Trials

Chapter Eighteen: House of Odin Family Dinner

Loki arrived at his parents' chambers in a reasonably good mood. After his bout of sparring and planning with Thor, which he'd found invigorating, he'd taken a long warm bath and relaxed so much that he actually fell asleep, waking after an indeterminate time when the side of his face met the water. After drying off he'd dressed in nice attire, black and green, a little more formal in cut than he would normally wear to dinner with his family, and styled his hair properly. He didn't need to knock – these had once been his chambers and he still considered it all part of his home – so he gave a crisp nod to the Einherjar he was no longer so embarrassed to see and went through the heavy doors.

His progress was immediately halted by a little boy running toward him and stopping right in front of him.

"Hello, Baldur," Loki said, reaching down to pick up his little brother, but Baldur wriggled away from him, pushing at Loki's arms. "What's wrong?"

"Mother's angry at you," Baldur said, his chin jutting out.

"She is?" He'd expected worried, but not angry. He'd sent a message, though; she shouldn't be either worried or angry now. His gaze focused on Baldur again, at the stubborn irritated expression, and frowned. "Are you sure it's Mother who's angry at me?"

"Mother is angry," he said again, nodding insistently.

"Why is she angry?"

"Because you didn't come to dinner or to breakfast and you didn't come see us at all and you didn't tell anyone where you were."

"Oh," Loki said, dropping down to a crouch. "Well, I suppose I'll have to explain to her that I was working hard all night long, preparing for the second day of my petition trial, and I wanted to come to dinner and breakfast but I didn't have time. I didn't even have time to go to bed and sleep. And I'll also have to explain that I missed her very much."

Baldur made funny little faces and looked around the foyer, and Loki held back his laughter; Baldur sometimes took offense at being laughed at, and didn't understand when the laughter came because of how adorable he was. "Did you miss me?"

"I missed you very much." Loki didn't take his meals here literally every night, and he'd never known Baldur to be particularly upset when he didn't; that made him think that his mother had been upset with him and Baldur had simply picked up on it and mirrored it. "And I'm here now, aren't I? Can I have a hug now?"

"Oooookay," Baldur said, drawing it out before putting his arms around Loki's neck. "Carry me."

Loki laughed and stood up, bringing Baldur with him, then started off toward the dining chamber.

"Where did you go all night if you didn't sleep any? Did you go with Thor to a tavern? Mother says you're not supposed to stay out all night."

Definitely angry, Loki thought. But probably she was only angry because he'd made her worry. He hoped she would get over that, once all this was done and he was twenty, her tendency to worry over him, more than she did over Thor for some reason. He used to think it was because he was the youngest, but he hadn't been the youngest for years now. "No taverns. A library, actually," Loki answered, supporting Baldur with one arm and giving his nose a teasing poke at the end.

"A library? Was it fun?"

"You know," Loki began, mulling it over a bit as they entered the dining chamber, "it actually was."

"What did you do?"

"I suppose you could say we had an adventure. A grand, fun adventure."

"In the library?" Baldur asked, screwing up his face as his voice rose higher in pitch.

"In the library," Loki confirmed as he set his brother down, or tried to; Baldur wasn't releasing his neck.

"Mother!" Baldur called, abruptly letting go and running past him.

Loki stood and turned to see that both of his parents had come in after them.

"Loki's here, see? He was in the library with Thor! They had an adventure."

"So I have heard," his father said while his mother came over and embraced him.

Loki buried his face in her loose hair to hide his reaction. He hoped his father hadn't found out what had happened in the library after Thor decided he didn't want to wait for a ladder, and especially what he'd said to Vituri.

Frigga drew back and clasped both hands on his shoulders. "I asked Jolgeir this morning. He said you'd been in the library all night. Don't be angry, I was worried. About you and Thor both. But you especially. I know you think you're grown already, but you're not. You can't just disappear like that, all night long, and not tell me. In two days, all right, though I would still feel much better if you told me where you were going. A mother worries, and she will always worry, my child. You continually forget that."

"I'm sorry, Mother. I didn't mean to make you worry. I should have sent a message last night." He really hadn't meant to make her worry.

"Yes, you should have. Try to remember that next time. Now tell us, what news do you have?"

Loki's eyebrows went up. "You don't know already?" It sounded like Jolgeir had told her only that he and Thor had spent the night in the library.

She shook her head. "I've stayed away from it, as you asked."

Loki glanced from his mother to his father, and saw that Thor had just arrived as well. He was relieved, but easily hid it behind his eagerness to tell the story. "Oh, well, I suppose it-"

"Loki won!" Thor declared.

Loki shot him a crestfallen look of disbelief. He hadn't quite won. Technically he had, but he'd never cared about his rights as much as he'd cared about the real winning, having the original judgement overturned and his Trials being declared successfully completed. "I wanted to tell it my way," he said, talking over his mother's happy words and his father's congratulations.

"Your way would have been long and boring. My way was better," Thor said with a shrug.

Loki shot him a considerably nastier look before it was knocked off his face by his mother drawing him back into a hug.

"Loki, I'm so happy for you, that's wonderful news!"

"Loki won, Loki won, Loki won!" Baldur shouted, jumping up and down and then racing around the room, continuing his chant even as he fell to the floor and did some kind of tumble that had Thor clapping for him.

"No," Loki said, disentangling himself and stepping back. "Not exactly. I won the petition – Finnulfur decided that my rights were violated. And he did overturn the original judgement, but only to incomplete. Not passing. I have to redo the battle trial tomorrow morning."

"Oh," Frigga said, deflating. "I see."

Loki's heart sank watching hers do the same. If he'd been able to tell it his way, he could have avoided the reactions of disappointment. He looked his father's way for a moment and found him not visibly showing disappointment, but then Loki couldn't figure out what he might actually be thinking, so maybe it was disappointment after all.

"But that's not so bad," his mother continued shortly. "It's not bad at all, actually. Your record will be changed?"

Loki nodded. Baldur was looking up at him in confusion, but he didn't know how to explain to a four-year-old that he'd won yet he'd lost yet in some small way he'd won.

"But Tyr said-"

"Let me tell it!" Loki erupted, interrupting Thor.

"But you weren't."

"That's enough. I've listened to enough arguing today. We're all here, let's sit down to dinner," Odin said, moving to take his customary seat.

"And then you can tell us all about it," Frigga agreed. "And Thor, let Loki tell it. It's his story."

"It's not all his story," Thor grumbled as he took his seat.

"It's mostly his story, isn't it?" Frigga asked, getting reluctant agreement from Thor before continuing. "He deserves to have the chance to tell it. My baby, filing a citizens' rights petition and winning it before he's even twenty!"

Loki sank into his chair with a look of chagrin. But now wasn't the time to fight his mother still calling him her "baby." At least she wasn't angry anymore.

/

/

The story came with the expected interruptions from Baldur, who was bored through much of it and wanted to tell his own stories, or recapture everyone's attention some other way. Thor, too, tried to jump in a few times, but when a commentary on the tale threatened to take it over, Frigga redirected it back to Loki.

As for the "adventure" in the library, Loki stayed away from details, skipping over the fallen bookshelves entirely and proudly highlighting how he and Thor had worked together. Odin looked surprised and particularly interested when he mentioned how they'd come across Bor's Trials book.

Loki ended his story with Finnulfur's decision and his explanation for it – both of his parents nodded thoughtfully though neither commented – a simple version of Tyr's reprimand and his own apology, and finally Tyr's offer of further training.

"See? He won," Thor said, throwing a smug look Loki's way.

Loki shook his head but said nothing. If his brother wanted the last word, he could have it. He was still glad that in the end, he got to tell it his way.

"Loki won! Loki won! Loki won!"

"Baldur, that's enough," Frigga said. "Eat some more of your meat. I'm proud of you, Loki. I know you worked hard on this. You must have presented your arguments well. I wish I could have seen it. And I'm so pleased that you've worked everything out with Tyr and Sorkvir. I was worried about that."

Loki smiled at her praise, then dug into his food, which he'd barely touched since he'd been doing most of the talking.

"I'm reminded why I chose Finnulfur as Asgard's First Magistrate and my law advisor," Odin said, glancing to a servant who then came over to refill his tankard. "As you have presented it, Loki, I can find no flaw or even quibble with his reasoning. I wonder how long ago it was that we allowed that list of rules to fade from our collective memory."

Loki swallowed, thought for a moment, then, with a surge in boldness that he didn't often feel with his father, decided to respond. "I think Finnulfur would say that the problem was that we, the adults really, were relying on collective memory, when we should have been relying on that written list."

"That is in fact what I was saying as well, only less bluntly."

Thor looked over at Loki like he was confused; Loki wasn't sure what to say so simply nodded, then busied himself with buttering a slice of bread, figuring he was better off saying nothing.

"They didn't give you a list of rules when you had your Trials, Father?" Thor asked.

"They did not. I'd never heard of such a thing before today. I believe you've both done a service not only to Loki, but to every one of Asgard's youth who follow him. Boys and girls both. If there's no equivalent set of rules for the Women's Trials, then we need to develop them."

"That's a good idea, Father," Loki agreed.

"I'm glad you think so," Odin answered with a terse smile.

"Why can't the girls just use the same rules?" Thor asked.

"Perhaps they can. I'm not suggesting they shouldn't. But someone will have to make that decision. It can't simply be an assumption. The girls should be able to be as certain of the rules as the boys. Or the next Asgardian youth going before a magistrate about the Trials will be a frustrated young woman."

"True, Odin," Frigga said. "Do you see what you've accomplished, Loki? You've changed the way the Trials are handled for everyone henceforth. That's remarkable."

"Thank you, Mother," Loki answered bashfully. He hadn't been trying to do anything for anyone else, of course, only himself, and stacked against his mother's words, it was a little embarrassing. But, he thought, as his smile grew, if she wanted to give him additional praise, he would take it.

"And you did all this without my intervention, Son. You didn't use my name to seek to influence?"

Loki gulped down more water than he meant to and coughed, using the time to consider his response. When he spoke, he looked his father right in the eye. "Finnulfur actually commended me for not involving you."

"Good. There is, however, the matter of what you told Vituri."

Loki's lips parted, and he put his glass down before his hand could start trembling. His eyes were fixed on Odin's – which revealed nothing – but he felt the weight of Thor's stare and his mother's. Thor, of course, knew. His mother, he thought, probably didn't, from her reactions earlier. But she was about to.

"Who's Vituri?" Baldur asked.

In the next moment a nursemaid was called for, and Baldur, who had eaten all he was going to eat without further cajoling, was taken away for his bath. Loki knew this was going to be bad.

"When your mother sent word of what Jolgeir reported, I summoned him to ask him what you were doing in the library. He said you were searching the holdings by hand, and eventually took interest in an old scroll. But he wasn't close enough to hear much of what you said about it, and, as he rightly admitted, his attention was less on you than on potential threats against you, which were not likely to come from a scroll.

"I then summoned Vituri Kuldison, and asked him what my boys had been up to in his library. He mentioned there had been a little accident, which is when I learned that Jolgeir had been less than completely forthcoming about what happened there."

Loki's eyes went wide at that. He glanced to Thor, whose mouth had fallen open a bit. "Thor wasn't hurt. Nobody was hurt. It was just an accident. I'm sure that's why Jolgeir didn't mention it."

"What accident?" Frigga demanded. "Thor, why did Loki say you weren't hurt? What happened?"

Thor gave a nervous little shrug; Loki doubted he was nervous about his own non-injury or the toppled bookcases – Thor got away with things all the time – but neither of them wanted Jolgeir to get in trouble over them. "A bookcase fell on me. It was nothing."

"An entire bookcase? Did you see Eir?"

"No. I was fine. I thought I'd probably been hurt, but I wasn't. Really, Mother."

"This is going to be a difficult transition," she murmured. "Don't start taking foolish risks over this, Thor."

"I won't," he easily agreed, though Loki was fairly certain Thor and Mother defined "foolish risks" differently.

"And you knew about this, Odin? Why am I just hearing about this now?"

"I haven't seen you since this morning, Frigga. And I didn't know that a bookcase fell on Thor until now."

"Vituri got there after that happened," Thor explained.

"I did know that an entire row of bookcases was overturned, and the entirety of their contents dumped on the floor."

Thor took a deep but quick breath. "That was my fault. It was an accident."

"Quite an accident."

"It was my fault, too," Loki put in.

Thor frowned at him, but didn't try to disagree.

Odin took a moment to look at each of them, then continued. "I thanked Vituri for his forthrightness in what was clearly an uncomfortable conversation for him, and he then told me that he was pleased to have had the opportunity to assist Loki in accordance with my order."

For another second or two, Loki tried to convince himself that there was a way out of this, a lie he could spin that would work. Perhaps Vituri hadn't told him exactly what order he'd supposedly given, because wouldn't that be conversationally awkward…but Thor was a terrible liar and Father was staring at him expectantly and Loki just couldn't hold up under the scrutiny any longer, not when Father wasn't being specific about what he knew. He sat back, gave a quick glance over to his mother, then slid his eyes past Thor and the trace of a grimace on his face, and back to his father. "He didn't want to let me take the scroll," he said quietly, sitting at his family's dinner table but feeling like a prisoner being marched to the ax.

"And?" Odin prompted.

A prisoner being forced to lead his executioner to the ax. "I didn't know what else to do. I didn't have much time left, and I was tired from staying up all night, and-"

"Loki," Odin interrupted, "when a confession needs to be made, the courageous and honorable thing to do is to make it. Not give a litany of excuses until you're forced to make it. I'm giving you an opportunity to show some courage."

But not honor, Loki thought, wishing he could shrivel up and die in his chair, fall off it and land under the table where no one could see him. Too late for that. "I told him you had ordered that I be provided any assistance necessary with my petition."

"Loki…" his mother admonished, his name a plaintive sound. He didn't turn to look at her.

"You lied."

"Yes, Father. I'm sorry."

"That was an egregious breach of trust, and a shameful abuse of your position as my son."

"I'm so sorry," he said, willing a few tears to come forth. It had often worked when he was younger, and tears came embarrassingly easy to him. But not this time. All he could wring out through the chill bumps and fear was a couple of sniffs.

"You're sorry you got caught."

That was true, of course, but there was no way on this or any of the other realms that he was going to admit it. "No, Father, I'm truly sorry," he said. In any event, he had no doubt his father was going to make him sorry. "I was desperate, and I just…I didn't think. I know I shouldn't have said that."

"You didn't think. You mean your instinct was to lie?"

"That's not… I didn't know what else to do and I made a bad decision."

"I thought you didn't think. You made a decision? A decision suggests thinking."

"Odin…"

Loki threw a glance to his mother, hoping she might somehow get him out of this. Sometimes she did.

"Loki, Thor, I don't know what you did to overturn those bookcases, but I can't imagine that it involved you behaving as responsible adults. I'm not going to ask; it's immaterial. You will make up for what you have done by replacing each book in its correct location. Loki, I know you have your battle trial tomorrow morning, then your birthday and Victory Day, then the day after your birthday, so you will both begin your work the day after that, starting right after breakfast. I told Vituri to discontinue the cleanup until then. You will also get every single one of the books on that floor into the retrieval system."

"But Father! That will take…months!" Thor protested.

Loki kept his mouth shut; he'd taken equal responsibility for that even though it wasn't technically his fault at all, but he knew trying to join Thor's protest for any reason would do him no favors.

"It will take a long time, yes. You will ensure that all the work is done correctly, with Vituri going behind you to confirm that you have done so. If any books were damaged by your shenanigans, then you will work with the cultural preservation staff, or whoever Vituri points you to, see that they're repaired. By 'work' I do not mean that you will simply drop off the books and tell someone else to fix them. I mean you will work alongside them, learn their techniques, and participate in the effort to the extent they judge that you're able to. I know that you also have your training with Tyr, both of you now, so work that in as needed, but I expect you working in the library a minimum of six hours per day, six days per week. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Father," Loki said, echoed a second later and considerably more reluctantly by a glum-sounding Thor.

"Good. Loki, I will speak to you further in my study. In two hours."

Loki nodded and watched as his father excused himself and left, saying he had some more work to do.

"Thor, why don't you go spend some time with Baldur, hm?" Frigga suggested after a long moment of awkward silence. A servant appeared to clear the table but Frigga signaled her away.

Thor slunk away without a word.

"Do you think he's very angry?" Loki asked when they were alone.

"Yes, I do. You shouldn't have done that. You know how strongly he feels about it."

He nodded. There wasn't really anything else he could say.

"Will you be ready to go for the battle trial again tomorrow?"

He nodded again. "Thor and I came up with a couple of new surprises I can use, just variations on the old ones, really. But we didn't have much time to practice. I don't know if I'll be able to execute them as smoothly. At this point though…I guess I don't really care how many hits I get on Tyr, even if I get any. It doesn't matter in the end. It's only pass or fail. Or incomplete," he added with a bitter laugh. "I just want to pass and be done with it."

Frigga got up then and came around the table to bend down and hug him. "I'm sorry, Loki, I know this isn't how you wanted any of this to go." She straightened and pulled her chair over to sit beside him. "I know it seems like the most important thing in your entire life right now, and I suppose it is, but you're so young, you have so much life ahead of you. Your Trials not going according to plan won't always seem so terrible. And you have accomplished something amazing. I'm so proud of you for winning that petition. I always knew you were going to do great things in life."

Loki mustered a smile for her; he knew she was trying her best to make him feel better.

"What time is the battle trial?"

"Ten."

"I'll be there."

"You don't have to," Loki said. He'd assumed this would just be he and Tyr, with Sorkvir observing, and of course Thor.

"It's my son's Trials! I wouldn't miss it. Your father…I know he'll want to attend, but it's the day before Victory Day. He may not be able to."

"It's all right. He probably doesn't actually want to go now anyway."

"Because he's angry about what you said in the library? No, Loki, you're wrong about that. No matter how angry he is, you're still his son, and he's still your father. He loves you. And he'll want to be there for you. He's just also especially busy right now."

"I know," Loki said with a nod.

"My baby boy," Frigga said, leaning away to look him up and down. "It seems like just yesterday you were this big," she said, holding her hands out to show how small he was.

"Sometimes I still feel like it."

"Oh, no. You're growing into a fine young man. And a few misjudgements and mistakes along the way don't negate that. Such things are a normal part of life."

Loki nodded. He wasn't sure he believed her, but there was no use in disagreeing. And if he let her keep going along that "baby boy" route – he hadn't been her youngest for years now! – she would probably start crying as she often did in the run-up to his twentieth birthday. He hated her tears; they made him feel desperate to stop them, even if he didn't know how. "May I be excused, Mother? I think I'll go wait for Father now, in case he returns early."

"Go ahead," she agreed, standing and drawing him up with her and into an embrace. "Don't get yourself worked up in there, Loki. Be calm, and speak honestly with your father. Everything will be fine."

/

Two more chapters to go! In Ch. 19 "Bridge," Loki has a father-son talk that leaves him with a lot to think about. And he's *already* got lots to think about!