Loki spent the day with Judah and Frigga and Thor, trying to convince all three of them that he was fine, and he was better, but something was on his mind and it wasn't the terrors of the night. So even though he was very tired from a long night of not sleeping, and a longer day of pretending all was well, after he tucked Judah into bed he slipped out of the palace under cover of a special shroud of invisibility that not even Heimdall's eye could breach, to one of the secret dimensional rifts only his special eyes could see. For the first time in his life, he voluntarily changed into frost giant form, cloaked himself in an illusion of frost giant clothing – or lack thereof, as they generally wore very little – and passed through the boundary from Asgard to Jotunheim.

The palace of Utgard was partially destroyed during Laufey's push fifteen hundred years prior, and had never been rebuilt. Now it was completely razed, and a collection of crude, hastily-constructed ice-built huts stood where it had been. Loki moved cautiously among them. It was even later here than it had been in Asgard, so few were about, but where there was a King, there were guards, and while he was still invisible to Heimdall's eye, he had cut the illusion that rendered him invisible to any other eye. He wanted to be found.

A pair of guards were standing outside the largest crude hut. Loki walked right up to them. They eyed him suspiciously but did not say anything or move. "Pardon me," he said. He had never heard a word of Jotun in his life, but that did not matter – he had the Dragon Tongue, and could speak any language, whether he "knew" it or not. Flawlessly, without accent. "Is this the location of Utgard? I am from the provinces, and have come to pay homage to the new King."

"There is no Utgard any longer," one of the guards grunted. "What provincial hole did you crawl out of?"

"Oh I know the palace was destroyed," Loki said. "But this is where it stood, yes? This is where His Majesty lives."

"You're not going to see him in the middle of the night, so go away, Outlander."

"What's going on out there?"

The guards looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "Nothing, Prince Byleistr. Just some provincial fool come here in the dead of night looking to pay homage to His Majesty."

"Well we're awake now, send him in."

The guards shook their heads and let him pass. Loki went inside. He held his head high, even though they glared down at him. At only six feet, two inches, he was less than half as tall as the guards. Plus, he had hair. So they knew something was off about him.

"No funny business, Little One," one of the guards said in a low voice as he passed.

Two frost giants sat inside the hut, one on an ice-built chair that probably passed for a throne, the other on the floor at his feet. The rumpled condition of the two rather rough beds that made up the only other furniture suggested they had both just risen from sleep. Loki stopped before them and bowed, wondering if one or both of them was Laufey's offspring. When he came back up he noticed something odd about the King. He was looking at the air over his head, not at him. Not altogether out of the question for a King to refuse to look at a lowly subject, but Loki rather thought there was another reason.

The new king of the frost giants was blind.

"Greetings, Outlander," the one on the floor said. "You stand before Helblindi, Eldest of Laufey, Rightful King of Jotunheim."

Loki bowed. "I am honored, your Majesty."

The blind king turned his head toward the one on the floor and said, "His voice sounds low to the floor. Is he seated?"

"No, my Brother, he is very short."

"Short?"

"It is so, Your Majesty," Loki said. "I have hair, also. It has caused me much strife. My mother was a Vanir goddess taken during the war. I never knew her."

"Ah, yes. There are a few such offspring, although most look one way or the other. Our father, King Laufey, tried hard to achieve a god child. He did not succeed."

"What did he want with such a child? If you do not mind my asking, oh glorious King," Loki said.

The blind king shrugged. "He felt that the future of Jotunheim's strength in the universe depended upon having a god – his son – on the throne."

"Were there many offspring of this… attempt?"

The one on the floor shook his head. "Only one successful birth. The child was born a frost giant, but small, as you are. Father was… disappointed, to put it mildly."

"The union between frost giant and god is rarely successful," the King said. "You are truly a rarity, young man."

"What happened to your brother? The one in which His Majesty King Laufey was disappointed?" Loki asked.

"He died," the one on the floor said. "He was abandoned with his mother in the palace to die when the Asgardians attacked."

With his mother?! Loki's head reeled. He pulled himself together and asked, "But the Asgardians would save a goddess, would they not? Perhaps he yet lives."

Both frost giants laughed. Once they started, it seemed for a time they would not stop. "Where? In Asgard?" the one on the floor said at last. "The Asgardians would not suffer a frost giant to live among them. Unless perhaps they locked him in a cage and charged admission for gawkers to poke sticks at him."

"I… suppose you are right, Your Highness," Loki said. "I don't know what I was thinking. But his mother was definitely left with him?"

"Yes. A shame, really. For a goddess, she was a remarkably kind creature. I suppose the Asgardians rescued her, at least. That is good. It was not right, what father did to those ladies. It does not matter who they were or where they were from. They did not deserve what happened to them."

"My father did not agree with you," Loki said.

They shook their heads in unison. "Neither did ours. But Laufey was a bastard. After all, he left his own child to die," the King said.

"You regret that?"

"We had no power," the one on the floor said. "We lived in fear of our father all our lives. He avoided all of that, so in a way, we think him lucky – but we lost a brother."

"Brothers are important," Loki said, around a sudden lump in his throat. "This goddess, do you know her name?"

The blind king waved a hand in front of her face. "God names all sound the same to me," he said. "But it started with an F. Frig. Frigga, I think."

The other nodded. "Yes, that is what it was. She really was very kind. Considering what was happening to her, you wouldn't have expected her to be. Why are you so interested in her?"

Loki couldn't see straight. Frigga. His mother was Frigga. It was impossible.

"I don't know. The idea of having a mother has always fascinated me," he said, improvising through his clouded thoughts. "I feel I have kept Your Majesties from sleep long enough. You have been most gracious in speaking with me."

"Return any time," the King said. "The throne of Jotunheim is an open forum. Just… try to arrive in the daytime, next time."

Loki bowed, and exited the hut. He did not run back to the dimensional rift leading back to Asgard, but he walked very swiftly. He forgot all about maintaining his shroud. He just had to get back to a place of familiarity quickly before he lost all semblance of sanity.

He shifted back to god form very swiftly as he came face-to-face with Heimdall on the other side of the hidden barrier.

"Did you find the answers you seek?" Heimdall asked, leaning on his sword.

Loki pulled himself up and tried to keep it together. "I found only more questions."

"Your answers do not lie in Jotunheim, my Prince."

"That much I now know," Loki said. "They lie with Odin. And with Frigga."


A/N: Before you start hollering, I know this isn't canon, either in the comics or the proper mythology. Hell, in the proper mythology, Loki is Odin's best friend, basically Thor's uncle, NOT his brother, adopted or otherwise. In any event, this takes place in the world of the MCU, where anything, literally ANYTHING can and often does happen, and they set this up so well for me.