Well, my friends, I just got laid off from my job and that means I'm hella depressed and fairly pissed off, too. So what the hell, I'll update and hope for a lot of reviews to make me feel better. Yes, this is a hint.

For those who want to read up a bit more on Loki's children (I had a couple of people PM me about them) here's a great link with some info: http:/ www. Vikingage. com/vac Take out the spaces, of course. In some stories his daughter is Hel while she's called Hela in others, and I think it's Hela in the comics, which I still haven't read even though Marnie gave me some wonderful recommendations of where to start. Mwah, Marnie! By the way, everyone, go read her fics Boys In a Man's World and A Kindness Repaid. THEY ARE AWESOME. And make sure you leave her reviews too because that will make her write and post more and I WANT MORE!

Now a new chapter, with 50% More Added Loki!Kid, proven to lower cholesterol and promote a healthy immune system!

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The final visitor at the Receiving was Hel herself.

Jane and Taryn had joined the brothers that day in their first official appearance. Jane wore a golden tiara reminiscent of Thor's formal helm, with golden wings spread to either side of her face. But Taryn had not donned the horned tiara made for her. Loki knew she was right in her refusal–not yet his wife, not yet Asgard's queen–but he didn't like it.

When Hel entered, Loki got to his feet immediately and descended the steps to greet her. He'd known an emissary from the realm that bore her name would come, but he hadn't expected she would come herself. "Daughter," he said, smiling and holding out his arms to his final creation.

And she was a hideous thing, a beautiful Æsir woman whose form had been twisted and ruined. Loki hadn't done it on purpose–anything but that–but at the time, he hadn't known of his own Jötunn heritage. He had intended to give her a purely Æsir appearance but hadn't realized that making her in his image meant trying to recreate Odin's camouflaging spell over a Frost Giant form.

She'd emerged into the world as a monster.

Her skin, twisted and rough, was a mottled combination of deathly pale and corpse blue. One half of her head boasted flowing, gorgeous raven hair, the single spot of beauty granted her, but the other side of her scalp was ridged and horned. Her body was in places as muscular as a giant's, in others as delicate as an Æsir maiden's, and everywhere as thin as a wraith. Like her father, she commanded formidable magic, but that, too, was warped and unreliable. Blood red eyes glared at the world which had scorned her since the moment of her birth.

Indeed, Odin had cast her into the nether realm because of her looks alone, and Loki, half-dead himself from the sheer amount of magic he'd used in his workings, devastated at what he had unwittingly created, had been too weak to stop it. Desperate for any kind of happy ending for the wretched thing he'd created, Loki had tried with all his heart to believe Odin's assurances that the dead would not scorn her for her appearance, that she would be happy there as their ruler.

Only later, when it was too late to mend what had been broken between them, had Loki regretted not fighting harder to prevent her exile. So many times he had gone to her, tried to help her, to undo his mistakes, to see past her ruined flesh and into her heart. And in her heart was a bitterness that put his own to shame.

A bitterness for which he could not blame her.

Hel smiled coolly but allowed his embrace. It was a small victory Loki savored since she so rarely did so. "You have done well for yourself, Loki." She had always refused to call him Father, something that shouldn't have stung as much as it did. She glanced up at the throne and inclined her head to the three sitting there–new, smaller thrones had been added for Jane and Taryn. "The Realm of Hel congratulates the Kings of Asgard on their ascension."

"Thank you, Hel," Loki replied graciously. He turned, held his hand out to Taryn, and breathed a sigh of relief when she descended without hesitation to stand beside him. He should have warned her further about his children, should have described Hel to her to prepare her for his daughter's ruined appearance, but it had been too difficult to speak of. He thanked the Norns that Taryn had spent so long studying Norse mythology. While the first sight of Hel was enough to shock anyone, at least Taryn hadn't been completely unprepared.

When Taryn stopped at his side, Loki put his arm around her waist and turned back to Hel. "Daughter, this is Taryn Roswell, soon to be my wife and Queen of the Æsir," he introduced. "Taryn, may I present Hel Lokadottir, Queen of Hel, in the Realm of Niflheim."

Taryn smiled at Hel and clasped both her hands. "I am so happy to meet you," she said, and it sounded like she truly meant it.

"Next-mother," Hel replied. Malicious thing that she could be, Hel leaned forward to hug Taryn tight. She even pressed a kiss to her cheek, all but daring her to flinch or pull away from the cold, dead feel of her hard flesh on Taryn's. Taryn did neither, in fact returned the embrace, and Loki was momentarily struck mute with pride for her. But then Hel shoved her roughly away and Loki caught her as she stumbled. "Spend a little more time with the Lie-smith before you try that on me again," she snarled.

"Hel," Loki growled, a warning. He would not stand for Taryn to be treated that way, not even from his own child.

"Loki," she growled back, and then gave him her sweetest smile. It was a hideous expression.

Dismissing them both, Hel lifted her head high and spoke, and while she nominally addressed both kings, her gaze was only on Thor. "Kings of the Æsir, the Realm of Hel will continue to receive your dishonored dead. In return, you will continue to send the monthly tributes of food and wine. The dead wish to be left alone and want nothing more from you than this. Do you agree?"

Loki wanted to reply, to say something to comfort her, but there was nothing he had not already said to her, no spell to mend her mangled form he had not tried. Instead Loki silently looked up at Thor, who replied. "We agree to your terms, Queen Hel, and thank you."

"I bring no gift," Hel went on coldly, "nor do I wish any from you. Until I see you in my realm, goodbye."

That, now, was an insult. No warrior ever wished to find himself in Hel's realm, where went those who had died as cowards, as weaklings, leaving life without glory or honor. Loki sighed silently as his daughter turned and strode out of the hall. "Goodbye, daughter," he murmured, wishing for the millionth time that things could have been different.

It was good that Hel's visit was the last of the Receiving, because seeing his daughter always put Loki in a foul mood afterward, sometimes for days. This time, however, he wasn't allowed to sequester himself alone as he usually did. Taryn refused to leave him. She didn't press him to talk, but even the mere presence of another right now rasped like sandpaper on his raw nerves. He buried himself in his personal library, pulling out ancient journals covered in the crabbed, scrawling handwriting he used only for his magical notes-this had always worked on Thor, who would soon get bored and leave. Not so with Taryn. She merely sat quietly alongside him, reading a book of her own, saying nothing, and calmly ignoring his silent hints for her to leave him alone.

Finally Loki slammed shut the book he'd been trying to decipher and threw it down. "Say it," he growled, not looking at her.

Taryn closed her own book much more gently. "Say what?"

"She is hideous, a monster. She is full of hatred. And I should have killed her at birth." Loki finally met her eyes. "It is nothing I have not heard before."

Taryn set her book aside and held his angry gaze. "She's a hideous monster, full of hatred, and you should have killed her at birth," she said mildly. "Feel better?"

Loki surged to his feet and paced away from her. "Don't mock me about this."

"I'm not."

He heard her approach behind him and stepped away again. She followed, he moved, she followed again, and finally he spun around. "Taryn, stop this! Can't you leave me be?"

She crossed her arms over her chest and just looked at him. "When you're hurting this much? No."

Loki sighed and slumped against the bookshelf. Taryn didn't say anything else, but she didn't leave him, either. He rubbed his hands over his face. "You have just witnessed my greatest failure," he finally said, face still covered. "Don't you have anything to say to that?"

"No."

Angry now, he shoved away from the bookshelf and stalked over to her. "Must you treat this as a game?" he demanded.

Taryn sighed and reached up to cup his face in her hands. "Did you do that to her on purpose, Loki?" she asked gently.

He tore out of her grip. "Of course not!" he gritted out.

"And did you try to fix it?"

He slammed a hand into the stone wall. A bone broke, stung as it mended, and he savored that pain as it momentarily displaced the far worse one nothing could ever touch. "A thousand times."

"Then why should I beat you up over it?" He heard her approach again, but this time she didn't touch him. "You seem to want me to," she added, and she sounded puzzled.

Want her to? No, he merely expected her to. After all, everyone else had. "I finally know what went wrong," he finally said, and this time his voice was toneless, drained of his anger and self-loathing. "And there is no way to repair it. My mistakes are written into her very cells. I made her in my image, not knowing that my image is a lie."

"Have you told her that? Have you shown her your real form?"

He snorted a little laugh even though there was no humor in it. "Do you really think it would make a difference?" he asked bitterly, staring at the blood on his knuckles, the abrasions already fading. "Sorry I made you a monster, look, I'm one too?"

Taryn sighed again at his sarcastic reply. "It might," she said. When he didn't answer, just looked at her as if she were mad, her lips tightened. She caught his arm before he could flinch away from her again. "Come on."

Loki resisted her pull for a moment, but when she didn't relent, he finally let her drag him out of his library. "Where are you taking me?" he asked, but she didn't answer as she led him through the palace. "Taryn?"

Finally she pushed open a door and they emerged onto the practice fields. Sif and the Warriors Three were in their usual clearing, their shouts and the ring of steel on steel filling the bright air as they sparred.

"Taryn?" Loki murmured again as she dragged him over to them. He wasn't sure what she was planning, but if she intended to discuss Hel with them, he would have to put a stop to it.

"Lady Taryn!" Fandral said, catching sight of them and smiling with seemingly genuine delight. "And King Loki!" He clapped a fist to his chest and bowed to his king, a gesture repeated by the others. "To what do we owe this honor?"

Taryn none-too-gently pushed Loki into the ring. "Someone beat the crap out of him," she ordered flatly. "He seems to be in the mood for it." And then she turned around and walked back up to the castle without a backward glance.

A long moment of stunned silence followed her departure. Then Sif raised her glaive in a warrior's salute. "Always ready and willing to beat the crap out of you, my King," she said, and Loki actually found his lips curving in the ghost of a smile as Fandral tossed him a staff from the weapons rack, then drew his own sword.

"Any particular reason your lady wants you bloodied?" Volstagg asked, swinging his axe lightly.

Loki rubbed a thumb over his lips, thinking back to his behavior in the library. "I might deserve it," he conceded.

"Let's not disappoint her, then," Hogun said, and the battle was on.