As the years passed she heard the whispers. Heard the mockery of her people. The Vanir were known for their large families, so why could not the young queen provide the king with an heir?

But there was time and enough left for that.

Eir, the young Healing Mistress, hadn't much to say when Frigga went to her with her questions, so Frigga put it out of her mind. All would be as the Norns decreed, with her fretting or no. And Odin needed her to be strong. His father was unruly as ever, and discontent with his son opposed to his every wish. A day did not pass when the two of them were together that they did not fight.

Years passed and things did not become any better. Odin was needed more by his father to carry the duties of the Realm and Frigga was left more and more alone.

She told herself time and again that all was well. That she wanted for nothing.

But she sorely wanted a child.

She slept and she dreamed of the future she'd thought to have as a girl. She dreamed of her own sisters, their children playing alongside hers. Laughing, beautiful children. And she woke angry and disconsolate.

She did her best to hide it from her husband. He had enough to worry him.

But it had been so long, and the idea that he might have to get an heir on another woman made her writhe.

She was daughter of Bilig, chief lord of the lowlands and the coast all along the northwestern parts of Vanaheim. She was a shield maiden, proved time and again. She'd defended her home countless times in attack and repaired the damage to her people and their land with her own hands.

So why was it she could not do this one thing?

She tried what few things Eir knew to tell her. She stooped to what magics she knew.

And then she gave up.

Plagued and wearied by the conflicts across realms and the suffering of his people whom he was all but powerless to help, Odin fell into the OdinSleep. Frigga did not understand it, but she sat beside him. She held his hand through all the days he slept as Eir told her to do, and she spoke to him. Everything that had weighted on her heart all the past years came up her throat and she gave them voice to his sleeping ears. What was the cost? He could hear nothing of her. No harm could be done.

But then he woke. He woke and he told her, a few days later, holding her hand and walking through the dusk of one of her favorite gardens, all that he had heard her say.

He promised that he loved her. Told her he'd wed her for love, not for a son. She heard him, and she loved him for saying it, but it did not lift the dark that had slipped little by little over her heart.

It reached a point in those months that she did not desire food. She did little other than sleep. She knew that Odin worried after her, but she could not make herself rise. Finally, she began to be sick and he demanded she go to the Healers. She refused and it was the first time he raised his voice at her.

Meekly, she went. She did all that Eir told her to do.

And Odin unveiled a gift. A long-owed wedding present, he told her.

A palace that was to be hers, on the coastland, where Asgard looked most like her home.

Fensalir. The 'Sea Palace.'

They stayed together at Fensalir until the winter winds made its airy corridors unpleasantly cold.

Frigga loved it.

As the mild winters that Asgard boasted loosed what little hold they had each spring, Frigga would grow more and more excited, and as soon as the weather gave out into the summer she and Odin would go together back to Fensalir. Sometimes he could not stay, or he had work, but she amused herself quite well with her books and with the gentle slope of the coastline. She loved to leave her shoes and go out to wander the wavering paths carved in the sand, left by the receding tide and the wind.

She loved the time away from the customs and the people she was only beginning to understand, and the time far from the reproachful eye of the AllFather.

Sometimes, Odin would let her help him in his work, to speed them in their going or to lengthen their stay. And she felt proud to be his wife.

It was just as she had begun to accept that all would be as it had been long ago decreed, that Eir imparted her discovery to the young queen.

When Eir told her, her blood went cold.

Without knowing what it was she did, she got up and went to Odin's study. She didn't notice the men who fell silent and who bowed respectfully to him as he caught sight of her face and waved them out.

"I'm," she said. She was trembling and cold. Her heart beat high and fast and she felt that she might collapse.

The door closed behind the last of the men, and the sound of it startled her.

Odin stood quickly, his face creased with ever-more-present care. He came around his desk and took firm hold of her arms.

"I'm with child," she whispered.

He looked startled, then, all in a rush the worry washed out of his face and he was smiling at her and she was laughing and crying in equal measure and Odin had his strong arms around her and she was kissing him.

He held her hand months later when Eir looked to be sure all was well with her and with the babe. It was a son, she said. The Realm had an heir. Frigga blinked tear-filled eyes at her husband. He was watching the image of the babe Eir had brought up in the Soul Forge and his blue eyes shone. She pressed his hand and he smiled down at her.

The birth was difficult. Odin paced outside of the closed door and Eir's face was drawn. It was taking over long and the labor was too hard.

She'd been a warrior in her time. A Shield Maid unrivalled in her father's dun. To fail now…

She'd brought this child into existence. She alone could bring him into the world. He was relying on her and she would not fail him.

He greeted the world with a great cry.

"Healthy lungs," Eir said. "This one will be strong."

Frigga nodded, spent beyond telling.

She was surprised by his strong kicking when he was put finally into her arms. He howled, furious to be thrust from the warmth and dark of her womb into the cold of the outer world. He sucked fiercely. So hungry and strong and yet so fragile and reliant on her. Only she could properly care for him. She was his mother.

He was beautiful beyond telling.

Her little one.

Son of Odin.

Thor.

It took her too long to heal from it.

Eir told her in her no-nonsense way that to have another child might very well kill her and she wept, but she determined that she would be contented with the son the Norns had seen fit to grant her. He was strong and beautiful. Perfect.

He would make the Realm a fitting heir.