"Ahem."
Loki opened one bleary eye and saw his son standing before his bed. He closed his eye again and put his hand over his face.
"Ahem."
"School is cancelled today, Judah – go play," he said, burying his face in the pillow.
"That's not what we need to talk about."
Loki paused, then picked his head up and said, with some trepidation, "What do we need to talk about, Judah?"
"That woman. She got you drunk last night."
Loki had never been drunk in his entire life, but judging by the condition of his head, he had indeed been drunk last night.
"My father used to get drunk, all the time," Judah went on. "Mom tried to keep me from seeing him like that, but I saw plenty. You were drunk, Dad. That woman got you drunk."
"All right, first thing – Angrboda did not get me drunk, Judah. I regret to inform you that I did that to myself," Loki said. "Second thing – tell me what I did that got you so riled up. I didn't do anything to hurt you, did I?"
Judah's tense shoulders relaxed slightly. "No. You staggered in, patted my head, said goodnight in a funny voice, and fell into bed."
"A funny voice?" Loki said. He expected the boy meant that he slurred his speech, but given that he was talented with imitations he wasn't certain.
"You know – like your tongue was too big," Judah said. "My dad used to talk like that when he was drunk."
"Yeah, it happens," Loki said, rolling onto his back and pressing the palms of his hands to his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry I drank too much last night. I don't usually do that – in fact, I've never done it before. I promise you, I'll never do it again. All right?"
"I bet you will if you marry that one," Judah said. "That's her idea of having fun. It was my father's, too."
"That one has a name – it's Angrboda," Loki said. "And maybe it is her idea of having fun, but it isn't mine. I just didn't quite have the stones to tell her so last night, so I drank harder than I meant to because I was uncomfortable."
"Dad?" Judah said, rather quietly.
"Yes, Judah."
"I can't remember my parents. I mean… I remember my dad drinking… and I remember them dying… but I don't remember much of anything else. I don't remember the good stuff. I don't remember my mom's eyes, or her smile, or her voice… That really came clear to me, yesterday, talking to Lady Sigyn. I don't remember my mom."
Loki took his hands away from his eyes and looked at Judah despite the way the light from the windows made his throbbing head pound harder. "You were very young, Judah. It's not surprising your memories are fading. You've spent almost half your life without so much as a picture of them."
"I don't remember my real name, Dad."
"You don't think Judah Lokison is your real name?"
"You know what I mean. I don't remember the name I was born with."
"No one is born with a name, Judah. It's not stamped on us like a birthmark."
"You know what I mean!"
"James, it was James. James Striker, Jr. Do you… want to go back to it?"
"No…" Judah said, wringing his hands. The boy looked absolutely miserable. "I just feel like I'm letting my parents down, forgetting all this stuff. Forgetting them."
Loki rolled back onto his side and put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Judah, you're not letting anyone down. If your birth parents were like any good parents, they had one true dream in this world, and it's the same dream I have – that you will live well and happy, and grow up strong and proud and healthy. And you can't be happy if you're fretting on the past. Don't cling to the past and forget about the present, Judah. It never did me any good."
"Are you saying I should forget my parents?" Judah said.
"No. I just mean… don't hate yourself for the things you can't remember. You were very young, your tiny, mortal brain had not developed very much yet," he said, giving Judah a smile and a gentle pinch of the nose. "No child of five would be left with terribly specific memories of anything much beyond the traumas they experienced up to that point. It's not your fault that you've forgotten, you certainly did not set out to forget. Life has a way of getting in the way of such things. Even gods forget, once time goes on long enough. They somehow forgot that I had an older sister, despite the fact that she led a reign of absolute terror and destroyed the Valkyries and it couldn't have been before everyone's time. She didn't seem that old to me."
"I'm sorry I yelled at you," Judah said.
"I deserved it," Loki said. "I shouldn't have drunk so much."
"My dad would drink lots of black coffee when he had a hangover," Judah said. "Not straight from the pot like you do it, but…"
Loki sighed. "While that does indeed sound marvelous, my boy, the coffee bean is a purely Midgardian product, and Asgard does not import anything from Midgard. No coffee."
"They don't import coffee, but they import little orphans," Judah said, grinning nervously.
"If I were King, we'd import orphans and coffee," Loki said. He stroked Judah's hair. "My little man. You're on a big adventure, coming here. I bet it's pretty scary, isn't it?"
"Yeah, kinda. Sometimes. I mean, the first thing that happened is you get sent off somewhere for what felt like a really long time. A lot longer than three measly days, that's for sure. And then… well… it hasn't been much fun, being stuck in the palace because of the protestors. And I kind of feel panicky sometimes, because I can't feel my heartbeat."
"You can't feel your heartbeat?"
"It's gotten really, really slow since I ate that epli thing. Sometimes I forget and I think something's wrong with me. Like when I first wake up."
"I suppose it does feel strange to go from a mortal heartbeat to an immortal one." Loki thought for a moment, then he looked at Judah eye-to-eye. "You know I'm trying to do my best for you, right?"
"Yes."
"But… I don't always know what the best thing is," he said. "I don't know if making you immortal was a good thing or not, I don't know if bringing you here was a good thing or not, I don't know whether to stay here and get married or sneak you out the back door and make a run for it in the dark of night."
"Is that option on the table?" Judah asked.
"Do you want to leave?" Loki asked.
Judah writhed again, unwilling to answer but trapped into doing so. "Grandma is great, I love her so much, but this place… it's too much for me. It takes a half an hour to walk down to dinner."
"You don't think you'd get used to it?" Loki said. "We live very comfortably here. Much more so than we ever would anywhere else."
"I liked the way we lived back home, even though it was small," Judah said. "It was… friendlier."
"Yes, I know what you mean. Well… I'll think about it, Judah. I have to take a lot of things into consideration when making a decision like that."
"Does that mean you don't want to go?" Judah said.
"Judah, believe me, if it was just me, or if I was just a little bit more the 'old' me, I would go in a heartbeat. But I'm responsible for your life – that's a big responsibility. I've got to try and do right by you. And that very small part of me that actually is a grownup… is telling me that the best thing for you… for both of us, maybe… may not be what either of us wants."
Judah frowned and looked close to crying, so Loki pulled him close to the bed for an awkward hug. "Don't worry about it right now. I'll find a compromise between grownup and what we want if at all possible. For now, tell me: what do you think of Lady Sigyn?"
Judah's face brightened. "She's great! I really hope you choose her!"
Loki raised an eyebrow. "Don't you think you should at least try and get to know Lady Angrboda before you decide you want your new mom to be Lady Sigyn?"
Judah shook his head, his face clouding over again just that swiftly. "I don't trust the other one. I don't think she really likes you, and I know she doesn't like me. She's a… a what do you call 'em? A gold digger."
Loki put his hand on Judah's cheek. "My sweet summer child. Neither of them want to marry me. Both of them are here because of what they or their families can get out of a royal marriage. Angrboda is making the best of it. Sigyn is less inclined to do so because she feels that I am a criminal who got off because of power and prestige. She does, however, seem disinclined to hold it against you, thank the ancestors."
He thought about how Angrboda seemed disinclined to acknowledge Judah at all. Was it because he was born mortal, because of his different appearance, or because she did not like children? Or was it simply a misunderstanding, and she was merely uncomfortable to be intruding on this ready-made family? It was a question of some importance.
"What do they get out of marrying you, exactly?" Judah asked. "You won't be King unless something happens to Uncle Thor, right? Which you said was pretty unlikely."
"They personally will become royalty, which is a pretty big deal in Asgard. Their children will be royalty, too, and so on down the line. Their family will take a huge step up in noble title, which means they will receive a larger stipend. Vanaheim is in tremendous debt, so a larger stipend might be a huge concern for either one of these ladies. Prestige, money, a life of ultimate luxury – everything a gold digger could ask for, really."
"Would they ever be able to inherit the throne?" Judah asked.
"No, not unless one of their children inherited when they were too young to rule – they would rule as a Dowager until the rightful King or Queen came of age. That almost happened when my father became King – he was quite young – but the court determined he was old enough to rule on his own. I'm not certain they were right. By the sounds of things, Father made a lot of mistakes in his early days. He tried to hush up a lot of that history. He has been remarkably successful because he was so young then and he's so old now, hardly anybody was alive back then."
"So there's no way for Grandma to be the real ruler of Asgard, then."
Loki shook his head. "On Midgard, and in some of the other realms, there is something called 'the Crown Matrimonial,' where marrying a King or a Queen gives you the right to rule in their stead if something happens to them. We do not have that here. If Odin died and there was no heir, the crown would pass to whoever the court determined was best suited to wear it. It might be Frigga, she has the advantage of being designated royalty – but it would not have to be, and she has the disadvantage of being Vanir. That's a pretty big disadvantage, really. Asgardians don't like to admit it, but they're pretty xenophobic."
"Say what now?"
"It's a big word that means they don't like outsiders, except to keep bloodlines from becoming too inbred. Still, she is well-loved, Vanir or no."
"She would be a better ruler than Odin, I think," Judah said.
"Judah… you're not plotting to overthrow your grandfather, are you?" Loki said.
"No. I just don't think he's a very good King."
"He is a good King, Judah. But it's a very hard job."
"He's not a good father," Judah said. "He wasn't a good father to you."
"He was a better father than I give him credit for. I think… he just wasn't prepared for the kind of child I was. He understood a boy like your Uncle – strong and rambunctious, ready to play and willing to fight. I was… Judah, I was what you Midgardians call a nerd."
"That's no excuse!"
"Perhaps it isn't, but it is a reason. Judah, he's the god of war. Your uncle was born to be a warrior. I most assuredly was not."
"I know what you did in New York with the Chitauri," Judah said. "I know even without them you almost beat the Avengers single-handedly. You can't tell me you're not a warrior."
"I'm a god, Judah," Loki said. "The Avengers are mostly mortals. I know how to fight, but that had to be trained into me through a lengthy and rather brutal process. A process so brutal that, despite the dangers involved in not sending you to a proper school, I fully intend to homeschool you if you choose to go on with a magical education."
Judah brightened. "You mean I can?"
"If you want. And if you promise to take it very seriously."
"You mean it –" Judah began, but he was cut off as a quartet of loud persons entered the room without permission, causing Loki to wince in pain.
It was actually a trio of loud persons, though four bodies were present – Lady Sif, Volstagg, and Fandral were gabbing at the top of their lungs. Hogun, as always, was grim and silent. "What do you want?" Loki said, pulling his pillow out from under his head and clamping it down over his ears in self-defense.
"We heard you might be feeling a bit… 'under the weather,' Serpent-Tongue," Sif said, perching herself on the foot of the bed, "so we've come to help. As your friends."
"You're not my friends," Loki pointed out.
"Yes we are," Volstagg said.
"No, you're not, you're Thor's friends."
"We're your friends, too."
"That rather fell through when I tried to kill Thor, didn't it?"
"Thor asked us to keep an eye on you while he was gone," Hogun said, always prepared to be honest, even brutally so.
"Ah. He didn't trust me."
"He worried about you," Fandral said, trying to soften it. "And he was right to worry, wasn't he? Here he is, barely gone a day, and you drink yourself into oblivion. It's just not like you, Loki. You've always been temperate. With drink, at least."
"Could you keep it down to a dull roar, please?" Loki said. "I'd truly appreciate it."
Volstagg laughed heartily. "We have the cure for your swollen head. On your feet and come with us. Why – you did not even change out of your armor last night, did you? You hit it hard indeed."
Volstagg was not as strong as Loki but he was more than strong enough to grab him and yank him bodily out of bed, which he proceeded to do. He and Fandral grabbed him by the arms and they and the rest of their band frog marched him out of the room, with Judah following behind.
"Don't hurt him!" the boy said.
"Don't worry, lad – we're only here to help," Volstagg said.
They sat him at a table in the common area and Hogun plunked a tankard down in front of him. Loki gave the contents a suspicious sniff. "Ale? Your cure for having drunk too much is to drink more?" he said.
"Works a charm," Lady Sif said. "Trust me."
"It's not just ale," Volstagg said. "It's got two raw eggs mixed in. A little protein is good for a hangover."
Loki pushed it away from himself. "I think I'd rather just go back to bed, thank you."
"Drink it," Hogun said, pushing it back. "The ale is weak. You will not get drunk again."
"That's not entirely what worries me. It sounds like an effective emetic."
"Throwing up wouldn't be a bad idea," Sif said. "You'd feel better a lot faster."
"I think I'll just live with it, thanks," Loki said, pushing his chair back and starting to rise.
Volstagg pushed him back down with one huge hand on his shoulder. "Sit. Drink. It will all be over in a gulp and then you'll feel better."
"I don't think they're going to let you out of it, Dad," Judah said.
"We're not," Fandral said. "Trust us, it's not that bad. Not nearly as bad as the headache."
Loki looked at Judah. "This," he said, very seriously, "is one of many very good reasons never to drink to excess. Remember this day." And then he took a drink of the ale. He grimaced and put the tankard down again as he worked to swallow the wretched mixture. He gasped and said it again, perhaps for his own benefit as much as his son's. "Remember this day."
