Silver and Scales
Chapter Thirty-Three: A Mother's Counsel
Frigga left Odin's bedside and strolled down the corridor in the opposite direction. As ever, she was draped in beautiful blue robes, swept across her feet like regal train. She might have given her crown to her son's wife, but she still possessed the proper elegance of a matriarch who once held her Realm proudly in her hands. She was more than willing to permit one of the finer women to chaperone Asgard into glory while the All-Father slept. If he would not awaken, Frigga would mourn; but she would be comforted that her home for many years was in the rightful hands of Loki and Vyperia.
At the stroke of midnight, Frigga began to pass the entrance of the dining hall—that was until she heard the small bequeathing breaths of a female voice, sobbing in an empty room. Frigga's brow furrowed as she poked her head in to see if it was a damsel whose heart was broken, or it was one of the servant girls who had accidentally broken a plate and dreaded exile.
These days, the younger ladies of Asgard were rather fragile; they tended to be soft-hearted, as all women should be. No woman should have to harden when they are in puberty.
Frigga's hand settled on the door frame, stepping further inside to observe the back of a blonde woman's head which was bowed. Frigga noticed that the young maiden was sitting at the table, shoulders hunched, and crying.
She entered.
Frigga's soft footsteps, not unlike Loki's, approached the chair which sat the forlorn maiden.
"Dear girl, why do you weep?" asked Frigga compassionately.
Frigga was puzzled when Vyperia lifted her head from her crossed arms. Her eyes were red and puffy. Her cheeks were tear-stained. Frigga's gaze melted into sympathy. Vyperia looked up at her. Frigga sighed.
"Why are you crying, dear?"
Vyperia turned her head away from Frigga. Instead of answering, the Queen of Asgard wrapped her fingers around her goblet and drank from it the wine that Loki had poured into it earlier. Vyperia's eyes, though reddened from grief, persevered into distilled anger. Frigga recognized such a look and sighed patiently.
Frigga drew up a chair beside her.
"No one," she began calmly, "ever gives the queen a manual in order to rule by her husband's side."
"I'm not sad."
"Don't lie to me."
Vyperia met Frigga's eyes.
"It is perfectly all right to feel stressed," Frigga consoled. She set a comforting hand on Vyperia's arm. "These are difficult times. Why not go to Loki, Vyperia? He is talented in the words of peace…"
"It is he who gives me stress," muttered Vyperia, disgruntled.
Frigga consumed this with the nod of her head.
"Do you think that drinking will make your problem disappear? It is a warrior's last resort and a fool's first."
"I am a bit of both; so this suits me properly, doesn't it?" Vyperia said unhappily. She took the goblet once more in her hand. Frigga's fingers parted the glass from reaching her lips. Vyperia looked at her swiftly, first with annoyance; then as she saw the maternal gaze in Frigga's eyes, Vyperia lowered the glass to the table.
"I have always known that Loki would choose you as his queen," said Frigga softly. "If I were not his mother, I would have guessed that you were his other half."
"But you're not his mother, are you?" retorted Vyperia tactlessly.
Frigga's brow furrowed, obviously hurt. However she forgave the snipe from her daughter-in-law, assuming that Vyperia's sense of conduct had slowly washed away from intoxication. It was not like Vyperia to drown her troubles in mead and wine. Usually, her anger was thrown into violent arguments; though the object of her anger was often Thor. Frigga took in a sigh of patience.
"Is this what has you upset, my dear?" asked Frigga gently.
"Why didn't you tell Loki when he was younger about his true parentage? Why didn't you break Odin's rule and tell Loki yourself? Why didn't you?" asked Vyperia, agitated.
"I told you as I told Loki: it was to protect him—"
"From what he is, I know that. There is nothing wrong with him," Vyperia said irritably.
"I know."
"Is that why Odin made it forbidden to step into Jotunheim? Is that why? So Loki would never come to know that he is a Frost Giant?"
"I did not think that this bothered you so much."
"It has always bothered me. 900 years of secret-keeping, of—of constantly telling me to never let slip that he and Thor are not true brothers…" Vyperia blurted out with contempt. "You gave that responsibility to a young girl—a child—me—and you knew how much it was killing me. Then to see his face when I told him…"
She trailed off.
Frigga gazed at the quieted Vyperia for a soft minute. She reached for Vyperia's half-emptied goblet and placed into the Queen's open hand.
"Drink it, dear."
"What good has it done me now?"
"Just do as I ask?" Frigga suggested innocently.
Vyperia shrugged, still bruised by the conversation, and dipped the alcohol into her mouth. Frigga watched her drink for a split second.
"I know," said Frigga tenderly, "that it must have been painful to tell him the truth…"
"It broke my heart," Vyperia remarked with absent tears on her voice. The sincerity in her voice urged a compassionate gaze from Frigga.
Frigga's hand consolingly stroked her arm.
"I don't enjoy hurting him," Vyperia said with a slight shake of her head. "He was heart-broken when I told him the truth. Loki has changed, Frigga; he has because he has realized that he has been fed a lie his entire life. His birthright that he craves so much—has craved—was a lie…"
"No, Loki was meant to be a king."
"To what end, Frigga?" Vyperia questioned the former queen of Asgard with rotten spite on her tongue. She pulled her arm away from Frigga's comforting hand. "Thor was Odin's heir, not Loki. It was an empty promise; and you fed that to him all his life. You could have told him; and instead, you burdened me with that opportunity. He finds it hard to trust me because he doesn't know what else I'm keeping from him."
Frigga looked upon Vyperia with empathy, hearing the forlorn words of Vyperia spill out of her mouth like water from a broken vase. Her beauty, her arrogance, and her overall grandstanding were shattered there in front of Frigga as Vyperia unleashed her boiled spite at the table.
"How would you feel if Odin stopped trusting you? How would you prove to him that you were worthy to stand by his side?"
"I would ask him for forgiveness."
"I have done so," Vyperia muttered, shaking her head. A ghostly smile appeared on her face, a mirthless chuckle followed. "He still suspects me of treachery…"
"Vyperia, what happened between the two of you in the last few hours?" asked Frigga, concerned. "What has broken your collective state? Never have I seen you so angry."
"Never have I felt so angry," Vyperia hissed.
"You mustn't keep these feelings bottled in; your anger could destroy you."
"And if my lover held none of his trust with me after this day, why not?" Vyperia said with afterthought, gazing into the circling red fluid within her glass.
"It is not like you to put your life on the dependence of men, my child." Frigga said mildly.
"He is not just a man," Vyperia remarked. "There are no men like him…"
She raised the goblet to her lips again and drank from it.
"I came to you," said Frigga, "because I believed that you were a servant girl who might have fled for safety in the comfort of an empty room. I come to find that it the Queen of Asgard who sits alone, weeping in the arms of a heavy drink. What would the Asgardians think if they saw you, here, drunk?"
"I'm not drunk…not yet," added Vyperia as she refilled her empty glass. "Care to join me?"
"Darling, with all due respect—and I mean it—you should find comfort with Loki."
"He…doesn't…" said Vyperia slowly in annoyance, "want me…around. He walked away while we were arguing."
"Men say the meanest things when they are in the most pain," Frigga whispered.
"Well, I can't say that I was the nicest person in our fight," replied Vyperia. "What should I do? Go to him and beg for forgiveness. There comes a time when I am the one who deserves the apology."
"Do you deserve to be told 'I'm sorry'? Do you deserve to be begged at your feet because you were right?"
"I wasn't wrong," muttered Vyperia passive-aggressively.
"Darling, men do not know that they hurt you until you say something…"
"I'm certain that Loki knows." Vyperia retorted coldly.
If you love them so much, go to Jotunheim and perish with them.
"When we fight," said Vyperia, "we attack each other where it hurts us the most."
He told me that my birth right was to be a king. I am an Asgardian. Tell me that you are lying!
"He knows exactly how to hurt me," Vyperia told Frigga with a broken voice, "but I take ownership in our fights. I'm not better than he is…"
Should I wander into Jotunheim and beg for them to take you back as their equal when they, too, had abandoned you as a baby?
Vyperia drained her glass in one gulp.
"We are lethal to each other."
"Men," began Frigga, reclaiming her hand on Vyperia's arm, "are creatures of habit. They fight. They argue. They say things that can hurt the women that they love. Men attack their lovers where it hurts because they, too, are in pain. It is the rough palette of a man to hide behind his strength and dexterity, to never show the vulnerability that lies underneath the anger. It is pain. It is there." She lowered the glass from Vyperia's lips. "But you must find the strength in yourself to move past that hard exterior and speak to him."
You're not better than Odin when he wiped out the Dark Elves!
Is it not your duty to decide who lives and dies?
That's not the same thing—
It is the same thing; except this time, you can't turn your back on this.
He never wanted a Frost Giant sitting on the throne of Asgard!
Vyperia gazed at Frigga.
"We had one of the worst arguments that we've ever had since I've known him, Frigga," she said with incomprehensible depth. "How could he possibly forgive me?"
"He loves you." Frigga answered. "As Odin would forgive me if I spoke crude words upon a wicked tongue. He would do it out of love."
Vyperia exhaled slowly and looked into her emptied goblet.
"If that does not console you," continued Frigga soothingly, "then perhaps this will. Think of your last words to him; and his last words to you. Would you want that to be your last farewell if he should die tomorrow, Vyperia?"
Frigga gave her a motherly smile and patted her arm before rising to her feet.
"Think about what I said. Act as you will; but never forget this: you have been Queen for only a short time, but ever have you been the one woman within whom Loki entrusted his secrets and his time. You mean more to him than you know, my daughter. You must remember that."
Vyperia gave her a weak smile as Frigga left her.
The Queen of Asgard sighed slowly. She refilled her glass once more and drank it down without another word, left alone in the silence of the dining hall once more.