Kindof a montage chapter. Frigga's going to have a few of those now, where not a lot that's specific happens, but progress is tracked. She has little boys to watch grow up.
Like I think I said earlier, I imagine Thor and Loki to be about 2-3 years apart. Far enough that you can get some hero-worship, close enough for the rivalry. So they're in the 1-5 year-old range here.
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Frigga did not know what she had done with her time before she'd had two sons. Once Loki had learned to walk she'd been forced by her duties to pass over the majority of his supervision to Thor's nurse, Saxa. She was a sweet girl, quite capable.
But she came to Frigga some months later and said that this could not go on. Together, the boys were too much for her.
Frigga was not overly surprised.
They were a pair, her little sons, even as young as they were. She ought to have thought to find another girl to help with them.
Thor would laugh and plow around. He always wanted to be outside, and he was constantly chasing after danger. Twice, he'd slipped his nursemaid's watch and been found atop a horse in the stables, trying to devise a way to undo the gate. The second time, he'd been preparing to jump it.
Loki was his equal in exuberance, if his inferior in skill. It frustrated him beyond measure that he could not keep up with his brother, and he often was led into dangerous situations by his single-minded quest to keep pace with him. Thor, for his part, was sweet to him. It was only on few willful occasions that he plowed past the younger child or ignored him.
Hesitatingly, Loki was learning to talk. He was sensitive to frustration, Frigga learned. Often she would misunderstand him and it would lead in mere moments to a tantrum. She learned better than to try and pick him up, in those moments. Thor had been given to fits of rage too, but Thor's were easily calmed. She would pick him up and carry him away from whatever had bothered him, and in moments he'd be himself. Loki was not like that. He would hit and writhe and, if not put down, he would bite. So, she learned to leave him. She would stay nearby and sit quietly, reading or working at some small thing until finally he would begin to recover himself. He would pick himself up off the floor and come over, with tears all over his little round cheeks and his lip stuck out. He would climb up onto her lap and put his arms all the way round her neck. Sometimes it would take him as long as a quarter of an hour to recover himself fully, but she didn't mind it. The respite from her duties was good for her state of mind.
She had been afraid, at one time, that the boys would have a great deal of trouble communicating, but that fear was short-lived. Often when she was with them, she saw Thor getting down on his knees, bending the better to see Loki's face, asking him to say something again so he could understand it. And, usually, suspiciously watching his brother from under tiny down-drawn brows, Loki would repeat himself.
The smile on his face when Thor understood him was stunning and complete, and it would make his elder brother laugh.
"He's so happy, Amma!" Thor giggled on one of those times.
Frigga smiled fondly at the two of them, "He likes you to understand him," she said.
Moments like those she learned to cherish. She knew her sons could not stay as precious as this forever.
