"Father!"
Odin stopped and turned at his son's call.
Thor had decided to go after his father, if only to ask…
"What my brother said just moments ago," he said, running up to Odin; "was it true?"
Odin sighed and looked away.
"Did you truly only favor me over him because he was born a Frost Giant?" Thor pressed.
Odin faced his son again. "I favored you because you were the one more deserving of the throne, and because you were my first-born," he said.
"Was I more deserving?" Thor demanded. "If so, how? I was the arrogant one, the one who sought battle - Loki was more level-headed than I, if nothing else! You did indeed banish me, once my brother's actions led to the argument that forced you to acknowledge that I was not worthy of my title. Did you consider my brother, after that - for even a second?"
Odin closed his eye.
"Tell me the truth, Father," Thor pleaded, lowering his voice; "was blood the only thing that made me more worthy of the throne than my brother?"
"No!" Odin said firmly, opening his eye again and meeting his son's gaze.
"And what of my being the first-born?" Thor asked, still distraught. "Am I truly older than he? Or am I only the first-born because he was not truly born of you?"
"Loki was born of me," Odin snapped; "it was I who rescued him, and I who transformed him so that he might live among us! Or so I thought…"
"Father…" Thor closed his eyes and shook his head, too hurt and confused to make any sense of any of it all.
"Odin? Thor?"
Thor opened his eyes and turned in the direction of the voice, just in time to see his mother approaching the two of them.
"Mother," he said.
"I heard that you had summoned me to the throne room, but no one was there," the queen said to him. "Was something the matter?"
For a moment, Thor couldn't speak. He couldn't tell his mother what he had seen, knowing that it would pain her as it had him. She, too, had been deeply hurt by what they had thought to be Loki's death, and they had all only just begun to heal; to rip those wounds open again, as Loki's rant had done to Thor…
"A Frost Giant found his way to Asgard," Odin answered for Thor; "son of Laufey, he claimed."
Thor's mother gasped.
"He meant no harm," Thor said quickly. "He simply wished to know…" Again, he hesitated.
The queen looked between her husband and son, wide-eyed. There was silence; apparently, Odin was also hesitant to break the news.
"Loki…Thor…" Thor's mother shook her head, her eyes still wide; clearly, Odin and Thor's silence was enough to tell her something terrible had occurred. "What happened?" she asked, her tone suggesting that she was afraid to hear the answer.
"Mother…" Thor began, but he stopped and shook his head; he just couldn't do it.
"Thor…?" the queen asked. "Please, tell me what happened. Please."
It was Odin who spoke.
"It appears that Loki still lives," he said, sounding oddly remorseless.
The queen gasped, putting a hand over her mouth, completely shocked.
Thor sighed. "He has spent the past year and five days in Jotunheim, living among the Frost Giants," he told his mother in a hollow voice, the dam broken; "the son of Laufey - the second-born son of Laufey, it would seem - came here seeking answers, as Loki had vanished from Jotunheim sometime earlier today. From the throne room, we discovered that Loki left Jotunheim to travel to Earth, and intends to live there now. He spoke out, addressing Father, and said…that he could not live in Jotunheim because of his upbringing here, with us."
"Why would he not simply return to us?" the queen asked breathlessly.
"Because he is not welcome here, and he knows it!" Odin snarled.
"Odin…" The queen shook her head bewilderedly. "We would welcome him with open arms if he were to return!" she exclaimed. "He is our son!"
"No," Odin said firmly; "he is not our son, and never was. I was a fool to think that a Frost Giant could ever, by any power, be made to be more than one of those monsters; I have seen the error of my ways, and renounced him. If he were to return, he would be slain on sight."
The queen began to tremble, her lip quivering, tears welling in her eyes, as Odin spoke. She shook her head manically. "Odin…you know he was distraught when he learned of his origins," she whispered tearfully. "He was not thinking clearly."
"He is a Frost Giant," Odin spat. "I may have transformed him in appearance, but it seems not even I could not purge the barbarity of his nature; his actions were those of a monster, nothing else."
"How can you say that?" the queen exclaimed, beginning to cry. "Loki is our son! We raised him!"
"We raised him with false hopes, under false assumptions," Odin said with finality. "I will never again presume to think of him as anything more than one of those barbaric creatures. I do not regret my decision to banish him; I regret only that I was fool enough to take him in in the first place."
Without leaving Thor or the queen any time to respond, Odin turned and marched away.
Thor's mother whimpered.
"Mother," Thor said, turning to her and putting a hand on her shoulder, hoping to comfort her.
The queen collapsed to the floor, sobbing. "Oh, Loki, my son!" she wailed. "My son!"
Thor got on his knees beside her. She threw her arms around him, sobbing on his shoulder. Thor hugged her back, not shedding tears but equally sad.
"Mother…" he said softly, wishing there was something more he could say.
