The war is over. The war is over, the war is over, the war is won. Odin has never been as tired, as much in need of rest as when he takes his warriors, his horses and his tents and leads them back into Asgard. Behind he leaves a realm broken, down in pieces and never to rise again. He toys for a while with the idea of pushing it that last step to the edge, of razing it with fire. Surely it will be a more merciful fate than leaving it to waste away.
But he's tired, so tired of death and war and destruction, and he can't make himself give the order. In the end he's not sure if it is the enormity of the act that stops him, or the fact that he wouldn't be able to deal with his warriors' gleeful mirth if it were to happen. There are many that are as tired of war as he is, but they are also bitter and full of poison, as those that have danced under the drums of war are wont to be.
He's bitter and angry, angry at the waste of life. That of the men he brought into this wretched cold realm, yes, but also of the children he sees scattered as useless toys in Utgard's streets. What kind of monster doesn't value its children, its mothers, its wives? A monster worse than the one that kills them, perhaps?
They say that history is written by the victors, but that only happens under the victors' roof. Odin is aware that he will be painted as a monster in Jotnar books for centuries to come. For as long as Jotunheim remains, surely, as Jotunheim itself has not much life left. And at the moment he's bitter and angry, every bit the monster the Jotnar will paint him to be. He doesn't care. He knows he is the monster here, he and Laufey.
At least, unlike Laufey, he hasn't lost everything.
But he will, over time, and he carries said surety with him in a small bundle of fur, for he has already exchanged his eye for a drink from the well of wisdom, and it has showed him what will come of the babe that he will bring home. He now knows of greater destruction, of the war that will make all wars pale in comparison, of his son's death, of Asgard's fall.
He would have killed the boy, were he a little less tired.
Years pass. Odin's peace flourishes in Yggdrasill branches, or at least in the ones he wills it to. Jotunheim continues its slow but certain destruction. Svartalfheim is as dead as it has been since Bor's times. Midgard remains remote, forgotten. Odin grows to hate the boy. He grows old and resentful, his sleep taking longer as his body wastes away, while Laufey's son becomes one of the most powerful seiðmaðrs in the Nine Realms under Odin's own wife's watchful care.
He starts looking for excuses to punish the boy. It doesn't matter what, it only matters who. He tries not to be obvious about it, because Thor loves the boy as much as Frigga does. But even if Odin's family remains unaware, the boy knows. He looks at Odin with too clever eyes, too clever smirks that say 'I know what you are doing, Allfather'.
In the end, Odin banishes him. He knows not what nightmares and destruction the two monsters will concoct, but sill he delivers him into Laufey's hands. Ragnarok might come to be earlier because of this action, but it will be a respite for Asgard's King. He doesn't care. He just wants the creature out of his sight, out of his home, out of his Realm. Frigga and Thor are the only reason he doesn't kill Laufey's son himself and send the ruined body back to Jotunheim for his father to see.
But there's one thing he can do, and that's to accompany the young man, barely little more than a boy, to the Bifrost. Laufey's son says nothing and only stands before him, holding himself straight and regal and unflinching. And for the first time Odin recognizes himself, his father, his son, his wife, in the monster that he brought home from war.
It is mockery, a trick, the cuckoo finally learning to disguise itself. All the hate he has boils over, for the peace he so painstakingly has had to maintain, pride be damned, for the love Frigga has given to this lie instead of the other son of Odin they have had to hide, for the blood past and future that covers Odin's hands. He howls in rage, furious with the Norns and Mimir and himself, and orders for Heimdall to open the Bifrost.
His wife and son will cry for the loss. Asgard might as well, despite how little love it has for its second Prince. But he's already done mourning. The boy died ages ago. Odin only exorcised a ghost.
The war is all but won. As soon as Asgard's troops land in Jotunheim, the war is won. The battle is barely starting, but Odin already knows what the result will be, already sees crumbling buildings and broken bodies where there are none yet. It is not hope but certainty: all will die. All will be destroyed. Jotunheim will fall, its children will die, its fate will be to waste away.
He almost tells his men to spare the children, to show restrain, but in the end does not. The war is won and there's a sense of familiarity in every blood-soaked scene he comes to see, but Odin dares not stand against the Fates. What is to pass will come to pass, and even him, Asgard's God-King, can do nothing to change the outcome.
This is why, when Laufey's wife and children are captured and brought to his presence, he doesn't pause to sentence them to death. He's about to leave the tent when one of his men yells. The youngest child, a newborn runt, is in his hands, having taken it from its mother. Its skin, blue with the familiar Jötun raised lines, is changing to Aesir pink. It has seiðr. Odin changes his mind, tells Farbauti Queen to run, to flee, take her children and go anywhere. Leave Utgard, leave Jotunheim if she has any mean to, and don't ever return.
As soon as she leaves, rushing with the boys she's named Helblindi, Byleistr and Loptr, he orders his men to hunt them down.
Only the babe survives, despite all odds. Odin orders for him to be left with his mother and brothers until all injured Aesir have been treated, until there's nothing more to do but leave. And only then, it is an anonymous soldier what saves Laufey's son, as he decides the King's orders do not include for the boy to be burned with the rest of the dead Jotnar.
Odin takes the babe to Asgard, and Odin knows he has sentenced the Nine Realms to death. Jotunheim crumbles, and so does Odin's marriage. He mourns the loss of his sons, one to a boy he should never call brother, other hidden in order to protect his life. He grows bitter and hates everything, but more than anything he hates the boy. It feels familiar, this hate and rage, though Odin couldn't care less. He doesn't care either when the boy starts disappearing, hiding from Heimdall's gaze, hiding from Hlidskjalf's scope.
When news come that Jotunheim is knocking at Asgard's doors, blood thirsty dogs of war waking up, he knows. It is not that it has happened before, but that it will come to happen and is to happen and will always be and has never been: familiar and unavoidable, remembrance and fate.
And in front, leading the flood by Laufey's side is the man he raised, and all the rage, all the anger and the hate that he knows he's felt before, in this life and another life and all future lives come surging back. How dare he? How dare he?
Loki – Loptr, that's his real name. Odin remembers what he once knew. Ragnarok, the end of everything, by the wake of this lie. He looks as angry as Odin is, but again, Odin doesn't care. He wishes for a blood bath, and Odin is only happy to give him one. And if by the end Odin lies dying beside the also dying Laufey, it doesn't make it less of a victory. Because between both kings, dead before either of them, lies the Liar.
He rushes his men, makes them leave earlier for Jotunheim. He doesn't know why he thinks they are early, but they are. He leaves his generals to lead the main battle field, taking his best Einherjar into Utgard before it is wise, but something tells him he needs to. He orders for every Jötun child to be killed, every pregnant mother to be slain, and his men look at him dubiously but carry his orders anyway.
The news of the Queen's death in her labour bed reach the Aesir camp the same day the heads of Princes Helblindi and Byleistr are delivered. Odin feels like something is missing, but is unaware of what. Instead, he orders for all prisoners to be killed, for not a single one to be forgiven, and for the army to rush back into its home Realm as soon as the war is won. All the Aesir have taken to Jotunheim is left behind except for their steeds, their weapons, and the bodies of the fallen warriors.
An emptiness follows him to Asgard. It clings to every corner, every shadow, every single empty room. Thor's nursery, the Queen's room and the palace library are some of the places he takes to avoiding, for the eerie feeling is stronger there. Frigga feels the same, and eventually they decide to have another child. A boy is born to the King and Queen of Asgard, and they call him Balder.
And then, one day, he finds Loki. Or maybe Loki finds him, he isn't sure. There is something in the boy that calls to him, despite eventually learning that he is Laufey's only surviving son. He comes and goes, and eventually settles, taking Balder's place as Thor's most beloved brother, taking Balder's place as Frigga's most beloved son, taking Balder's life, not that Odin can prove it, or even cares.
Still, he waits and watches. There is something in the boy, there is something. Odin can see death follows in his wake, precedes him, and still he does nothing. The boy is not a warrior, too small and weak to truly pass as Aesir, and with an affinity for magic that wins him much derision. And yet he never cries. He also only does as he wants.
He goes missing more and more frequently, sometimes alone, sometimes with Thor. It is never clear who leads and who follows, not that it would change the fact that they cause nothing but trouble for the Nine Realms. And for Asgard, particularly Asgard, as her name gets uttered with contempt wherever Odin's two eldest sons go. And it is always like this; not Loki Silvertongue, not Loki Liesmith, but the Odinsons, the sons of Odin, who bring chaos in their wake with abandoned glee.
And still Odin does nothing but wait and watch. He hasn't fallen under Loki's lure as his wife and oldest son have, but he knows there's something he was missing, something he's missing still, and Loki is the key for this. There's a heaviness surrounding Loki and his feelings for Loki, of rancid hate and wasted rage, of bitterness and mourning. But they are not his to feel, even when they are. Instead, he only feels empty, always empty.
He dreams of a boy named Loptr.
And then Loki goes to Jotunheim, to Laufey, and returns with wave after wave of giants and monsters. And when they lose and he's clapped in chains and thrown into a dungeon as the father he lead into destruction dies, Loki doesn't seem like he thinks he's lost. And he still shows no apprehension, no wariness when he's brought before the throne. He simply smiles, wicked and familiar, and then Odin remembers.
Ragnarok comes.
This time, Odin remembers more clearly. At first he believes it a vision, and speaks to Mimir's head about it. But they decide that no, it is not. They recognize it for what it is: an endless cycle, a repetition, beginning and ending chasing each other and biting its own coiled tail. Ragnarok has come and gone, come and gone, and gone and gone and gone again. And nobody remembers but Odin, nobody but him, not that it serves him at all. He still cannot prevent the war, cannot stop the deaths, cannot not go to Jotunheim and land a Realm to slow waste and decay.
He doesn't take the boy home, but he still takes the rest of Laufey's family lives.
And when the boy comes, he takes him in. Maybe if this time he loves him Ragnarok can be prevented. Maybe if this time he doesn't deal with him with hate and contempt the cycle can be stopped. Maybe if he gives the boy more than dismissal they can avoid Yggdrasill's fall. But Odin can't forget that this boy is the one linked to it all, with the scenes of fire and blood that tint his dreams, with the destruction of everything Odin has loved and will ever love. Odin hates him for it, even though he doesn't want to.
Still, he and Laufey reach a hesitant truce. Loki goes from one to the other as it pleases him, calling each one of them, and none of them, Father. Laufey shows up at Jotunheim's Bifrost site and bellows for Heimdall's attention whenever Loki remains in Asgard for too long. Odin shows up in Utgard whenever Loki fails to return soon enough.
And then, one day, just as Odin is approaching, he sees Laufey hit the boy so hard that he flies from his seat. And before he stops to think, to analyze what he's truly seen, he drives his sword into Laufey and carries the hurt boy away, to what will become his home from now on. Oh, he knows he's been played. But Loki has finally chosen a side, and although Odin can't tell for sure whether he's chosen his or Laufey's, there's nothing he can do but play along.
They are late this time. Although in truth, late or early is only relative, as the number of times the cycle has begun is enough that there's not a single cycle that stands out over all others and can serve for comparison of any relative lateness or earliness. But every time it begins Odin choses to change one thing, or ten, or a hundred, from the number of troops he takes to what day of the week they leave to how much destruction he allows for Laufey to cause on Midgard.
There is but one thing he never changes: they always go to Jotunheim. He has thought of it, but as in tafl, there are certain movements that have to be taken, otherwise the game is all but lost. And sometimes he sets to stray from the set course of events as he dares, but in the end the result is the same.
So he goes to Jotunheim this time, again. He sets a siege in Utgard, again. But he orders his men to avoid harming children as long as it doesn't imperils their own lives, and tells them to keep an eye open for Jotunheim's Queen and Princes.
When he finds them, they are dead.
There is also only the three of them, no newborn babe tucked close to her chest. He makes his men look around, worried he might have fallen or been kicked, or worse, buried under one of the crumbling buildings. But still, there is no younger prince, and Odin is aware that this will be a rough cycle for all involved. It always is, when he doesn't return with Loki from war.
But then he enters the temple, looking for the treasure everybody believes he's here to reclaim. The Casket is not in this building but the smaller one in the north part of the city, yet doing a cursory search in this sacred place is part of Odin's routine, one thing that he always does in all of the cycles.
Maybe he'll change it next time.
As it is, he enters and does the circuit he now knows by memory. It is the grandest temple in Utgard, so many slave and commoner hide in it, guarded as it is by the laws of war. But this time, as half other times, it is empty. Odin knows not what dictates whether Jotunheim's people seek sanctuary here or not, but he's thankful, as he's been attacked more than one after entering despite the fact he would never harm anybody hidden here.
Especially not the Jötun baby tucked behind a column. He recognizes Loki right away and his heart speeds up when the tiny hand takes his finger and blue skin changes to pink. This time, he swears, he'll stop the cycle. This time he won't fail. There's one thing he's never tried before, and now is the perfect time to enact this change. He'll keep Loki from knowing his true nature. He'll make him have nowhere else to turn but Asgard, no other family than Odin's own. He'll make sure his loyalty remains true to him and his only.
Loki will never be Laufey's son.