- Chapter 55 -

"How could Loki wield a color of seidr not his own without a grim totem?" Frigga asked Odin. There was a terrible fear in her thoughts. It hurt her, almost physically, to contemplate how she hadn't noticed that her son was capable of wielding multiple colors of seidr. A person who could do that seidr without a grim totem was someone to be feared. There was very little they couldn't do. As much as it hurt her to feel a small kernel of fear about her child, it hurt so much more to see how badly injured he was. What hurt most of all was that she didn't have the ability to go to her son and assure herself that he was as well as he could be. What Lord Hela and the waystation did to Loki made it impossible for her son to ever be fully healed and whole again. Until Frigga could put her arms around her son it was going to continue to actively agitate her.

"We'll discuss it after we return home," Odin said again. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have in public. It wasn't a discussion he wanted to have at all, but it was too late for that. The discussion he wanted to have was with Loki, to determine the measure of his health and why he'd hidden this. If he could speak with Loki them he could determine some of the damage to his memory chains. Odin hoped he would be able to speak with his son again.

The fear Frey heard the in his beloved sister's seidr agitated him. There was pain following that fear. His own seidr pulled in tightly again until the ache bloomed in his chest. He could tell his sister what he'd found. No oaths dictated he keep this knowledge to himself. Loki might be upset with him for discussing it in so open a setting. That was his main concern. He would be mortified to have his own nature so openly discussed. His beloved niece would be as well, and he didn't want her more upset with him than she was going to be after he'd told her of what happened this day. He considered a moment longer before deciding that it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It was a small thing for him. On one hand, who Loki was had always been more important to him than what. On the other hand, Vanaheim was different than Asgard, and Loki was raised in Asgard not Vanaheim. Vanaheim had always been more accepting of difference while Asgard was always so enamored with uniformity. Frey hesitated a moment longer until he heard the fear in his beloved sister's seidr begin to increase. Odin's delaying wasn't doing anything to soothe Frigga's nerves, neither was his. She was going to worry until she got an answer. It was an answer that was hers by rights. A soft sigh escaped him as he hoped that Loki would forgive him. He already knew that Frigga wasn't going to. Loki had always been more forgiving though. "The tales those like Loki say that they can bend their seidr into any form. It always puzzled me why that would be mentioned since there are no spells specific to individual colors of seidr. I'm afraid I didn't believe the wilder tales of the braettpar. They didn't seem possible, but it seems the tales did honestly mean any form, or color, of seidr," Frey said quietly.

"This is not the place for such a discussion!" Odin nearly snarled at Frey. It angered him that Frey would even consider discussing something so personal in so public a setting.

"Indeed, but it's the time for such a discussion," Frey nodded calmly.

With a questioning look Frigga turned to her brother. She could tell that he had answers. She knew him well enough to be able to see that much. Whatever he was willing to share, she wanted. It concerned her son and she wanted all of what he knew. He wouldn't give it to her this day, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't once they were done here. She would see to it herself.

"Loki's actions are the reason we are here, not Loki," Odin argued. The fact that he had little more than piddling arguments for not discussing this agitated him. There was very little about this that wasn't agitating him.

"You cannot separate one from the other. Loki's actions are a result of Loki. Loki is a result of the life she's lived. They are all connected. They cannot be separated," Frey shot back.

"Don't you think Loki has been gossiped about enough?" Odin asked hotly. When he returned home, the gossiping in the palace was going to come to an end. He hadn't thought it important before. Loki's actions had rapidly run through his patience with it. He wasn't going to tolerate it any longer. It felt a little like a knife in him to see how badly he'd mishandled something that seemed so small.

"It's a few centuries late for you to be worried about that!" Frey's voice held a hot undercurrent of anger. Anyone caught gossiping about Loki in his palace was punished harshly. Anyone caught spreading rumors about the Royal Family, which Loki was a part of, was punished harshly. He'd always thought it nothing but shameful that Odin had always tolerated everyone from his Council of Lords to the peasantry making sport of Loki.

Odin glared at Frey and Frey returned that glare.

"Husband, we've been called here for the truth." Frigga put a hand on Odin's arm. "Please tell me, what is this sickness you've mentioned? Why didn't we see it when Loki was younger?" There were many things they hadn't seen. They were all terrible. She was afraid to know that there was more.

"You did," Frey answered her. He didn't mind poking at Odin, he did it regularly during the Gathering of Lords. Never once had he used Loki to do so. Were Frigga not so miserable he would never have considered pushing the matter.

"She didn't ask you!" Odin said angrily. Neither the discussion itself nor Frey poking at him were what he wanted. Frey had Frigga riled up though. She wasn't going to let it go now.

"Can you tell her the truth?" Frey asked calmly.

"Enough from you!" Odin snarled at Frey again. He wanted to hit his irritating brother-by-law. Unfortunately, the Truthkeeper was still between them and there were still mortals in the room. Striking the Truthkeeper would incur Skuld's wrath, which was something else he didn't want, so he turned to Frigga with a small, frustrated huff. There was no getting around this discussion. "We have been mistaken about Loki, about Loki's nature," he said quietly. This wasn't a discussion to be had in public. He wasn't certain that he wanted to have it near Frey either.

"That Loki is Jotunn?" Frigga asked. It didn't bother her that Loki came from the Jotunns. She wanted to tell Loki the truth in the beginning. Unfortunately, Asgard held no love for Jotunns. She didn't want her baby to grow up friendless and lonely. It was one of the reasons why she agreed to keep it a secret from Loki. He grew up without companions anyway, didn't he, she thought guiltily.

"No, wife. Loki is Jotunn, but not necessarily a man," Odin said carefully. He wasn't even certain how to explain this. All he knew was the children's tale and the barest amount about what was supposed to be a real ailment.

"Father! After what we've seen, how can you say that of Loki?" Thor stood quickly, anger brimming in his voice. For his father to say that Loki wasn't a man after what his Little Brother had done wasn't just wrong. It was foul.

"Thor, please sit," Odin said quietly. For several centuries he'd felt small signs of age. It was never many things at once. The greying of his previously vibrant red hair, the stiffening of his joints, the ache in old, long healed wounds; many small things here and there. It wasn't until he believed Loki dead the first time that he felt many of them together. There were good days since then. There were bad days as well. Today Odin felt the full weight of his long years. Thor was looking at him with anger in his eyes. Worry and confusion played across Frigga's beautiful features. "I don't say this to be disparaging. It's the truth."

Looking back and forth between Odin and Frey, Frigga looked to her brother again and frowned. "You call Loki 'she'. You don't do so because this is a guise that Loki is wearing?" She gave Odin a hard look and crossed her arms over her chest. "What is a braettpar? What illness does Loki have?" This thing was going no farther until she knew what illness her son had. Either her husband or her brother was going to give her this answer at least.

"I don't honestly know. It's a story my mother told me as a child, both a legend and supposedly a real ailment. It was a tale of children born of the ice, both powerful and genderless. They were cursed beings. It's said that they were both wretched and sick, and beautiful beyond compare. None of them live long after birth, their bodies buckle under the weight of their own great power. Should any one of them survive this burden, then it would be a pair of Jotunns. One man, one woman, in a single frail body," Odin thought back to the tales his mother told him. There was always a certain wistfulness in his memories of his mother. She was gone from his life far too early, and he didn't get to know her as well as he wanted to. He remembered how he thought of his mother as he held Loki in his hands for the first time. He was such a small babe. "They're said to be both man and woman, yet wholly neither. She called them, 'Tiny pieces of flowing ice,' and said that they were left out on the ice after they were born, to return to it."

"That's all I know." Odin shrugged slightly. "It's a children's tale told in the wilds of Jotunheim." He found it difficult to meet his wife's gaze. "I've never heard of any child who was born like this. I've only ever heard of the Jotunns abandoning their runts. If Loki was born this way, then the face we've seen Loki wearing is perhaps," he sighed wearily, "it is probably not a guise, but is Loki's other half, his female half," Odin explained as best as he could. "It means wife, that we've only ever allowed Loki to be half of what he truly was." He didn't know if he could ever see Loki as a woman. It was bothersome to acknowledge because it meant that any children Loki had could very well be Stark's children as well. Odin still wasn't willing to accept that Stark had married Loki without his permission, let alone had children with Loki. It was all unacceptable. There was probably nothing he could do about it. That was what was most bothersome.

"I've never seen anything like this from Loki. Surely there would've been something. Surely, we would've seen something of this. Wouldn't we?" Frigga protested, struggling to grip the enormity of what she was hearing. She couldn't imagine how such an ailment was possible but could easily see the dire consequences of it. She understood better than most how exacting the standards for men and woman were in Asgard. Even as Queen, the Lady of Asgard and All Mother she was still considered less than her husband. Woman were expected to be keepers of hearth and home, bearers and raisers of children. It was ever bitter for Frigga that a woman who couldn't fulfil those duties wasn't viewed as a woman. Every woman was taught to defer to the men in their lives. Every man was taught that women were lesser and therefore had to be cared for and protected, with a man's life if needed. Men were obligated to be proud warriors and defenders of the realm, to be more. If those duties weren't fulfilled then he couldn't be called as man. More often than not, those who couldn't meet the standards quietly moved to other realms. The embarrassment of their failure was often too much to let them remain in Asgard. There were very few exceptions given from these standards. There could be no mingling, no flowing in between them. To be Asgardian was to be one or the other. Somehow her child was both. Unfortunately, Loki's having one foot on both sides didn't let him stand wholly in either. While he might have been both, Asgardians would consider him neither. Did we cleave away half of him and then expect him to smile? Is this why he was so unhappy? But how did he hide this? Why would he? Frigga could better understand why Loki thought of himself as a freak. We taught you to think that, didn't we?

The face Thor saw on the screen was something he thought of as a guise his Little Brother was wearing. He listened to his father but couldn't quite come to terms with what he was hearing. He sat back down and tried to think of Loki as being a woman as well as a man. He didn't understand how someone could be anything other than one or the other. All he could see in his mind's eye was his Little Brother. While it was true that Loki had always been considered more beautiful than handsome, Loki was always considered a man.

"It isn't a simple ailment. I believe it to be a seidr ailment," Frey said. He sat back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. A frown played at his lips. It was anything but simple and not something he fully understood.

"You know about this? Facts, not wild tales?" Odin asked as he glared at Frey. His brother-by-law was somehow always better informed than any of the other Lords. Only Lord Jolnar came close. It didn't normally bother Odin as much as it did at that moment. Frey knew more about Loki than he did so now it bothered him greatly. Loki was his son, not Frey's. He was the one who should know more about Loki.

"It was my sweetling that brought me to it," Frey answered.

"I knew nothing about this. Things would've been different had I known," Frigga said quickly. She wasn't sure what things would've been done differently but was absolutely certain that there would've been changes.

"At the height of Loki's childhood illness, you wrote to me because you despaired that you wouldn't be able to see Loki grown to an adult," Frey smiled calmly at Frigga. "You asked if I could look into it further since neither I nor Lady Eir could heal what ailed Loki. You asked for my aid, sweetling," Frey said. "Did you think I'd ignore you?" he chided her gently. He started visiting semi-regularly then, to check on Loki for Frigga. It was when he started watching Loki.

"You never said anything about this," Frigga said with anger in her voice. "Why would you not tell us?" Even though it hurt, she could still understand why Frey might not have said anything about Loki trying to harm himself. She knew her brother well enough to know that it was tied to Loki's health and wellbeing. It would be discussed later. Why he'd kept his silence on this wasn't something she could understand. There were things that ought not to have happened. If her little boy was somehow a little girl also then he never should've been treated as just a little boy. There were other things, she was sure, but it no longer mattered. Frigga was angry with Frey for keeping this from her as well.

"I didn't say anything because I wasn't certain of what I'd found," Frey didn't look away from his beloved sister. If he was going to give her the answer he had, then she was also going to know his thoughts on the matter. "Truthfully, I believed that your husband knew what he when he found in Loki. I believed that he, like I, was waiting for more signs of it; waiting for confirmation. I didn't wish to hand him another weapon with which to hold the Nine Realms hostage. Anyone who harnessed Loki would have a powerful weapon at their disposal. Even now, so badly injured and less than half of what she was, she's still more powerful than I."

"You think me so cruel?" Odin asked, almost disbelieving. He'd always been angry with Frey for looking at him and seeing only his father. He never wanted to be confused with the beast that raised him. There was as much anger over Borr as there ever was. Most of it was aimed at himself currently. He could see how he'd been like his father, cruel and thoughtless. It was never what he wanted to be, yet there he was.

"You're Borr's boy, why should I think anything else?" Frey was glaring again. He looked back to Frigga. She was the one he had to be concerned with. The fear in her seidr was giving way to more anger at him. He pulled in his seidr until his chest ached again. "It was an old legend. One which the Lady Bestla would've known."

"Why would my grandmother have known Jotunn legends, Uncle Frey?" Thor asked. The way Frey said it made it sound suspicious to him, which was both worrying and confusing. It didn't concern him that his father knew them. His father went seeking obscure knowledge and wisdom. It was one of the many reasons why his father was such a wise Lord and excellent King.

"Why indeed?" Frey gave Odin a very hard look. Odin only glared at him in return.

"What do you know?" Frigga pursed her lips, "Tell me immediately." She was growing frustrated with both her husband and her brother. She greatly disliked it when they chose to behave like angry children as opposed to the sensible men she knew them to be. It was particularly irritating to watch Frey skirt around the issue with him in the room. One more ill-chosen word and she was going to have his hide over it.

"The legend was about the King of Radiant Ice, the first King of Jotunheim," Frey looked back to his sister. "It told of how he was not a 'he', nor was he a 'she'. He flowed between genders as water flows between ice. They called him a braettpar, a 'melted pair'. He was very strong with a vast intellect. It was said that he was gifted with the greatest amount of seidr the Nine Realms had ever seen, and that his seidr could take any form he desired. It was also said that he believed himself to be cursed, because he constantly suffered from a mysterious illness that caused his body to fail from time to time. As he grew older, it's said that he grew healthier, but was never as healthy as an ordinary Jotunn, nor as tall. The first King of Jotunheim was considered by most Jotunns to be quite small. He was only the size of an Asgardian."

"The end of the tale says that he passed his curse down to future generations every five and ten," Frey said. "I went to the Frozen Lord and bartered to see his family records. It cost me a month's store of star-felled metal, but he agreed to allow me access to them. What I found in those records convinced me that there was a very real possibility that Loki was born as a braettpar. Fourteen generations ago one of Laufey's ancestors was born with a strange illness. It bore a remarkable resemblance to the description of the illness the first King of Jotunheim suffered from. He died young, just after giving birth to his first child. While he lived, he was observed to be very strong and exceptionally magically gifted. It was noted that his father would consult with him on matters of state because even as a boy was said to be unnaturally intelligent and farsighted. Supposedly he died as he was changing form to become male again. There were extensive notes from the healers of the time on their treatment of his illness," Frey paused to give his beloved sister a pointed look. "Those notes could've come from Lady Eir on Loki's illness. They were as maddening as Lady Eir's notes. They held only clues, no answers or hope of treatment. So, I returned to Vanaheim to think over what I'd discovered. It was then that I became convinced that your husband knew what he'd found," his voice was dark with bitter memories.

"I would never," Odin whispered venomously. The look in his eye was murderous. There were very few lines he wouldn't cross, and he knew it. Doing to Loki intentionally what he'd done accidentally was one of the lines he wouldn't cross. Intentionally harming his sons had never been in any of his plans. It would never be in any of his plans. He'd tried to give both his sons discipline, with varying levels of success. Hurting either of his boys just to hurt them wasn't something he even thought he could do. Odin wasn't Borr and didn't want to be.

"You are your father's son. Don't deny it." Frey didn't flinch from Odin's glare, only returned it in kind.

After a moment Frey continued speaking to Frigga, "When I came to visit Asgard, I would watch Loki, and wait. The magical talent, the intellect, the illness were all present. The strength and constant shifting of form weren't. I couldn't be more sure of it until a few years ago when Loki came back to me, with husband and child in tow." Frey drifted into memory for a moment.

"I was told that I had guests waiting in my office. When I went, there was a tall Midgardian standing before me holding a babe whose eyes looked so familiar to me. The woman with him pulled back her hood and there stood Loki. Different, but still Loki. We sparred during that visit. She was ill after giving birth and I felt some exercise would do her well. I won the spar as I expected to, then chided her for not putting enough effort into it. Something odd happened then. Anthony called out from the stands, and told her, 'Stop playing with him.' I didn't have time to ask what he meant before I was upside down and sailing through the air sideways," Frey chuckled at the memory. Their spar was a better memory than his first 'talk' with Anthony. He often wished he could purge that from his mind. He would certainly never mention all the other times he'd observed Loki as they'd gone out on their adventures. No one needed to know of those adventures, save he and Loki.

"Such swift strength, and without a hint of magic. I thought, 'This is it! This is what I have been waiting for.' It was several days before she confessed to me that she's always been that strong. I spent that evening trying to understand how that strength might have appeared so suddenly, or if it was always there then why I hadn't seen it. I gave thought to the incident in Asgard's arena," Frey stopped to give Thor a harshly disapproving look that his nephew couldn't quite meet. "I wondered if perhaps that wasn't Loki losing her patience. I wondered if it was her deciding that she wasn't going to hold back anymore. She moves quite swiftly once she'd decided to do something."

"Through more spars over the intervening years I found that she wasn't lying. She's far stronger she lets on, but only recently has she stopped hiding so much of herself. Loki also has far more seidr than I'd previously observed. Finally, there is her wielding of fae magics which we saw earlier," Frey motioned to the screen.

"I don't believe what Loki is can be denied," Frey said to Frigga. "She's one of the braettpar."

"Then we've tried to define Loki, instead of allowing him to define himself. Or herself." Frigga looked down. "In doing so, we've robbed him of happiness and hope." It was no wonder that her son had tried to harm himself. Being harmed was all he'd ever known.