A year before, her family had died, along with so many others of the Aesir. Malekith had devastated more than just the royal family. She was numb to the politics of Asgard, tired of trying to pretend she cared about a king who could not defend his city. She no longer felt any reverence for him. She sought an audience with him on the anniversary of the attack and, wearing the finery she wore to see her husband and sons to the next world, she told the king exactly what she felt about him. She did not like the way he looked at her.
A week later he showed up at her door in the middle of the night and asked for her body. She gave it, indifferent. He was just another man who would ask for something in exchange for protection for the "poor widows of that terrible day". She liked the fact that she had something to hold against the king she reviled, a bargaining chip she could hold onto when she needed it.
This continued for a year before he started to propose different rendezvous places and she declined. He threatened to expose her as a whore. She reminded him that if he publicly identified her as a whore, she would simply respond by asking just how he would know she was most certainly a whore unless he was a regular guest in her bed. He grinned, liking that she would play the same game.
This went on for years. Then Thor returned and announced to the realm that Jane was dead, he was ready to take the throne. His father said no in a move that was so very un-Odin-like. Little by little, other things began to surface that were very much un-Odin-like. Mannerisms. Reactions to very specific events or people. Small things that started as rumours but made their way quickly through a kingdom that had long awaited the return of its prince.
Then Freyja arrived, escorted by her elite soldiers, a show of elegance and strength from Vanaheim ready to support whomever was rightfully the king of the Aesir. She was received by Odin in grandeur, but retreated after her welcome feast to private quarters. The next day she revealed that she would put this king to the test, and any other kings who would challenge him. No one knew why Freyja had the right to do such a thing, but about a week later, she brought another man up from the depths of the palace. Haggard, ancient, unkempt, she claimed that this one-eyed battle-scarred warrior was the true Odin.
The Odin-on-the-throne scoffed at the thought, but amiably agreed to Freyja's challenge, certain that he could win it and disprove her theory about the old man she had unearthed. Her first challenge was private- conversations held behind closed doors that she alone was privy to. Once she had spoken to each man, she put them both on a public balcony and questioned them.
At first, her questions were aimed only at Odin-on-the-throne. She asked questions of history and politics, things broad enough that most members of the royal family would know the answers. Then she began asking more specific questions about Asgard's ties to Vanaheim. The first question, Odin-on-the-throne answered well, granting that the victory in the battle she referred to was purely the feat of Vanaheim's soldiers. The second question, he said the same, glorifying her people. Freyja answered differently, reminding everyone that the victory would not have been had without Asgard's forces. He replied by saying that while Vanaheim may remember its history that way, Asgard recorded it differently. She only somewhat accepted his answer, the look on her face clearly indicating that she had other tests and he had only narrowly passed this one, but only on a technicality. She chose her next question carefully, asking about a conversation she and Odin had many years before, prior to his marriage to Frigga, prior to the birth of the prince of Asgard. Odin-on-the-throne brushed the question aside, saying he could not recall that far back, that one conversation in a lifetime of thousands could not be so easily remembered.
She turned to the other man, the man Odin-on-the-throne had laughed at. He knew. He knew the little details, he knew names. He described the room. He described the ways she had moved and spoken, what she wore.
Freyja hailed him as the true Odin. Odin-on-the-throne tried to slink out of sight, but with a look from Freyja, garrisons of guards both of Asgard and Vanaheim surrounding the balcony both inside and below, he had nowhere to go. With a flick of her wrist, Freyja froze him in place and dropped the illusion revealing Loki, disheveled and worn, standing in his place. He smiled, offered no excuse, and was carted off by the guards.
The widow did not ask what happened to him immediately. Things he had done, the grin when he realised that she would and could play the same blackmail game, little tells in bed, these things all suddenly made sense. It wasn't that he was a changed king, it was that he was a different king.
Thor took the throne with the blessing of his father and began rebuilding Asgard, forging new alliances, and securing the realm in new ways, ancient gateways to other realms either sealed off or heavily patrolled.
As Asgard settled into this new normal, this age of prosperity and security, she wondered what had happened to Loki. She sought an audience with the new king and asked. He told her she was free to visit the dungeons under escort if she wanted to know what had happened to the imposter.
She did. She stood in front of the cell and stared at the bleeding, bruised, broken mass of a person that lay trembling in the middle of the cell floor. She did not speak, but stared. She did not know if he recognised her. She had very little pity for him. As she left, he croaked her name and she turned back to see him reaching out for her, some desperate hope in him that she would return. She did not.
A few days later, after Thor had assured the realm that all passages to other lands were sealed or guarded, Loki was dragged from his cell and executed in broad daylight. The widow was in the front row. She knew he saw her. She knew he died from a single blow from Thor's axe. There was no illusion to this. She watched the souvenir hunters dip handkerchiefs in his blood as his head was taken away to be placed on a pike, a warning to others who would challenge the throne and a victorious banner for the throne. She stood, staring at the blood on the stones, long after the crowd dispersed.
There was some hint of sadness in her, not because she cared about him, but because for a time, she had someone interested in her on some level, even if only a carnal one. She now had no one at all. She looked to the sky, knowing she had absolutely nothing to lose, and wondered just who would take the trickster's place, needling the new king and causing light mischief. She smiled for the first time in years. Oh yes, there was an opening in Asgard for a troublemaker. With a flick of her wrist, the remaining blood on the stones caught fire and she watched the guards who were loading up his body onto a cart jump back in panic. For a moment, her eyes met theirs. Then she disappeared.
Asgard needed balance and she was ready to bring the scales back to level.