Ensoulment

by Valerie Vancollie
valeriev84 at hotmail dot com

Notes: A new point of view and one answer at least :)

Also a great big thanks to everyone who has left reviews so far, it's greatly appreciated and they always help to feed the muses.

Oh! If anyone wants to download this fic, I am cross-posting it at AO3 where my username is Valerie_Vancollie

Valhöll, 2018 A.D.

Frigga watched the ever increasing stream of people entering Valhöll with trepidation. Each moment she did not see either of her sons was a good one, but Heimdallr's report of the predicament both Thor and Loki had been in when he himself had been killed caused her to fear. Surely it was too much to expect both of them to have made it out of that alive?

Her mind knew it was, her heart hoped it was not.

"Frigga," Óðinn began, his fifth attempt to placate her.

Or to try to prepare her for the worst. She was not entirely certain.

"They are fighters, both of them," Frigga interrupted, loudly. "And they were together."

"Frigga-"

"They have survived worse," a pause. "Loki in particular."

"Heimdallr was quite clear in his assessment of the situation," Óðinn said more forcefully before pulling her close. "And..."

Frigga clenched her eyes as her husband trailed off, knowing what he thought but knew she would not want to hear. That her baby may not be worthy of Valhöll. She wished she could refuse to believe it; to deny it vehemently, but alas she could not. Not with what Loki had done on Miðgarðr.

She still believed in him, but she could no longer summon the absolute certainty from before. Not after how he had acted on his return.

Then Óðinn stiffened against her and Frigga felt her heart freeze. Nay, Norns nay!

"Still thinking the worst of me as always, Father," the far too familiar voice came from behind her. "I knew those final words were out of character. Did they make you feel better, knowing what you left Thor and me to face?"

Still dreading what she would see, Frigga turned around and relief swept through her when she could see no obvious wound. He was still just as dead, regardless, but she had not wished to see any more of his innards than she had already with his previous injuries.

Loki's outfit was not one she had seen before and it lacked much of his signature green, but he looked good in it regardless. His face, though, was marred by the hard look in his eyes as he looked at his father. Luckily it softened the moment he shifted his gaze to her.

"Oh, Loki," Frigga uttered before she moved to him, reaching up to touch his face. "I was hoping not to see you here yet."

A wry smile crossed his face. "I know, but it could not be helped."

"Tell me what happened. Heimdallr has clearly explained where you were."

"Then you should be able to guess."

"You can teleport," Frigga countered.

And, though she had no proof of it, she was almost entirely certain her baby had also mastered a far more mystical skill when it came to moving between places, one only theorized about before but never actually achieved. Yet.

He should have survived.

"Thor was tied down," Loki replied with a fleeting smile. "Or clamped down in any case. He could not flee."

And Loki would not leave his brother like that. Frigga had known her youngest did not truly want Thor dead despite what Óðinn and others had said. Loki and Thor were far too close even if they had grown apart in recent centuries.

"Besides," Loki continued. "Thanos was right there, I had to try."

Frigga's eyes grew wide as she realized what he meant.

"You tried to kill him," she breathed, hearing her husband's sharp intake of breath behind her.

Loki nodded once and now she was looking more closely, Frigga could see a hint of a shadow around his neck. Pushing his high collar aside it soon became clear precisely how he had died. Their knives always meant they had to get far closer to their opponents than most Ásgarðrians.

"Why?" she demanded.

Of everyone, he had to have known what would happen.

"He was never going to let me live, not after... Besides, it felt right and, in the end, was necessary though I did not realize it at the time."

That... There were so much in those words Frigga did not even know where to begin to try to unravel it all.

"What do you mean, he was never going to let you live?" Óðinn demanded and Frigga closed her eyes in dismay, dropping her head onto her youngest's shoulder.

Loki's arms came up around her and she moved closer to properly embrace him.

"What did you do?" Óðinn finished.

"You mean beyond deliberately sabotaging the invasion and failing to obtain him the Space Stone?" Loki retorted calmly, without any of the heat and venom which had been in his voice so often as of late. "How about the fact I lost him the Mind Stone as well as his army?"

Relief, pure and sweet, swept through Frigga at first. The invasion of Miðgarðr had not been her baby's idea! She had always known something had not been right as it had been so wholly out of character for the son who had not even realized at first he would be king after Óðinn had collapsed so soon after banishing Thor. But then it was swept aside by fear and nausea. Thanos had possessed her son and Loki was nothing if not stubborn. To make him do anything he truly did not wish to was not possible. At least not without guilting him and only she had ever been able to do so.

Thus it made Frigga feel ill to think what might have been necessary to achieve it. And then, once her baby had managed to break free from the Mad Titan and his scheme, had they welcomed him home or even asked what had happened? Nay, Thor had simply dragged his brother to the dungeon until his trial when Óðinn had already been treating Loki as guilty. Not that her youngest had helped matters any with his own words and deeds, but Frigga knew his thinking behind that.

"Why bother explaining when they will not listen?"

It had been a conversation on another issue long ago, but Loki's words had haunted her long after, their meaning and implication so disturbing. She had attempted to inform Óðinn of this, but clearly she had not done enough if her youngest had not felt able to speak of something as significant as this.

"You..." Óðinn began. "You wish to claim your defeat was deliberate."

"It was deliberate," Loki retorted. "As you would have realized had you not already been decided against me. I made every mistake I could without being obvious, which as one of my teachers in strategy and warfare you should have seen."

"I had not already decided against you!"

"Aye, you had, why else would you have sentenced me to death had mother not interfered?"

The words made Frigga's hands upon her son's back spasm. Sentence him to death? Nay, Óðinn would not have! Not to their baby!

Yet at the same time her heart leapt. Loki had called her mother! After their last argument in his cell, the simple word flooded her with both joy and relief.

"I a- was king!" Óðinn roared. "I needed to do what was right for Ásgarðr despite any personal feelings. Wherever you go there is war, ruin and death."

"Nay, that is Thor. Attacking wherever he could find glorious battle as on Normheimr, Vanaheimr, Jötunheimr. The latter merely for being called a princess!" Loki snapped back, seeming reluctant to release her when she drew back. "And did you know that at the battle of Haragon your precious son and his companions celebrated their victory so hard our opponents- newly defeated and suffering the loses thereof- nearly picked up their weapons once more! That is how bloodthirsty and violent your favored son is."

Much as Frigga wished to interfere and halt this argument, a larger part of her was too much in shock. Not only at the words themselves and the things they revealed which she had not been aware of, but also at how wild and artless Loki was being with them. She was used to her youngest keeping his true feelings and thoughts close, so to see them all spilling out like this was astonishing in and of itself.

"Do I cause mischief and chaos?" Loki continued. "Aye, I admit it freely. Has it gone too far on occasion? Aye. But I am not the one whom brings death and destruction in his wake, for that you need to look at your own blood instead of assuming Laufey's will bring it simply by virtue of it being his!"

"You wish to complain of being judged harshly, after what you did to Jötunheimr?" Óðinn demanded.

"Jötunheimr is irrelevant!"

"Jötunheimr is precedent."

"Nay, it is not, I was king!" Loki snarled. "King with you collapsed, Thor banished and Mother by your side to ensure you survived. That left me with warriors who turned traitor, a gatekeeper who aided them, a council who would not listen and a war I had not started and done all I could to prevent. What should I have done, gathered the army?"

"It would have been the honorable thing to do!"

"And how many æsir would have died? Not to mention what would have happened had one of the jötnar warriors managed to get close enough to touch me, reverting me back to my jötunn form? What do you think have happened then?"

The mere thought made Frigga pale and from the widening of Óðinn's eyes she knew he had realized the implications of it too. And not just the personal ones for their youngest, but the sheer confusion and utter chaos that kind of sudden revelation on the battlefield would have caused. It would have led to a slaughter.

"Was it desperate? Aye. Was I thinking clearly? Nay, how could I after all I had just learned?" Loki demanded harshly. "And my initial plan ended with Laufey's death, which would have ended the war with no further casualties. But even if you add all the deaths my actions on Miðgarðr resulted in to those turning the Bifröst on Jötunheimr caused, then my body count is still only a fraction of Thor's." A pause. "Or yours."

"Óði-" Frigga began immediately to try to cut him off.

"Mine?" Óðinn demanded darkly, ignoring her.

"Vanaheimr, Múspellsheimr, Jötunheimr," Loki rattled off without pause. "Three full-scale and very bloody wars during your reign, not to mention the countless battles and skirmishes to consolidate your power. And that is without even considering your involvement as crown prince in the war with Svartálfaheimr during which you and Borr slaughtered not only the combatants, but all of the noncombatants too."

"They were all working to the same goal!"

"So we are told now," Loki replied. "Hard to know for certain with what we thought was a full-scale genocide, one which I grew up hearing lauded and celebrated often. And let us not forget your delightful epitaphs. Böðgæðir, Hildolfr, Hjaldrgegnir, Hjaldr-"

"Loki, enough," Frigga cut in, gratified at least one of them listened to her when his mouth clicked shut.

Alas, it was but a temporary reprieve.

"I am certain Hela would have easily been able to add on many more battles and tales, what with her being your Executioner," Loki said instead. "Such as what truly happened at Hvergelmir and why it boils."

Óðinn jerked as if struck and Frigga frowned at her husband as he paled dramatically.

"How do you know of that?" Óðinn demanded, voice a rasp. "No one lives who..."

"You would be surprised at what I now know which I did not before," Loki replied cryptically, eyes going distant for a moment. "Death has been... unexpected in ways I could not possibly have imagined."

"Loki?" Frigga questioned urgently as he almost seemed to fade.

The moment she touched him, though, the impression vanished and he focused on her once more, expression brightening.

"I have missed you, Mother," Loki said, taking her hand. "Though Óðinn denied my request to attend your funeral to pay my last respects I hope you know I did not mean those last words."

"Oh, Loki," Frigga melted into him, embracing him once more. "I know you love me and I should not have asked you what I did."

"Frigga-" Óðinn began.

"Nay," she cut him off. "This argument is yours and Loki's, I have no part in it." Though thinking back to how it had commenced, one question did occur to her again and she pulled back just enough to be able to view her son's face. "Why did you not simply come home once you were free of Thanos instead of attacking Miðgarðr?"

Loki swallowed thickly as he looked away. "I was not myself and I bore the Mind Stone in the scepter. It... took time to fully throw off its influence and I knew I was being observed, my every move potentially analyzed and assessed."

Frigga nodded as she realized something.

"Their subsequent anger springing as much from not having seen this as the failure itself," she concluded.

"They thought me broken and malleable," Loki agreed. "They assumed all thoughts of outright rebellion were subsumed by what they had promised me in return for completing their tasks... and the fear of what would befall me if I did not."

An uncomfortable silence settled between them as Frigga could not bring herself to ask. Merely knowing her child had been tormented thus was already more than she could bear.

"Loki," Óðinn eventually said. "Why did you not mention this at your trial?"

"What trial? I had none, simply a sentencing."

"Still you said naught."

"Why would I?" Loki demanded. "You would merely have called me a liar, attempting to slither my way out of a just punishment. Your mind was already made up with your assumptions."

"I did not assume anything."

"You have been assuming everything from the day you found me, including why I was left in that temple."

The words shocked Frigga and she stepped back a pace to truly be able to see her youngest. Was he saying what she thought he was? That he had not been left to die?

"No one leaves a newborn infant exposed to the elements like that without intending for them to die," Óðinn argued.

"They do if they know they will be found almost immediately after they are left," Loki replied, suddenly serene. "My birthright was to die, you said at my sentencing, as a child, cast out onto a frozen rock."

"Óðinn!" Frigga exclaimed, utterly outraged.

How could he have said that to their baby!

"Frigga-" Óðinn began.

"You were right on only one count," Loki interrupted.

"What?" Frigga demanded, turning back to her youngest.

"My birthright was to die, but at Thanos' hands and not as a child."

"Loki, darling, what do you mean?"

The words themselves made no sense and Frigga felt nothing but horror at the fact he truly seemed to think he had been meant to die. That it could possibly be his birthright.

"It was seen before my birth, as did what came before and immediately after," Loki explained, reaching out to touch her cheek. "Do not worry, Mother, it was all with a purpose and one which means I have the chance to do what no one else can. Or ever has before."

"Who saw all of this?" Óðinn questioned, stepping closer as well, face lined in deep confusion.

"My birth mother," Loki said. "Whom was not Fárbauti-Queen as you simply assumed, All-Father."

Regarding Frigga's view of how Loki reacted to becoming king, I direct you to the wonderful missing scene from Thor where Loki is given Gungnir. A Google search for Loki Becomes King should find it. It's a pity it was cut.

Old Norse:
Valhöll - Valhalla, "hall of the slain"
Böðgæðir - Battle Enhancer - name for Óðinn
Hildolfr - Battle Wolf - name for Óðinn
Hjaldrgegnir - Engager of Battle - name for Óðinn
Hjaldrgoð - God of battle - name for Óðinn
Hvergelmir - "bubbling boiling spring"