I meant to discuss Hela's parentage in the notes at the bottom of the last chapter, but I forgot, and then an anonymous reviewer commented about whether or not Frigga is Hela's mother, so I want to clarify before we move ahead. It's actually canon that Frigga isn't her mother, because Thor called Hela his half-sister in Infinity War. I won't go into my ideas about who her mother was yet, because that might come up later in the fic.
Loki thought he had already accepted and processed the revelation that he and Thor had a psychotic sister whom they would have to deal with in the near future, but it turned out that she was only the initial loose thread that would unravel the tapestry of everything he had understood about Asgard and the line of Buri. And yet all that buried history still was not the secret his parents had kept from him. What could it possibly be?
"You go too far!" said Odin. His voice seemed to come from a great distance.
"Odin," said Frigga, "He's right. We should never have kept the truth from Loki in the first place."
"We have done that to protect him!"
"Perhaps that made sense when he was a boy, but it has long been nothing but an excuse," said Frigga. "He deserves to know." She locked gazes with Odin. Eventually, he was the one who looked away.
"Thor, leave us," he said.
This dragged Loki out of his disoriented shock, and he stared at Thor. His brother looked extremely reluctant, but was obviously going to obey. "No," said Loki. The plea came out faint and hoarse.
Thor closed the space between them and put his hands on Loki's shoulders. "It will be alright, Brother, but you must swear to come find me afterward."
"I…," said Loki, leaning back and looking anywhere but at Thor.
"Swear it!" said Thor, shaking Loki a little. "Your own thoughts will be your worst enemies, and you should not be alone with them."
Loki swallowed. "I swear."
Thor gave him a grim smile and nodded. He glanced once at Frigga, then at Odin, and strode from the study.
"Come here, darling," said Frigga, and she gently pulled Loki towards a sofa at a right angle to the one Odin had taken. They sat down so that she was on his left and Odin was to his right, more or less facing him.
"What did your brother tell you of this?" said Odin.
"Only that there is some terrible secret you have kept from me."
"Is 'terrible' the word he used?" said Frigga, covering his hand with hers.
"No," Loki admitted. Hoping to deflect further questions, he threw out one of his own. "Do I have some kind of dreadful illness that even Eir cannot cure?" He did not think this particularly likely. He had been ill more often as a child than Thor or any of their friends, but it had never been serious.
"What?" said Odin. "No, of course not."
"Have you limited my power like you have Thor's?"
"Not in the same way," said Frigga.
"In your case, it was merely a consequence of your not knowing," said Odin.
"Then what is it?"
Odin and Frigga exchanged a long glance. Loki had always suspected that his parents did not even need the nameless tongue to communicate privately, and it seemed especially probable now. After several seconds, Frigga squeezed his hand, but it was Odin who spoke.
"As you know, you were born at the end of the war against Jotunheim."
"Am I about to learn that Asgard waged that war unjustly too?" said Loki, only half-joking.
"No," said Odin. "The era of conquest disrupted many of Jotunheim's relations with other realms and certainly contributed to the feelings of hostility between the Aesir and the Jotnar, but war only became inevitable when Laufey set his sights on Midgard."
"What has Jotunheim or the war to do with this?" said Loki, frowning.
"Everything," said Odin. Loki stared at his father, a horrible ominous feeling creeping over him.
"From the time we were married," said Frigga, "we always wanted more than one child, and not just as a redundancy for the line of succession. Both of us grew up with siblings we were very close to, and we wanted the same in our household."
"I have sometimes wondered whether Hela would have been better off with a brother or sister to love and look after from an early age," said Odin, "but it is obviously far too late for that."
"We had Thor halfway through the war," said Frigga. "We never thought a younger sibling would follow so soon, but less than twenty years later, I was with child again. It seemed like a bright light that would carry Asgard into times of peace." Even though she smiled, there was pain in her eyes as she said it. Loki could not understand it, but it made the ominous feeling intensify.
"I already know all of this," he said slowly.
"Yes," said Frigga, "but there is more. Much more."
"On Jotunheim, Hugin and Munin brought me word of the child," said Odin. "The news lifted the spirits of Asgard's warriors, and we pressed on, gaining more and more ground with every battle. We forced the Jotnar back all the way to Utgard. As we laid siege to their capital, our spies learned of the death of Queen Farbauti, along with her unborn child. I was willing to postpone the battle to give the Jotnar time to mourn and honor their queen and royal child, but Laufey wanted none of Asgard's pity."
"How did Farbauti die?" said Loki. Even among the long-lived races of Yggdrasil, childbearing was not without risks, but it struck him as suspicious for a queen and her child to die on the eve of the final battle of the war. Loki was bracing himself to learn that it had been the work of an Aesir assassin acting on Odin's orders to demoralize the Jotnar, so Odin's answer caught him by surprise.
"According to what my spies overheard, she suffered a miscarriage and subsequently killed herself from grief."
Now that was interesting. Not an Aesir assassin, then. "You didn't believe it," said Loki.
"I had my doubts. Heimdall later confirmed them. There is a curious condition among the Jotnar in which one infant in every several thousand is born months early, already fully developed and capable of surviving outside the womb. These children only ever grow to be the size of an Aesir, but they are blessed with seidr far beyond that of their larger kin."
"Small giants?" said Loki incredulously. "I have never heard of such a thing."
"That is because Laufey has done all in his power to eradicate them since he became king," said Frigga. As she spoke, Odin got to his feet and began to walk along the edge of the crackling fire pit, his hands clasped behind his back and his brow deeply furrowed. "Perhaps he fears they would ally themselves with beings more their size, given the chance, or that they would use their seidr to overthrow him."
"So what does he do, have them dropped off cliffs?" said Loki.
"Oh no, he is far too cunning for that," said Odin, turning and pacing the other direction. "He began simply, by terming these small Jotnar 'skamrbarn'."
Loki grimaced. The term could be interpreted as simply "short children," but skamr also meant "deformed" or "mutilated."
"From there, he spent over a century sowing suspicion and mistrust. By the time Jotunheim's religious leaders proclaimed that their gods had called for all skamrbarn to be returned to them, lest Jotunheim be struck with a curse, the people most loyal to Laufey were ready to hear it. A few of the small Jotnar succeeded in fleeing Jotunheim before they could be dragged to the temple altars. Brave Jotun mothers and fathers risked everything to send their little ones to Alfheim where they would be safe, but many were captured, accused of heresy, and executed."
Having grown up with endless feast hall tales of the savagery and brutality of the Jotun armies, Loki was not at all surprised to learn that their king would be so vicious to the most vulnerable of his people, nor that their religious leaders would help him do it, but it was strange to think of Jotnar as capable of feeling the kind of affection for their children that would drive them to risk their own lives to protect them. "So that's what happened to Farbauti," said Loki contemptuously. "Her child was skamrbarn, and she killed it and herself for shame." Had Laufey cursed Odin's wife and child so that his enemy would suffer as he did? Was that the secret?
"No," said Frigga, and Loki was startled to see that her eyes were full of tears. "Farbauti was a good queen and a good mother. She loved all three of her sons. She gave birth and tried to smuggle the babe out of Utgard, but she was betrayed and discovered by Laufey almost at once."
"Laufey's own policies had made his worst fears come true," said Odin. "His position was already precarious because of the war he was about to lose. Had his people learned that he had produced a skamrbarn while leading them to defeat, then the very same religious doctrines he helped to write would have given them just cause to depose him."
"Could he not simply denounce the child as a bastard and let Farbauti take the blame?"
"Such a claim would have been too easily disproven," said Frigga. "The markings on a Jotun's skin are hereditary. The ones on the face and body come from the mother, but the ones on the arms and legs come from the father." Her thumb traced chevrons on the back of Loki's hand as she spoke. "Laufey was the only surviving male of Ymir's line old enough to father children. The newborn prince's legitimacy would have been obvious to any Jotun who saw him."
This information was surprising. Loki's schooling had not included much about the Jotnar, but he had always assumed the odd lines decorating their bodies were the result of scarification, not genetics.
"He gave the baby to the servant who had betrayed Farbauti, with orders to take him to the closest temple to Asgard's camp and dispose of him there," said Odin, who in contrast to Frigga's sorrow seemed to be growing quietly furious. He had stopped pacing and now gripped the edge of the fire pit tightly enough to leach the color from his fingers, and he spoke through gritted teeth. It must disgust him, as a man who could not bring himself to kill his daughter even after she committed heinous crimes, that another king could discard his infant child without a second thought. "Farbauti tried to fight him, but childbirth had weakened her, and he slew her quickly."
"Why are we talking of Laufey and Farbauti?" said Loki. This was all very fascinating, but what was the point of it?
"Because it is important context," said Frigga. "You will understand soon enough."
"The battle commenced," said Odin. He returned to the sofa and sat on the side nearest Loki and Frigga. "In my impatience to return home in time for the birth of my child, perhaps I fought more recklessly than I might have otherwise, for Laufey took my eye mere hours before I gained his surrender. But at last, the war was won. I sent the Einherjar to take the Casket of Ancient Winters so that Laufey would never be able to attack another realm, and I secured his, Helblindi's, and Byleistir's seals on the truce."
He closed his eye. "I was weary. It had been a long war, and the Odinsleep was nearly upon me. I wanted a moment of peace and solitude before the return journey to Asgard and the days of feasting and celebration that would follow, so I climbed the steps of the nearest building and went inside." He chuckled, which in itself was more baffling than anything he had said so far. "I found neither peace nor solitude. It was the temple where Laufey had sent his infant son to die, but the prince was a contrary fellow, and not inclined to obey his father's wishes. He lay on the stone altar, little fists clenched, cries echoing in the empty hall."
The sense of foreboding, temporarily forgotten amid the strange history lesson, was back in full force.
"I had learned of skamrbarn by then. Early in the war, I thought to employ some of the surviving adults living on Alfheim in my army, but they would not return to Jotunheim, lest they endanger their families. I knew the child had been left to die, but differences in Jotun markings are subtle, and I was not proficient at recognizing their patterns. I did not yet know who he was, or I may have broken the truce before the ink on it was dry. He was the same size as the son I would soon be holding for the first time." There was a crack in his voice, and a soft sound from Loki's left had him looking around to see that his mother was weeping. Geri and Freki whined and put their heads on Odin's lap.
"When I picked the child up, I did so thinking to deliver him to Alfheim to be raised with the other small Jotnar, but then he did something remarkable. He smiled at me, and he shifted his form from Jotun to Aesir like it was as simple as drawing breath. I could hardly believe it. He was only an infant, starving, helpless, and abandoned, and instead of crying for food and comfort, he performed the kind of magic that takes most seidmenn and seidkonur centuries to master. It was as if he was seeking to impress me. As if he already trusted me to take care of him."
As he spoke, Loki was finding the task of drawing breath progressively less simple. It was the same rare ability he prided himself on. Large as the study was, he felt as though the walls were closing in on him.
"I thought no more Alfheim after that," Odin went on. "I bundled him in my cloak and returned home with my armies. I have never been skilled at illusion magic, but I was able to do enough to hide him until I reached the palace. I told myself it would be very simple. The timing was perfect, after all. I would introduce the child to Frigga, and she would agree that we would raise him as our own..." His eye met Loki's. "...as the twin to our second-born."
Obviously things didn't quite go according to Odin's brilliant plan. :(
Coming up with three different ways to do a "Loki learns about his true heritage" scene is interesting. I wasn't sure I'd be able to avoid recycling lines. Fortunately, I'm not settled on my precise headcanon for the circumstances of Loki's adoption. I'm very firm on three things: 1) Laufey actively tried to get rid of Loki, he did not just misplace him, 2) Odin adopted him primarily out of affection, not some strategic plan, and 3) baby Loki shape-shifted himself, it wasn't a spell Odin cast on him. But there are still plenty of variables to work with. Chiefly, what's the deal with Loki being Aesir-sized, and why has Asgard never questioned the parentage of the second prince? (Because there's no way Loki wouldn't have heard rumors about Frigga's lack of pregnancy, if such rumors existed.) I've picked different answers to these questions in each fic, and I don't think I have a preference. This option does stand out for making me cry the most, though.
Aside from those variables, there's also who's telling the story and when. I've written a version where Frigga tells Loki as a kid and a version where Odin tells Loki several decades earlier than in canon, and now we've got the Odin/Frigga tag-team at about the same time as canon. It ended up feeling like a hybrid of the other two, which makes sense.
Anyway, how do you guys think it's going compared to the canon timeline so far?