Chapter 30 - What Happens in Midgard

AN: In the words of a disclaimer I heard before an NPR story about "hot vax summer," this story isn't explicit, but it does acknowledge that sex is a thing that happens between adults.

One was not meant to watch one's children grow old and die before them. And Loki was still her child, and would be, no matter how old he became or how often he denied her or her husband. But what could Frigga do? She did not know how to remove the curse Loki had placed on himself, or she would have already done it. As young as he was, Loki had long ago surpassed her as a magic user. He might not realize it, and perhaps it was for the best that he did not before he became better able to self-regulate, but Loki was already nearly as powerful as Odin.

"You know, you might want to get some new clothes," Tony told her, waking her from her musings.

Frigga realized that the "coffee" she had been drinking had gone cold. She didn't consider it to be much of a loss—Thor had recommended the drink to her enthusiastically, but she wasn't certain it was the drink for her. "I hardly see how new clothing would help anything." Often in the past, Odin had tried to distract her by having new dresses made for her. He'd had an entirely new wardrobe commissioned for her after Loki had fallen from the Bifrost.

She'd fantasized about burning those dresses or tossing them out the windows, but such a thing wouldn't have brought Loki back to her, it would have been disrespectful to the seamstresses who had stitched them, and likely would have made Odin and Thor worry for her sanity.

"I'm just saying, if you plan on leaving the tower at any point and you're not planning on going to either a costume party or a Renaissance fair, you're going to stand out looking like that. You might want to try to blend in a little. Anyway, there's probably other stuff you're going to need if you're staying here for any length of time—shampoo and conditioner, toothpaste, woman stuff I don't want to know about. So just take my card and get whatever you need."

The man handed her a black card made of plastic, with numbers and letters embossed on it. "This is currency?"

"It's a credit card. It's like, infinite money. Or at least that one is, because I've pretty much got infinite money to back it up. You just hand it to the person ringing you up, and then sign the piece of paper they hand you."

"I see." Frigga couldn't remember the last time she had paid for her own purchases in a shop, whether the currency was her own or borrowed. "And where am I to go to make these purchases?"

"There are places to shop all over the city, but you might want to start with Macy's. The one on 34th is one of the biggest department stores in the world. It's about a twenty-minute walk from here, but I can have my guy, Happy, drive you if you want."

"No, I think I would prefer to walk," Frigga told him. She couldn't say she'd enjoyed her experience with the "bus," and a walk might be just what she needed to clear her head. But then a twinge of guilt tugged at her. "Do you suppose it's alright for me to leave Loki, though?"

"He'll be fine," Tony told her. "Don't worry, we'll take care of him while you're out. He'll probably just sleep anyway. He was up all night again, then threw a tantrum and wore himself out crying even before he ate a giant stack of pancakes and went into a carb-coma."

"You were able to handle Loki's dramatics on your own?" Frigga hated to characterize it that way, but sometimes with her youngest child, "dramatics" was exactly what it was. When he had been little, she had found his ability to make himself cry on cue adorable. But when he hadn't grown out of the behavior, it had begun to worry her, as it meant she could never know if he was playing a game, making a play for attention, or if he were truly in distress.

"Loki's not so bad. I was probably worse as a kid, although I have to admit I'm starting to realize just how much of a saint JARVIS's namesake was to put up with it."

Frigga decided that Tony was correct, Loki would be fine without her for a little while. And she could trust him to take care of him; he seemed a good deal more competent than any of the nursemaids that had cared for her children in the past. Not that Loki needed a nursemaid. She reminded herself that Loki was nearly grown, and that he wasn't entirely defenseless. Even mortal and lacking magic, Loki still had his intelligence and the ability to adapt. If all else failed, she'd woven a few of her own protective spells into the fur cloak she'd given him. As long as he had it in his possession, he would be fine.

Twenty minutes later, Frigga stood in front of Stark's tower, a glamor cast over the clothes she'd been wearing so that she wouldn't stand out too badly. But she couldn't quite shake the feeling that one of the Einherjar or one of her own handmaidens would catch up to her at any moment and insist she go back inside where it was safe.

She told herself she was being ridiculous. She was a sorceress, and a goddess compared to the other people going about their business in the city. She took a deep breath and walked forward.

▁ ō͡≡o˞̶ ┻❂━❂┻ ō͡≡o˞̶ ō͡≡o˞̶ ▁

Frigga had found Macy's and the idea of "off the rack" clothing a bit overwhelming. But she had discovered that all she had to do was hold up the black card that Tony had given her, and the sales associates became more than willing to help. They had even found a "personal shopper" to assist her. Apparently, having infinite money meant one was to be treated as royalty in Midgard.

She had left Macy's laden with several bags worth of purchases. As soon as she was certain no one was looking she stowed them in her dimensional storage. After taking lunch at a sidewalk cafe, where she discovered that she enjoyed iced tea much more than coffee (they had tea in Asgard, yet somehow, no one had ever thought to serve it cold), she wasn't quite ready to return to the tower. Loki likely hadn't even woken yet, so Frigga decided it would be okay to keep exploring a bit.

She stopped to look at the posters in the window of one business, which advertised various travel destinations with tag lines such as "Hawaii: The Paradise of the Pacific," "Iceland: Nature's Wonderland," and "Tahiti: It's a Magical Place."

It had been Frigga's understanding that there were no truly magical places left on Midgard. If there were still magicians, they would be few and far between, for Midgard had only a shallow well of magic to draw on. Magic was fueled by belief, and most Midgardians no longer believed in it. However, having been raised by witches Frigga had heard the stories of Midgard past. There had been a time when magic had run rampant in Midgard's wild and untamed forests, when dragons had roamed the surface of the Earth, and magic users had counted more numerously there than in any other realm. In those days there had been very few mortals that couldn't use magic, at least in small ways.

Bor, Odin's father, had seen that as a threat, and so he had put a stop to it. He had sent the hero Sigurd to kill the last of Midgard's dragons, and even their bones had been altered to erase any evidence that they had ever existed. Then Bor had done something even more insidious. He had infected the mortal world with a force that would undermine and replace any lingering beliefs that Midgardians had in magic. He had sent his children to Midgard and implanted the idea of "gods" in the mortals' heads—beings that had a monopoly on magic, and would only share it with their followers in small amounts if they prayed to them correctly and made the proper sacrifices.

(That was not to say that "God" or any other deity that modern humans revered did not exist. Stories are never just stories, and ideas always have a way of taking on a life of their own.)

A pretty young woman with dark hair, bright coral lipstick, and a small mole on her chin stuck her head out the door. "May I help you?" Frigga suspected that this was the woman's polite way of asking her not to block their entryway.

She remembered the magic of Stark's black card, and fished it out of the bottom of the yellow Coach Saffiano handbag that she had been assured was the height of Midgardian sophistication. "Perhaps you can help me," said Frigga, holding up the card. "What can you tell me of this 'Tahiti?' Is it truly a magical place?"

The woman smiled warmly and extended a hand. "Verda Fortunato," she introduced herself. "Welcome to Three Sisters Travel Agency."

Frigga followed the woman inside, where there were two large wooden desks. An older woman with large plastic framed spectacles sat at one of them, talking with someone on the phone as she knit an overly long scarf from a large skein of red yarn that sat on the floor. On the floor in the middle of the office, a young girl with a serious expression sat cutting paper dolls out of printer paper.

Verda sat down at the empty desk, and Frigga took the seat across from her. The woman's long, white-tipped fingernails clicked their way over the keyboard of a computer that was much heavier and boxier looking than any of the devices she had seen in Stark's tower. "All my flights to Tahiti are booked up for the next month. But if you're looking for a little magic, I just had a cancellation for New Orleans, and this week is Mardi Gras. The hotel is right in the French Quarter."

Now that was fortuitous, because Doctor Samson had told her about a colleague of his, a Doctor Drumm, who lived in New Orleans and who Samson believed to have some sort of connection to the supernatural. Frigga had written that off until now, perhaps because Samson had accompanied the story with the disclaimers that "Voodoo isn't really magic, it's a religious practice," and "there are completely logical explanations for the observed phenomena," but now her intuition told her that she ought to keep an open mind.

(*~▽.~) ( ⓥoⓥ) (‐_-*)

"Loki dear, I need you to wake up."

"Go away."

"I need your help with something, and then you can go back to sleep. I need you to use that device Lord Stark gave you to send an electronic mail for me."

"You woke me up in the middle of the night because you want me to send an email for you?"

"It is after three o'clock in the afternoon."

Loki groggily sat up and pulled the "tablet" Stark had given him off his bedside table and into his lap. "Fine. Who do you need to send an email to?"

"A Doctor Jericho Drumm. I need you to write a letter of introduction for me and pretend it is from Doctor Samson."

"Why can't you just ask Samson to do it?"

"He seems to be out of the tower for now, as he is still in the process of collecting his belongings from his old place of residence. But I don't think he'll mind."

After Loki had helped her send the email, Frigga had given him a kiss on the forehead. "There, now you may go back to sleep. Oh, and Loki—I'm going to be gone for a few days. Please remember to inform our hosts for me."

Loki nodded, then collapsed back into bed and pulled the covers over his head.

[ (⇀‸↼‶) ] ( ´ε` ღ)

It had been less than a three-hour flight to New Orleans, and though Frigga had never ridden in one of Midgard's aircraft before, the flight itself hadn't been nearly as harrowing an experience as getting through Midgardian "airport security." Frigga wondered if the Midgardian's hypervigilance had anything to do with an incident a few decades earlier, which had led her to threaten both her oldest child and Asgard's sentry with death and dismemberment should they pressure Loki into playing drinking games with them again.

A few hours after her arrival, Doctor Jericho Drumm had picked her up from her hotel. Having received what had probably been a rather cryptic email from someone he thought to be Doctor Samson, he seemed to be under the impression that he was on a "blind date." Frigga, feeling capricious, had done nothing to disabuse him of that idea, and had allowed him to take her to a little café that he promised had the best crawfish etouffee in the city.

"What do you know of magic, Doctor Drumm?" she asked Doctor Drumm, as she leaned across their table, covering his hand with hers. Hopefully, she still knew how to charm a male companion, and hadn't lost her touch.

"I might know a thing or two," Doctor Drum told her, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled.

Frigga nodded. "Doctor Samson told me that you were an expert on Voodoo ritual."

Doctor Drumm blinked at her and leaned back from the table, his entire demeanor changed. "Ah, I see. You're one of those."

After their meal, Drumm had shown her to the Damballah Voodoo Tours & Shop, where she had met Chantelle Fusilier, a Voodoo priestess. Chantelle claimed to be married to a Loa. That had led Frigga to admit that she, too, was married to a "god."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be, now is it?" Chantelle asked over their second bottle of wine.

"No, it certainly isn't," Frigga agreed. She had forgotten how nice female companionship could be when one's companions were on equal footing with them. This woman had no idea she had ever been All-Mother of Asgard. "Tell me, do you have any children, Chantelle?"

"Got a niece. She'll take my place as mambo when I'm gone. She's got the gift for it."

"I have a gifted child myself," Frigga told her, "too gifted for his own good sometimes." She explained Loki's predicament while attempting to be as vague as possible. She had to keep in mind that Loki had a certain reputation in Midgard. Then she asked if there were any Voodoo rituals that might extend a mortal life.

Chantelle shook her head. "We've got zombies, and I've heard a few rumors that there might be vampires out on the bayou, but they're not the sparkly kind. Neither option is pretty—probably not what you're looking for." Chantelle took out a deck of cards, and began laying them out one by one, face up on the table.

Frigga could see the future sometimes. She used to be able to see her children's futures to an extent, though she hadn't been able to see Loki's clearly for a while now. When Loki had fallen from the Bifrost, for a terrifying few days she had believed that she had known why. Her own future had been a little blurry of late as well, but that didn't worry her nearly as much.

"You'll find the answers to your questions someplace far to the East," Chantelle told her when the cards were all laid out on the table.

Well, that had been vague enough. She would just have to trust that the Norns would continue to guide her.

Y_(´-`(´-`)_Y

After her trip to New Orleans, Frigga had returned to New York shortly, and had found Loki in a bitter mood. "I see. And why did Lord Stark ban you from using electronics, Loki?"

"Because when I had access to them, I used them to hack into JARVIS," Loki had said, without meeting Frigga's eyes.

"I see. So you abused the privilege, and—"

"And it was temporarily taken away, which is fair."

Frigga kissed her daughter on the top of the head. "Good girl. I'm going to be away for a few days again, so be sure to tell Lord Stark."

"Whatever," said Loki, flopping back onto her bed.

After a quick stop at Three Sisters Travel Agency, Frigga took a taxi to the airport and boarded a plane to Japan, which was about as far East as one could go. Once again, she had charged her first-class ticket to Lord Stark's infinite money card. Lord Stark had said to use it to get whatever she needed, after all.

The seat next to her was empty, but across the aisle, she noticed a woman giving her furtive glances. At first, she thought it was her imagination. Three hours into the flight, she was certain it wasn't, and Frigga wondered if there was something strange about the Midgardian clothing she had chosen, or if the woman had mistaken her for some Midgardian celebrity.

Of course, Frigga was rather taller than most Midgardian women. Not freakishly so, but the woman who was looking at her was almost two feet shorter than herself. A woman two feet taller than Frigga would have gotten strange looks in Asgard, especially considering that people were likely to assume that woman to be a giantess.

Five hours into the flight, the woman finally got up the nerve to introduce herself. She sat in the empty seat next to Frigga and gave her a small bow. For a moment, Frigga thought that she'd been recognized as royalty. It then occurred to her that in the part of Midgard she was traveling to, a small bow might only signify a polite greeting between equals. She bowed back, and the woman smiled. "Tina Minoru. I have the strongest feeling that the two of us are supposed to meet. You're looking for something." It wasn't a question; like Frigga, the woman clearly had some sort of intuition she trusted strongly.

"Are you a mother, Tina?" asked Frigga.

The woman tilted her head; she seemed to need to think about that question. "I lead a rather compartmentalized life. There is the Tina Minoru who is a mother, and there is the Tina Minoru who is a Master of the Mystic Arts." Tina leaned forward. "Unless I'm mistaken, I think you are looking for Tina Minoru, Master of the Mystic Arts."

Whatever makes you think that I am looking for you at all? thought Frigga. But that was the kind of thing one of her brash children would say; Frigga was much too polite and too pragmatic to offend anyone who might be able to help her. "You are a sorceress, then. What manner of magic is it that you practice?"

"Eldritch magic." Tina materialized a small ball of yellow light in the palm of her hand, small enough not to be noticed by the other first-class passengers, most of whom were sleeping by now anyway. "All Masters of the Mystic Arts wield at least one magical relic as well. I wield the Staff of One. We also carry sling rings, which allow us to open portals to anywhere we want."

Frigga arched an eyebrow at her. "If that is the case, why ever are you on this primitive transportation device?" Traveling first class might be nice, but if Frigga had the ability to open portals through space, she wouldn't want to spend fourteen hours in the air.

The woman gave her a mischievous smile. "As it turns out, being a Master of the Mystic Arts doesn't pay that well; actually, it doesn't pay anything. It would be highly suspicious if I just traveled instantaneously from place to place when I'm traveling for my other job."

"And what is your other job, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I'm the CEO of the software company my husband and I own."

Frigga nodded. "I find it encouraging how many women occupy positions of power in your—generation." If Loki had grown up in Midgard instead of Asgard, Frigga wondered, might she have wanted to spend more time as her daughter? When she had been little, she had shifted between the two forms freely, but once Loki had become old enough to know that girls were not valued quite as much as boys were in Asgard, Loki's dresses had been stuffed to the back of the wardrobe, as if they were an embarrassing secret. When she had expressed concern about this to her husband, he had told her not to worry about it, that Loki was only growing up, as if Loki's tendency to be female at times had just been a phase their child had been going through.

Frigga might have known better than that, but Loki had been at an age when it had been difficult to have those kinds of conversations without a fair amount of drama, so she'd let it go. She hadn't realized until much later that in this case, "letting things go" had probably been a mistake. She wished now that she had at least asked Loki if there had been something specific someone had said or done to make her feel that it wasn't okay to be herself anymore.

Tina narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Come now, we must be around the same age."

"I'm older than I look, I'm afraid," Frigga told her. At least that was the truth.

Tina's eyes widened fractionally, and Frigga realized that at least in some sense, the jig was up. The woman had suspected something was different about her to begin with, or they wouldn't be talking like this. "I see it now. You're like the Ancient One."

"Ancient One?"

"The head of our order and the Sorcerer Supreme, appointed by the Vishanti to defend the Earth from mystical threats. No one knows exactly how old the Ancient One is."

"I would like to meet this Ancient One. Do you suppose it would be possible?"

"I think that could be arranged," Tina told her. "Once we've landed at Nartita, I can open a portal to the Hong Kong sanctum. There's a shortcut there that leads directly to Kamar-Taj."

All of this had been much too easy, of course. What were the chances that she would board the same plane as a "Master of the Mystic Arts," who would proceed to approach her? Someone had seen Frigga coming, and this was their way of extending an invitation to her. As such, it could be a trap, and she ought to proceed with caution. But Frigga expected she would be capable of holding her own against a few mortal sorcerers; she had learned and perfected her craft over many centuries, and like most Asgardians, she knew one end of a sword from the other.

The mass of humanity that was Narita International Airport wasn't the proper place to open a portal, Tina explained, so Frigga had followed Tina to her hotel. Tina had then asked if she wouldn't mind having a drink and a bite to eat at the hotel bar before they moved on to the sanctum. It would have been rude to turn down Tina's hospitality, and Frigga did have to eat, did she not? A few salmon rolls, plates of shrimp tempura, and saketinis later, they decided they might as well check out the spa while they were there. Kamar-Taj had stood for millenia, and it would still be there the next day.

Frigga had never known such luxury, even in the palace. Asgardians didn't do massages, for one thing. Frigga resolved that if she ever returned to Asgard, she would send one of her handmaidens to Midgard to train as a masseuse. Steam rooms were one of the things that Asgardians did do; in fact, that might have been one of Asgard's cultural gifts to Midgard from long ago. However, it was mostly the men who got to use them. That was another thing that needed to change, she decided.

After becoming deliciously relaxed and undone, Frigga and Tina went back up to Tina's suite and ordered more food and drinks (room service, Tina had called it). While they waited for their order to be brought up, Frigga broke out her own liqueur, the same that she had shared with Doctor Samson when they had first met. Then the food had come, and she and Tina were feeding chocolate covered strawberries to each other in the suite's giant jacuzzi tub. Somehow, this had been a situation that had seemed innocent enough at first, but then Tina had leaned in close enough to kiss her, and Frigga got the sense that was just what she intended. "Didn't you say you had a husband?" Frigga had asked the woman.

"Oh, he won't mind if it's another woman, especially if we take a few photos. What about yours?"

Frigga saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and when she turned her head, she saw that a raven had landed out on the balcony of the suite. She acknowledged it with a small nod. "He won't mind either," she told her companion. Odin had better not mind. He'd had dalliances with mortals before, and she had looked the other way, as a good wife was expected to do. There was a saying among the Aesir: what happens in Midgard stays in Midgard. Besides, Odin had lost most of his interest in her after the healers had declared it impossible for her to bear any more children after the birth of their first.

Frigga and Tina had slept until late in the morning in the oversized hotel bed. Tina had panicked a bit when she saw the time on the clock next to the bed, saying she had a lunch meeting she needed to get to, and that they'd better go if there was going to be enough time for her to introduce Frigga to the Ancient One.

After a bit of hunting for Frigga's underthings, and the use of a little magic to remove the wrinkles from her blouse and fix her hair (which her companion didn't even blink at, though she used a device she called a 'straightening iron' to fix her own hair) Tina opened a portal right in the middle of her suite, and Frigga followed. To save time, Tina opened a portal directly onto the courtyard at Kamar-Taj. "I wanted to show you the Hong-Kong sanctum, but it will have to be another time," she explained.

"I'll look forward to it," Frigga told Tina, as she brushed a hair out of her eyes for her.

They had attracted quite a bit of attention by coming through a portal in the middle of their courtyard, which judging by all the stares they were getting, wasn't correct protocol. The courtyard had been in use as a training ground, many of those around them having been engaged in sparring with one another. A dark-skinned man who wore robes that matched the ones Tina had thrown on that morning over her business suit stepped forward. "Master Minoru, you can't just open a portal in the middle of the courtyard! This goes against all of our security protocol. You're lucky one of us didn't attack you."

"Oh, calm down Mordo. I was going to use the door from the Hong Kong sanctum, but I'm running low on time here. I've got a lunch with an important client in Tokyo. You know how it is—oh wait, you don't, because you're unemployed."

"I refuse to be ridiculed because I have dedicated my life to Kamar-Taj."

"Anyway, I was just dropping this one off. She wishes to meet the Ancient One."

"And who is she? A prospective student?"

Tina shrugged. "Huh. You know, I never did get your name, somehow."

"Frigga of Vanaheim," Frigga told her, deciding not to introduce herself as the Queen of Asgard, when she wasn't certain she was that anymore.

Tina blinked at the confirmation that she had just spent the night with someone from another world entirely, but then she just smiled smugly. "Well, see you around, Frigga. I don't suppose I can get your cell number?"

"I'm afraid I don't have one," Frigga told her.

"That figures. Oh well."

Mordo made no attempt at conversation as he showed her inside one of the buildings, where a figure in yellow robes stood as if they had been awaiting Frigga's arrival. The Ancient One's energy was neither of man nor woman, but of a being who transcended gender altogether. They gave her a small, respectful bow, and smiled. "Queen Frigga," the woman greeted her.

"Perhaps," Frigga said, because she still wasn't certain about the "Queen" part anymore. "And you are the Ancient One, I presume."

"We should go somewhere where we can have a bit more privacy," the Ancient One suggested. "Have you eaten yet today?"

"I haven't, actually."

"Fantastic. I know just the place."

This was how Frigga ended up in a crowded pub in the middle of London, where it was quite late at night. She and the Ancient One had walked there, through the door in the Kamar-Taj library and into the London sanctum, then out to the street and a couple blocks down. It had been late morning in Tokyo, then early morning at Kamar-Taj—it was a little disorienting, jumping around so many time zones. She wondered what time it was in New York, and what Loki was doing.

The fish and chips served by the pub were delightfully greasy and salty, without being overly so. The dish paired well with ale. Frigga found that she could drink quite a lot of Midgardian ale without any effect whatsoever. The Ancient One nursed theirs, obviously feeling no pressure to keep up with her.

At a certain point, Frigga felt a pulling sensation at the edge of her consciousness. Loki, attempting to summon her. At first, she had thought that he might be in danger, but then she had realized that he was only being dramatic. "Do you have children, Ancient One?"

"No," said the Ancient One. "Unless you count my students, which I don't. I've never been the nurturing type, I'm afraid. I never had much use for children, and certainly no use for a spouse."

"I never wanted to marry. I was warned against it. But then I fell in love. I suppose you've no use for that either."

"When I was young, not many married for love."

"I could say the same. I suppose you could say I was lucky; or horribly unlucky, depending on how you look at it. Either way, I can't regret it. Had I not married, I would not have my children, who I am happy to have most of the time."

"Troublesome, are they?" asked the Ancient One.

"Wait until I tell you what my youngest has gotten up to just in the past week. I think I might require a couple more pints first, however."

Eventually, Frigga had told the Ancient One everything. They were easy to talk to. Like Doctor Samson, the Ancient One listened more than they spoke.

"I might be able to help," the Ancient One had told her. "I'll need to meet with Loki alone, of course."

Frigga had nodded eagerly and thanked the Ancient One profusely. She used Stark's card to pay their tab, and after they had left the pub and said their goodbyes, she ducked into a back alley, and used the "sling-ring" she had pick-pocketed from Master Mordo to open a portal back to the tower, where she accidentally knocked over Stark's "satellite dish."

! (ノ°-°)ノ Ꝙ

When the Ancient One had turned Loki into a pangolin, Frigga had been disappointed. She knew they weren't cruel enough to leave Loki that way, but she knew that her youngest child never learned from those sorts of lessons, nor even caught on that they were lessons. Loki had a tendency to accept the worst of what happened without fighting it. It had come as a shock to Frigga when she had learned of his plans to stop Thor's coronation. She had assumed that he had resigned himself to the fact that Thor would be king; she had suspected Loki of not being as pleased for his brother as he was pretending to be, but she had never expected him to do something about it.

When she had mentioned something about this during her conversation with Doctor Samson, he had told her there was a word for that— "learned helplessness." He couldn't tell her exactly why Loki was that way, but he had told her that it was often what happened when, in his words, "people are forced to play a game that can't be won, because they can't even figure out the rules."

It had occurred to Frigga that perhaps, if Loki had learned to be helpless, she had learned it from her. Frigga had never quite figured out Odin's "rules" herself. When they had first met, he had treated her as if she were the only woman in the world, the queen of his heart. She hadn't enchanted him, but sometimes he'd made her feel she had.

Then she had become Queen of Asgard, and things had changed. At times he had treated her as an equal, and at times he had treated her like a child. Perhaps that had been excusable at first. She had been younger than Loki was now when they had married, but even as she had grown older he'd never gotten out of the habit of treating her like a silly young girl.

She was also certain he'd come to resent her magic, though she didn't quite understand why. Odin was one of the most powerful magic users in the nine himself, though he prided himself on not relying on it and hadn't wanted their children to learn at all. She could only imagine it was Bor's voice in her husband's head, telling him that magic was dangerous and uncontrollable.

Teaching Loki her magic had been one of the few acts of rebellion she'd gotten away with. She'd done it first in secret. Then, when there had been no denying that Loki had picked up a little magic somewhere—perhaps from watching Frigga and her handmaidens, or from one of the books in the libraries—well, someone had to help him develop the talent, just to keep him from being a danger, didn't they?

Frustrated, Frigga had prepared to continue her search for someone who could help Loki. For Loki, she would go back to that travel agency, and go wherever Verda told her to go.

Though if she were honest, perhaps it was for herself as well. She'd had a small taste of freedom and wanted more; she'd felt more alive in these past few days than she had in a thousand years. Surely, Loki could survive without her a little longer. So far, Thor's friends had proved themselves quite capable of caring for her. Being mortal themselves, they seemed to know better than she did how to care for Loki in her present state. She certainly wouldn't have known what to do for the mortal illness Loki had been inflicted with, while Doctor Banner had. On the way out of the tower, she'd run into Agent Barton, and asked him to inform the others she was leaving.

Ԑ3... Ԑ3...Ԑ3... Ԑ3...Ԑ3
━◉━━o( ❂ )o━━◉━━

Frigga had just arrived at a small airport in Sokovia, from which she planned to make her way into neighboring Latveria, which didn't have any commercial airports. That was when the Bifrost had opened right out on the tarmac, causing no small amount of confusion. Luckily, airport security in Sokovia wasn't what it was in other countries, and Frigga ran out to see meet the Einherjar who had come to impart a message to her.

Her first thought was that what had happened, had happened because she had dared to live for a little while. True, she had originally set out to find help for Loki, but there had also been times when she'd done what she wanted, and not just what she should. For that, she would be punished. Her second thought was that she was going to kill Odin in the most painful way possible for sending a guard to inform her of Loki's death, instead of coming himself, or at least sending one of her personal handmaidens—someone, anyone, who wouldn't just impart the message before leaving her to fall apart inside the airport's restroom, and then again at the airport's bar.

Once she had put herself back together, she had very nearly commandeered an aircraft in order to get back to New York, even though it wouldn't matter—Loki would still be dead no matter how quickly she returned. Then she remembered the sling ring still in her possession.

╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭

Author's Note:

Thank you, those of you who have left reviews, favorited, or followed this story. There's just a couple chapters left for now, but there will be more. The one-shot _Loki_ Disney+ crossover "summer special" will be published after this fic ends in August. Again, you won't need to have read it in order to enjoy the sequel to this fic, which I'm planning to upload starting in September. (I probably won't be publishing two chapters a week, however, as I suspect I'll be doing more of the writing as I publish.)

I tried to cram everything Frigga had been doing into this one chapter. It got quite long…

Yep, Frigga cheated on Odin. But as mythology tells us, when you're a god, if you cheat with a mortal it doesn't count. Plus, Odin and Frigga are pretty much separated at the moment.

I've hinted at it a couple times, but now I'm just going to say it outright: in this story's universe, Frigga was essentially Odin's child bride. So like everyone else in this fic, she's a little screwed up.