Mother is thrilled, Odin is not, to have me back. I know because she hugs me immediately and drags me through the palace, exclaiming to anyone we encounter 'Loki's back!'. Odin simply nods, not bothering with anymore and leaving. I can't help but smile a little, she's so happy and I just can't stop the warmth bubbling up in me in response.

She shows me my rooms, I blink in surprise. "These are.. My old rooms?"

"Yes." She smiles. "I refused to let Odin touch them, I knew you'd come back." She squeezes my hand. "I always knew."

"Oh." I can't help the little pleased smile.

"Mmm." She smiles, but then that smile sort of drops off her face, and she takes my hands in between hers, "Loki, Thor mentioned… That Name.."

"She is dead."

I don't know why, I don't know if I make some expression or if it's my tone, but Frigga suddenly sweeps me into a hug, her chin presses against my shoulder hard, "I'm so sorry dear, Thor spoke of.. the accident… Do you want to talk about it?"

T-talk? About what? How I was worthless, how she is plastered to the stone floor, how I just don't know? How I'm angry and doing nothing at all? "N-No, it's nothing."

She holds me out in front herself, staring me down. "Nothing? As I understand you two were living together for the second time and are 'Mates'? Besides, I raised you Loki, you clearly care about her. Please don't ruin the garden, I'm quite attached to the roses that the ambassador gave us."

"I-" I flush a little, glancing at our feet, "I didn't tear up the garden mother… That was Thor."

"He said that so Odin wouldn't be angry with you, everyone knows it was you. All because your favorite horse died. Name isn't a horse, she's a person… So will you burn down the forest? Tear up the library, destroy the throne room? Odin will not be pleased."

"Odin is rarely pleased." I hate how my voice gains that snuffy, watery quality and I blink a few times.

Frigga just gives that smile frown and drags me into my bedroom. "Loki, Odin is quite proud of you, in fact… I believe he found your 'Name' quite impressive, I think…The inane amount of raw energy contained in her and the fact that she wasn't insane as she should be was what truly impressed him."

"Hmm?" She smiles. I never… noticed an unusual amounts of energy.

"Oh Loki, don't be ashamed. It's very hard to see energy in another's core." She sighs, "I almost didn't notice, I only caught on because your Father was so focused."

"But.. It was her own?"

"Yes." She blinks at me.

I shake my head, "I understand that large amounts of foreign energy can drive someone insane, but if it is her own it should not accumulate to levels she can't handle. For her to go mad on her own power there would have to be a foreign force. " She certainly is no seer.

"Yes, with magical energy, however.. That was not magic, it was just energy, Odin actually went through a few books." She giggled. "You're father was a little irritated that he didn't understand her, somehow Shifters had escaped his notice all these years."

"Yes, we did pay so much attention to Midgard in the past." I add dryly.

She smiles, "Yes, now you get some rest, you look exhausted."

Name is probably exhausted too. I'll never know.

-(0)-

Dinner has never been more awkward. Odin attempts small talk and Thor sits like a hulking and nervous mountain of muscle, leather, and metal.

I think I emulated the stereotypical, despondent, taciturn teenage girl marvelously. Odin has no clue how to handle teenage Midgardian girls. At all. Frigga gives me a very disappointed look over the food. I shrug.

Name would have thought it funny. Name would have done it herself.

Name thought lots of things were funny. She would eat the meat first, than the vegtables, tear the crust off her bread and drag it through the juices and butters. She'd eat the soft parts of the bread last, complaining about how it isn't white and there's grain chunks in it. Then some fruit perhaps, she wouldn't really know how to eat it so most likely she'd take slow bites before she became confident and would chew through it's soft flesh in that predatorily, tearing and gnashing of teeth that she always did.

Funny, it never seemed threatening to me, but now as I think about it, how she hurled me like a discus out from under the falling stone, how she chased me through the jungle, how she shifted into that thing, how her flesh had stretch thin, tearing and gushing with blood as more flesh grew, and skin grew, scales, fur, feathers, and how she held me in her hands and watched me with those huge eyes as she grew. Wild eyes, I had been scared in that moment when she had shifted on the island, looking into those eyes. Eyes for sharp vision, eyes of a predator, wild and unfocused but looking straight at me, her maw had hung open a little and I could see the teeth.

But then the fear had vanished the moment she started to sway, it had been replaced with concern. Now I wonder, if she ever put those teeth and claws to use.

I'd know if I'd read her journal, but.. It feels wrong just looking at that leather bound thing feels like a terrible sin. I can't read it, for the first time in my life, I'm not doing something because it feels wrong.

-(0)-

Frigga walks with me to the door of my room. "Loki.." I pause from my side of the door, holding it open. "Are you happy?"

"Yes, Mother."

"Mmm, 'Yes, Mother' means 'I'm lying and I'm only doing it because I don't want to trouble you'; the last time I was told 'Yes Mother'… I didn't see you again until Thor brought you back in chains."

I blink, "Then I meant to say 'Yes, Frigga'."

-(0)-

Thankfully I still have the ability to avoid Thor, Odin does not look twice at me. I care little, I have discovered the art rooms of my childhood with its pencils and papers.

I draw her, Name, over and over, I suppose some desperate part of me thinks I won't forget her face if I draw it enough times. I will though, the pictures in her phone are of me and me only, sometimes I'll find a murky reflection of her in a window or something slightly reflective in the picture.

That's not enough for remembering. But I have her captured in the smooth, grey lines on these papers. However, these rooms are dusty and nothing is organized, warriors have no use for art rooms. No use for how I catch the shape of her eyes, the strength of her jaws and how her teeth glint sharply, how her lips curl in that way only Name's do.

No, I suppose they have no use for preserving the faces of the ones they can simply protect.

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