Chapter One: Thunderstorms
"... I cannot have another Hela."
These were the first words Odin spoke. He had walked into the birthing room, strode over to the crib, stared down at the infant within - and his face became expressionless.
From her place ensconced within the richly adorned, gilded crimson canopy four-poster, Frigga tried to plead with him. She winced as she shifted forward quickly, still sore and tired and pale from labor.
"Just because she is a girl like Hela was - it doesn't mean she'll turn out to be -"
"A psychopath?" Odin still had little expression in his face or inflection in his voice. He was still watching the cooing baby girl.
"Look who made her that way," said Frigga, her mouth becoming a thin line. "Odin…" Her tone became softer. "Not all of your daughters have to turn out like Hela. Not all of your sons have to be perfect."
Odin did not seem to hear her. He took up the infant jerkily in his arms, backed up, and strode out of the birthing room. "I am sending her away," he said quickly. His face had become blank, his wild eyes shifting.
"Where?!"
"To Midgard. To Earth. She cannot grow up like this; she cannot be here." Odin's speech had become hurried. "Midgard is safe - harmless."
"You're banishing her?! Wait, what about her name -?!" Frigga's words echoed over Odin's shoulder.
"She does not have a name," said Odin, his jaw setting. "She is not ours."
Frigga forced herself out of bed, nightgown and all, and dragged herself after Odin, long hair ragged. "She is our daughter!" The sharp words rang out as they flew down the long, gold-gilded hall.
"I do not have a daughter."
"Incorrect on two counts!" Frigga's voice had become shrill, angry. "You cannot just take my daughter away from me and banish her to Midgard -!"
She stopped and put a hand over her face, her expression struggling. Her voice had been trembling a bit by the end.
Odin paused - saw her and softened, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You have had a long night," he said. "Go to bed."
"No." Frigga lowered her hand and glared, now not remotely teary at all.
"... I will send her to a place where a human will find her," Odin promised. "A safe place. For you. With no power designation, what harm could she do there?"
"And as for our heir?" One of Frigga's eyebrows arched in skepticism.
"... Loki. The adopted son." Odin made the choice in a moment. "He will be heir to Asgard throne. My blood has not polluted him." For a moment, all the muscles in Odin's shoulders and face tightened with a kind of grimness. "You will teach him magic; I will teach him combat. He will be treated in all cases as the favored heir apparent."
"Do we tell him where he came from? That he is partly from the land of frost?"
"We will have to."
"... Do we tell him we have a biological daughter on Midgard?"
"No. She is not our daughter."
"Odin -!"
"It would upset him."
Sand fell through the huge crystalline hourglass on the vast gold table beside them in the palace hall.
"... You will make sure she is found by humans? In a safe space?"
"I will. You have my word as King," Odin promised.
Frigga turned and ghosted primly in her nightgown, past anxious maidservants and back down the hall.
"Where are you going?" Odin looked tired.
"Back to my bedchamber - as I was ordered."
Odin's sigh was loud enough to echo down the entire corridor. His footsteps receded out of sight just as Frigga entered back into the doorway of her bedchambers. She paused, listening - and then turned, left the chambers, and flew back down the hall.
"Do not come with me!" she barked back behind her shoulder at her maidservants, who paused anxiously in surprise.
Frigga flew down the hall, around a corner, down two flights of stairs and through a pair of huge gold double doors into a vast stone cavern lit with flaming torches. The blue-robed priest, ancient and grey and balding, stood nervously to his feet from the circle carved into the floor. "The… the child?"
"Odin is bringing her, power designator. But she needs a gift. Now." Frigga stood in a hard stance, shoulders and arms set, feet apart.
"... Very well, my Queen," said the power designator slowly. His brow knit with confusion, he turned around - and waved his hands in front of a tall stone wall on the far side of the chamber, carved with countless rows of tablets in the flickering firelight. Each tablet had a different set of symbols. Each represented a different power.
Frigga's son was god of tricks. What would her daughter be goddess of…?
Finally, the circle glowed behind the priest and one tablet glowed blue. Frigga saw the symbol - and she smirked.
"Designation successful. A physical power for your daughter to go with an intellectual power like tricks for your son," the priest commented pleasantly.
"Oh, she is not my daughter. Odin just made sure of that," said Frigga, and she ghosted quietly back out of the room. "In fact… he insists."
The priest looked after her, puzzled.
Odin entered the vast throne room of the palace - and walked up to the gold pedestal in the center, before the throne. He placed the infant girl on it - gave her one last long look.
Then he took himself to his throne and heaved himself down. His hands clenched the arms of the throne. His eyes narrowed.
A golden column of light appeared around the infant girl, who fully awoke and began wailing - but then in a burst of gold light, the infant disappeared and so did her crying. Her last call echoed eerily in the empty throne room after her.
Odin slumped and put his head in a hand, exhausted and pale. "I could not risk the Bifrost - our people knowing. But there," he said weakly, "in a vast open space, right beside a suitable human man, in a wealthy country. Just another human girl. With no power, she is mortal - like our subjects, or like the people of Midgard. It will be perfect."
The words rang hollow.
"It will be perfect."
Still no effect.
He heaved himself out of his throne and tread rather carefully and reluctantly out of the throne room, down the halls and up the stairs. He was not usually a cautious man in matters of dealing with his fellows, but all men he believed were a little bit afraid of the wrath of their wives.
Suddenly, a blue-robed priest hurried up to him.
"Siggur… Of course. The power designator." Odin sighed. "Stand down; there will be no power designation tonight. The infant… died."
"What are you talking about? Frigga already instigated the power designation. It transferred successfully. The tablet is alive and well glowing in the power designation chamber right now. The infant has to be alive." Siggur's face was made up in an expression of rather innocent confusion.
"If you are mocking me -!"
"I am not, my King, I am not!" Siggur backed up in horror, palms placed forward in the gesture for surrender.
Odin's anger faded. "The transfer was successful… The power," he said suddenly. "What was it? What is she goddess of?"
"Thunder and lightning."
"... You will tell no one of this. Not ever. The infant died, do you understand me?! There is no goddess of thunder!"
"... Of course, my liege." Siggur's voice shook.
"Frigga," Odin growled, the single word echoing, and he stormed away.
But it didn't matter. Frigga was the only one who could teach Loki magic. And Frigga's will had already been wrought.
There was no undoing what had been done.
Erik Sulvig had set his astronomy equipment up in an empty field in Pennsylvania, a lonely night of star-searching, when it happened.
Suddenly, the ground shook and the sky darkened in a storm. Clouds rolled in; the sky was blotted; the wind began picking up and whipped around him. Swearing, he had only half-gotten his astronomy equipment put away in his truck when the skies opened up -
And instead of rain, a beam of light shot down to the earth, wide and strong as a pillar, golden and pulsating, through a break in the storm clouds. A wave of energy emanated outward and Erik was thrown off of his feet, astronomy equipment tossed awry -
And then it was over. Erik lay dazed in the middle of the field and realized he was suddenly looking at clear skies once again.
A baby's cry rent the air.
Erik slowly sat up, hair a mess - And stumbled to his feet, running over to kneel down beside the infant.
Lying there in the field where the column of light had been was a wailing baby girl.
"Okay… Okay, calm down, it's all right," Erik said softly through his thick Scandinavian accent, mostly on instinct, still in shock. He took the baby girl up in his arms in that empty Pennsylvania field - and gave one cautious look upward at the sky she appeared to have come from.
A few minutes later, he was driving his truck in four-wheel haphazardly back over the fields to the main road, the infant girl in his lap and the astronomy equipment tossed behind him. He was on his cell phone with a coworker.
"Foster!" he said, steering wheel spinning, accent thicker than usual. "I just found a baby girl out in this field while out star-searching!"
"... What?" Professor Foster's voice was soft and British accented, but right now it was quiet mostly from surprise and horror.
"I am taking her back with me. She must have been abandoned," Erik made up wildly. "I think it's a sign - me finding her there. What do you think - of your Jane having a sister?!"
"Erik, you always have been a man of wild ideas, but you're not thinking about this clearly. I'm a single father; I can barely manage raising one daughter as it is," said Foster, a wince in his voice.
"But you don't understand, you weren't there, it's - it's almost predestined, predetermined!" Erik wasn't sure how to explain the experience he'd had out in that field. He swiveled and swerved onto the main dark road and began flying back toward the distant city lights of Philadelphia, brights on in the blackness. "Look, at least consider it. I was thinking of the name Laila. It's a name from my homeland; she'd have to explain to everyone she ever met that it's pronounced Lei-la, but it's a nice name, isn't it? It means 'after the night.' I found her at night out in a field while out star-searching, and we're astrophysicists, and it's perfect, and -!"
"Erik. I think you've already made this choice for yourself." There was a smile in Foster's voice. "Jane could have a sister in another way. Laila Sulvig is a lovely name."
"... A single man, a Scandinavian immigrant living alone on a university campus in Virginia, an astrophysics professor? Just adopting some random girl?" Erik muttered at last. "Be serious, Foster, it could never work."
"Take away the Scandinavian immigrant part, replace it with English, and you have me," said Foster, steel in his voice.
"... Sorry."
"Apology accepted. Besides, I already have one flawless argument," Foster added.
"And that is?"
"What we always tell children when it comes to a pet. You named her. She's yours," said Foster cheerfully.
"Damnit, Foster, child-rearing doesn't work that -!" Erik spat out, but Foster had hung up. "Stupid man," Erik lied, throwing the cell phone away into the seat beside him.
He sighed - and looked down in surprise, realizing the little girl in his lap had quieted down. She blinked up at him sleepily.
"Shit. I really am going to take you in, aren't I?" Erik said rather philosophically to the girl, and he drove on. "Laila Sulvig. Damnit, Foster. What kind of a name is that?
"Let's see," he added to the baby girl on an inspiration, "what you make of Culver University… Whoever you are.
"Well, were," he corrected himself. "You're here with us now."
Author's Notes: This is part one of a six-fandom series called Gender Changes Six. Follow me for more.