demure smile.
It wasn't difficult, from there on; few among the gods would be caught dead saying 'no' to a woman offering sex. Granted, Auðunar also thought it would be easier to simply retreat to the hayloft, but he improved himself in Loki's eyes by obtaining a blanket for the two of them to use. Loki had not been looking forward to straw in uncomfortable places.
The act itself was probably the most pleasant thing Loki had done all day. Auðunar was not exactly hard on the eyes. Afterwards, he had to mentally wrench himself back on task, and laid back with a sigh.
"Something wrong?" Auðunar asked. At least he'd been able to pick up on how it was not quite a sigh of pleasure, Loki thought wryly.
"No," Loki said haltingly, and looked away. "Well - it's just the whole thing with the wall."
"Ah," Auðunar sighed in understanding. "That's not so bad, really."
"If you say so," Loki muttered, trying to sound dispirited while mentally pondering whether or not to put his clothes back on. He was getting goosebumps all over, and he didn't want to lose track of the dress when he'd gone through so much trouble to obtain it. Hopefully Frigg wouldn't notice it missing. "Though - the sun, the moon, and Freya?"
"It will work out," Auðunar said, with the certainty of someone who did not interact with the Æsir very much outside handling their horses. "I've heard they've put Loki on the job."
"Oh, Loki," Loki scoffed.
"He lives here, too. I'm sure he doesn't want the sun or moon or Freya gone any more than anyone else does," Auðunar said.
"Right," Loki said, in a manner that hopefully suggested that he was entirely unconvinced. It seemed to work, because Auðunar propped himself up on one arm.
"There's nothing else we can do about it," he said softly, probably meaning to be reassuring.
"Why not?" Loki said. He meant it; but he affected a tone like he was half-joking. "You could just send a mare in heat out there, and I'm sure that magic horse would run right off after her."
Auðunar was silent for a moment, and when Loki looked up at him, he looked thoughtful.
"You don't really have a mare in heat, do you?" Loki asked, allowing himself to sound a little excited.
"One," Auðunar said, "but there would be no way to get her outside the wall."
"Oh, I could do that," Loki said carelessly, and then clamped his mouth shut; but he'd already said it, he couldn't take the words back now. Auðunar looked at him with interest.
"You could?" He asked, clearly skeptical.
"I-" Loki looked aside awkwardly. "I know a little magic. Most of us do." He did not specify who 'us' was - hopefully Auðunar would assume he meant the Vanir, and given that the only female Vanir anyone really knew was Freya...
"Oh," Auðunar said, sounding almost excited. "Do you mean invisibility? Or is there some other spell?"
"It's a secret," Loki said, and winked at him, then pretended to be suddenly shy, like a girl who had realized she'd overstepped her boundaries. "Do you think we can truly do this?"
"Why not?" Auðunar said, smiling like they were sharing a joke. Loki smiled more hesitantly. "But it might be too dangerous for you."
Loki bit his lip, like he was thinking about it.
"Maybe I'll ask Freya," he said. "She'd help, wouldn't she? I doubt she wants to be married off to some old giant."
"And you stay safe," Auðunar said. It was kind of sweet, if a little condescending.
"Of course," Loki said, smiling softly again. "And you-"
"I'll leave the mare near the gate," he said. "Not too close to be noticeable, or heard; but you'll find her easily enough."
"Oh, thank you." Loki stroked a hand idly over his chest. "This means a lot to me, really."
"It's alright-"
"No," Loki said, " really, " and sat up to straddle Auðunar's waist, because while he was here he might as well have a little more fun before he set out to trick a giant. He didn't take too long, though, and soon enough he was sneaking off and bidding Auðunar farewell with a nervous smile and a quick kiss on the cheek.
He had a time limit to meet, after all.
Auðunar kept his end of the bargain. The mare was sizeable, but luckily Loki had little difficulty getting her past the mostly-finished wall and out into the forest where the giant and Svaðilfari went to gather material. Everything was covered in snow, and so Loki had to carefully wipe their footprints from behind them, making the compacted snow rise back up to fill the foot- and hoofprints.
He'd kept his disguise, just in case he ended up being spotted, but so far his caution hadn't been necessary. So far.
Loki crouched low to the ground behind a copse of trees, keeping a tight hold on the mare's lead, and waited.
The giant was not easily missed, when he did come, and neither was his horse. Svaðilfari was larger than Loki had thought he would be - but then, Loki had been observing from a distance. He also came towards them faster than Loki had anticipated. They were only here to gather material, not to build, what was the hurry?
But then, every second mattered to them, if the giant wanted to get his payment. And every second mattered to Loki, who counted them carefully, then snapped his fingers.
The mare's lead loosened and fell off. Loki slapped her on the rump and then immediately ducked down again; the mare whinnied and was off like a shot, already nervous from the unfamiliar surroundings and the magic he'd placed on her earlier.
Loki peered out from behind the trees, just far enough to see the two horses. The mare skidded to a halt when she crossed Svaðilfari's path, and then scrambled to race off again. Loki silently cursed; he'd hoped she'd stop for longer, so that Svaðilfari could get a good whiff of her and realize that she was in heat. He had to hope it had been long enough.
Svaðilfari had stopped in his tracks, and if a horse could look taken aback Loki thought he did. One second ticked by, and Loki was nearly at the point of holding his breath. Then the horse seemed to make up his mind, or realize what Loki had hoped he would realize, and went haring off after the mare, so fast he was nearly a blur.
The giant roared in anger, shouting Svaðilfari's name, but he was already long gone. Loki grinned. Hopefully the giant would waste all his time looking for his horse; if not, he had barely two and a half days left, and much still to finish at the wall.
Still, Loki wasn't going back to Asgard yet. He'd spend a little while in Miðgarð, and let everybody cool down and forget that Loki had ever proposed an idea that had turned out so badly. Maybe they'd forget that he had been the one to fix it, too, or at least not really speak of it; but that was how things always seemed to turn out. He could live with it.
Loki slipped out of Asgard and onto the branches of Yggdrasil, and started making his way down.
He spent an easy few weeks wandering around. There was the question of whether his plan had really worked, but the sun and the moon remained in the sky every day and night, so Loki assumed the giant had been forced to leave Asgard without his prize. Freya must have made it out as well, unless something else happened, but that wasn't Loki's business anymore.
He also kept his disguise, mostly to throw off any Æsir who might be wondering where he was and guess his habits. Also, he liked to be something unexpected, and a not-so-pale woman traveling alone was certainly unexpected most everywhere he went. Loki had started in the far north, and he worked his way down to the south of the land, hopping from village to village and spending a few nights in each place. Hospitality was enough to guarantee him a place to stay anywhere he paused for the night, which was lucky, because even as the seasons edged into summer, he did not find himself wanting to spend as much as one night outside.
Loki went along like that quite happily, for a while. He changed his skin tone back to its usual paleness after he got tired of being so thoroughly in disguise, and then another week or so passed before he restored his hair to the vibrant red that he had begun to miss. If any gods were on his tail, surely they would have caught up by now.
When he decided, eventually, that he could probably shift back into a male shape, it did not work quite as he expected.
As soon as he began to change, something pulled alarmingly, around his stomach; maybe pulled was not the right word, but there was a very strange sensation and pressure and pain, so that Loki reversed the change immediately.
He would deny he had panicked, if anyone had asked. But it was unnerving. Shapeshifting required not only knowledge of anatomy, but very precise awareness of his own body, and to have his body misbehave on him without warning was an entirely unwelcome feeling.
Loki had been hiding behind a house in the small village he'd found himself in, and now he leaned back against the wooden wall, splaying one hand over his stomach. He couldn't be sick; gods did not get sick, and he counted as a god where it mattered. And he hadn't done anything recently that he could get sick from, anyway.
Except...
"Oh," Loki said, and dug his fingers in a little harder and felt the tiny fluttering spark of something that was not supposed to be there. "Oh, fuck. "
Loki desperately tried to count how many weeks - or months - it had been since he'd left Asgard - since he'd slept with Auðunar. Was it really that easy for a pregnancy to occur? Sure, the inhabitants of Miðgarð had a lot of kids, but he'd thought that was a survival tactic borne from the death rate, not because it just happened.
Loki cursed his own foolishness. He'd never bled once since taking this disguise, but normally he never did, and so he hadn't noticed when the time never came. And if it had been long enough for his - condition to be noticeable, even just a little, surely that time should have come at least once.
This changed things. This changed everything. He would need to spend far longer away from Asgard, for one; there was no way he was going back like this, to let them see him. Even nine months was too short; for the Norns' sake, what could he do, just stroll back into Asgard with no beard and a newborn and no explanation?
Loki did not know of anyone in Asgard who he could call on for aid. He might have tried Freya, before the wall and the giant and Svaðilfari, but now there was no way she would want to even see him, much less help .
Maybe he could - there were methods, even among human women, to get rid of a pregnancy. Herbal concoctions, or a spell, or just some plant that would make one bleed everything out; and yet even as the thought occurred to Loki, he hesitated.
A child. A real, actual child that was his by blood and by birth. He had relatives, among the Æsir, but all of that was a technicality that rested solely on his friendship and brotherhood with Oðin - brotherhood that had come by choice, not by birth.
Loki did not think of the Nephilim, because he did not allow himself to - and anyway, why worry about Nephilim when no humans or angels were involved? Whoever this child could become, they would be no different than the rest of Asgard; Æsir, with more Jötun blood than anyone would care to admit to.
...He could actually do this. Loki found himself wanting to.
A year or so away from Asgard should give him the time he needed; he'd need help eventually (a midwife, at least) but for now, he could manage on his own.
As long as he was careful, there was no reason he couldn't continue on like he had been.
Careful, he could do; but Loki had no way of controlling people's thoughts or actions, and the longer he spent on Miðgarð the more obvious his situation became. People were rude about the silliest things.
Loki understood where they were coming from, but it was entirely different to be on the receiving end of that kind of vague distaste for a woman with no husband and a just-beginning-to-show child.
It was also just plain inconvenient, because it often meant that he couldn't stay anywhere for more than a day or two, as opposed to before. Loki could have played a trick on the villagers, or cast some kind of magic on the worst offenders, but the farther along he got the less he felt up to that kind of thing, not to speak of magic getting more difficult for some reason. And getting up early in the morning to arrange a nasty surprise had been removed entirely from the realm of possibility; he was too tired to bother most days.
Ugh. Loki felt that the baby had better appreciate all this effort. No one had ever said anything about pregnancy being so unpleasant. Getting sick some mornings, and the growing pressure and lack of space inflicted on various internal body parts, and all sorts of other effects he hadn't even thought of. He didn't know how Miðgarðian women could bear doing it so often.
Loki took to walking on less often traveled paths; if he had to deal with people, then it might as well be only when he was in a village and most likely able to sit down and relax.
Normally, he did not encounter anyone else while doing so. The beginning of summer, on a narrow path through the woods, seemed to be the time and place for an exception.
Both of them paused; Loki, and the girl standing a few feet ahead of him. She was young, with dark hair and curious eyes, and was pulling a small goat along on a rope lead. She did not look afraid; but then who would be afraid of what looked like a woman with a small baby bump?
"Who are you?" She asked.
"Does it matter?" Loki questioned, somewhat more crossly than he should have; he'd been walking for a long while. The girl blinked in surprise, and tugged her goat a little closer.
"Are you going to town?" The girl asked tentatively.
"If I'm close to a village, it's by accident," Loki said, and then eyed her. "Am I?"
"It's that way," the girl said, and pointed down the road. "Not too far."
Loki had no idea why she was being so helpful, but he wasn't complaining. He didn't want to walk any longer, especially not when it was warmer out than he liked. Summer had barely started, but he was still irritated and slightly sweaty. And his shoes seemed to have mysteriously sunk, or else pregnancy somehow affected one's feet too. If he'd seen a chair standing in the middle of the woods, he would have sat down immediately regardless of risk just to give his feet a break.
"Thanks," he muttered, striding past her - or he would have, if the girl hadn't started walking at the same time, keeping several careful paces ahead of him. Loki rolled his eyes at her childishness, but didn't speed up.
There was a longhouse near the edge of the forest, not quite inside the village; the girl darted inside the back door, tugging along the reluctant goat. Loki went past it, and was halfway down the hill that sloped down towards the village when he heard "Hold on!"
Loki turned around.
There was a woman standing in the doorway of the house, the girl peeking out from behind her.
"The sun won't be up for much longer," the woman called. "Most everyone is having náttmál about now and won't like to be interrupted."
"Except you?" Loki asked shortly. "I'm sure I'll find an inn."
"The only one here is run by Hvaegr's son," she said, "and he wouldn't let you stay without trouble." The statement was accompanied by a short glance down at Loki's stomach and the faint bump there.
"Of course," Loki muttered, and cursed Hvaegr's son under his breath. An extra difficulty was the last thing he needed today, when he'd had nowhere to stop the night before.
"Is there anyone you're looking to meet?" The woman asked.
"Why do you care?"
"I was going to invite you inside, if there wasn't," the woman said. Loki paused, and his surprise must have been evident from a distance, because the woman smiled a little. "I have enough food to spare for one more at the table."
"...Thank you," Loki said, and turned back towards the house.
The longhouse was well built; it had a tall roof and was distinctly warmer inside, and would likely have kept the heat in just as well in colder weather. The goat was in a small pen next to some cows at the far end, but Loki had seen too many human houses to be surprised by the close cohabitation. It looked like a nice place, cozy and bearing all the marks of being long occupied; but surprisingly, the woman and the girl who was presumably her daughter looked to be the only people who lived there.
There was a fire lit in the ground hearth, which was just as sturdy as the house itself; Loki could see that it was lined with stone. There was also a pot hanging over the separate máeldur ; and whatever was inside was giving off an enticing smell. Loki's stomach growled.
The table was already set up, but only set for two. The girl darted off and returned clutching a third shallow bowl, which she slid across the table towards Loki.
"My name is Alfdís, by the way," the woman said. "There's some water over there; go ahead and use it." She gestured to a small basin tucked between two tall boards like it was pretending to be a cabinet.
"My thanks." Loki took advantage of the offer (and the relatively clean water) to wash off what sweat and dirt he could without taking his clothes off.
"You look tired," Alfdís said idly, taking one of the plates to start serving out their meal. "Have you been walking long?"
"Longer than I'd like."
"I see. This is Siv, by the way," Alfdís said, gesturing at the girl. Loki gave her a sharp glance without thinking - luckily, neither of the women were looking at him.
He knew people named their children after gods, of course, but he hadn't expected to run into any such children. And the girl looked nothing like Sif, anyway, he didn't know why it had made him react like that.
...When in doubt, blame his sudden mood swings.
The food was good. Loki ate carefully; the weird morning sickness had made him wary of simply bolting down food. Siv watched him the entire time, barely even looking down at her own meal to make sure she wasn't about to spill it down her front. Alfdís appeared to notice, and seemed to decide that asking questions was the way to distract him from her daughter's unsubtle curiosity.
"Siv says you came from the north," she said, glancing at Loki. "The forest route is not the way I'd have imagined you'd came."
"I didn't want to talk to anyone," Loki admitted. He could spare that much truth; politeness was expected, and contrary to what some gods might have believed, he was capable of it. "Most everyone brings up the same thing when they see me walking alone, and I was tired of having the same conversation over again when I was already tired of walking."
"I...see," Alfdís said, and the corner of her mouth twitched like she was trying not to smile. "I can guess what I shouldn't ask, then."
"I appreciate it."
Most of the talk after that was between mother and daughter, which Loki also appreciated, because then he didn't have to watch his words. Keeping up a human disguise could be quite exhausting. He reflected that he might have to think up a backstory, out of purely self-defense.
After the meal, however, when he rose to help put the table and everything else away, Alfdís stopped him and pushed him instead towards another seat.
"We'll manage on our own," she said. "We have before."
"I would feel pointless just sitting around," Loki protested.
"Then in exchange for the meal, you can answer my questions later," Alfdís said, deceptively kindly, and went to go help Siv put the table away before Loki could argue. Grumpily, Loki sat, but part of him was somewhat glad for the excuse to rest.
The benches that lined the side of the hall were narrower than Loki was used to; he'd seen plenty of longhouses in Miðgarð, some so crowded and narrow that people slept sitting up, but here with only two people there looked to be plenty of room. He had spied an enclosed bed when he'd come in, which presumably belonged to Alfdís, and the little cluster of slightly nicer blankets must have been where Siv slept.
His initial thought that it had been well-built proved true. Barely a single wisp of smoke from the fire remained caught inside, and there was ample light despite the lack of windows. It was a very comfortable place. He'd be disappointed to leave it.
Alfdís came and sat next to him, when everything was cleared away and she'd stoked the fire up a bit. Siv had retreated to the goat's byre at the other end, probably giving it its own náttmál.
"Can I ask how far along you are?" She asked.
"You could, but I would have no answer," Loki said dryly, leaning back against the wall. Alfdís raised her eyebrows, but did not seem very surprised.
"That isn't so rare as it might seem," she said. "Could you guess, perhaps?"
"A few months?" Loki hazarded. Alfdís nodded; he must have given the answer she expected.
"I can guess why you're alone," Alfdís said, "and why you've come here when you're not here to visit anyone; if you were married, I assume you would be kept safe in someone else's house."
Loki snorted. "I have no desire to be kept safe. I've done fine on my own."
"You have been lucky," Alfdís told him sternly. "Lucky that you haven't encountered any trouble, or had to be out on your own for too long."
"I don't see-"
"What was your plan for when you grew too heavy and big to move around as you once had?" Alfdís asked. Loki swallowed the rest of his sentence and gave the ground a sour look, because it would be impolite to look at Alfdís like that after she'd offered him shelter. "There are people in this land for whom even hospitality is not enough to make them extend a hand to someone they dislike."
"But you are kind enough to offer?" Loki asked sarcastically. He could guess what Alfdís was getting at - trying to make him more grateful to her so she could ask for a large favor.
"Do you see a man around here?" Alfdís questioned, looking and sounding unimpressed. Loki was tempted to reply Give me a mirror and I'll try. "I have a child of my own, and I was lucky enough to have a house to live in and a friend to aid me with the hard parts of carrying her."
"And where's her father?" Loki asked. "Since we seem to be exchanging questions."
"Dead," Alfdís said simply. Loki froze for a moment. Apparently, he had the imagination of a fish, now, to be unable to guess why Siv's father might be absent. Alfdís saved him from having to say anything about it by inclining her head downwards and asking, "And this one's?"
"...He doesn't know."
"Why not?"
"I didn't want to marry him, for a start," Loki scoffed, and then looked away and muttered, "I never got the chance to say, either." Not that he would have, or ever would, tell Auðunar a thing about the child or its parentage.
He could guess what Alfdís would think; that his father had sent him away from home, or worse disowned him, and then banished the presumed lover before any contact could be made. Loki was hoping she would stick with her assumptions and not ask any more.
Alfdís only made a faint, thoughtful noise; and then she said, "I was going to say this first, but you're welcome to stay longer than one night."
"What?" Loki looked back at her sharply. "Why? You - you don't even know my name."
"You could tell me what it is," Alfdís suggested. "As for why - I could not in good conscience send you or your child off to an uncertain fate when there was something I could do to help."
Loki stared.
"You're offering to let me stay for months because it's the right thing to do," he said flatly.
"Is that so surprising?"
...Perhaps he should have spent more time among humans, if more of them were like this. Hospitality was one thing, but what she was offering was another. A guest could very easily overstay their welcome, but she seemed prepared to house him indefinitely. Or however long a pregnancy lasted, at least.
Humans could be so strange and varied compared to Asgard, despite the multitude of familiarities.
"No, I suppose not," Loki lied.
"Then we're agreed." Alfdís sat back, looking satisfied. "And your name?"
"Luta," Loki improvised. "Just - just Luta." He couldn't come up with some fake father's name on the spot and decently lie about it.
Alfdís nodded, believing him, and said, "I'll find an extra blanket for you; there's plenty of space for you to sleep."
And that was that. Loki was a little baffled, but he did not complain.
Life at Alfdís's was a careful balance of a guest's politeness and a family member's position. In exchange for a place to stay, Alfdís often asked Loki to help with various tasks. The problem with that was that Loki did not know how to do any of the things that a woman might generally be expected to do; Alfdís must have thought that he was a hopeless case, or else a very bad student as a child. But finding himself with no other choice, Loki became somewhat accomplished at very basic weaving and cooking, enough that Alfdís did not have to do everything she usually did, plus accommodate an extra person.
Alfdís was surprisingly patient with him about it, which only spurred Loki to try a little harder than if she'd been short-tempered and condescending. He managed at repairing clothing quite adeptly, which meant that most of it fell to him. Loki thought it was very boring work, but it took up a surprising amount of time. And socks required a more complicated pattern than he'd been aware of.
Siv did her own share of work already, as far as Loki could tell. But even with only two people (now three), there was still much to be done. Siv's domain lay with the family's livestock, and occasionally weaving, when she could be bothered to practice. Loki slotted into the overlap of chores that neither of them wanted or were used to doing. He was never quite sure what to think of that.
It was pleasanter, though, than Loki would ever admit to anyone back in Asgard. The routine could get boring and repetitive, true, but sharing it with Alfdís and Siv tended to make it somehow less so. And it was hard not to share, with little to no privacy inside the house and not much to do outside of it, except graze Alfdís's little herd of cows and the goat.
Loki had to keep a constant watch on himself, to make sure he didn't say anything odd or do anything that might hint at his true background. He wasn't sure if he had managed it; once he had remarked offhand about how he was not used to somewhere so small, and Alfdís had looked at him in surprise and said that his father must have been very well-off. Loki thought he had excused it well enough, with a stilted and modest comment about a family inheritance; but sometimes Alfdís still gave him curious, searching looks.
Summer had made itself at home in Miðgarð, which meant that Siv was often out of the house when she had time to spare, running around outside playing whatever games she could think of. Sometimes the baker's daughter or the occasional boy around her age would drift up the hill from town and play with her, or Siv would go into town and meet them when there was nothing urgent for her to do at home.
During those times, Alfdís and Loki usually covered whatever needed to be done themselves; and Loki was preparing to go outside and do just that when something moved in his stomach.
He froze immediately. Was something wrong? Had something happened? He didn't feel bad - nothing had happened out of the ordinary all day, not even since he'd realized his condition. Alfdís turned around when she realized he wasn't following her, and saw that he had one arm around his stomach.
"Oh, did the baby kick?" She asked.
"What?" Loki said blankly. " Kick?
"I figured you'd feel something soon enough," Alfdís said. "It's big enough, by the looks of things, to start moving around." She smiled wryly. "Not necessarily a good thing. When I was carrying Siv she'd spend ages kicking at my ribs. I got very sore most days."
"The miracle of life," Loki joked halfheartedly, still caught a little off-kilter. He'd been getting bigger fairly steadily, although the bump was still not that big, but the idea of the child inside him moving around and kicking had not occurred to him. He should probably start asking more questions about what exactly was going to happen to him. He generally liked knowing things before they happened.
Luckily, Alfdís was a very knowledgeable woman, having occasionally served as a midwife for friends in the town, and patient as well. Loki could go up to her with only the beginnings of a question, and she'd guess immediately at what the problem was; though at the moment, Loki's biggest problem was how often he was forced to go to the bathroom.
She was uncommonly kind to him, too. Alfdís lent him a dress that was gathered just under his breasts, to allow room for his belly, and draped farther down in front. Loki assumed it was so that, with the added baby bump, the hemline would be just about even. She also assured him that she owned several, so that he need not wear the same one for days on end.
"I cannot possibly pay you back for all this," Loki said, feeling a little awkward in the homespun wool. He felt off-kilter already from how his chest size seemed to have increased without any input from him. The dress wasn't of an unfamiliar make, but it felt distinctly looser below the waist. The simple change in where it was gathered had managed to make him feel the difference from his usual clothes more keenly.
"Don't be silly," Alfdís said, neatly folding a separate dress meant for the same purpose and laying it out, then casting Loki's dirty one onto the pile of clothes that needed washing. "I'm not using it, now am I? I should think one who has clothes to spare and doesn't lend them out when they're needed must be very selfish indeed."
Loki could not figure out what to say; whether to thank her, or or to demand what her true motives were.
Summer drew on, and it grew warmer and greener out. Siv complained sometimes of her friends not being available, but even children were needed at home to help out, including her. Loki was surprised when Siv started trying to count the days until Midsummer; he had not realized that a holiday was coming up on them so fast.
Walpurgisnacht was one he had been looking forward to, before the whole wall incident; but it had come and gone while Loki was traveling, which he did not regret. He wasn't in the mood to attend a feast celebrating Oðin and possibly attract his brother's attention at the moment. But Midsummer now was just around the corner, and there was no way he was passing up this one.
He'd always liked Midsummer; it was nicer than Yule, being generally much warmer, even though there was the vague looming threat that fall was soon coming, and winter on its heels. But there wasn't much to do on Yule besides light a bonfire and talk to the same people you'd been stuck inside with all winter. With Midsummer, the opportunities were endless.
Unless one was pregnant, but he could live with that.
Siv would have physically pulled the both of them out the door, if she had the strength to or if she'd dared to do it to Loki with Alfdís watching. Loki couldn't help but be amused by her enthusiasm. He'd have been that excited too, if he were twelve. As it was, Siv ran ahead of them as they made their way down the hill, towards the town and the light of distant bonfires that were already lit.
Music was already playing when they arrived, and a space had cleared for a few dancers. A bonfire was burning in the center, in what must have been a hurriedly-dug hearth, and people were roasting meat over smaller fires at the fringes of the field. Alfdís moved through the crowd easily and deposited Loki on a small bench in a crowd of unfamiliar women who nevertheless seemed to recognize Alfdís easily. She introduced Loki as 'Luta', and promised to return shortly before going to find Siv.
Loki was glad to sit down, but he wished he wasn't with a group of strangers. He felt unusually nervous. In a borrowed dress and with his hair loose (normal for his circumstances and his disguise, but unusual for him), he felt more like a liar than usual. And the women all looked curious; he wasn't sure how quickly he could develop a believable backstory
But surprisingly, all they asked was how far along he was and if he'd thought of a name, and when Loki said he hadn't he sparked a long conversation about names and children which drifted onto the subject of long-gone ancestors and what strange kennings they'd earned in life. He barely had to participate. Loki supposed that he was lucky that, by whatever chance, just being pregnant meant it was all anyone ever wanted to talk about with him.
Alfdís reappeared after not too long, with the news that there would be food set up soon. The group of women received her warmly, and by proxy warmed up a bit to Loki, too. Loki gleaned a couple names as Alfdís greeted them; Guðný was the one who had first talked to Loki; the one with black hair and a bit of an Eastern look was Mœid, accompanied by her married daughter Signy; and Vigdis was Siv's godmother. Loki recognized the name when she asked how Siv was doing; Alfdís had mentioned her once before.
"You're too quiet," Guðný told Loki, turning to him out of the blue. "What's the point if you don't have a husband? Don't just sit around like you've been turned to stone!" She seemed to delight in trying to provoke Loki to speak, and continued to pester him to contribute to the conversation. Loki found himself equal parts entertained and annoyed by it.
The more he spoke, however, the more he learned about the others. A passing comment about Siv's exuberance made Guðný laugh and Signy sigh wistfully over the absentmindedness of her own daughter, Katla, who was nearing fifteen and yet still could tangle a weaving project beyond salvation. Guðný admired Loki's hair, and he admitted that he wished he had the time to do it up a little. He was used to braiding it, when not in disguise, but that wouldn't suit an unmarried woman. That prompted Mœid to talk for a little while about the elaborate ways her mother had done her own hair, back in the country to the East where she was originally from.
"And where are you from?" Guðný asked Loki, with more than a little interest. "And don't say up on the hill; I mean where did you come to this town from?"
"Oh, the north," Loki said vaguely. Asgard was about as far 'north' as one could go on Yggdrasil.
"What, like Hålogaland?"
"Near there," Loki improvised. "It's very isolated; I doubt you'll have heard of it."
"It can't be as far away as Mœid's mother's home," Vigdis remarked, and Mœid smiled slightly and said she doubted that anyone could come from farther.
Two long tables were set up soon after, when the sun was still almost a handswidth above the horizon, and the food that had been cooking was brought out. Loki chose the seat that required him to move as little as possible, and ended up sandwiched between the cheerful bundle of Alfdís and Guðný, with Siv on the former's side and all the other women laughing on latter's. Guðný continued to chatter to him; Loki found he enjoyed the conversation. She was a humorous woman, and pretty too.
"Your hair really is so nice," Guðný sighed for the second time, casting an appreciative glance at him.
"You could try bleaching yours," Loki suggested.
"Oh, that would only make it blonde, not red. That kind of color can't be imitated, except maybe by magic."
"Perhaps if a völva came by, you could ask her for a favor."
Guðný laughed. After a tiny moment of hesitation, Loki did too. He hadn't meant it as a joke. Perhaps traveling völva, or even regular witches, were not so common this far south.
"Besides, you can braid yours," Loki added when they'd both subsided, gesturing at Guðný's braided crown, and the long tail of brown that hung down her back. "It keeps it out of your face and looks beautiful."
"Oh, thank you." Guðný ran a hand over her hair absentmindedly, smiling. Loki was used to women blushing when he complimented them, but normally it was also accompanied by a look like they were not sure what he wanted out of it, or a vaguely scandalized expression. Also, he was usually in the shape of a man and not obviously pregnant when he did so. "I'm sure yours would look lovely, too."
Loki was sure Guðný was about to offer to braid his, no matter how improper it might be; but Mœid distracted her with a question, and Guðný lost track of where their talk had gone.
The food was as good as the company, and so Loki had gotten very comfortable when someone stood up and cried, "A toast to the gods! For a long summer and a good harvest later!"
It was echoed up and down the table; but Loki did not repeat it, and only pretended to drink, and did not notice Alfdís's curious look towards him. In between the two tables, the bonfire blazed high, sparks flying up and away from it and growing more easily visible as it got slowly darker and darker out.
Siv started drooping a little by the time the sun went down, but it was an hour or two more before Alfdís finally left the fireside (and the company) to take Siv back home. Loki, of course, followed them.
It was something of a relief to lie down. Loki's back hurt, as always, from the weight he was carrying; but even sitting down relieved some of the pressure. He wished he had something hot to put under his back, but that was a little unrealistic. He closed his eyes instead and listened to the rustle of Siv shifting around and Alfdís taking the time to wash her face off before she retreated to bed herself. They'd put the fire out before leaving, but Siv had paused to throw a few logs on and stoke it a little before retreating to bed, to keep them warm.
The longhouse smelled like smoke, and a little like the bread from that morning. Loki hadn't realized how familiar that smell had become until he had to consciously try to pick out what it was.
"I had fun," Siv said drowsily, from the other side of the house. "We should do that more."
"Wait until the harvest," Alfdís murmured, skirt swishing as she walked past. Loki smiled to himself, and for once didn't have any trouble drifting off to sleep.
Of course, he also got jerked awake in the middle of the night for no reason, because the Norns couldn't give him a break.
Loki stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out why he was awake. Then the baby kicked again, and things suddenly made more sense.
Loki huffed and patted his bump. Not even born yet, and the kid was already keeping him up. Where could these troublemaking instincts ever have come from.
Loki was feeling less kindly towards the kicking when morning came and he hadn't managed to fall back asleep. And of course with morning came Alfdís and Siv walking around and setting up breakfast and everything else that had to be done, so there was no chance after that. Loki resigned himself to being awake and sat up.
"Good morning," Alfdís said in passing, and Siv grinned at him as she darted towards the other end of the house, and Loki wondered at how his presence here had come to be taken for granted.
In the later days of summer, Alfdís often sat down with Loki while she wove. Loki had not paid much attention to her multitasking, until he got handed the first finished square of cloth and Alfdís started instructing him on how to make a shirt.
"When will I need to know how to do this?" Loki scoffed.
"If you want your child to have any, you'd better," Alfdís replied, unimpressed. "Unless you think babies come out of the womb wearing a complete outfit."
Loki flushed, and took the needle from her. It took him several tries to thread it.
He ended up with a lot of work along those lines, and it kept him busy. The baby would sometimes kick when he was in the middle of it, and one memorable time it had made Loki startle and nearly stab himself with a needle. Alfdís graciously pretended she hadn't noticed, but she had snorted and then covered her mouth.
Clothing was complicated, especially at a reduced scale. There was far more cutting and sewing back together than Loki had expected. Luckily, his earlier attempts at sewing had made him a little more adept at such things, and he ended up with baby-size clothing that looked fairly good.
"It'll do," Alfdís said, surveying the results. "He needs to be warm, not look nice."
"Thank y - wait, he? " Loki repeated, stunned.
"You're carrying low," Alfdís replied, surveying his belly critically. "It's probably a boy. Didn't I say that?"
"No." Loki curled a hand around his belly. A boy. A son. Not bad for a first attempt.
"Well," Alfdís said, with a faint smile, "unless you want your son to have nothing but underthings and a shirt, there's more to be done."
"There always is," Loki huffed. "Well, then, teach me how to do that spiral stitch. I may as well learn it now, since you'll probably have me use it eventually."
Alfdís smiled, and acquiesced. The fire burned lower while the two of them spent the evening with their heads pressed together over cloth and stitches and the slow process of creation.
By the end of summer the days had grown shorter, and Loki's list of chores and contributions to the house had dwindled as much as his stomach had grown. It was good timing, but only for him. The harvest season approaching meant lots of things to prepare; things like figuring out how much of their livestock they could afford to keep through the winter, preparing stores, or sending Siv out with Kætil's son from the village to go gather firewood to last them through the first few months, at least.
Loki was excused from most of these chores, given his condition, but he didn't particularly enjoy it. He was used to helping, for one, and being sent to the sidelines made him feel useless; that, and his back constantly hurt now from the weight of his belly. He hadn't imagined that a child who wasn't even born yet could be so heavy.
And he did not like what was coming. Winter was long, and difficult, and generally much worse for humans than it was for the gods. Loki was not looking forward to it, especially seeing as the last winter had gone so badly. Hopefully this time there wouldn't be any more giants offering deals. Then again, the lack of giants was replaced by the specter of whatever might normally happen on Miðgarð that he wouldn't be expected. Loki hated being caught unprepared and undefended, and at the moment he was both of those in the worst possible way.
There was a harvest festival that consisted of mostly drinking (presumably everyone needed to be drunk to deal with the coming winter) and putting away all the crops they'd harvested. It was meant to a sort of last hurrah before the cold and snow, but Loki couldn't enjoy it much, given that he was prone to getting more easily exhausted and couldn't even drink without getting nauseous, which was really just unfair. Summer had been entirely too short, in his opinion.
Alfdís was probably more patient with him than he deserved. Loki had never liked being limited by anything, much less his own body, but there were some things he had to accept he was physically no longer capable of. Like bending over. Or carrying heavy things. He could if he wanted to, possibly, but Alfdís had pointed out that if he fell, it was no longer something to simply be brushed off. And that would only take a single misstep.
It made him feel very odd, and limited, in a way that Loki did not like in the least.
Over the little basin of clean water that Alfdís kept for quick washing-up, there was a somewhat scratched and cloudy mirror. Loki couldn't lean very close to it, but it was large enough that he could see himself fairly well.
He had not felt the same in a while; the reason was probably obvious, but Loki had been seized with the sudden urge to check and see how much of him was still the same. He still looked mostly the same. The same hair and face, give or take a few times that had been an exception, were those he was used to seeing. But it was subtly...off.
His beard was gone, and had been ever since the end of the last winter. His hair was so loosely tied back that it might as well have been left undone. His face was much the same as it always was, but the details were different; and Loki knew from experience that the details were sometimes the most important part of any lie or disguise.
Details such as scars, for example.
He didn't have to keep them. He'd never had to. But Loki had been making a passive-aggressive point to the rest of the gods as obviously as he could, so he'd kept them even if he was fully capable of shapeshifting them away. He'd vanished them so as to not give himself away to Auðunar, and now his mouth looked strange without the paler, crisscrossing marks.
Loki rubbed his hand over his mouth pensively, and let the scars draw themselves back into place. It was an improvement, at least. The mirror didn't show anything below his neck, which meant that his reflection was a damn sight more familiar than it might have been.
Loki wasn't regretting deciding to go through with this, but he wished the baby would hurry up and come out so he could go back to normal.
The faint sound of the door opening made Loki turn sharply to look. He immediately realized why that was a bad idea and quickly put his back to the door, but Alfdís had stopped dead in her tracks. Had she noticed?
"Luta?" Alfdís asked uncertainly.
"Sorry," Loki said, exaggerating his own nervousness so that it was easily audible. "I just...got a bit anxious. It's nothing." He rubbed his hand over his face again, erasing the scars back into unmarked skin.
"...If you say so." Alfdís walked past, pausing to him a searching glance; Loki returned it, and then looked away 'shyly', putting one hand on his stomach to complete the impression he was trying to give. "You would say if you thought something had gone wrong?"
"Of course," Loki said, a little startled. Could things go wrong when he was this far along? It probably happened to humans, of course, but he'd never heard of anything like that happening in Asgard.
Alfdís nodded, but her gaze lingered on him uncertainly before she moved on.
Loki hoped that his long presence here, coupled with a lack of anything strange happening, would prevent any kind of suspicion from arising.
Time for academia, sort of!
So, I've attempted to recreate the average Viking life (and clothing, for the drawings) as accurately as possible, but due to the course of history and things being lost complete accuracy is out of my reach. But with that in mind, here's some explanation for stuff that happened!
Auðunar, first off, is not a real god. I don't know if there is an official horsemaster of the Æsir - if there was, his name hasn't survived in modern myths. I got Auðunar's name off a Viking name generator ( is GREAT).
Speaking of his name, some linguistics too! 'Ð/ð' is a letter called 'eth' which existed in both Old Norse and Old English, but fell out of use and is now very dated. It's often anglicized as a 'd' - for example, Oðin is generally written as Odin. This is because most people don't want to be confusing - even I have left Asgarð as Asgard, because people already know the name and a different letter all of the sudden would be weird. Also, it's even weirder when spoken - ð is pronounced as a voiced/hard 'th', like in 'the' or 'throw'.
Freya's vanished husband - Oð IS a real god, he just never shows up anywhere. Also Freya doesn't really act like she's married, and it never comes up; but these myths were written in Ye Olde Times, and Ye Olde Authors didn't see the point of putting a woman in the story unless she could be sexually available to the other gods, I guess. There's record of Oð, but the general consensus is a) we're missing myths (probable), b) he's a fictional husband, or c) Oð is another name for Oðin.
As far as the myth itself goes, everything up until Loki sleeping with Auðunar is completely accurate - I've just put my own spin on in. In the original, Loki transforms himself into a mare and uses HIMSELF to lure Svaðilfari away - I'll let you guess where Slepnir came from.
In regards to Viking life, again, it's as accurate as I could make it. Longhouses were, well, long houses, typically with rows of benches along each wall and a central aisle where things like the hearth fire were. People slept on the benches, and the master of the house might have his own enclosed bed with a real mattress, stuffed with straw. If you were VERY rich, you might buy nice English sheets and blankets. There was not a lot of privacy in longhouses. This is a good source if you'd like to find out more on your own. They also have good articles about clothing, etc.
Hospitality and cleanliness were two very important things in the Viking age. Hospitality is kind of a given, when leaving someone out without a place to stay for the night would mean they'd probably freeze to death, so Alfdís's initial invitation to Loki is not at all strange for the time and place. Alfdís inviting him to wash his face is also normal - it's like washing your hands before you eat. Vikings were very meticulous about personal grooming; they were also distinctly cleaner than the rest of medieval Europe.
Siv and Sif are very similar names; Sif, if you don't know, is a minor grain goddess who is married to Thor (not at all like her Marvel comics counterpart). In Old Norse, if an 'f' was not the first letter of a word, it would have been pronounced like a 'v', so the spelling is really the only difference between these two names.
The hearth fire, too, was kept separate from the máeldur, which was for cooking meals. I don't know why, it just was. It was also traditional (in Scandinavia and literally every ancient to medieval civilization basically) to keep animals in the house with the people. Either they'd be at one end, or they had the first floor and the second floor was for people. If you didn't have animals in your house, it was because you were rich enough to pay someone else to take care of them for you.
As for references to 'putting the table away', there is a theory that Vikings would have had folding tables of a sort, because it's impractical to always have a table blocking the central aisle of your home where literally everything except sleeping is done. There was a lot of storage space up in the rafters of the house (dried food was kept up there during the winter), so there's a precedent.