Disclaimer: Don't own any characters within. I don't even own a copy of Thor.
A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since posting anything. Life's been a bit crazy here. But I haven't stopped writing. :) A second part of this shall come soon, so watch for that!
Allmother
The irony never failed to strike Frigga that the wife of the Allfather was unable to bear him children.
After centuries of marriage, and centuries of trying, and centuries of no heir being produced, the King's young wife had begun to believe the whispered rumours. She pretended not to hear them, just as Odin did, but they were impossible to ignore, really.
She was barren.
She knew her husband tried to protect her from the whispers, the mocking, malicious voices. But still she heard them. They called her "Allmother", but it was with as much respect as a thinly veiled insult could hold.
Eventually, Frigga let the hope that she would someday be a mother go. She would not let the thoughts of others direct her path, she would not pity herself and she would certainly not stop living. She loved her husband, and knew he loved her in return.
That was all that mattered.
When her time of the month did not come when expected, Frigga thought little of it. But a week after, when she found she had to drag herself out of bed though she normally rose to meet the sun, when every footfall seemed a struggle when she had never before been found with a loss of energy, and she was plagued by never ending fatigue and exhaustion, she started to wonder.
But it was not possible.
When she found her moods swinging as rapidly as the striking tail of a bilgesnipe, when nausea and vomiting the likes of she had never suffered before became a near constant every day, she finally consented to her concerned husband's repeated requests to see a healer.
He was worried she was ill, and Frigga was inclined to agree. Because the other possibility would never be presented to her.
That was why, when she received the healer's verdict, she nearly did not believe her.
Because Queen Frigga, mockingly called Allmother, could not possibly be with child.
But she was.
Odin nearly wept with joy when she gave him the news. All of Asgard rejoiced with him.
Frigga herself, could still not believe it.
It wasn't until she found she could no longer fit into her dresses comfortably that she even began to consider it.
When every symptom her mother had told her years ago on her marriage to the King began to plague her – headaches and lightheadedness, fatigue, far too many trips to the bath chamber, certain areas of her body constantly sore and aching – she began to believe it.
And then, when she looked down at herself, she could see the bare bulge, just beginning to show, beneath the silk of her dress.
She wept.
For she who had been called barren would be a mother.
When a few months had passed, Frigga looked forward with great eagerness for the child growing within her to move enough for her to feel. When it did not happen, she did not worry. So far everything that had happened had come to be later for her than was considered "normal".
It was when she woke up one night, with a pain that was far too sharp and pronounced in her abdomen, that she gripped her sleeping husband's arm, whispering in fear that something was wrong.
The child was born that night.
But he was not living.
Frigga thought she should have wept at the news, when the midwife placed her stillborn son in her arms. But all she could feel was a numbness, a shock that seized her and refused to let go.
Baldr was so small, so tiny, he did not even take up half of his grieving father's palm. He was not quite formed, for he had been born far too early. But he was a Prince of Asgard nonetheless, and he would be given a funeral proper for one.
Odin oversaw the ceremony that carried their son over the water, tears glinting in his eyes. All of Asgard wept with him.
Frigga herself, could not quite believe it.
She watched with dull eyes as the ship that bore her infant son – who had never taken a breath of the sweet air after rain, never opened his eyes to see the bright colours of a blooming garden, never heard the low rumble of his father's voice – away from her. The flames that burned bright and high in the night seemed to her like they should have been celebratory fires, lit with joy for the birth of the child of the Allfather. They should not be a funeral pyre; the sorrowful orbs of light the grieving people released should be fireworks of festivity.
She remained on the dock long after the ship had fled from view, long after the people had dispersed. Odin remained ever faithful at her side, his strong arm around her in comfort.
Still she did not weep.
It was not until she could fit back into her normal clothes, when her body began to feel normal once again did what had happened really break through to her.
She was not to be a mother.
She wept.
Harder than she had ever before, until she felt as though her heart would physically break with each shuddering, gasping sob that tore itself from her chest.
What had she done wrong? Had longing for a child been to much to hope for?
She could not stop.
For she who was to be mother was childless again.
Odin found her there, driven to her knees on the floor of their chambers. He said nothing as he knelt beside her, wrapping his shaking wife's body in his strong arms, holding her close to his chest.
She could feel his tears in her hair.
The days turned to weeks, the weeks to months, and the months to years. Frigga had determined not to let Baldr's death cripple her, she had refused to stop living. Her heart still ached for her son, and sometimes, she would feel as though it would overwhelm her again. But she continued on the life she had, continued her roles as Queen and Wife, since Mother would not be one granted to her.
When the same symptoms began to appear again, Frigga ignored them. But when they once again became too persistent to further ignore, it was with a tight fear in her chest that she again obeyed her husband's request to see a healer.
This time, when she received the healer's verdict, she believed her right away. She somehow knew, deep inside, that it was true.
But she was afraid, oh, so afraid. Afraid she would lose this child as she had lost her first.
This time, it was she who wept when she delivered the news to Odin. Despite his reassurances that it would be alright, that this was a blessing and not a fear, she could not shake the worry that plagued her as constantly as the sickness and aches of her changing body.
It was not until she felt the child stir within her for the first time that the fear started to give way to joy.
If any mother ever said pregnancy was an easy journey, Frigga was certain they were lying. But after nine months of pain, discomfort and exhaustion, it all came to an end.
In a blur of increased pain, discomfort and exhaustion.
Through the burning haze of pain, Frigga wished she could have taken back every time during the past months she pitied herself for her discomfort. She had thought she had known the meaning of pain.
She had never been more wrong in her entire life.
But then it was over, and she found she could remember it little when her cries of pain gave way to the cries of a new life, of an infant sucking in precious breath for the first time.
Every grief-stricken moment, every night spent sleepless, every inconvenience brought from bearing a child, every birth pang and pain was suddenly forgotten, was suddenly worth it, when the midwife placed her loudly wailing son in her arms.
Thor was already a large child as an infant, and as Frigga stroked the blond, downy hair that covered his small head, she wondered that she had been able to carry him for so long without bursting.
But now she felt she would burst in another manner. In joy. In pride. In love.
Odin had not left her side during the delivery, and it was a smile of pride that he turned on his wife and newborn son as he carressed their child's head with one hand, and his wife's cheek in the other. Frigga had never doubted nor gave him reason to doubt her husband's love or devotion to her, nor hers to him. But now, she felt a renewed love, a renewed passion, a new sense that they were now inseperably bound together in the ties of parenthood.
It was not a bond either of them regretted.
As the people had mourned for Baldr, they rejoiced all the more for Thor's healthy birth. Celebration for Asgard's new Prince lasted well over a week, but Frigga knew none of them, perhaps not even her husband, rejoiced as much as she did.
For she who had been through grief and sorrow, strife and destroying loss, had been granted a miracle, a blessing she had never thought possible.
She was a mother.