A/N: Flemeth and Frigga have a chat. Because contrived crossovers are my bread and butter.
"It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly"
Frigga sat at her loom and felt the threads of fate pass through her fingers.
Outside her sons returned from Midgard. The Trickster, bound with chains and a muzzle, and the Thunderer, bound by family and duty. Her husband sat upon his throne and considered them alongside all his realms. His two ravens were perched ever vigilant above his throne.
How had it come to this?
She remained alone in her weaving rooms. She was not a warrior to thwart the wars that threatened them, or a great leader to guide the people. Her strength was in her magic. Fate was a cruel mistress and rarely predictable, but she had been gifted with ears to hear its whispers. Flashes of things yet to be were woven into her many tapestries.
Was even she growing blind? Had she missed the warnings?
Long strands of magic that ran through the branches of Yggdrasil itself, blossomed on far off worlds, and then spun through the vastness of space, were collected into her old, strong hands. The threads vibrated with magic that did not bode well, but she would weave them nonetheless. This was her duty, to weave. If none cared to look upon her tapestries afterwards it would not be because she had failed to create them.
There was an unexpected tug. She snapped out of her reverie and focused on the individual strand, the wool thick and strong with a hint of magic pulsing through it.
Magic she had not felt in millennia.
That was not the gentle whisper of fate's plan; this was the jerking motions of the present. Her head snapped up as she realised what it meant.
Then with as much dignity as any would expect of the wise and respected All-Mother, she bolted down the corridors to her gardens. Coming to an unsteady halt at the gate she re-composed herself. Her maids were about and it wouldn't do to be seen behaving like a child. She was mother to a nation, a thousand nations. Absolute composure and decorum was her uniform.
She walked calmly through the gardens. Passing trees and fountains, climbing vines and ever blossoming flowers, she came to a little used corner.
There, before a dark mirror none but herself knew the meaning of, stood Mythal.
It had been so long. She'd barely been crowned queen when they'd last met.
It had been a political visit. The consolidation of powers and alliances. Odin had led her and an entourage of Asgard's pantheon to treat with an Empire older than even their own.
Arlathan, the jewel of Thedas. Its pantheon was old and proud, with power unrivalled.
It's much famed crystal spires were every bit as magnificent as legend claimed, but they were so cold. Every corner hid extravagant shows of grandeur, great carved doorways that appeared as gaping maws, bright shafts of light that burned without mercy. The striking architecture suffered no lack of craftsmanship but any pretence of gentleness had long since been abandoned. The pantheon sat hard and immovable upon hard and immovable thrones.
Odin would never admit it but it intimidated him. The Elvhen were a power so steeped in time and magic that even Asgard, the eternal realm itself, seemed trite in comparison. Never mind that the nine kingdoms by far outstripped little Thedas. The magic they commanded rendered numbers irrelevant.
Ties between them had always been cool. Odin did not like Elgar'nan, and Elgar'nan did not like Odin. The Asgardians saw twisted and empty versions of everything they held dear in the Elvhen Empire. The men wielded magic on the battlefield; the woman carried arms and had thrones of their own. The rulers did not support each other put competed endlessly in ongoing rivalries. The all-consuming vigilance of the secret keeper, Dirthamen, was a terror even to those used to Heimdall's watch.
The extravagance, the endless springs of power, the self-glorifying disdain for the shorter lived people: it was abhorrent to Asgardian sensibilities. They knew themselves to be better than that.
Mythal, bold and commanding, had been scorned by Odin's retinue. She was also revered as All-Mother, but unlike Frigga's quiet command of wisdom and foresight that bowed before Odin's reign, Mythal commanded justice and protection. She held Elgar'nan's vengeance in check and she bowed before no one.
Though she knew better than to say as much, Frigga had always liked her. Anyone who thought that being a mother was all gentle dignity clearly knew very little about children.
The woman who stood before her now was but a shadow of the old Elven Queen. Her features were weathered with hard lines carved into her face like granite. Her piercing yellow eyes that once sparkled with cunning and saw far more than Asgard's All-father liked were now dulled with pain and hard won knowledge. Odin had traded an eye to learn his secrets. Mythal looked like she had lost a good deal more for her wisdom.
She didn't even look elven anymore. But her magic was unmistakable, and for all that the ages had clearly not been kind to her, she stood unbowed. Her back was straight, her hair still curled up in red bound horns that evoked a dragon.
Her expression was nothing Frigga had ever seen on the other woman's face.
She looked about the garden, lost and weary. They hadn't had dealing with Arlathan since that first visit, but Frigga had her own ways of seeing the realms beyond her own. Arlathan had escaped her sight for several thousand years.
"Frigga." Her visitor greeted with a nod of respect and small tilt of her lips when she saw her.
"Mythal, what brings you here?" She asked cordially. There weren't many who could wander uninvited in her personal gardens but Mythal had once been something like a friend. This intrusion was wholly unlike her.
The response was not immediate. Mythal's eyes, ever sharp, noted her appearance. Darker clothing then she usually favoured, bordering on mourning garb. Her own face was not without wrinkles, her hair wasn't yet the stark white Mythal's had become but the bright blond of her younger years had already begun turning grey. Dark circles of exhaustion and worry bordered her eyes and the magic she used to hide it only drew her attention to them.
"I should not have come." Mythal said, turning back to the mirror. "You have your own troubles."
"No, stay! Please." She said, barely restraining herself from reaching out to catch the woman's arm. "I should like to talk with you again." She finished at the startled look she received.
"But would the great All-Father approve?" She replied sardonically.
Of course he wouldn't. He would have a fit just knowing she kept an operational Eluvian in her gardens, in the middle of the palace. But Frigga kept her own wisdom in this, just as Odin did in his dealings.
"Odin has his own troubles." She said. It came out a little harsher then she'd meant it. Odin was her beloved husband and she would never choose to be without him, regardless of what had happened.
"Don't we all." She replied. She stepped away from the mirror, the dark red leather train of her armour sweeping behind her. Standing in the middle of the little alcove she looked up to Asgard's great golden towers. Frigga couldn't interpret the look in her eyes.
"How are your children, Mythal?" She asked, sitting on a planter when it became obvious she wouldn't speak on her own. It was one subject that could always be counted upon, even if it brought her pain now.
"I have a daughter." She replied absently. She didn't sit but rather spun in place to face the path running through the gardens. She studied the worn little paved path. "And now she is a Mother herself."
"Congratulations!" Frigga said with a smile. She had learned to appreciate good news when it came. Mythal's smile was edged with bitter pain.
"Yes, I just met my grandson." She said, a harsh laugh bleeding into her voice. "We had a heart-warming family reunion, complete with all the usual pleasantries."
The tone said much and Frigga's smile fell. Once she might not have understood what she meant. That felt like many years ago.
"She does not care for your involvement?" She guessed.
"She is exactly what I raised her to be." Mythal said, looking at some sight only she could see. It sounded like it was something she repeated, the inflection cold and the words wearing out from over use. "I rejoice in my great success."
Frigga watched her and felt her heart cry in unison with what she heard. It was a familiar refrain in her heart, but one she hadn't dared voice.
"I stand on the brink of one such re-union myself." She replied.
"Hence the mourning garb?" Mythal asked, drifting out of her reverie.
"How else does one dress for your own son's sentencing?" She said, bitterness leaking into her tone for the first time in years. She stood and wandered about the alcove, incapable of sitting immobile anymore. Idly her hands brushed flowers, vibrant colours unrivalled in the nine realms. Her eyes did not see them.
"I heard you have two sons." Mythal observed.
"Yes. And they are both… the best at what they do." She said it with a smile that hurt.
"I see." She replied, and they both knew that she truly did.
Instinct would have had Frigga hang her head. Instead she looked Mythal in the eye, her pain exposed to one of the few who understood it.
"Mine were the best as well." Mythal said, her strong voice growing quiet with the recollection "There were no heights they aspired to that they did not reach."
She didn't think it was the daughter they were talking about now. Mythal's other children were older than Frigga herself.
The garden was silent around them. They stood alone in the late afternoon light, but so they always did.
"One of my sons is a trickster." Frigga said, her voice heavy as it soaked into the corners of the garden. She didn't know what moved her to speak; perhaps it was for the simple joy of breaking the dignified silence she had kept for so long. "Today he reaps the rewards of his greatest trick yet. I don't know whether the target is us or himself." Had she ever known with him? "And I fear he doesn't know either."
"Is he cunning?" Mythal asked, something like fondness entering her eyes.
"Beyond belief." A smile, nearly genuine crossed her face. Her clever son had an intellect she had always been proud of. A shame she had never noticed his blind spots. "He understands magic like few others."
"I wouldn't let him out of my sight." Mythal said with a bark of laughter.
"He delights in escaping it." Frigga found her own smile becoming more like a genuine one. Fate had been kind, once.
Mythal smiled at that, the bitterness receding for a moment. She always did have an appreciation for mischief and held the makers of chaos close to her heart, as Frigga recalled. Perhaps it was prudence. What was the mortal phrase? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? It was remarkable what wisdom the short lived humans could uncover.
"And the other son?" Mythal asked.
"The eldest, and heir to the throne. He is a noble warrior before whom Worlds tremble." He had aspired to it all his life, and finally he had achieved his goal. At long last the realities of such a life had dawned on him. "I couldn't be prouder. Of both of them." Her voice was unwavering but her eyes exposed the lie. Mythal wouldn't have been fooled anyway.
With a knowing look she finally took a seat, leaning back against the wall of the garden.
"And which of them began the fight?" She asked.
A name popped into Frigga's mind but she stopped herself from saying it. It was more complicated than that and she knew it.
"It started so long before anyone realised. Who can say who struck the first blow?" she wondered aloud. "Perhaps we did." It was a strange delight to finally give voice to it.
"A familiar tune." Mythal said with a smile so sharp and bitter Frigga would have recoiled, did she not feel its echo inside her. "The end begins long before any notice, and they notice far too late to halt it."
"You were not so cynical last we met." And neither was I.
"I still wore the body of an elf when last we met." She observed with a dry look and a gesture at herself. "And neither of us was so very old."
"We were so young."
"Barely mothers at all."
A soft warm wind blew through the garden but Frigga shivered in cold. Birds sang but the silence was deafening.
"I'm not a very good Mother, Frigga." Mythal said quietly. In that moment she sounded so much older than her countless millennia. In her Frigga saw the broken shards of lives utterly ruined, and the last shattered sliver of a woman who had endured too much.
"Neither am I, Mythal." She replied simply. Her shroud of dignity fell away before the confession. In its place stood nothing but an old woman who was watching her world collapse.
Silence reigned and neither saw fit to break it.
Finally Mythal stood and looked to the mirror again.
"Thank you Frigga." She said, her usual mask of biting humour still set aside for the moment. "Whatever destiny has in store for you, I hope it is not as cruel as you fear."
"We can always hope." She replied.
"Quite."
Mythal threw her hand towards the mirror and light shot through its marbled surface. The glass shivered and rippled like water.
"Wait." Frigga said, before the woman took the final step into the Eluvian. Mythal paused and turned her head.
"Why now? After thousands of years of silence?" What had happened to break her so?
Mythal's head drooped, before she straightened again.
"Arlathan fell, Frigga." She said unflinchingly, watching the power ripple across the mirror.
"Norns guide us." She whispered. She had suspected but to hear it confirmed was something else entirely. "How? Who could strike down even-?"
"Even mighty Arlathan, crusher of Empires?" Mythal said, turning back to look at her, her eyes sparkling with bite again. "What an accurate boast it was. We felled the greatest Empire of all: our own. Quite the feat, don't you think?" She spread her arms wide as though it were a great joke.
Frigga felt sick.
"How did it end?" she asked, steeling herself.
"How indeed." came the muttered reply.
"Mythal. Please."
"An alliance built of mutual hatred is not built to last." She said finally, the cold reality playing plainly across her face. Mythal had never been one to shy away from that which hurt.
"Civil war then." She concluded. She had only one last question, but it was one she feared to ask. Perhaps it was futile to even consider it, but she would ask anyway. "The Dread wolf?"
Mythal laughed. Sharp and bitter with threads of genuine amusement woven through it. She shook her head and met her eyes one last time.
"In the end… the obvious threat was far too obvious." She said, stepping towards the mirror again. "Do not keep your eyes so firmly fixed upon the wolf, Frigga, that you lose sight of the Ravens."
With that she stepped into the Eluvian. A crack of power flashed and then the garden was quiet.
Frigga stood alone once more.
Hours later, her two sons would stand before the All-father. The Trickster would be judged, the Thunderer would carry it out, and Odin who had traded an eye for secret knowledge would watch over his realm.
The end would begin long before any noticed.
A/N: And that was Flemeth and Frigga and the Spectrum of Parental failure. Tune in next time for Flemeth and Kreia and the protagonists who really ought to be solving their own problems by now.
My silliness aside, thanks for reading. Reviews are always appreciated.