Have you ever heard the story of how Loki got his ring? Not many people know that he has one, but he does. It is fitted for a woman, and it fits him just fine. He wears it in all of his forms, and he changes it to match. When he is a cat, it is an armband or a bracelet. When he is a fish, it encircles his middle. And when he is himself, he cannot stop looking at it.
It is beautiful—silver and intricate. It looks like a pale flower set upon a crown of grey vines. There is a diamond between the flower and the vines…the purest diamond that ever was. Where Loki got it, no one knows. Not even he. It is a tale not often told, and when it is, the listeners always forget.
Once, when Loki was young, he went out on a boat. It wasn't for pleasure; he hated the water. He went because he had to, and he had to because his mother was Laufey. She was the spirit of the isle he lived on, and she hated him more than anything in the nine realms. When Loki was born he arrived in fire and smoke, and his impact killed his twin brothers instantly. She never forgave him for this, and so on the morning of his twelfth year, he left the land and took to the sea on a boat full of questionable jotnar.
The captain of this ship was Kel, and Kel had a daughter named Kela. They were close, this pair, but soon Loki and Kela grew closer, until one night, anchored off the coast of an isle that was not Laufey, they took each other to bed. Loki was thirteen, but he knew how things were done.
A month later, it was discovered that the captain's daughter was with child. Loki kept quiet and watched as, one by one, the captain interrogated and slaughtered his crew. He thought nothing of Loki, for the boy was quiet, and—after all—a boy. He assumed that some man had taken his daughter against her will; he never once considered that she had done it for love.
The child was born. It was a girl, and they called her Arris. Arris was beautiful, but her eyes were a sharp green that the captain thought looked very familiar. There came a day, after the birth, that he summoned Loki—who was fourteen by then—to his quarters. He placed Arris in his arms and said, "Is this your daughter?"
Loki knew when to lie, and this was not one of those times. "It is," he said. He said nothing more.
The captain thought about this for a while. His daughter was the best of friends with this boy. In all this time, she had never looked save with kindness upon him. She had never feared or hated him; neither of them had ever spoken a harsh word to the other. While this was Loki's fault, it could not have been an evil deed.
"Then you must be a father to her," he said at last with a sigh. "And you must marry my daughter."
Loki could hardly believe his luck, and yet he dared not appear too enthusiastic. "I will do both," he said, "and gladly."
They were married that very day on board the ship, with the captain officiating. Kela gave Loki a finely-crafted wooden bead to tie into his hair, and he gave one to her in return, as was custom among the jotnar. One bead for the beginning. There would be one each year after, until their heads were heavy.
Although they were married now, Loki and Kela were still children. They did their best by each other, but now and again they made poor decisions. One of these occurred when Arris was two years old, which made Loki sixteen. He was beginning to lose some of his sweetness, probably by way of the tasks which his father-in-law set him. He was assassin and cheat, scout and swindler, and he made all of their lives easier by chipping off bits of his ill-grounded morals.
Kela and Loki were drunk one night, after a particularly successful raid on a small fishing village, and they forgot all about Arris in their haste to enjoy each other. The child wandered—as children will do—to the edge of the deck, where she stood looking out at the stars with large, wistful eyes.
The next morning, their grief was punishment enough.
Loki was drunk much more often after that, and Kela, too. The night of their fateful celebration had left her with a second child, but she took no care of herself and it was born too early. It died on the deck, near the spot where its elder sister had walked to her doom. Loki held Kela's hand until it was over, but then he stood and turned away.
"I think," said Loki, "that I should go."
"If you do," said Kela, "you must never come back."
"I never will."
He left her there, but in the years that went by he thought often of that ship and its blood-stained deck. He had lost the best part of his childhood, and it had been his fault entirely. At length he met Odin, wandering through the world, and we know how that story ended. They swore a blood oath, and Loki came to Asgard, where he married a woman called Sigyn. He loved her, sometimes, but he refused to be there for the births of either of their sons. Vali and Narvi were each born under their mother's tears.
It was many years later, after Sleipnir, whose mother was Loki and whose father was a stallion called Svadilfari, had been born. It was after Angrboda, a giantess and enemy of Asgard, had given birth to Loki's three monstrous children in the Iron Wood of Jotunheim. It was after Loki had spent ten years on Midgard as a woman, married to a farmer. He had given birth to three children there, and had experienced little difficulty in leaving them to return to Asgard. It was after all of this when the captain of a jotun pirate ship came humbly into Odin's presence and requested to speak to the All-father's blood-brother.
Loki was called before them, and when he saw who it was, he would have left at once. But Odin held up a hand, and Loki hesitated. His graces with the Aesir were running somewhat low, and now was not the time to be difficult, even if it cost him some more of his pride.
"What do you want, Kel?" the trickster god demanded. He was a far cry from the sorrowful boy who had turned his back on the ship all those years ago. He was a cruel, intelligent man, whose scarred lips and burning eyes left no room for forgiveness.
"I am here, Loki, to ask you to come back to Jotunheim for a short while. My daughter is dying, and she has asked you to be there."
Loki was silent. He was thinking about Kela, and about their dead children, and he did not want to go. But if he was honest with no one else, Loki was honest with himself, and he knew that the only reason he didn't want to go was because he had loved her and it had been bad enough leaving. Must he now go back and watch her die?
"Please, Loki," said the captain. "You were all she asked for."
"Fine," Loki replied. "But I will not stay to see her die."
"I would not ask you to."
They left immediately. Odin gave them provisions for the journey, and together they returned to Jotunheim where the boat that Loki had hoped never to see again was anchored. They went aboard, and Loki felt a sickness that had nothing to do with being at sea.
Kela was on the deck, lying on a cot. She was pale, but beautiful still; she had grown into a woman that Loki would have been proud to know. Her eyes were the same, vibrant and daring. Loki knelt by her side. "Hello, Kela," he said. "It's Loki."
She gave him a soft smile. "I know who you are," she said. "You are the one who betrayed me."
Loki reacted only just in time. He leapt to his feet and drew back like a snake, and if he had not, Kela's knife would have found his throat. She launched herself from her cot with all the fury of a viper, but Loki seized her hand at the wrist and held her fast.
"Well done," he said, and he meant it. "You nearly killed me. Have you been hating me, all this time?"
"You left me," she hissed. The daringness in her eyes had turned wild. "You are a coward, and a liar, and I will be rid of your memory."
"I think you will," said Loki, and he let his hand slide from her wrist to the tip of the knife she held. It hurt terribly, and his blood spilled out to mingle with the old stains that were there. But he held fast, and he twisted with all of his might until the giantess' knife was in his grasp. Then, with all the cold fury of a flame biding its time, Loki struck.
He killed her father, too, and everyone he could find below deck. When all was said and done, there were twelve corpses aboard. He sent them out to sea and set the boat on fire himself, but not before he cut a pale silver ring from Kela's dead hand. He had given it to her once, long ago in another time, and with it had gone his heart. He put it on his own finger and went home, and when Sigyn asked where he had gotten such a fine gift, he sneered and told her to mind her own business.
Loki guards his ring with all the jealousy he is capable of, and when he dies at Ragnarok, it will be the last part of him to turn to ash.