Title: The End
Summary: The Last Great War is won, and Asgard is finally at peace. It is in this unique era of happiness, freedom and opportunity that Thor, Loki, Sif, and the Warriors Three grow up, bound by friendship and family. A collection of important moments in their lives, pre-Thor to post-Avengers.
Warnings: None! So far, at least. If there are any in later chapters, I'll put them there. However, there WILL be pairings – none of them particularly serious or long term – because that is part of life! But they will only be in a few chapters, and not for a while yet. That's the only thing I can think of that people might want to be warned about.
Author's Note: This first chapter focuses mainly on Fandral's mother, although she will probably only appear in passing in later chapters. I think that the fact the characters all grow up post-war is very significant, and it needed to be properly introduced in the first chapter.
The next chapter will involve Thor and Fandral accidentally committing arson, and the third chapter will introduce Volstagg. Both will be significantly more light-hearted than this one!
The war was over.
Drifa laughed. At first she didn't believe Ulfrik, which was fair enough, really, since he often came to her door with blatant untruths. The widower had grown bored in his old age and took great delight in toying with the minds of his neighbours, and this, of all lies, would cause quite a lot of outrage. However, when she couldn't spot the least hint of deviousness in his gleeful expression, and when she noticed her other neighbours spilling onto the streets in jubilation, she was almost inclined to believe him. Almost. She laughed a little louder.
"You don't believe me!" Ulfrik huffed, throwing his hands in the air in mock frustration. "Just take your children and follow me, girl. There's a crowd gathering in the central plaza – if there's enough of us, the Allfather is bound to make a speech."
"The Allfather?" Drifa was sceptical. "He's in Jotunheim."
"No!" bellowed the old man.
Drifa felt a tug at her skirt and, without looking away from her neighbour, she bent down and swept her son into her arms. She was mildly surprised at his appearance. It was late – it had been dark for well over an hour – and last time she'd seen him he had been asleep in the front room. She supposed Ulfrik had woken him.
"Fandral," she said, smiling into his chubby face and directing his huge blue eyes towards the man at the door. "Say hello to crazy Mister Vekelson."
"Hello crazy Mister," the boy mumbled.
Ulfrik was too excited to be irritated by this form of address.
"Greetings, little Fandral! Well, Drifa, you can miss one of the greatest moments in Asgard's history remaining here if you wish, but I shall not be so foolish."
Ulfrik turned and half limped, half skipped down the street, heading the same way as her other excited neighbours – towards the central plaza. Perhaps he was right, thought Drifa, and a hint of giddiness seeped into her bones. If the war were truly over, Karli would return. Karli would return! All her fears of bringing up Fandral and his sisters alone would never come to pass.
"Ingrid!" Drifa called, retreating back into her house but not closing the door. "Ingrid, bring your sister and come downstairs!"
A few moments later a curly blonde head appeared at the top of the stairs. "Mother? Are we going somewhere?"
"Yes. The central plaza."
"Urgh! But I haven't washed my hair! It's all greasy and horrible."
"It's dark – no one will see you."
With an irritated sigh, the blonde head disappeared. A moment later it reappeared, followed, this time, by a slim child's body with a baby in its arms. Ingrid carried little Svala down the stairs a tad less carefully than Drifa would have wanted, so as soon as she was within reach, Drifa planted Fandral firmly down on his feet and reached for her youngest daughter.
"What's going on, Mother?" the eldest child asked.
"Maybe nothing." Drifa turned back to the door, now seeing people she did not recognise pouring through the streets. Clearly the word had spread and it wasn't just her street that knew. Ulfrik couldn't have told all these people, could he?
Taking Ingrid's hand in hers and instructing her to hold tightly onto Fandral's, Drifa led her children through the streets of Asgard. She followed the crowd making its way towards the plaza, the route lit by a parade of floating torches. Each street they passed through thickened the flow of Asgardians heading towards the palace district, the chatter growing continually louder and more animated. As they traversed a bridge, Drifa cast her eyes down the canal and saw that each bridge held the same heaving, glowing, laughing crowd as theirs. Was this real? She tuned in to the many voices surrounding her and heard snippets of all sorts of madness.
…The Allfather has returned!
…They say he smashed Laufey's skull….
…heard he lost an arm or….
…has been hiding a baby! There is a second prince!
…a treaty – then we can think about peace…
Drifa stopped listening. It was too much and too confusing. Besides, it was probably just rumour and she'd find out what really happened eventually.
A few streets later, the mighty golden spires of the palace came into view, boldly piercing the night sky. As they drew nearer, Drifa could see what looked like flames dancing across the lower parts of the spires, just visible over the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. Confusion clouded her mind momentarily, but she cast it aside. If it were truly burning, there would have been screaming.
It wasn't until they had reached the clearing of the plaza that she realised what this flame-like effect was. Normally almost empty, the plaza enclosed a vast sea of bodies, into which more poured from every entry. She gaped at the undulating mass, disbelieving. As her eyes swept the across the scene, she realised that it was the light from the many floating torches that lit the palace. It seemed to blaze with victory, standing immovable and unshakable. Drifa, at the edge of the plaza, had a perfect view – she could see the extent of the gathered population stretching to the very edges of her vision, and she could see the palace, proud and shining with glory. It was not a scene she would soon forget.
Ingrid pulled at her arm.
"Mother, we should find a better spot. People are trying to walk here."
"Oh! Yes, of course."
Drifa and her children found a place to stand relatively close to the palace, but still at the edge of the crowd - with a boy as young as Fandral and a baby as young as Svala, they could hardly venture down into its depths. More and more people poured in as time went by, and Drifa wondered how many could before the plaza reached its maximum capacity. Already there were citizens climbing onto nearby rooftops for a better view. Was the whole city here? However, although the plaza was full, the steps up to the palace and the gleaming golden walkway leading to its doors were empty. She supposed that no matter how little space there was, no one was about to show disrespect for the Allfather tonight, of all nights.
Suddenly, the golden palace doors were thrown open, and a roar erupted from the crowd. Drifa found herself joining in involuntarily. It wasn't as that she had any objection to cheering; she simply wasn't aware that she was doing it.
A group of Crimson Hawks – Odin's personal guards – marched through the doors first, splitting up to line the walkway and the steps down to the crowd. As they moved, an invisible wave spread through the floating torches and they arranged themselves into a far less chaotic arrangement: one above each of the uniformed men and the rest evenly distributed above the plaza. Drifa watched this magic with interest, wondering who had actually enchanted those torches, since the hundreds of them were all perfectly identical, when an even more deafening cheer interrupted her thoughts. Her head snapped back to the palace.
The Allfather himself had stepped through the doors and was striding forwards down the walkway, his golden armour shimmering with brilliance and Gungnir held firmly in his grasp. She was taken aback when she noticed the patch covering one of his eyes, and a murmuring could be distinguished beneath the cheering of the throng. Heimdall, the Watcher, walked behind him on the left, similarly clad in heavy battle armour, and Frigga walked on the right, one of her arms holding little Thor's hand and the other cradling a tiny bundle of green fabric. Drifa squinted at the bundle – she had heard people whispering about a baby on the way here, and it certainly did look like one. The contrast between the green of the blankets and the blue of the Queen's dress was common symbolism among the Aesir to communicate that the child was a boy. The rumours, it would appear, were true!
The Allfather stopped a short distance away from the steps down to the plaza and stood still for a moment, sweeping his eyes across his gathered subjects and allowing Frigga and Heimdall some time to find their positions behind him. The cheering had not even begun to die down when Odin struck Gungnir against the walkway, but by the third strike the plaza was completely silent. The torches swayed overhead in the wind and a bird screeched across the sky, alighting on the edge of the open palace door.
"People of Asgard," the Allfather's booming voice addressed the crowd, amplified by magic and seeming to emanate not from his form, but from the ground, the air, and the surrounding buildings. The voice was not that of a man, but that of the land itself – the voice of a king. "For centuries we have maintained a bitter rivalry with the Frost Giants of Jotunheim. Often this rivalry has descended into open conflict, and sometimes this conflict has culminated in the violent throws of war. For the last half century, we have been engaged in the most intense of all our wars with Jotunheim; but it was to be our last great war."
He paused here, letting his words sink in. Nothing he said was new apart from the mention of this war being the last, and a soft whispering spread briefly across the plaza.
"Recently, as you are all aware, our victories have been numerous. Our armies drove the Jötunns out of Midgard and Vanaheim, and forced them back to their own realm. We followed them into the cold wastes of Jotunheim with the aim of forcing a complete surrender. That was two years ago, and since then we have lost countless men and struggled against the harshest conditions and strongest fighters that Jotunheim has to offer. It has been perhaps the most exhausting and tragic of all Asgard's wars – perhaps of all wars within the nine realms."
There was a murmur of general agreement and Drifa found herself nodding absently. When Karli had returned to Asgard a year and a half ago he had described to her the devastation he had witnessed. The battlefields littered with bodies, the empty, burning villages, the screaming children and the starving peasants. Normally wars were between opposing armies, not between warriors and innocent families. This was something more than war.
"You have been gathered here through word of mouth, through whispers of victory and promises of peace. I stand here before you, speaking as your king and as your father, to announce that the war with Jotunheim has been won."
The crowd erupted.
The next day there was a memorial service. There had been many since the start of the war – every so often there would be a public reading of the names of the dead followed by a short speech about how they would take their places in the halls of Valhalla. To end the ceremony there was the symbolic release of an enchanted lamp, whcih would hover over the city with the names of the dead carved into its luminescent surface. One name would vanish each day until it was completely smooth, lost its glow and disappeared.
These memorials were always held in the central plaza, and although the speaker varied from time to time, they were usually led by the Queen. After every ceremony, Frigga would host a wake of sorts in the palace gardens in which the families of those who had died were invited to mourn and to attempt to find some comfort in one another.
Thankfully, Drifa had never attended one of these wakes. Her father was too old to go to war and her brother had been injured very early on, losing a leg from the knee down, and was unable to continue fighting. The two of them had been asked to join the group of warriors remaining in Asgard for defensive purposes and, while they both would have preferred fighting on the front lines, they recognised the importance of their more reserved role. Drifa was merely thankful that their chances of survival had been so dramatically increased. Her husband, Karli, on the other hand, had been away for decades. He came back occasionally, as the warriors did when able. The last time he had been injured and returned briefly to Asgard for healing – that was when Svala had been conceived.
She had attended every one of the memorial services that had occurred while Karli was away. It was the quickest way to hear whether he was still alive – the lists of names were called here first before they were released to the public. Each time she had stood and listened with bated breath until the last name was called and then sighed with a depth of relief that only increased as the years went by. She had witnessed so many breakdowns, heard so many screams filled with shock, anguish and denial. She had seen so many mothers, wives, sisters and grandparents falling to their knees and so many children in a confused panic at their guardians' strange behaviour. Openly, she grieved with them out of compassion. Secretly, the sight of them made her thankful that the pain was theirs instead of hers.
Today, though, when she attended the ceremony – the last ceremony – she was not so lucky. Her knees buckled and she screamed and cried the same way that so many others had when the name they so desperately prayed not to hear was read out.
Karli was dead. Her Karli was dead.
She wasn't going to attend the wake – it was too much too soon and the pain she felt was still too raw – but she ended up going anyway. It wasn't the same day as the memorial, like it usually was. The Queen was busy with an even larger memorial service, in which the names of all who had died since the start of the war would be read out, and some sort of symbolic something would be released and there would be lots of crying and sadness, but gladness, too, that no more names would be added to the lists.
Karli had died in the final battle. He had been so close – so close – to coming home. Drifa couldn't stand it.
Her mother had come to the house to take care of her and the children. The small part of her that could feel something other than pain was glad that no matter what happened or who died, her mother would always be there. She didn't need to bring up her children alone, even with their father gone.
The wake she eventually attended was several weeks after the memorial. Apparently that was quite normal, since it took everyone some time to overcome the initial shock and pain enough to seek solace in strangers, which is why Frigga had continued the wakes for so long after the end of the war. Drifa's neighbour, Asta, had also lost her husband and had been building up the courage to attend a wake for several weeks. When she saw the pain that Drifa was going through, it seemed to give her the strength she needed. The two women took their children and set off together, finding comfort in their togetherness.
Ingrid didn't accompany them. She was old enough to understand what had happened, unlike her siblings, and was far too upset. At any other time, Drifa would never have left Ingrid's side in such a state, but her own grief blocked all concern for others and all the compassion she normally possessed. Her mother was there, at any rate, to look after the girl.
The wake was strange.
Drifa had never been so deep into the palace gardens before. She had visited the public areas, of course, as everyone in Asgard had. They were full of winding paths, sheltered pagodas, exotic flowers, bubbling fountains and silent ponds – quite the most beautiful place in the realm, and lovely to visit. There was a calmness that came with such controlled beauty, which, she had often thought, must be why Frigga held her wakes here. But deeper into the gardens, in the private, royal grounds where she now stood, this feeling was greatly amplified.
Here lay the more rare, delicate plants that would probably not survive in full public view. Plants from every realm, some Drifa swore she thought were extinct, lined the stone paths in bushes and gorgeous arrangements. The ponds here hummed with life and magic, and birds chirped and sang the most exquisite, soulful melodies. The whole garden swam in an enchanted haze, and Drifa wondered whether the spells had been cast for the protection of the surroundings or specifically for the benefit of the wakes' guests. Either way, Drifa could hardly remember feeling so tranquil, despite her still very conspicuous pain.
The wake was primarily positioned in a small clearing where a gazebo stood, opening out onto a sunlit patio. Tall tables were arranged across the patio where women – and a few men, mostly elderly – stood with glasses of juice and water. On each table sat a small tray of snacks, mostly of the sweet variety, that were available for anyone to take. It was a small affair, perhaps because it was one of the last, and Drifa felt vaguely relieved. She had hated the idea of being in a crowd again.
Approaching the patio, she and Asta encouraged their older children to go and play with the others in the gardens – she could see the little heads of scurrying children and hear their quiet laughter as they played. Fandral skipped away with Asta's two daughters in the direction of the other children. Drifa didn't know whether Fandral was grieving his father's loss. She hadn't bothered to check.
The two ladies poured themselves each a cup of a pink-coloured juice (probably Kettafruit) and found a table by which to stand. Neither said a word until the Queen addressed them.
She had been talking to an elderly man when the women had arrived and seemed to be making her way to each guest in turn, conversing with them for a while before moving on to the next. She was dressed in pale pink today and carried her baby in a blue blanket. Drifa wondered momentarily why she had brought her child before remembering Svala in her own arms, wrapped in blue to match her mother, the Aesir symbol to indicate a girl. It seemed that the Queen, in encouraging others to bring their children, had followed her own advice.
"Good afternoon," the queen smiled, her voice calm and soothing.
Drifa nodded and Asta replied with her own "good afternoon."
At that moment, one of Asta's girls came running back across the patio and pulled her mother's skirt.
"Mama! Mama! I found the prettiest flower in the world! Please come look with me."
Asta flushed and apologised to the Queen, but the other woman laughed gently. "Your daughter needs you; do not let me stand in the way."
Asta followed her child, leaving Drifa alone with Frigga. There was silence for some time – Drifa had no interest in speaking, particularly as she fully expected the Queen to ask about Karli. In the end, what Frigga chose to talk about caught Drifa unawares, despite it being the perhaps most obvious of topics.
"Your daughter," Frigga leaned forward ever so slightly to get a better view of the baby's face. "What is her name?"
Drifa looked up and stared for a moment, then, remembering herself, glanced at her child. "Svala. She was born six months ago."
Frigga's smile widened. "She's beautiful."
Drifa felt a touch of pride – perhaps the first thing she'd felt that wasn't pain since the memorial. Perhaps it was the serenity the Queen seemed to emanate that made her feel safe and comfortable. Mixed with the enchantments of the gardens, it was quite powerful. Perhaps that was why she continued the conversation.
"And your son? What is his name?"
"Loki. He is three months old." The Queen was glowing as she continued: "as a girl I always imagined that one day I would have two sons. Perhaps it was a vision and I was too young to realise."
"That's a sweet name. Much less threatening than 'Thor'," Drifa said, hoping the Queen wouldn't take that the wrong way.
She didn't. "Yes, well – Odin wanted the eldest child to have a strong name, since he would be the heir. We agreed that I could choose the name of our second child."
It crossed Drifa's mind that the throne was rather a heavy responsibility for a child to have looming in his future. Then again, perhaps by getting him used to the idea, Thor would have no problem when he grew older. She wondered whether his brother would grow up happy to be free from the pressure or maddeningly jealous of it.
"Do you have other children?" Frigga asked.
"Yes – a boy and another girl. Their names are Fandral and Ingrid."
"Are they here?"
"Fandral is. He is in his second century."
"As is Thor."
There was a pause. Frigga stared blankly at the air beside Drifa's head for a few moments, as if watching something behind her eyes. She soon turned back to Drifa and smiled.
"I wonder if they will be friends."
Drifa wondered what Frigga had seen. A vision, perhaps?
Suddenly she felt a hand on her upper arm and her eyes locked with the Queen. Her face was no longer a picture of respectfulness and peaceful mourning. It was the face of someone who knew too much – had seen too much – and her words needed to be heard.
"These babies we hold are the children of war," she said, her voice heavy. "They were born into blood and death. Their earliest memories, perhaps, will be of tragedy, pain and loss."
Drifa shivered, though she wasn't cold. Frigga's expression softened almost imperceptibly.
"That may be the past, but that is not the future we want for them. Wars follow wars; that has always been the way. The roots of Yggdrasil have been fed with blood for millennia. We must break the cycle. We must make this the end so that our children can begin."
The woman stared deeply into Drifa's eyes before releasing her arm and bidding her farewell. She didn't bother to look where the Queen went next.
Gazing down at Svala, she wondered why Frigga had given that speech. There had been a glint in her eyes that Drifa found impossible to interpret, and it puzzled her. Had she not been so confused, perhaps she would have the sense to be afraid. Even so, throughout the wake, on the way home, all through the night and over the coming months – years, even – part of what had been said stayed with her, echoing in her mind.
We must make this the end, so that our children can begin.
Author's Note: In case you were wondering, 'kettafruit' is something I made up because I figured orange juice isn't terribly Asgardian. 'Ketta', I discovered using that wonderful resource known as Google, is a word the Vikings used for a female cat. I'm not sure why I wanted to call it 'femalecatfruit', but hey! There are some very strange names for fruit in the world, so why not?
The next chapter will involve an accidental act of arson (ooooh, alliteration!) committed by a very young Thor and Fandral. Please do read it when it's posted!
Thank you for reading :)