Just an Old Woman, With Questions
Author: Frost on Maples
Author's Notes: The Loki and Frigga of this story are part of the wonderful Marvel Avenger's Universe - I definitely don't own them. Freyja and Elli are much older than that, and I'm borrowing them from other sources. Please see the note at the end of this piece for further explanations. The events of this story are set before the events of Thor 2.
I owe a debt to the folks at the Beta Branch for their encouragement and editing. I find writing Asgardian stuff hard: any mistakes are my own.
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"Loki."
In his cell, Loki deliberately finished reading his paragraph before looking up from his sixteenth century edition of The Prince to acknowledge the woman who was not his mother. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully when he saw she wasn't alone.
"You bring guests with you. Is there a special occasion that I'm unaware of, Frigga?" He didn't - didn't - feel shame for the brief flash of hurt on her face.
She said nothing, however, and beckoned to the two hooded figures. As they stepped forward, the shorter figure flung back her hood, letting long golden hair spill out over her shoulders.
Freyja, ruler of the field of the afterlife called Fólkvangr, raised an eyebrow at him. "I see you haven't lost any of your insolence since your defeats and imprisonment." Her lips curled in distaste. "It was I who asked your mother," malice sweetened her voice, "to arrange this interview."
"Have you come to gloat, Freyja?" Loki's smile merely bared teeth, with little humour.
"Caged life suits you, Loki." Freyja's smile matched his. "You may find this hard to believe, but you aren't usually interesting enough for me to cross a road, never mind make the voyage from Fólkvangr." She deliberately eyed him up and down, before continuing with a disdainful sniff. "Very much as I remembered. The air of defeat might actually succeed in making you attractive to the feeble-witted."
"Why have you come here, if you find me so uninteresting?" Loki asked, refusing to give her a reaction to the insults.
"My visitor asked a boon of me," she replied. Her expression became cryptic. "It is important to her, and I wish to aid her in her quest." She shifted uneasily, casting a quick glance at Frigga before smoothing her expression back into its usual pride and self-assurance.
"Who is your guest, and why would her quest require that you bring her to me?" Loki asked, raising his eyebrows.
Freyja beckoned: the tall, hooded figure behind her stepped forward, pushing back the hood.
For once, Loki was shocked into silence.
Freyja's guest was a Frost Giant. For a Frost Giant, she was a tiny, stooped old woman, but she still loomed over both Frigga and Freyja. Old age had faded the blue of her skin, and her hair was thin, whispy strands of white. Her eyes, however, were bright and sharp as she examined him through the walls of the containment spell.
The silence stretched into minutes until, uncomfortable under that sharp stare, he snapped, "What do you want? Have you come to stare at the freak in his cage?"
The old woman's voice was quiet and rough, echoing with years. "I have come to ask you some questions."
"I have nothing to say to a representative of the Frost Giants," he sneered.
"I am not a representative, just an old woman with questions."
"I doubt that 'just an old woman' would have merited the effort of travelling from Jotenheim to Asgard unnoticed by Heimdall."
She regarded him with a small cold smile and a knowing look in her eyes. "As you well know, there are other ways than the Bifrost. Lady Freyja was kind enough to offer passage."
"Who are you, that Freyja would assist you?" he demanded.
"Just an old woman, far from home," she insisted. She stepped closer to the translucent wall. "Will you answer my questions?"
He shrugged. "I might, I might not. Ask and I'll decide."
The old woman turned to Freyja. "You're right. He is one of the most arrogant youngsters I've seen in the last century or so."
"And yet nothing to compare with the arrogance of the aged," he replied with a not-quite-smile. "You have come a long way to bore me with insults. Ask your questions and begone. This book full of amateurish mortal prattling is more interesting than your blather so far."
"At least he has spirit to go with the arrogance," the old woman continued, with a contemptuous curl to her lip. "I don't blame you, my dear," she said kindly to Frigga. "Little foundling mongrels can be so hard to train."
"Mind your manners, you pathetic, fusty hag," Loki seethed. "I am rightful ruler of this realm, and prince and heir to the throne of your kind: I will remember to order your execution for those words-"
"You are no prince," the old woman snapped at him. "I travelled here to ask questions of a would-be ruler seeking a domain: instead, I find a mewling fop of a brat, pouting in his cell." She sneered at him scornfully. "Tricks and treachery are obviously the only way a lying rampallian like you could have had any amount of success."
Taking a deep breath, Loki reined in his temper. "Rampallian or not, you have deemed me important enough to merit travel from Jotenheim. Ask your question, crone. Your insults are tiresome."
The old woman suddenly stopped smiling and leaned forward, her ancient eyes more piercing than ever. "Why?"
He frowned at her. "Why, what? Clarify, you old fool." He ignored the warning in Frigga's wince and Freyja's narrowed eyes.
She frowned, and he refused to shudder, to acknowledge the cold chill that suddenly ran up his spine. "You tried to use the Bifrost to destroy Jotenheim. Thousands of men, women and children will now not live to grow old. My king died here, his life cut short with a knife, never to become an old man." She leaned closer, her nose almost touching the translucent wall. "Why?"
He regarded the piercing eyes, and nodded thoughtfully. "A fair question." He smirked at her, as she patiently waited. "I'm not a fair person." He leaned close to the translucent wall as well, so they were almost nose to nose, separated only by the containment spell. "Why should I answer your question?"
"Why not?" she snorted. "Even an ant would like to know why the boot destroyed his hill."
He smiled, savouring his advantage over her through her wish for knowledge. "It was war: a glorious victory for Asgard. Even an old fool should know that there are always casualties in war."
She snorted again, this time with a moue of disgust. "This was no war. After the foolish incursion by your childish brother and his friends, there were no battles. What you did with the Rainbow Bridge: that was merely slaughter." She folded her arms and tapped her foot impatiently. "There is no glory in the indiscriminate slaughter of innocents." Her face was bitter as her eyes burned his soul. "Even a half-wit troll knows that. You are many things, but you are no fool. Don't insult me by talking like one."
He looked into her cold eyes. "Why should I care for your opinion?"
"I don't expect you to care for my opinion," she countered. "I just would like to hear the truth."
"And why would I do that? You've done nothing but insult me since you arrived," he countered.
"It got your attention. You would never tell me anything if I just walked in here and said 'I am an old woman, looking for the real story'." she said, looking, if not sweet and innocent, at least harmless. "The truth, for once, please. It will cost you nothing."
He paced restlessly, considering. One telling of the truth amongst the lies couldn't hurt: indeed, it would likely be unnoticed. He stopped pacing to watch her closely as he spoke. "Once, I thought Odin was worth the effort to prove I was the better son, more worthy of ruling than that oaf Thor. I sought to prove that by presenting him the glory of victory over an enemy." His lip curled in contempt: for Odin, for Thor, for his younger, more innocent self. "I was wrong. I was not his son. It should have been obvious that I'm more worthy than Thor. He was not worth the effort. He's not my father, and not a worthy king." Frigga's pained face would not - would not - haunt him.
"You used the Bifrost to slaughter my people - your flesh and blood - to prove to Odin that you are worthy of ruling?" The crone was expressionless as she stared at him. "You murdered my king - stabbed him in the back - to win your father's gratitude? A father you now scorn and disregard because he rejected the genocide of my people, the murder of my king. A father you now actively plot against."
"Don't presume to judge me, crone," Loki snarled. "Rulers do what they must for the good of the realm. I deem that Odin isn't worthy of that responsibility, and will do everything in my power to remove him."
Freyja stepped forward, eyes narrowed. "Do not pretend your pathetic, warped, sad little boy mewlings are the utterings of a prince, worthy of rule," she spat. "You are both pathetic and sick if you truly believe that plunging the nine realms into war-"
She broke off mid-sentence when the old woman raised her hand for silence. He raised an eyebrow in surprise - Freyja only answered to Odin, and even he was seldom exempt to her verbal lashings.
"You have answered my question," the old woman acknowledged with a nod. Loki's lips thinned at the deliberate omission of title and courtesy, but refused to give her the satisfaction of further reaction. She turned to leave.
"I've answered your question," he called after her. He ignored Frigga's desperate, pleading look at for him to let things go. "It's only fair that you answer one from me."
She looked back over her shoulder. "And yet, you are 'not a fair person'." She considered thoughtfully, then smiled her cold not-smile. "Ask, and I'll decide."
He nodded his appreciation of her reversal of the situation.
"What is your name? Who are you besides 'an old woman with questions'?"
She smiled her cold smile. "My name is Elli." He suddenly noticed how both Frigga and Freyja maintained a careful, watchful distance from the old woman, for all that they showed her sisterhood. "We may meet again. If you survive the years ahead. Tricks and treachery are a poor defence against the passage of time." Her smile became predatory, with frigid vengeance in her aged eyes. "I am patient." She nodded courteously to Frigga and Freyja as she raised her hood back up, gestured for them to lead the way.
Long after they left, he sat, chilled to the core, contemplating the years ahead, and the eventual, patient old age to come.
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Author's note: Very often, it seems like Loki's victims are forgotten, something which bothers me considering the body count. I consider him a very interesting character, but I think the damage and death he has caused shouldn't be forgotten (indeed, I think it makes him much more interesting and complex than if he's just made simply nice, warm & fuzzy). I figure that at some time or another he should face someone (other than his brother) who has been a victim of his actions.
For Freyja and Elli, I have drawn on Norse Mythology, mainly because I'm more familiar with the mythology rather than the comics. Therefore:
1) Freyja is a goddess of love, beauty, seior (a form of sorcery), war and death (amongst many other things), and shares the dead with Odin: half go to him in Valhalla, the other half go to her in Folkvangr.
2) Elli is a Norse personification of old age.