I wanted to get this one done earlier but the English boyfriend is now the English fiancé, so real life stuff is taking up a bit more of my focus than usual. Hopefully I can get back to a semi-regular schedule now that I'm not going to be doing any additional international travel until December. I've also added more imaginary cast members! It doesn't really matter to the story, but from here on out, I'm going to be picturing these actors for the following characters:
Kevin McKidd as Freyr
Rosamund Pike as Gerd
Rose Leslie as Brigid
Aubrey Plaza as Mab
and
Kenneth Branagh as Njord
I'm particularly happy with that last one. He totally looks like he could be Rene Russo's younger brother. And Aubrey Plaza has exactly the kind of off-putting chaotic energy I'd want in a Mab performance. I'm just going to assume she can pull off a convincing Irish accent.
After Rygi's confused report (corroborated by a few odd comments Baugi had overheard, which implied that Loki wasn't actually a son of Odin by birth), the pointed remarks of King Njord, and the fact that Loki, in disguise, had not been troubled by the temperature on the ship from the Bifrost or in the guest chambers, Byleistr was developing a theory. Could it be that the second prince of Asgard was originally from Jotunheim? It seemed rather far-fetched but it was the only thing he could think of that could account for all those odd moments.
The opportunity was there. Child-theft wasn't one of the atrocities Byleistr had ever heard attributed to the Asgardians, but they'd have had their pick of orphans if they'd been so inclined, as they had created many of them in the war. However, that was just about the only factor that made sense. For one thing, the idea of Odin taking the title of Allfather quite so literally was difficult to credit. The antipathy between the Jotnar and Aesir ran deep, and until today, Byleistr had taken for granted that it was universal. Would their king really place a child of Jotunheim second in line for his own throne?
The other reason it was ridiculous was based on what Byleistr knew of shapeshifting. He hadn't inherited the talent for it from Mother, but Helblindi was fairly competent at it. One skilled in the art could temporarily take a form dramatically different to his own in size, but he'd never be able to maintain it for longer than a few hours at a stretch without exhausting his seidr. Consequently, if Loki was Jotun, his true form must be the same size as the Aesir, which would make him skamrbarn.
This was where the whole theory seemed to hit a dead end. A skamrbarn that had slipped past Father's inquisitors and survived such a crippling deformity to reach adulthood? Was it even possible?
Byleistr remained in the circle of dancing Dvergar (whose coordination was growing increasingly compromised by drink) but cast his gaze around behind his tinted spectacles until he spotted Prince Loki. He was standing by a pillar a little way from one of the long refreshment tables in the company of a dark-skinned woman wearing an armored blue and white gown. A healthy adult skamrbarn. If the Asgardian prince truly was one, it would be amusing to watch Father's expression when he mentioned it.
X
"He's your brother, isn't he?" said Brunnhilde.
"What gave it away?" said Loki.
"You, the other day when you thought you were being subtle. Besides, the two of you practically have the same face. What do you think of him?"
"He isn't entirely objectionable," said Loki, not wanting to admit even to himself how hopeful he felt after his first interactions with Byleistr. "He's better with seidr than Thor."
She smirked. "Are you going to tell him before he returns to Jotunheim?"
Loki grimaced. "It's not so simple. He's been living with many of the same lies I was told, but they were far crueler to him. His father murdered his mother and told the whole realm she committed suicide. Byleistr loved his mother dearly, but I don't know what he thinks of Laufey's policy about Jotnar like me. He might even agree that Farbauti had to die for the crime of trying to protect me. This could be the end of any chance for peace, let alone an alliance."
"Do you really believe he would react that badly?"
"No, but I can't stop myself imagining the worst."
"So don't tell him."
"He'll find out I'm Jotun sooner or later, if he hasn't already. Enough people are talking about it. He should learn the rest from me, before Laufey has a chance to craft more lies. If only there was a way to break this kind of news gently."
"Can't help with that, sorry. I suppose I could knock him out for you if he doesn't take it well."
Loki laughed. She smiled but it didn't last long, her gaze growing distant and troubled. He caught the end of one of her braids between his fingers. "Is there any chance of you telling me what you're planning to do that you think will make me despise you?" he asked. He couldn't imagine anything that would produce that outcome.
"Nope." She grabbed him by the arm. "Come on, the next dance is starting."
X
"You've become very like your husband, Sister," said Njord. His tone was as condescending as when he arrived to the feast but at least he had the sense to use the nameless tongue now. Frigga had seen her brother moving towards her earlier and had made a point of joining a dance with Odin. It was only a short reprieve, for the Allfather's attention was in high demand at all times. He'd scarcely left her side when Njord made another attempt, looking peevish.
"Considering how much he has changed since we met him, I thank you for the praise," said Frigga, taking a sip of wine from her goblet. She might not always be in perfect agreement with Odin—the situation with Hela was the most significant exception in quite some time—but when it came to her brother, they were always a united front.
"You're keeping his secrets from your own family!" he hissed.
"I am protecting the family I share with him, even if that means protecting them from you. After your reaction to the news that I had borne Odin a child, why would I expect you to be any more accepting of the child we adopted?"
"Perhaps because, unlike Thor, he isn't Odin's blood."
"That doesn't matter to any of us and Loki will not thank you for making a distinction of it."
"It is a distinction that could make quite a difference when I name my heir!"
He had clearly meant to shock her. She pretended to be delighted instead. "Is that so?" she said. "I shall find Loki at once and tell him the happy news. We never imagined you would wish to void the clause you insisted Father add to my marriage contract!" She took one step in the direction of the circle where Loki was dancing with Brunnhilde.
"Not so fast, if you please!" he said, moving to block her path. "There will be no voiding of any clauses."
She dropped her façade. "Ah, so you don't intend to choose Loki as your heir, because, as I'm sure you remember, that clause specifically bars all heirs of Odin from the throne of Vanaheim, and Loki is still heir presumptive to Hlidskjalf, regardless of whose blood runs through his veins. If you were to attempt to convince him to forfeit his rights as second prince of Asgard and choose a distant, unpleasant uncle over the man who raised him, you would more than deserve whatever tricks he saw fit to play on you."
Njord could not disguise his scowl. He might be able to maneuver his way around the Vanir court and had even done the same with their father in his final centuries, but his tactics had never worked on either of his sisters. He smoothed his features and adopted a pitying tone that didn't quite mask his indignation. "I never blamed you for marrying Odin, you know," he said. "You did what you had to do to save our realm. You only crossed a line when you fell in love with him."
"Then you would have preferred me to go to Asgard as a lamb to the slaughter rather than make a home and family I could cherish," said Frigga. "Don't be childish. You know perfectly well that my happy marriage has been as good for the Vanir as for the Aesir."
"With the exception of Odin's first wife, the Aesir have only ever had Vanir queens. It didn't stop them from invading us once."
"Ha! Just a moment ago you wanted me to believe that you would be happy to name Loki your successor. You have also cosigned far more of my husband's policies in your reign than Father did. Am I now to understand it has all been out of fear?"
His face went a few shades redder than the wine had already made it, but there wasn't much he could say in response. The real reason he offered little challenge to Odin's policies was that they were nearly always generous to Vanaheim; he was only bitter that he couldn't claim the credit. "Odin accepted that he could not have both Asgard and Vanaheim long ago, Brother. I suggest you follow that example and stop fantasizing about a world in which he is merely a fourth-generation general under your command. Now, if you don't have anything productive to say to me, I think I shall steal him for the next dance."
With that, she threw her goblet to the floor in the Asgardian tradition. Several of the people around them followed suit with a cheer. Savoring Njord's scandalized look, she left him there among the fragments. In addition to wishing for an end to the conversation, she'd just had an idea that might make the matter of Odin's daughter a little more palatable, but they would have to move quickly.
X
Trying to navigate an Asgardian celebration was like battling a tidal wave. Bruce eventually managed to politely excuse himself from the thirtieth round of being praised for the Other Guy's battle prowess and begged for another fight soon and reach Thor and his friends at the end of a dance.
"Banner!" Thor called, beaming and throwing an arm around his shoulders. "I hope you are enjoying the evening."
"Yeah, Asgard really knows how to party," said Bruce. "Look, um, I just wanted to thank you for the way you handled the Dokkalfar. You guys have been really generous to me when you didn't have to at all. I'm in no position to make any demands about how you deal with our enemies, but you still listened. It's, uh, kind of a first for me and people in positions of military power."
"Banner, you sell yourself short!" said Thor. "I value your counsel as highly as that of any of my other friends, and I hope you will always feel free to give it even if you think it's something I won't want to hear. You helped me see past my anger when it was blinding me, and I am truly grateful."
"Yeah, well I've got a lot of experience in that area."
Thor laughed.
"We've heard a great deal about your bout with Brunnhilde," said Volstagg.
"Yes, someone deprived us of the chance to see it ourselves," said Sif. "I would be more cross about that if I hadn't fought both of you myself, though only briefly."
Very suddenly, Loki was there next to them. Bruce was the only one who jumped. "Hello, Banner," he said. "Thor, Mother and Father would like a word. They have a fascinating proposal about a certain family matter."
"Alright," said Thor, frowning, and they left Bruce to the enthusiastic questioning of Sif and the Warriors Three.
X
Byleistr had half-expected to witness the public execution of the leader of the Dokkalfar, but that didn't appear to be on the list of the night's entertainments despite the urgency of deciding his fate and the other realms agreeing to let Asgard carry out his sentence. Eitri and his retinue had held a loud discussion about how they would display Malekith's head in their hall once Asgard delivered it to them. It seemed a little odd that the Asgardians wouldn't simply hand it over directly, but if Eitri was satisfied then it must not be that strange.
The music and dancing were very different from what Byleistr was used to, but he enjoyed it. Skalds performed the old ballads of the Dokkalfar war, to which they had already composed new verses describing the events of the week, and the sky around the palace was illuminated by intricate displays of seidr by Vanir, Ljosalfar, and Sidhe mages.
The celebration continued all night. The more the Asgardians drank, the less wary they grew of Byleistr and his drengjar, with mixed results. A few burly men past their prime were very insistent that they could take the Jotnar in a friendly fight, and several people asked them very rude questions.
At one point, a pair of especially bold and tipsy ladies decided that they wanted to try dancing with Baugi, which they would accomplish by the ingenious expedient of one of them standing on the other's shoulders. It worked better than it should have, but they ended up in a heap on the floor, laughing hysterically. After that, more people wanted to try it, and Byleistr mused that it might just go down in the history books as the stupidest way two hostile realms had ever moved closer to peace.
When morning came, so too did the time for the delegations to depart. They made their way to the Rainbow Bridge in a procession that was more like a parade, the House of Odin in the lead, then stepped into the Bifrost in reverse of the order in which they had arrived. Njord and Frigga shared a hug that looked rather stiff and he sauntered through without acknowledging the rest of the family, but they barely seemed to notice, as Odin was engaged in conversation with Brigid and Mab and Thor was laughing with Eitri, who slapped him hard enough on the back to knock him on his face.
Finally, Byleistr was the only delegate remaining, and all seven eyes of the royal family turned to him, not to mention Heimdall's. "You must give Helblindi-Prince my best wishes for his nuptials," said Odin.
"I—I shall," Byleistr stammered. That was the first time Odin had spoken to him directly. He hadn't expected any acknowledgment from that quarter, let alone pleasantries and a hint of a smile. Perhaps he welcomed the idea of an alliance too. "Thank you, Allfather."
"I hope it won't be too long before we meet him as well," said Thor, "and Jotunheim's future queen." He reached to clasp arms with Byleistr again.
"Yes, I think we would all like that very much," said Frigga, encasing the end of a couple of his fingers in both of her hands and squeezing. She and her firstborn were both the sort of people who radiated warmth. It wasn't physical warmth, but he still felt like he could grow heat-drunk just by spending too much time in their presence, and it made it impossible not to like them.
"Come, my dear, Thor," said Frigga, taking hold of Odin's and Thor's arms. "Let us give Loki a chance to bid Byleistr-Prince farewell."
Thor looked ready to protest, tripping over his feet a little as she steered him away towards their horses. Now, why would Loki need them to leave before he could say farewell? She couldn't know about his theory, could she? Unless it was true…
The Gatekeeper turned his sword in its plinth once more and the passage to Jotunheim roared to life. "You two go," Byleistr told the drengjar, watching the king, queen, and crown prince depart while Loki lingered. "I'll be a moment."
"Yes, your highness," said Baugi, and he strode straight into the Bifrost.
Rygi, on the other hand, hesitated, looking from Loki to Heimdall to Byleistr. "But the trap?" he mouthed, brow furrowed.
"There is no trap," Byleistr assured him. "Go. I'll be along."
He didn't seem convinced but followed Baugi anyway. Heimdall lifted up on the sword, and the Bifrost fell silent. "Whenever you're ready, Byleistr-Prince."
Byleistr nodded, then turned his back on him. Loki was waiting just outside the Observatory. This was all clearly deliberate, but why?
"Not in a rush to return home?" said Loki.
"Should I be? Your family has defied all my expectations as hosts. Perhaps I'd like to stay longer."
"I'm glad you've enjoyed yourself here."
"I have." He nearly held his tongue, but curiosity got the better of him. "I've also heard a few strange rumors about you in the course of my visit, Prince Loki."
"Only a few?" said Loki. "I've been neglecting my duties, it seems."
"They are hard to credit for their implications," said Byleistr, not taking the bait.
"I like the sound of that," said Loki with a smirk. "Let's hear it, then. What have you concluded?"
"Concluded? I haven't come so far as a conclusion. I only have an unlikely theory that would require you to have survived a condition that is normally fatal in childhood."
"Ah, yes," said Loki. "Well, surely you agree it is much easier to reach adulthood if one's existence is permitted, even encouraged, by the local monarchs. The king and queen here happen to be quite fond of me, for some reason."
Byleistr frowned. "Then it's true? Do you know of what I speak?"
"There's one sure way you can find out," said Loki, holding out his arm. Byleistr reached to clasp it, suddenly uncertain. If he let go now, it would be nothing more than a farewell gesture between two princes who hoped for better relations between their realms. Loki lowered his voice. No one was in earshot except the Gatekeeper, who would hear them anyway, so it could only be for dramatic effect. "I hope you won't regret it. You've been comforting yourself with more lies than you realize."
Whatever Loki was goading him towards, he'd had enough of it. He gritted his teeth and pulled at the heat in Loki's arm. Though the cloth, leather, and metal scales crumbled away from the limb, no heat left its flesh. As he had suspected, the skin turned blue in a wave that spread down to the fingertips and up beneath the rest of Loki's clothing.
Byleistr had about two seconds to revel in the proof that he'd been correct after all before the transformation swept over Loki's features and he registered the pattern of the emerging ancestral lines. He seized the remnants of Loki's sleeve and pushed them back, revealing the row of chevrons blending into long lines on the forearm.
They were all, in miniature, the same markings as his and Blindi's. He released Loki and staggered back, dragging his hands over his face, nearly dislodging the enchanted spectacles. The lines hadn't changed when they came back into focus. "If this is a trick, I will tear you limb from limb, inter-realm relations be damned."
"You will not," Heimdall growled behind him.
"Peace, Heimdall," said Loki. "I swear upon my seidr that it is no trick of mine." His face (which Byleistr now saw bore a striking resemblance to his own) was set in an expression more grave than any he'd worn so far.
"It wasn't a miscarriage."
"Nor suicide. The baby was born alive, which, for reasons you can see, proved a terrible inconvenience for his father. He sent me away to die—whether through starvation or on the end of an Asgardian spear, he didn't care, so long as I got on with it away from Jotun eyes. Odin found me before he could get his wish."
The words seemed to travel down a long tunnel to reach Byleistr's ears. His arms and legs felt heavy and numb. He couldn't think; his mind was all in chaos. For over a millennium, he hadn't really been able to imagine what it would be like if the baby had been born alive. Instead, he'd found himself resenting his younger sibling, unable to understand how his mother could choose them over her living sons who needed her. Except she hadn't. She'd been stolen away from all of them. Loki hadn't named the culprit, but Byleistr didn't need him to.
"Father must answer for this," he snarled.
"What will you do?"
"I don't know." A lie. He had a very vivid image of what he would do in his mind. "I must return home." He wheeled around. "Reopen the passage, Gatekeeper."
"Wait!"
"For what? Every moment I delay is another moment he goes unpunished for her death!"
"Jotunheim still believes him. They will not take your side if you simply rush in."
"I don't care!" Byleistr shouted. "He murdered her! Open it now!"
"Brother, please!"
The words pierced through the avalanche of rage and grief inside him. He looked at Loki again. The resemblance really was striking. He could hardly believe he hadn't noticed it when Loki was still in Aesir form. A bitter laugh escaped him. "Father has worked so hard to eliminate skamrbarn from Jotunheim, only to sire one on the eve of our defeat. Maybe you really are a sign of cosmic disfavor."
"If we are, it is only what he has made us into. We would not have to be against him if he didn't hate us for no reason." That suggested Loki wasn't the only one who'd escaped the inquisitors. Good. Byleistr hoped they had all slipped through Laufey's clutches. He hoped that everything his father had tried to achieve would crumble and that he would be there to watch him realize he had brought it upon himself. Yes, it would be better to do this carefully. The thought was enough to cool his wrath.
"Helblindi should know."
Loki held out his hand and a glowing sphere appeared in it. "I hope you will let me be part of that conversation, but I'll leave it to your discretion. Use this and I'll send a projection to you at once."
Byleistr accepted the sphere and sent it into his dimensional pocket. He had no idea if he would ever use it.
X
Hours earlier, in the farthest branches of Yggdrasil…
Niflheim never changed. There was no weather, no flora, no fauna—not even the cycle of day and night. The desolate asteroid belt existed in a dreary twilight of pseudo-stasis. Eons ago, that had made it the perfect passage between Jotunheim and Muspelheim, balancing out the extreme conditions of the two realms, but those connections had been severed after the latter had used them to invade the former.
The only things to provide variety for the once Crown Princess of the Nine Realms were the slowly decomposing remains of the treasonous Valkyrior and their winged steeds, but even those had mostly crumbled to dust by now, leaving little but tarnished scraps of armor behind. Hela's own armor was in a dreadful state too, a reflection of how much her father had succeeded in limiting her power.
How long had she been here now? Father's hair and beard had been more gray than brown when he came to stop her escape, so it must already have been centuries then. She wasn't sure if the intervening time had been even longer or if it only felt that way because of how weak she'd been ever since. There wasn't any gray yet in the jet-black hair she had inherited from her mother, at least.
She'd already done her regular training routine, which involved sprinting the length of the main asteroid and leaping to the others in her reach, alternating between flinging blades at notable landscape markers and retrieving them, all as a kind of makeshift obstacle course. It was rubbish without enemies to fight, but it was better than counting the stars, like she was doing now.
Just when she'd nearly succeeded in boring herself to sleep, something brilliant blue flared in a spot where there wasn't usually anything visible in the inky blackness. She jumped to her feet, conjuring blades (pathetically small ones compared to what she used to be capable of, but still deadly sharp), ready for anything.
…Or so she thought. The blue light vanished in another second. Irritation and disappointment crashed over her, but before she could fling herself back down and make a much moodier attempt at falling asleep, she heard a noise. She recognized it instantly even though it was faint and distant. Someone was screaming—someone with an extremely deep voice, and they were getting closer. She looked back up where the blue light had been. Several of the stars nearest it had been blotted out, and more joined them as the scream got steadily louder.
Raising her eyebrows, Hela took three steps back. A second later, a flailing figure smashed into the dark stone at terminal velocity, punching a crater into it in the shape of his body and setting off a shockwave that ruffled her hair and sent chips of black stone flying. The scream was replaced with a protracted groan.
Fascinated, Hela moved closer. There was a piece of parchment pinned to the back of the creature's very unusual armor with a gold-hilted dagger. On it were a few lines of Asgardian runes. She snatched it up, hope flaring that she might still have some support left after all. That hope was extinguished five words in.
A gift from your brothers. This one got past Grandfather, but we've spoiled his plot to destroy Yggdrasil at the next Convergence. He might still have enough fight left in him to be amusing for a while.
No "gift" from the half-Vanir brats (short of abdicating their claims to the throne) would be enough to win her favor and they were fools if they thought otherwise, but this was still the most interesting thing to happen on Niflheim since Father's last visit. It was at least proof that she hadn't been entirely forgotten.
She turned her attention back to the creature. A Dokkalfr? He must be, based on the description in the note, though he didn't look it. Far too large and brawny. Dokkalfr or not, he was dying; she could've spotted that much immediately even without her sense of such things as the Goddess of Death. His skin was cracked like desert sand and a sickly crimson light glowed through. It wasn't from the fall to Niflheim, though, it was some kind of power source that had fused with him to burn away at his life force.
He pushed himself up off the ground and looked around. "Niflheim?" he said in that rumbling voice.
Hela cleared her throat and he tensed and rounded on her. He opened his mouth—more of a maw, really—but she cut him off. "Who are you?" she said. "How did you survive the great Bor's annihilation of Svartalfheim?" She twirled her blades idly around her fingers as she spoke.
"Your petty questions are beneath me, Aesir filth."
She shrugged. "I would have thought you'd want to postpone the moment I slay you for the glory of Asgard, but if what's left of your people have already been defeated by my usurping brothers, perhaps you'd prefer I get it over with. I hope you don't; mercy killings are far too dull."
"Another grandchild of Bor." He spat the words like they were a venomous curse, and his posture changed. He was looking for an opening to attack.
"The eldest, and the only one who knows what it means to uphold his legacy," said Hela. "You stand in the presence of the true heir to the Nine Realms you were too clumsy to conquer."
"Are they aware you are the true heir? It appears they have cast you aside."
"Only because they are weaklings who fear the power I would have brought them."
"A worthy opponent, then," he said, baring his teeth.
"Yes," said Hela. The dagger-sized blades merged and grew to the size of a longsword. "I suppose you'll have to do."
One of the things that made this chapter tricky for me is that I wrote a scene where Odin, Frigga, and Thor spell out the plan to dump Malekith on Niflheim. It kinda took the fun out of the whole thing. I like it this way better. I also had to figure out how much to do with the scene where Byleistr learns Loki is his brother. In the end, I trimmed it down because it didn't feel as raw as it should've. I think my favorite scene is the one with Frigga and Njord. Plenty of sibling drama to go around.
I hope everyone else enjoyed Moon Knight and Multiverse of Madness!
A couple of readers might have gotten the impression from my previous author's note that I changed the Hydra stuff around Russia due to fear of troll comments if I proceeded as originally planned or because I think it'd be a bad look. Not the case. I changed it because I intensely do not want to write anything positioning Russia as the victim of some villain's slanderous propaganda campaign while real-world propaganda is blinding so many people to the reality of Putin's horrible war. It would feel gross. I much prefer using organizations like the Ten Rings, the Hand, and/or the Red Room, because those are all controlled by figures that look like oligarchs if you squint (or are actual oligarchs, in Dreykov's case) and they're part of the MCU. This is going to be different from what I planned but better, both for its real-world parallels and for the story. I support Ukraine and the Russian anti-war protesters. If anyone wants to leave a troll comment about that, come at me.