No Bond Of Blood

Abby Ebon

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Disclaimer: I do not own Thor.

Note: A fill for:

"So, I've had this bumbling about in my head for a while now, and I don't think it's something that's been posted (at least not something I've seen).

Loki is a changeling. But not a Jotun changeling that looks Asir, he's a bonified from the underhill, we took your baby and left ours because we didn't want to deal with all the screaming or the crap teenage years, Fey changeling.

Think about it. The magic, the looks, the technically telling the truth or obeying the letter of an agreement lying. It's a perfect fit.

+ 1000 - an encounter with cold iron
+ 1000 times infinity - it's discovered while dealing with other fey and the only way to get out is to fight fire with fire (and damn, Loki doesn't look half bad up next to some of these guys)"

O.o.O.o.O.

Loki knows he is strange, but it not until he touches the skin of the Jotun and feels his own skin slip away like a dream that he realizes in what way. What he could be. He could have very easily taken that shape, that skin, and...and...how far is he from the same-kind as his father, his mother, his brother. His shape isn't his own. He doesn't know what it was, what he looks like stripped of all guises. Not even what he is underneath.

So it begins, the discovering, he tries the dwarf shape - and it feels rough and wrong, he tries any number of things from animals to beings and beasts. He gets lost in all the shapes he can take, all the shapes that are his to play with.

He becomes a mare and gives birth to a eight-legged horse with a mind as sharp as his own, whom like he can slip from world and realm as he pleases. Loki is pleased when the colt chose his name as Sleipnir, and stands by Loki in Asgard as a steed. He is the only horse who chooses his own rider, and no rider he does not want can catch him. Odin he likes for the same reason as Loki, for his mind and wit and sly tongue. Loki learns from the best of Asir his art.

"Brother, I worry." Thor tells to him, as Loki sits in the stables and Sleipnir snorts.

"For what cause?" He asks in turn, for Loki has been so very careful to keep himself to himself, to not loose his mind as well as his shape. Perhaps it is the distance that Loki keeps from Thor, a distance that he does not dwell upon, but that Thor would.

"All the shapes you take to, as a fish to water, I fear to hunt, least you be the hare or hart." Loki can not help the quirk of his lips.

"I'd rather worry for the fish." Loki has been a fish, and enjoyed the swim, until Ran had caught him up in her nets and let him go once he had been bound in brotherhood to her.

"Brother, be serious." Thor, for once, does not jest, but pleads. It is disturbing, so Loki agrees if only to make it cease.

"Very well, I promise you I'll not make another Sleipnir: he is after all - the best, and there can only be one of him." His son licks his hair, causing it to curl up, in a way most dignifying. This time Thor does laugh, booming as loud as thunder, and Loki smiles to hear him.

Loki has never liked to handle sword or axe, the nearness of iron causes him to feel queasy. He prefers magic by tongue, by touch and deed, one might dodge a well aimed blow, and that effort be wasted - but a spell is not hit or missed. It is sure to do something, even if it was not the original intent behind the casters cause.

So Loki finds that if he can not wield a weapon, he must have power over magic, it's illusions, spells and rituals. The art of magic fascinates him. As changing his shape does, it feels right, it feels like a part of nature - his nature he is still seeking the source of. Magic he can not master, he must be a mistress, for magic is the woman's art.

In the guise of a female giant, as Thokk, he goes into Járnvid, the Ironwood, where trolls dwell. They name for what they fear, and what they would rid the world of. It is later that Loki learns - and laughs - that the meaning of a troll is so very confused upon Midgard, for trolls are fey, a breed apart for the art at natures heart.

They are much like giants, so much so that a troll might have a giant child or the chance of a wolf.

It is by Angrboda that Thokk learns the arts, and casts aside the guise and lays with her at dawn, at twilight and at night and so Loki's children Fenrir (whose own sons Hati and Skalli do hunt Sol and Mani to death) and Jörmungandr who will see twilight of the gods, and Hel who rules the dead hidden in Helheim come to be.

These three Loki brings back with him to Asgard, as proof of his identity, that he is fey born. Loki, most of all, does this in demanding truth to the blood he has. Loki will not outright say his family has lied to him all his life, he wants them to know he knows the truth of it. He wants it unhidden.

Odin does no agree, and works against Loki so swiftly that Loki is left with no children of his blood before his three are but half-grown.

"Why do you do this, brother?" Thor begs of him, when Loki has shut himself away in his chambers and he must holler through the wood which stands solid and solitary.

"Ask the Allfather." Loki hisses and it is like a loathing in his heart he has never known. This hurt, the loss of his children, the loss of his identity. It is all slipping away, like his own skin, a fear festers in his heart, that he is wrong and it was a trick all along that Angrboda plotted.

His pain is felt and heeded by the fey, the trolls of Járnvid stir to fetch him his freedom. Loki does not know this, and suffers his sorrow alone.

It is then, at his weakest and worst that Gullveig comes to Asgard upon smiling steps. She brings kind words from the Vanir, and gifts of gold, and greed. It is greed that Gullveig teaches best in the end, and Loki her apt and willing pupil. If he can not have truth, he will have power to right that wrong or gain it.

Odin is not blind, and see the where the wrongs come from, but Gullveig is their guest and of the Vanir whom are kin to the Aesir of Asgard, where the Aesir know the ways of war, the Vanir know are wise to the ways of nature being taught it be Nerthus.

So the choices of Odin is the sin of guest-slaying or to see Asgard ruined from within. It is no choice at all, he spears her thrice, and thrice she dies burning and yet lives. Loki weeps, for she suffers for helping him as the trolls had sought her and he sends for his daughter, who heeds. He knows Gullveig for the art völva.

Hel comes to Asgard as swiftly as three footed Helhesten would carry her, feeling the ill-will; to welcome her into Helheim, for peace where she would do as she willed in rest, in honor of her host, Loki's daughter, Gullveig is called Heid ever after. Odin would seek her for her knowledge, this she vowed, and this Odin would rue.

The Vanir are swift to war, hearing of how Gullveig had fallen, for they take after nature's wrathful ways. Odin wars with Asgard's warriors as long and as if in a fury, and it is for nothing.

It ends when Loki finds he bleeds as the Vanir do, and the Vanir cry for no more blood, but for the blood to be bred. What is bred from word and spit is Kvasir, whose words all heed and whose blood would become mead.

Guests are sent both ways, whose blood is deemed most noble of the breed of Vanir and Aesir: Njörd of the sea, Freyr lord of the light and ruler of Alfheim, and Freyja who loves as her heart heeds. Then go Hönir and Mimir to Vanaheim, home of the Vanir.

The trade costs Mimir his head, which Odin keeps as long as it yet speaks.

Thor is ever at Loki's side, as a brother of the heart rather then blood, least the Vanir take back what they gave, for that would greatly please the pair Freyr and Freyja whom Loki fears he is offspring of.