They really were too young for all this.
Too young when they fell in love, too young when they married in secret, too young when they had the baby, and far, far too young when she died.
Perhaps it was Odin's fault. Perhaps everything was Odin's fault, the way he never allowed his youngest child to see a drop of affection from him until he was so starved for love that a Jotun peasant could provide more emotional support for him than his own father. Perhaps if Odin hadn't been a racist bigot, he wouldn't have sent his soldiers after her to kill her. No, that one was for certain.
Two in the morning, and Loki was shaking his bride awake, face pale, hands trembling.
They were coming for his family, and he didn't know how to protect the ones he loved.
All he could do was stall for time, send them away to hide until the Allfather's mighty rage simmered down and he could convince his father that murder was not the option.
Heimdall. He might help them, he might understand. He was sworn to the king and the king's throne, but surely there was a drop of compassion in an all-seeing man's gaze?
It was all Loki could hope for. Two-year-old daughter stuffed in a sleepy bundle in his wife's arms, he rushed his girls out into the stable and helped ready the horse, wrap his wife in a warm cloak.
He was brave, even now. His heart still held a spark of hope, any shard of faith that they might yet pull through this together. No tears accented the fear in his eyes, yet he would've been weeping if knew he was kissing his wife for the very last time. Now he only suspected.
No words were spoken as they shared a hasty glance of mutual terror, and Loki ran a shaky hand over his daughter's curls before handing his wife the reigns to the horse. They disappeared into the forest behind their home in a heartbeat.
It was a beautiful, warm summer night, the stars shining brightly down on the horse and rider's escape. There was no telling where they were running off to; maybe the hills could be a place of refuge until Loki could come find them and assure them that they would be safe once more.
The pounding of the horse's hooves and her heart was the only noise the woman could hear for what seemed years as she fled on through a single night. Still her ears craned for the inevitable.
The howling of the dogs.
Asgard's soldiers using the bloodhounds to track down her scent, to run her until she could run no more, and then tear her limb from limb.
In panic, she dug her heels into the horse's flanks, despite how useless the endeavor was. The horse could not run forever, but the hounds were trained to. They would follow her until they either tipped off the edge of the planet or dropped dead.
The renewed rush of adrenaline to her mind forced a sense of calm, accepting clarity upon her, and her options at this point became clear.
If she went on, the hounds would catch her, and both her and her baby would die.
If she turned herself in, Odin's warriors would have no mercy on her, and whoever they found with her, and both her and her baby would die.
…Whoever they found with her, that is. If the baby wasn't with her, then…
It is an earth-shatteringly horrifying moment when a mother must trust the whims of nature with her child above herself. The baby would have more hope abandoned in the forest than in the arms of her own mother. At least as close to the village as they were, someone might have pity on her and take her in. Or perhaps Loki would go looking for her and be able to find her.
The young mother pulled on the horse's reigns, drawing them to a skidding stop. She leapt off the horse, and with tears in her eyes, her throat too choked to speak, she lay her still-sleeping daughter just inside the cool, mossy interior of a hollow log. The only goodbye she was allowed was a single kiss to the baby's tiny dark curls.
Without a moment to lose, she leapt back onto her horse, her face now streaming with terrified tears, and galloped off in an entirely different direction to throw the hounds off her tail.
Somewhere, sometime later, Heimdall was watching the baby rouse from her sleep, crawl out of the log with wide eyes, and struggle to her little feet.
Somewhere else, a little later than that, the Bifrost touched down on Midgard by a countryside road through Germany, in the Earth year of 1944. The same nightgown-clad baby was plonked down on her little behind in the gutter near the road, and waddled out into the street, the summer moonlight shining down and highlighting her blue skin like an ethereal fairy.
The first car that passed by honked at her. She had never heard such a noise, and fell over to begin crying in fear.
The second car was long, sleek, and had a little ornament on the hood in the shape of a hydra with a skull for a head. This one honked, but then screeched to a stop, and a man in boots and a long coat stepped out to inspect this otherworldy, blue, very frightened child.
Heimdall had already intervened enough, and was not about to risk his position to do so again.
Back on Asgard, Loki searched for his family. He had only been able to stall the soldiers for so long, before they physically shoved him aside to follow Odin's orders.
For nearly half an hour, he was looking, calling their names in futile optimism.
Little Erika would not be able to answer very well, but surely Sigyn could. Surely, they were just hiding somewhere in the woods. Surely they were fine.
Surely that body on the ground wasn't Sigyn.
But it was.
Her throat torn out by the dogs, her eyes glazed and unseeing and tear-stained, her nightdress in tatters; it was her, but it also wasn't her.
It would never be her again, only the flesh she had inhabited when she graced the universe with her presence. Sigyn was gone, and Loki fell off his horse and wept over her body for a very, very long time.
She had been too young to die.
Baby Erika had been too young.
And Loki was too young to know how to go on living his life without the two people he cherished most in the world.
TheOnlyHuman.