Echoes of the Frost

Ch. 2: "You don't understand."

"What do you mean, darling?" she asked, certain he couldn't literally mean he'd started a physical fight. Loki simply didn't do such things. "Did you say something that made the other boys mad?" It was hard for her to imagine even that. Loki spent far more time with Thor than with any other children, but when he was with others, she'd only ever observed him being kind toward them, even when, in his early childhood, they hadn't always been so kind toward him.

"No," Loki was saying, pulling her from her memories. "I mean I started it. I hit them first. Two of them, anyway."

"Loki…what…why? Who were these boys?" She cringed a bit at the last question. It had slipped out. She could not in the slightest picture what Loki said he'd done.

"I don't really know," he said with a shrug, but Frigga didn't quite believe him, not because she could detect any sign of a lie, but simply because it seemed improbable. "They were older than me and Thor."

Older?! She would have thought this all a bizarre farce were Loki not lying battered before her and clearly unwilling to tell her any of this. "How much older?" she finally managed to ask.

"I don't know. Maybe fourteen."

Loki was eleven. Frigga could not get over the continued shock. Another minute or so passed, after which she placed her hands on either side of his head – both as a gentle reassuring touch and as a firm one that would not let him turn away again – and leaned in closer. "Tell me what happened, Loki."

As she'd suspected, he tried to turn away, but found he couldn't. "Nothing. I was just in a bad mood and they were there in the equipment room and I hit two of them and then they hit me back and they were bigger than me and that's all that happened."

"Try again."

"Motherrrr," he whined.

"Tell me."

Loki's chest began to rise and fall jerkily, and his nose twitched and his eyes squinted. Frigga knew he was about to start crying.

"It's all right, my darling, there's nothing you can say that's so awful. Just tell me."

"They said…"

"Yes? Go ahead, you're almost there."

His cheeks had reddened and now his eyes were fully closed, teardrops gathering in the corners. "They said Father isn't really my father," he whispered.

Frigga stared, eyes widened, lips parted. Loki was distraught, a single teardrop making a path down from his eye to her right hand. She wiped it away and quickly gathered Loki up in her arms, realizing that if he opened his eyes and saw her, he would see fear and be even more distraught. "Of course he's your father, Loki," she said, holding onto him as tightly as she dared, given his lingering bruises. He is, Loki. You were not born to us, but you may as well have been. Odin is your father, and I am your mother. Nothing will ever change that.

"You don't understand," Loki was saying, his words partly muffled against her chest.

"Then explain it to me. Please, Loki, explain it to me," she said, drawing back from him enough so that she could meet his eyes again, now that the initial burst of fear in her reaction had passed. His eyes, she saw, were now full of tears.

He threw himself back down on the bed and right back onto his side, contorted face pressed right back into the pillow.

Frigga held back a sigh. "A few boys said a mean, stupid thing. Sometimes people do things like that. I know it hurt you, but try not to let it upset you so."

"You don't understand," he said again, this time into the pillow.

"I want to, Loki. Tell me the rest of it. Tell me the whole thing, from start to finish."

"They…I can't," he said with a sob.

"Yes, you can," Frigga said, though a new spike of fear had arisen in her. It isn't possible…no one could possibly know. Three fourteen-year-old boys in the equipment rooms of the youth training fields could not possibly know…could they?

"But they…they said things about you, too."

They could not possibly know. "What things, Loki? You can tell me. Did they tell you I wasn't your mother?"

He shook his head, a strange motion more like repeatedly pressing his head even harder against the pillow.

"Then what? Loki, look at me, and tell me. Everything will be fine." She reached for his face again, gently turning it from the pillow, toward her.

He let her do it, but he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and when the words came they were in little gasps of breath fit in around his crying and sniffling. "They said…that Father was…gone…during the war…and so…he…couldn't be…my father." The crying came steadily then.

It took a moment for the implication to sink in. What a horrible, cruel thing to say to a child. And what was worse, for her, she realized a second later, was that there was no way to deny it without telling Loki more lies. But they were committed to this one now, she and Odin, and there was no other choice. Technically, she supposed, there was another choice, but that one would wound Loki far more than those boys' words.

"Those boys didn't know what they were talking about," Frigga said. She bent over and gave Loki a quick soft kiss to the forehead, then held out a hand and withdrew a handkerchief from the supply she'd kept on hand through magic since not long after Thor was born, but that she hadn't had as much need for in the last couple of years. "All right, then. Sit up, Loki. Here, like this." He mostly just laid there while she maneuvered him around until she had him seated with his back to the headboard, the pillow pushed to the side. She sat facing him, tucking her legs underneath her plum-colored gown and crossing them. She dabbed at his eyes, then placed the handkerchief in his hands and told him to blow his nose, which he did.

"Now, let's get this sorted out, shall we?" It wouldn't be a lie, what she would tell him, not truly. It was deception all the same, rotting and putrid. But Loki was hurting, and given the choice, she would accept the guilt of the deception over seeing Loki in this kind of pain without hesitation. "Your father wasn't away for the entire length of the war. Didn't you know that?"

Loki glanced up from where he clutched at the handkerchief in his lap. He shook his head.

"We speak of the Ice War as a whole, for the sake of convenience, I suppose, but the stories you hear from Father and Tyr and Bragi and all the others, they aren't from a single, constant battle. There were several battles across Midgard's northern lands. The Jotuns would withdraw, only to attack again. But in between, Odin came home. He needed to consult with the War Council and the Assembly, and he always tried to make a little bit of time for his wife, and later, for his new baby."

"Thor," Loki said, the first hint of a smile pulling at his lips.

"Yes, Thor. Later, when it became clear they weren't going to give up on turning Midgard to ice, he led our Einherjar to Jotunheim itself the next time they withdrew to their own realm, and the fighting there dragged on for another six months, so he was away for a longer stretch."

"Six months?"

"That's right," she said. "And before that he was home more frequently." An Aesir pregnancy lasted for about ten months, and since Thor had been ten months old when Odin brought Loki home to her, they'd had to explain away that improbability – and the lack of physical signs of pregnancy. "Do you see? Your father was here, Loki."

He looked to be thinking it over, taking it very seriously, then he nodded. It wasn't that long ago at all that she'd had the talk with the boys, after Odin had first attempted it. She knew Loki fully understood the issue of the timing, and that Odin had to have been back in Asgard with her for a baby to have been conceived. She desperately hoped he wouldn't press for further details on when exactly Odin had been home, making her dig in even deeper on the deception. For the first time in years she wished she hadn't let Odin talk her into raising Loki without him at least knowing he'd been born to someone else.

"So…they were just making that up?"

"I suppose so, yes," she said, and she could not, in fact, imagine that they had based their words on any actual facts. The timing of Odin's visits home was close enough, given the story she and he had put together the day after he'd brought her little Loki home. Some tongues may have wagged at the time, but she and Odin had never given anyone any cause to doubt the happiness and stability of their family, Odin was revered following the victory over Jotunheim and his sacrifice of an eye in the effort, and she herself had earned newfound respect due to her management of Asgard in Odin's absence. For every doubt or question she and Odin had an answer, and any wagging tongues had long since fallen silent. Apparently that didn't stop youths from their apparent need to find something to taunt her son with.

"But why?" Loki asked, big steel-blue eyes innocent and hurting. He'd been sheltered more than most boys his age and had not had to deal much with the cruelty children could mete out, and she wasn't sure, but she thought he remained largely unaffected by other boys' tendency to prefer playing with his more outgoing and self-confident older brother. Thor was a natural leader and the other boys and girls naturally followed.

"They wanted to hurt your feelings, or make you angry. I don't really know why. Perhaps they were simply envious. You and Thor have privileges and opportunities and wealth that few others have. You must always remember not to be unkind to others because they lack these things, and others should remember not to be unkind to you because you have them. But when they do not remember this…Loki…you mustn't start fights over a hurtful taunt."

"But it wasn't because…," Loki began, trailing off as he looked away, and clenching the covers hard in his fists. "I couldn't just stand there and let them say those things. About you," he added, his eyes flickering up to hers.

Frigga's shoulders fell with a sigh. It was a nuance, but an important one, and she'd missed it. This had never been about Loki. She'd known it, intuitively, in her initial reaction of utter shock when Loki said he'd been the one to throw the first punch. Her sweet, gentle boy would never strike out physically at someone like that because of an insult to himself. "You were defending me? My brave boy," she said, then leaned forward and embraced him gently, careful of the lingering soreness in his shoulder and torso.

He returned the embrace, but it was weak, and when she drew back she could see the trace of what looked to be embarrassment on his face. She hated that he'd already reached an age where he could be embarrassed by his mother's arms around him. They were growing up so fast, both he and Thor.

"I appreciate that what you did, you did for my honor. But Loki, it lacked wisdom. There were three of them. Older than you. Bigger than you. Stronger than you. More training than you. How did you think it would end?" she asked softly, gently. The last thing she wanted to do now was criticize him, but she didn't want him going around starting fights, either, much less those he couldn't possibly win.

"It doesn't matter," Loki said, stubbornness in his face and voice that was also uncharacteristic of him.

"It doesn't matter?" Frigga echoed, aghast. "Listen to me, my son, you were bleeding inside your belly. If Eir hadn't caught it, it could have killed you. It matters. And today it was fists and boots. Someday it may be swords and maces and axes and spears. Do you understand?"

Loki nodded, but there was still a reluctance in it. Loki may be the gentler, more sensitive of her two boys, but he was still a boy of Asgard.

"You must think before you act. Avoid fighting when possible. Being a good warrior isn't just about skilled fighting. It's knowing when to fight, and when not to. What else might you have done besides hit them?"

"Motherrrr…"

"Enough 'Motherrrr,' I'm serious, Loki. What else might you have done?"

"I couldn't just walk away!" he erupted.

Yes, you could have, she thought, but there was probably no male on the face of Asgard who would listen to that advice, not in a realm where to be a man quite literally meant to be a warrior. "Perhaps not," she allowed. "But were those your only two options? Hitting boys you could not possibly have stood up against in the end, or walking away?"

Loki frowned, thinking it over. "I could have gone to find Thor? And we could have taken them on together?"

Frigga pursed her lips, holding back something between a laugh and a cry of frustration. "An eleven-year-old and a twelve-year-old against three fourteen-year-olds? No, Loki, that's no better. What did I say to you when you were very young and you wouldn't talk?"

"'Use your words,'" he said. "But I did talk to them. I told them they'd better take back what they said, or else."

"So you tried to threaten the older, bigger, stronger, better-trained boys?"

Loki gave her an irritable look of frustration, that appeared much older than his eleven years, and she knew she'd better wrap this up soon. She didn't doubt he was frustrated, but she knew he had to be tired, too, and she needed to let him get some sleep. "You could have reasoned with them, Loki. You're very clever with your words. You could have used your wits. You could have told them that there was no merit in their ridiculous accusations, and that you refused to justify such baseless and salacious claims by lowering yourself to respond to them. And then you could have walked away, and come to me to address your concerns."

Loki's eyes were wide by the time she finished. "What's 'salacious?'" he asked.

"Indecent. Inappropriate. Rude. And if you were too upset to think of the more clever ways of expressing yourself, you could have just laughed at them and told them they were fools, and then walked out. And come to me. Do you think that might have worked?"

"Maybe," he conceded. She could almost see the gears working in his head. He might be too tired to think it all through tonight, but she knew him, and she knew he'd be thinking it through again tomorrow.

"Loki," she said, putting her hand lightly to his cheek, "I hope you noticed that both of those versions ended the same way. With you coming to me with your concerns. You can always come to me, with absolutely anything. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Mother."

"Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mother," he said again, this time with a smile.

"Good," she said, then slipped her arms around him again to hug him. His own grip around her was stronger this time. She ran a hand through his hair, kissed the top of his head, then disentangled herself and stood. "Will you tell me the names of those boys?"

Loki drew his lips inward, between his teeth, as though to physically prevent the answer. "No, Mother," he said a moment later, very quietly. "Please don't ask me to."

Frigga drew in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. "Are you going to do something like this again?"

"No, Mother."

"All right. Then I won't ask again. But if they give you any more trouble, I expect you to tell me then."

Loki nodded, but Frigga wasn't going to be relying solely on Loki reporting any run-ins. His guards wouldn't be letting him out of their sight, and for added safety, she would even ask Heimdall to keep his eye trained on him for the next few weeks.

She took the little cup of medicine Eir had left and gave it to Loki, then took it back from him once he'd drunk it. "It tastes like honey," he said with a grin, scooting down until he was on his back under the covers, then rolling to his side, facing her.

"Honey in bed. Aren't you lucky to have Eir mixing your medicines, my little one? Sleep well, Loki. I'm going to go speak to your father, and then-"

"No! Please don't tell him, Mother. It's too embarrassing. And it doesn't matter now anyway, right? I'm fine now, and…and everything…I mean it's…"

Frigga smiled and bent down to kiss his head again. The poor thing, he was already tired and the medicine was kicking in fast, and he was blinking heavily and trying to fight it. "You were hurt. He has to know. But I won't make a big issue of it, all right? And there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Please don't worry, little one. Everything will be fine. I won't be gone long, and then I'll come back here and sit with you, all right? Just sleep for now. There's nothing to worry about. Just sleep. Just sleep, Loki." And by the time she fell silent, his breathing had evened out and the medicine had won.

Notes

Thanks so much for your comments and thoughts on the last chapter! Ha, I was a leeetle surprised no one "yelled" at me for putting up another story when I have three unfinished ones! (All very much still in-progress of course.) But I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoyed this one, too. To be honest, it's my personal favorite of the five in this story. It also contains the kernel of the idea for the story that first came to me - that the other kids all know Loki was born on Victory Day (if you're reading my other stories you know a bit more of that background, but it's all derived from the Thor movie), and also know that Odin was away leading a war until that day, and it would be a natural thing for kids to latch onto as something to tease and taunt about. And then the heart of the story, as I first conceived it, was Frigga realizing that Loki didn't start this fight to defend himself, though it hurt him personally too...but to defend her. Once I expanded on the idea, the story gained a second "heart," and that's related to that other main character listed up top.

A wee "writing" note: As some of you may know, in each of my stories I try to do a little something different in the POV (mostly just because it's good practice for me). For this story, the challenge was to never use Loki's POV. This is Loki through Frigga's eyes, and later...through Odin's.

Remaining chapters -

Ch. 3: "Victory Day approaches." Frigga really doesn't take no for an answer.

Ch. 4: "What secrets?"

Ch. 5: "Everyone needs a home."