Meddle
By: The Hatter Theory
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to characters or concepts created and owned by Marvel.
AN: I feel like a dickish little hobgoblin right now, but it was neither Hel nor Frigga in Encroach. It's not Charlie either. ::waves hat with magic name in it:: I can only offer cookies to the person that guesses.
An audience with the queen was not unheard of, even for her, although it had been some time since she had been called away from her home to walk the golden halls of Asgard. Already missing the vast openness of the sea she preferred to sail, she ignored the guards that watched with impassive eyes and the questioning glances of servants that followed. Luckily she saw none of the other Aesir, did not want to see them. She'd spent too many years distancing herself from them, from Asgard, and had no wish to rekindle relationships she had purposefully cast aside.
What startled her, when she spotted her queen, was that she had been called to the weaving room, where Frigga sat, eyes on a tapestry of changing threads.
"My lady." Charlie did her best to keep her confusion hidden from her tone, congratulating herself when the queen didn't turn to look back at her.
"Greetings, Fua. I apologize for calling you here."
The importance of the meeting wasn't lost on her, considering the loom sitting in front of her queen, hands resting over lines of threads that worked into a whorling pattern. It was considerably stable for the tapestry, Charlie remembered seeing considerably more complex patterns when she had sat attendance for the queen.
"I prefer Charlie now. And you call, I come. You're the only reason I can come and go as I please." Mostly, at least. Charlie hadn't forgotten that Frigga was also the cause for her self imposed exile, but she had a feeling the queen knew that.
"And how is Midgard?"
"I enjoy sailing."
"Still?"
"Ports constantly change."
"You were always restless. I suppose the constant flux is what appeals. And the sky must be beautiful over the sea at night."
She wanted to ask the queen to get to the point so she could leave the realm and get back to her boat. The longer she stayed, the more antsy she got.
"I have need of your particular talents. These threads run side by side for a time, but never cross. It is imperative they do so."
She started, surprise being the least of which she felt.
"Would Freyja not be better suited? She is-"
"No," Frigga interrupted, shaking her head, hands falling from the tapestry. "I chose you for many reasons, one being that you knew him at his best, and because Asgard is not your home, but Midgard."
"I don't understand."
"The union will touch Asgard, but only just. It's true impact will be felt on Midgard, where it is necessary."
"Necessary?"
"Vital."
"But I have not practiced in centuries, I doubt I could even use magic."
"No magic," Frigga sighed, finally turning to look at her. The queen looked tired, shadows haunting the brightness of her eyes. "There can be no room for doubts to surface. It must be genuine."
"But-"
"If for no other reason than it would benefit the land you call home."
That gave her pause, eyes narrowed on the woman that had allowed her freedom from her duties.
"It is specifically your domain," The queen offered.
"Oh?" She asked archly, because the last time she had blessed anyone in Asgard, she had been instrumental in the worst catastrophe to ever befall it.
"Come here."
Not without a sense of wariness, she approached the queen and the loom. Frigga turned, took her hand and placed it over the threads running side by side, before they parted ways.
Images and tastes, the sensation of unbearable, burning cold and repressing, stifling heat assailed her, the darkness dimming her vision to a tunneled pinpoint seared through her retinas, branded themselves in her brain. Magic, strong and cold, hot and damped down, and hunger, a deep hunger that took her breath away.
In the next moment her hand was falling from the tapestry, back to her side. The images faded, but the phantom sensations remained, copper and iron on her tongue.
"This is-" She didn't have words for what it was. Impossible was a good start. Blasphemous was a close second.
"Vital."
"The king cannot possibly agree with this."
"This is beyond the king," Frigga told her, voice laced with a steel Charlie had forgotten. "And he cannot know, not yet."
Charlie considered her queen, the one woman she would still go to battle for, when needs came to must, despite everything. But this wasn't battle. It was something entirely different. That it was infinitely more dangerous went without saying.
"I can't cross the threads without tangling them beyond repair, you know that." It had been her gift and curse, when Frigga had first taught her the secrets of weaving.
"I know. In this instance, I think it is for the good."
"How can you say that?" She demanded,the resentment that had been simmering since she had been sent for. The easy way her queen spoke of the situation only made it worse. "How can you even think this will be for the best?"
"Because I know," Frigga said, voice deepening, eyes going dark. Charlie remembered that the Queen saw things, knew things that could be, would be. But what good would come of tangling two threads so diametrically opposed.
"You had better be damn sure, because they're more likely to kill eachother than anything." She didn't care that she was speaking to the queen in such a manner, not when the last time had gone so awry.
"I am."
Another glance at the tapestry. The tangled threads could disrupt the integrity of the whole, even if they ever managed to smooth themselves out, the knots would remain. Frigga wouldn't ask lightly, she knew that. But-
"It will be vital the the continued existence of the world you have chosen as your own," Frigga reminded her.
A damn, was that incentive. She hadn't been blind to the superheroes and gods on Midgard, nor to the need for them.
"It won't be impossible, but without magic-" She sighed, understanding why magic couldn't be used. One whiff of an enchantment and the prince would burn Asgard to the ground to find her, even if they had once been friends.
Once, but no longer. Not after Sigyn.
"Once you complete your work, you are free to stay or leave, at your leisure," Frigga said, standing up and walking past her. Taking the hint for what it was, Charlie sat on the stool and stared at the tapestry. The basket of apples next to her didn't escape her notice either.
She skimmed the first thread again, curious as to what had changed in her old friend, and flinched when it responded coldly, the cruelty running through it not lost on her.