._.

Beneath

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Eight: Brink

They walked for about four miles, with Loki counting his strides and keeping his mind as clear as possible so that his full attention was on their bleak surroundings and any signs of impending attack they might be hiding. Their Frost Giant "escorts," one ahead of them and one behind, were meant to prevent that, but Loki was hardly going to leave his life in the hands of a Frost Giant. Look how well that went the first time, he thought darkly, then chastised himself for his distraction and renewed his determination to focus only on potential threats. It was no easy task when it was quite dark and the terrain, once they'd left the area of the shelter, nearly featureless. It was no easy task when his heart was pounding, and not from the exertion of the fast-paced walk.

"You're far enough away," the giant who'd been in the lead said, turning back and approaching Thor and Loki. "You can leave from here." With that he continued on, back in the direction they'd come, the other guard who'd been behind joining him.

"I suppose that means we're dismissed," Thor said with a sudden laugh. It was all rather anti-climactic, after being captured – letting himself be captured, he corrected himself – and meeting the Jotun princes vying for their realm's throne.

"Mmm. I suppose so," Loki said, looking askance at Thor and wondering what he found so funny. "Heimdall, we're-" Loki paused, frown deepening. He'd forgotten that earlier he'd hidden himself from Heimdall, knowing the Gatekeeper would never let him out of his sight while on Jotunheim, and unwilling to allow that particular event to be witnessed by anyone, much less an enemy. "Heimdall, we're ready to return," he said after quickly removing the masking.

Nothing happened.

Thor shifted on his feet, squeezing Mjolnir's handle. They had been on Jotunheim for hours. Asgard had not been frozen in time while they were away. "They must have breached the shield again."

Loki took in Thor's sudden anxiousness. There was a fight, and Thor was missing it. Loki wouldn't mind a nice distracting battle right about now, either. But Thor, he thought, was jumping to conclusions. "He might simply be in the middle of changing the Tesseract's location."

Thor shook his head. "He would have been watching us, he would know we were almost ready to be brought home."

"He wasn't watching us."

"He knew he had to bring us back. Of course he was-" Thor cut himself off mid-sentence when he understood what Loki was saying. "Loki, you said you wouldn't-"

"I didn't want to be spied on."

"Heimdall is our Gatekeeper. He isn't a spy! He doesn't spy on us."

"You think not? You think he wouldn't be spying on me? On Jotunheim? While I meet with Jotunheim's princes? With Jotunheim's queen? You think he wouldn't be spying on that?"

"All right," Thor answered in a placating tone. "But he needed to be keeping an eye on us anyway. I wouldn't call it spying."

"Call it whatever makes you happy," Loki said in annoyance. He should have remembered this earlier and stopped hiding himself then. Now they were stuck here until Heimdall got himself and the Tesseract in position. Loki would still keep his watch for attack, but now that they were stationary it was even harder to keep his mind fully occupied by the featureless terrain instead of drifting back to where he'd just been and how badly he wanted to leave this place.

Thor found the silence uncomfortable, with Loki looking everywhere but at him. "What did she say?" he finally asked.

Loki continued his scans. "She said the magic words, 'I agree.' She's going to rule Jotunheim herself. With the Ice Casket, she can bring all three factions under her control. She gave me a signed statement with her seal, addressed to each of the leaders of the allied realms. In seven hundred and fifty years, Asgard and Jotunheim will revisit the issue of the restriction on the Casket, and Asgard – me, I assume, or Maeva or Odin could probably do it – Asgard will remove the restriction. It should be enough time for Asgard's warrior population to have recovered enough to be ready to defend Midgard or itself, as needed."

"That is good news," Thor said. "Excellent news. Everything we wanted. I didn't know that Farbauti ruling was a possibility. It's a good solution. But that's not what I meant."

"That's all she said."

"You were gone a long time for her to say only that."

"She said it slowly. They aren't very bright, Frost Giants."

"I don't know much about them," Thor prefaced, remembering something his mother had told him, "but I know you, and that's obviously not true. Look what you have accomplished in less than twenty-"

"Stop it, Thor. Just stop it. I don't need this from you," Loki said, gesturing vaguely with his hand.

"What do you need, then?" Thor asked, watching Loki carefully for any clues.

"I need to finish this deal. Gullveig next."

"All right," Thor said, nodding reluctantly. "How do you want to approach it? Do we need to make any changes to the mission we discussed earlier with Bragi?"

"I don't know yet. I need to think about it."

"Loki doesn't have a plan?" Thor asked in a lightly teasing tone.

"I said I need to think about it!" he snapped.

Thor blinked, breathed deeply before speaking again. "I didn't mean to push. I just…I thought things were…a little better between us here."

Loki fixed a look on Thor as though he had lost his mind. "Better by comparison with Helblindi and Byleister?" he asked, the only thing he could think that Thor might mean.

"What? No. Earlier. When we first arrived and we were talking."

"Oh, I see. When you nearly started pummeling me. Yes, I see exactly what you mean."

"Not then," Thor said, frustration growing. "Before then, and-"

"Ah, of course. When you were imagining what Frost Giant women…" The barb died off as the incongruity of Thor's earlier musings and the reality that Loki had now actually seen a Frost Giant woman, two of them, in fact, came together.

"And after. You were telling me about what happened when you were with Thanos."

Loki shook his head. "I told you about precisely five seconds out of months I spent with Thanos. Don't presume to think you know anything about it."

"Then tell me more."

"No."

"Is it not better to know one's enemy?"

"Thanos isn't the enemy you need to worry about right now. Gullveig is."

"All right," Thor said, nodding and trying to keep up. "Back to Gullveig then. If you aren't certain yet how to proceed, then who would you like me to assemble to discuss it?"

"Assemble? No one. I already know what I need to. An update from Mother, I think. To see what she's been able to put together on his actions during the war. But not just yet."

"We need to find out if Maeva was able to find a way to broadcast messages across the realms," Thor reminded him.

"Why don't you go do that as soon as we get back, then," Loki said.

"We agreed to stay together. Nothing has changed."

Loki gave a bitter little laugh and looked away. "Nothing has changed" echoed in his mind. He had heard that before. Nothing had changed, except that he was a Frost Giant, and not entirely a secret Frost Giant anymore. Now Helblindi, Byleister, and Farbauti knew that he shared their blood. Now there were traditions and customs and braids and cousins and-

"What was she like?" Thor asked.

Loki glared at him. "Tall."

"But what did-"

"Thor. Must it be shouted from mountaintops for you to grasp it? I can't do this right now. Probably not ever, mind you, but certainly not now." His eyes were locked on Thor's, and he could tell that Thor was just trying to think of a new way to ask, and that he wasn't going to stop. They were stranded here for the time being, and there was nothing else to do, nowhere to go, not even anything interesting to look at. Thor's mind was not particularly complicated; he had nothing else to think about at the moment so his thoughts weren't going to change track without assistance. Loki realized he was going to have to provide the assistance, and that, too, made him angry. "Did you learn anything useful from Helblindi and Byleister when you were stuck with them?" he asked, keeping his voice as calm as he could, stilling a fidget that had started in his hands. Any time now, Heimdall. Any time you care to remove us from this wretched place…

Thor shook his head. "Not really. It was uncomfortable, but they mostly kept to themselves. I told them I would like to see relations between Asgard and Jotunheim change. Byleister reacted with a slightly more restrained version of his typical enthusiasm," he said with a half-smile. "But Helblindi…he makes me curious. I had the impression that he might desire a change as well, but wasn't willing to directly say so. I wish I could have spoken with him alone. Perhaps when all this is over, I will."

Loki looked at Thor askance. Thor wanted to go back? To talk? When he didn't have to? He shook his head. Thor was welcome to his strange notions and hopefully fleeting fancies, he supposed, but Loki would rather no one on Asgard have any further contact with any of the Frost Giants. Not for 750 years, anyway. "You'll have to get through the queen first. I doubt she'll want you having private little chats with her son." It probably wouldn't do Helblindi's bid to become king any favors either, since semi-friendly chats with Asgard's king weren't likely to endear him to his people, Loki thought…then frowned at himself with disgust that he should know such things, and have such insights.

"Do you think she would be willing to meet with me herself?"

"She's a queen, you're a king," Loki said, unwilling to give it real thought, and fighting the churning in his mind that resisted his will as he hoped with a thousand hopes that that would never happen. That was the last thing he needed; who knew what Thor might say, what Farbauti might say…

"What's that supposed to-" Thor began, but forgot what he'd been about to ask when a burst of blue light appeared in the sky above them. "Be ready to fight," he said quickly, taking Mjolnir firmly in hand as the light streaked toward them.

With relish Loki grabbed a knife with each hand. Killing a few attackers might be a pleasant temporary distraction of his own. When just another second later they stood on Asgard, though, in the garden behind the Healing Room, no one was around but Heimdall. He held onto the knives anyway, putting them away only once Thor began speaking.

"Heimdall, was there a breach?"

"There was, Your Majesty," Heimdall said with a deep nod. "Fire Giants this time. They have been defeated, but at a high cost. We lost many Asgardians."

"Not only warriors?" Thor asked, noticing Heimdall's word choice.

Heimdall shook his head.

Thor clenched his jaw. I should have been here. In the long term, he knew he had done the right thing; leaving Asgard for Jotunheim helped ensure that these attacks would soon end. In the right here and right now, though, Asgardians had died who perhaps would not have, had Thor been here. "I thank you for protecting the Tesseract and for bringing us home safely. Your gifts are invaluable to us, as always."

"I merely fulfill my duty, but you are welcome, as always. My sight is yours to command, my king." Heimdall's gaze shifted to Loki. "Though I apologize for the delay. I was left blind to you both for a time."

"Your sight is not always needed, or wanted," Loki snapped, unable to hold back the retort. They were finally free of Jotunheim, but Asgard brought no sense of relief, only anxiety of a different sort, and the same need for escape. Less to a place now than to a person. His skin crawled with the agitation.

"I am not a spy, Loki. Keeping my own counsel, and entrusting it to none but the king of Asgard and then only as necessary for Asgard's security, is also my duty. My sight is ignored, misled, or blocked to a king's detriment."

"I apologize for that," Thor cut in before Loki could toss out some insult that would draw them into an unnecessary delay. "It should not have happened, but all is well, in the end."

"I was not referring to just now."

Thor knitted his brow, but didn't bother asking; it seemed this was meant more for Loki's ears than his own.

If Loki understood correctly – and he thought he did – Heimdall had just acknowledged that Loki had in fact been king. That was a change. And a welcome distraction, albeit a minor one. When he had questioned Heimdall on essentially that very fact earlier, upon his return from Jotunheim via the bifrost, Heimdall's affirmative response had been so hesitant and overall unconvincing that his true thoughts had been glaringly obvious. What Heimdall thought now, however, didn't really matter. Except that Loki needed to avoid antagonizing him. Galling as it was, he needed him. Rather than trying to formulate a response – which might have led to just the antagonizing he wished to avoid – Loki merely nodded perfunctorily.

Loki started off toward the palace; Thor followed suit without question. The problem was, Loki didn't want to go to the palace. And now he didn't want to ask. He hadn't wanted to ask even before, but he'd steeled himself to do it. Now…only the fact that he needed it, as though he suffered from the addiction Jane feared he did, made him stop, just perhaps a few steps further away than he probably would have made it absent Heimdall's unsolicited commentary.

"I need a moment to consult with Heimdall. Alone," he added, putting out an arm against Thor's shoulder, as Thor automatically moved to return to the Gatekeeper.

"Loki-" Thor started to say, shaking his head.

"It's about Jotunheim," Loki said, ignoring the shame that gnawed at him for what he was doing and working hard at affecting a look of vulnerability and pain and distress that he would never actually put on display like this, not willingly anyway. It worked, of course.

"All right," Thor said, giving in quickly. He couldn't presume to know what Loki had endured, and if he wished to speak with Heimdall about it in private…denying him would be heartless. "Will you be long?"

"Possibly." Hopefully.

"I'll wait over there." Thor gestured toward an Einherjar barely visible through the overgrown shrubbery and trees, standing near the Healing Room's private back door. "I need to get a report on everything that's happened since we've been gone, anyway. I may as well do it now."

Loki nodded; Heimdall could have easily given that full report himself, but he supposed Thor had been willing to forego it if Loki was ready with the next part of his wondrous plan to win the war. He wasn't.

"What else can I do for you, my prince?" Heimdall asked once Loki returned.

"Back to titles, are we, Gatekeeper?"

"It is your title."

"More palatable than the last?" Loki asked with a small grimace. This was pure avoidance. He had no need and certainly no desire to engage in a pointless battle of words with Heimdall.

Heimdall didn't answer immediately. "You once asked whether I was sworn to obey you. You may as well have asked whether I trusted you. Your error was in not trusting me. It's difficult to trust a new and unexpected king who does not trust his Gatekeeper."

"Especially when that king is also a Frost Giant, yes? It is difficult for a new and unexpected king to trust a Gatekeeper who collaborated in keeping a fundamental truth from him all his life."

Heimdall inclined his head a bit in acknowledgement. "I kept a confidence as my king commanded. I obey my king."

"When it suits you," Loki said with an acerbic smile. He should have known this would not go well. He simply could not be in Heimdall's presence and forget the betrayal.

"Had you told me what you planned in enabling Laufey's entry to Asgard, had you not blocked my ability to observe your meeting with him, I would have obeyed you, too."

"Really," Loki said with greater animation. "And you would have explained to Sif and the Warriors Three that they do not have the right to violate their king's orders simply because he wouldn't be their first choice for king?"

"Yes," Heimdall said, this time without hesitation.

"Hmph," Loki murmured, a little sound of disbelief mixed with humor and surprise. "You would not have…betrayed your king," he said, with enough presence of mind to avoid the actual word treason at the last second. He still needed something from Heimdall.

"I did not believe I was betraying my king. I believed you were betraying Asgard. Knowing what I do now…I would have counseled you against what you did…but no, I would not have betrayed you."

Loki took a moment to consider how to proceed. This he had not expected. And instead of avoiding poking the snake, he decided now that he would poke hard. "You realize that you just confessed to a very serious crime."

Heimdall bristled. "I took the course of action I believed was correct at the time, based on the information available. I am not immune to errors in judgement, especially when relevant facts are deliberately kept from me."

A smile played at Loki's lips. So, you confess you are guilty of treason…but clarify that your treason was my fault. It was good enough. Escape was so close he could taste it. "I see. I will not raise your confession to that particular 'error in judgement' with our current king, then, if in return you permit me a little…latitude. And discretion."

The silence lingered long this time, but Loki waited, carefully cloaking his impatience.

"As long as you are my prince, I will always permit you a little latitude, and as much discretion as possible. Know that in doing so, I will not act against the king's wishes."

"Good. Where is Jane Foster?"

Heimdall showed no reaction to the out-of-nowhere question, and took a moment to locate the mortal woman. "She is in what looks like a Healing Room."

Loki's heart froze in shock. "What happened?"

"She hasn't been harmed. She appears to be visiting someone else who is being treated there."

Disappointment followed immediately on the heels of relief. Loki gave a curt nod and did his best to mask both. Jane was visiting Selby. He'd hoped she would be alone, preferably out at their jamesway, though realistically he knew she no longer had any reason to go there. Still, he wanted to see her. Badly. He needed to see her, had risked this unpleasantly personal question to Heimdall for it. There was no one here, no one anywhere, that he trusted the way he trusted Jane. He needed to escape. Had needed to ever since "My mother would like to see you." And he felt like he was going to explode. With Jane, he thought, perhaps he wouldn't. But if he did, he could live with doing so in front of her.

But the whole idea was irrational. And he'd known that, too. He'd known it wasn't going to happen, it couldn't happen, and he'd asked anyway. He would have to convince Heimdall – perhaps less difficult now after the Gatekeeper's admission – and he would have to come up with an excuse to give Thor upon his return, assuming Thor didn't immediately demand Heimdall send him after Loki anyway. And there was no way Loki could just show up at the South Pole now and stroll through the building as though he belonged.

Where do I belong? Loki asked himself as he turned to walk away from Heimdall. He had no answer, but he couldn't help thinking of Jane. Which was foolish. He didn't "belong" with Jane, either. Needing her like a drug didn't mean he belonged with her. It meant he was weak, exceptionally weak right now. It would pass. He would make it pass. He had no choice.

"I know you haven't sought my advice," Heimdall prefaced from where he still stood.

Loki came to a quick halt. "But you're going to provide it regardless?" he asked as he turned back. He should never have engaged Heimdall at all, let alone gone back to him a second time for a foolish, pointless question to which, realistically speaking, there was no answer that would have given him what he wanted.

A faint smile played across Heimdall's lips before his face again reflected stoic solemnity. "The question you brought me is usually asked by your brother. Tread carefully, Loki."

Loki's expression turned more stony than stoic, along with his mood. "You're right, I haven't sought your advice," he said, turning on his heel. Thor saw him approaching, and was kissing the hand of an awe-struck little girl when Loki reached him. Beloved King Thor, how gallant and noble, he thought bitterly.

The girl and her mother looked his way, and Loki did his best to hold back a snarl. Thor could ply his natural charm; Loki just wanted them to leave. The little girl, though, had other ideas, reaching up and throwing her arms around his waist. Loki clenched his fists in an effort not to shove her away. He wasn't at all in the mood for this.

"King Thor says you're making all the other realms stop attacking us," she said as her mother, probably more perceptive than the girl, tugged her back. "My father got hurt again, and I don't want him to have to go fight anymore. And I want to go back to our own house."

He turned to Thor and pasted a smile on his face that even Thor would know was false, then focused his attention on the girl and dragged out every bit of his own, rather less natural – or at least less honest – charm. "We're all doing everything we can to ensure that the war is over as soon as possible, and in a way that honors your father's sacrifice, and yours as well. Soon enough he'll be tucking you into your own bed."

The girl looked up at her mother full of grins. "Can we go back and tell him? Can we, please?"

"No, not now. We have to let him rest. Thank you, Your Majesty, my lord," she said with a proper bow and salute, quickly mimicked by the girl.

Loki gave a slow, respectful bow of his head and turned in time to see Thor winking at the little girl. He rolled his eyes. "That was entirely unnecessary," he said once the mother and daughter were gone, headed for the palace, apparently refugees from one of the villages.

"I realized that I never gave you enough credit for the things you did. I mean to change that."

"Please don't," Loki bit back automatically.

"Why not?" Thor asked, genuinely confused.

"I have no interest in dealing with all these…these people."

"They're your people, Loki. And they should know what you're doing for them."

"Are they my people? And am I really doing it for them? Thinking things through was never one of your many strengths, Thor, and I see that hasn't changed."

"I have thought things through. More than you know. And yes, they are your people. I know you have your own motives as well, but I can't believe that you're not also doing it for them."

"And I don't care what you believe."

"The girl's bed is gone."

"What are you talking about?"

"Her house burned down."

Loki took a deep, calming breath. He screamed at Thor to be silent, in his head, and chased away the immediately following thought that perhaps Thor had once been able to hear such things. "That is unfortunate. Did you actually talk to the Einherjar that was here? Or just kiss hands?"

"Yes, I talked to him, Loki. But he's just been released from the Healing Room himself, he didn't know much about what's happened today, other than what Heimdall already told us."

"Then you should seek out someone who can fill you in. In the meantime I'll speak with Mother about Gullveig."

"I should join you. I need to-"

"You're not joining me."

"But we-"

"You're not joining me. I'll tell you anything you need to know after." If he couldn't be free of Asgard he could at least be free of Thor for a while.

"You…all right. Fine, Loki," Thor said, waving a frustrated hand of dismissal Loki's way. Loki glared at him – again – and set off. He was trying not to get angry, not to say something he would later regret; he knew their time on Jotunheim hadn't been easy for Loki even if Loki wouldn't speak a word about it beyond the perfunctory minimum. But Loki knew how to test his patience like no other. Thor could insist. He was king, and he had not only a right but a responsibility to know Loki's plans, to learn what Loki learned to help him make those plans. Perhaps, though, Loki wanted to talk to their mother about Jotunheim, out of Thor's presence. For that, he could step aside and hope that Loki would in fact tell him what he needed to know, instead of tricking him as he had the last time.

/


/

"Loki," Frigga said, standing and quickly dismissing the clerk she'd been meeting with. "I'm glad to see you back." It was an understatement. She was relieved and overjoyed. But she suspected he would not welcome the weight of her emotions.

"Mother," Loki said with a nod, closing the office door behind the departing clerk. "I'm going to kill Thor."

Frigga's eyebrows rose.

Loki's jaw fell for a second. "I didn't mean that literally."

A smile warmed her face. "I know. I've heard it enough times from both of you to know."

"I meant to reassure you, in fact, that I…well, that I won't kill him. I won't do that to you."

"Not exactly the motivation a mother would hope for, but I'll take it."

"And I wish to say also…I wish to thank you, for being my mother. For raising me. It can't have been easy. It was much to ask and you had every right to refuse, and… I thank you." Loki concentrated on not shifting his feet or otherwise fidgeting. This idea had seemed simpler, easier, when it first came to him, than in the moment of execution.

Frigga drew close to him, wrapped her fingers around his head and squeezed lightly, then kissed his cheek. "There's no need to thank me. You know that I love you."

"I do. And I you."

She kissed him again. "Sit with me." Three chairs were on the other side of the desk she'd been at; she took Loki's hand and drew him over to them. "You met Helblindi and Byleister?" she asked once they were both seated.

Loki nodded.

Frigga said nothing, waiting.

"And Farbauti."

"Ah." That explained his odd entrance. He had met Farbauti, and his impression of her had not been positive, at least not as a mother-figure. Frigga swallowed, and silently reprimanded the silly, unkind part of her that was glad.

"Her hair is the same color as mine."

Frigga nodded. She, of course, had known that, having formally met Farbauti once. They had never spoken, not beyond the stock phrases required at such meetings between royalty, and they had certainly never spent any time alone, but she knew that Farbauti had long black hair that she always wore in a looped braid, a bit of it visible beneath the long cloak she wore. "I always wondered how it was that your hair came in black. You didn't have any when Odin brought you home. I thought perhaps the magic Odin worked in you to make your Aesir form permanent somehow didn't account for your hair, so that when it came in it was a vestige of where you came from."

"Except that having hair on Jotunheim apparently makes you female," Loki said with a dose of detached sarcasm. Frigga started to respond, but Loki put up a hand. There had been enough talk of hair on Jotunheim; Loki didn't want to dwell on it any longer, especially now that it occurred to him to wonder how magical tapestries and Jotun biology might have conspired to refuse him facial hair. "Their children play with the most rudimentary of toys, common items that don't even deserve the word. A ball of ice with a dull feather sticking out of it. A few of them may be clever…" – Farbauti was certainly clever, in the devious sense – "but it's no wonder that most are such savages."

Frigga at first wrinkled her brow, wondering how Loki had happened to learn about children's toys on Jotunheim, but by the end was smiling. "Must a child's toy be costly, or have mechanics or magic, for the child to learn through play? You and Thor had big eyes and for the most part got what you wanted no matter the price. But do you remember those wooden packing crates, when we bought you and Thor new furniture when you were…oh, I think around four and five? You two built fortresses and caves and everything else your active imaginations came up with and your father and I had many laughs over how you had so many expensive things to play with and you couldn't get enough of the packing crates."

Loki tilted his head in a small shrug of indifference. "I don't remember it. But it's hardly the same. You said it yourself – we built things with the crates."

"And Jotuns don't build things with ice?" Frigga asked with raised eyebrows. The mere fact that Loki hadn't thought of that himself told her how badly rattled he was by his time on Jotunheim. "Perhaps such toys teach them to shape it."

Loki saw the ball of ice then, saw it resting on his palm as he passed it to the child's mother, ever so careful to not touch her as he did so. And then he remembered how, when looking through red Frost Giant eyes, in some places in the ice surrounding him he'd seen pale colors. He gave a shudder. He didn't actually want to think of use or purpose in Jotun toys, or how those toys might look to the Jotuns. He didn't want Frigga putting these ideas in his head. And he had another reason to hate Farbauti, for introducing him to Frost Giant hair and Frost Giant toys in the first place. The conniving woman had probably arranged for the child to enter "by surprise" from the start. "I don't think it was some kind of Frost Giant ice training set. I saw a whole box of such paltry trifles – pieces of bone, scraps of cloth…"

"Perhaps it's all they can provide right now. Jotunheim has been almost entirely cut off from trade since the Ice War. But I tell you, a child really doesn't need much for entertainment."

Frigga started talking about how he and Thor had played with their pillows and blankets, but Loki wasn't listening. Scraps of cloth… "Cloth is precious here." Farbauti herself had abandoned him to "consecration." In precious cloth, like the cloak she'd been wearing. Not like the ragged scraps in the toy chest. He wondered now if that was deliberate, too. She'd taken the cloak off later, for no obvious reason – why had she worn it in the first place, and why then had she removed it? To ensure he noticed it, that it stuck in his mind? Devious witch. But there was no way she could know that the green cloth had been saved, that he knew of its existence, that Frigga had told him it was a sign of caring. He was ceding her too much power. She was clever, yes. All-knowing, no.

"…and you fell right down and curled yourself into a little bug of a ball as though that water would hurt you. Or the dirt, who knows. You weren't as fond of dirt as Thor was."

"What?" Loki asked, once he'd caught up with as many of her words as he could. "I…what was that?"

Frigga was on the verge of teasing that she didn't mean to bore him, but held back; Loki's distraction was not over mundane matters. "I was talking about how you loved to play outdoors, no toys at all, and that time I took you both out right after a heavy rain, before the roads were cleared, and Thor discovered puddles and set out to make the biggest splash possible and utterly soaked you. You didn't think it was as good of an idea as he did."

"I dropped to the ground and curled up and covered my head?" Loki asked, a suffocating horror descending over him, everything he'd been trying desperately to hold at bay.

"Covered your head? I don't remember that, but perhaps. Though I wouldn't think you'd remember it, either. I don't think you were even two years old yet."

"I don't remember…but I saw…on Jotunheim…did I cry?"

"What do you mean?" Frigga asked, concerned. Loki was breathing shallowly, face full of naked anxiety she couldn't identify an obvious explanation for, other than some unknown thing he "saw on Jotunheim."

"When Thor splashed me. When I fell."

"No, you weren't hurt, just startled. But you hardly ever cried when you were a baby."

And that did it. Loki pushed himself up from his chair and stumbled forward, coming to a stop in front of a long credenza and gripping its edges hard, leaning heavily onto it. He wanted to throw up. He looked up and found himself looking at his own reflection, and he barely recognized himself. He was sweating, his eyes looked wild, and that person was supposed to be him and it wasn't. That hair, that black as midnight hair, growing out again from his last haircut, when Jane cut it, it wasn't him, it wasn't his, it was theirs. This face, the one he'd looked Farbauti in the eye and defiantly said was his true face, it wasn't. How could he even pretend that it was when that black hair framed it? A fist made it up onto the top of the table as his eyes grew even wilder, manic. He wanted to break this mirror, too. He wanted to break every mirror throughout the Nine Realms. If he broke every single one of them, he would never have to see the other face. But it would still be there. The black hair was the proof, now the permanent reminder, of its existence. It would always be there, no matter what magic he worked, no matter how impressive Odin's tapestries, it would still be there.

"Loki?" Frigga asked softly, tentatively, coming up beside him and resisting the strong impulse to touch him, for fear it might be the thing that pushed him over the edge she feared he was barely hanging onto. "Talk to me, child. Say it aloud and it will lose some of its power."

He shook his head, desperately trying to stave off something that he feared he would never come back from, eyes squeezing tight for a moment as he backed toward the door. It was an instinct, a sudden need for space, but he wasn't running. He had nowhere to run to. Not even on Midgard could he outrun his own hair. He opened his eyes, saw she hadn't matched his steps, he still had that much space. "How much…how much of who I am is shaped b…by that?" he asked. It wasn't a new thought, but before it had been an amorphous bludgeon he grasped onto in anger; now it was crystallizing into a fine, sharp point that dug deep into his chest.

"By being born Jotun? Loki, nothing. Nothing of consequence. You were a newborn when-"

"Nature versus nurture! Some things are nature, mother. What else? You know me as well as anyone. What do you see in me that comes from them? I have…I have done things…even when I was young, things that no one should-"

"No. No, Loki, stop right there. They have no control over you. Things done long ago…they are over and forgotten and they don't define you. What has happened more recently, you were broken, your mind was broken, you were not yourself. You aren't in shackles to such things. You aren't doomed to repeat them, either. When I say 'nothing of consequence,' I mean it. We wondered…"

"Yes? What? You wondered what?" Loki asked, the words tumbling out. There were things, he knew it. He knew it with absolute certainty.

"Your fear of water," Frigga said, the words rushing out. It was clear now that Loki needed to hear it, and if she didn't tell him, he would imagine things a thousand times worse, a thousand times more significant. "You didn't even like being given baths when you were a baby. Fear of the water isn't unusual in children. But yours was so intense, from the very beginning, and…we wondered."

"May I slip beneath warm waters first." One of them had said that. Byleister, he thought, but the memory was hazy, submerged beneath the thoughts that now consumed him. Fear of the water. That he did remember, very clearly. Somehow he'd always thought his childhood fear was mostly because of the trauma of Thor nearly drowning him, but he'd been frozen in terror before Thor ever dragged him in, and apparently it went all the way back to his infancy. "Father arranged lessons," he said, realizing his slip after the fact but too overwhelmed by the crushing weight of his Frost Giant burden to correct it.

"Yes. You were soon to have some training in the water, and he didn't want your fear to hold you back from success."

He'd feared the lessons, but he'd been grateful, too, because he'd feared the humiliation that would have been waiting for him otherwise much more. His thoughts darted around and landed on something new. "Did I talk? I remember…sometimes you would tell me to use my words. Didn't I talk?"

"You…didn't talk much. Eir examined you, your comprehension was fine, and you could talk, sometimes you would burst out with a complete sentence or even a full exchange, so we knew you could, but most of the time you didn't. Not for a few years."

"How many? How old was I when I started to talk normally?"

"You were three," Frigga answered, intensely curious where all this was coming from and certain it had something to do with things he'd learned on Jotunheim, yet too worried about Loki to ask.

Loki closed his eyes again for a moment before forcing them back open. "Did you know what I was thinking?"

Frigga studied him for a moment in confusion, not certain she even understood the question. "I could usually figure it out."

"No, I mean…did you know what I was thinking. Could you…sense it somehow?"

"Sense it? I wouldn't say so, other than recognizing your expressions and body language." She suspected Loki wasn't interested in the particular pinched expression he had typically worn when his diaper needed changing, but if he needed examples, she could provide them.

"Did Thor know what I was thinking?"

At that Frigga was stunned into silence. The question was completely unexpected…until she thought back. It was so long ago, and a frightening time, and she had forgotten. "There was a time…when we thought he might. We didn't know what to make of it. Such a thing shouldn't be possible, but your instinctive magic was still very strong then."

"When did it stop?" Loki asked. He knew it had stopped, if it had ever really happened in the first place. Thor had fallen for far too many of Loki's manipulations for him to have any special insight into Loki's thoughts or feelings.

"When you were three," Frigga answered, hoping Loki did not pursue it further. She didn't know if she could – or should – keep the full truth from him, but she was mindful of Odin's warning that Loki didn't necessarily need to know every detail right now.

"When I started talking," he mumbled, taking a few more steps backward and sagging against the door. "How many times did you look at me and wonder…is this because he's a Frost Giant?"

Frigga pursed her lips, then approached Loki again, then gently wiped a tear from his cheek. He flinched a little, as though he hadn't known it was there. "Please don't be upset, my-"

He suddenly straightened and looked down at Frigga in a burst of anger. "I have every right to be upset, Mother. I have every right."

"Yes, yes, of course you do. Of course you do, Loki. I don't mean to try to take that from you. But I worry about you so much. And to see you like this…I worry. And you must allow me that."

Loki sagged again, thinking that perhaps he should try to reassure her, but he didn't have the strength to do it convincingly, and maybe not at all. If a broken bifrost was at his feet right now, he wasn't sure what he would do. He gave a macabre laugh then. He knew what he would do, or rather what he wouldn't do, if that broken bifrost would send him back into Thanos's grasp. Unless he happened to be very well armed, with more than the few knives he had on him now.

"Come, sit with me again. Try to calm down. You aren't breathing properly, that's not helping."

Loki let her lead him back to the chairs and sank boneless into one of them.

"These are all minor things, from long ago. Take your fear of water, for instance. You aren't afraid of it anymore."

"No," he answered after a moment, head still spinning. "But I'd still rather be on land than in water."

"There's nothing wrong with that, and you're hardly alone in that preference. If the fear was something innate in you, then it's purely a matter of instinct. Instinct for self-preservation. All babies have a set of instincts they're born with. Jotun babies can be no different. You brought with you an instinct that Aesir babies don't have, an innate fear of the water, because water must be dangerous for Jotun infants. These are only guesses, Loki. They were always only guesses. Every child is different, and we had no way of knowing if some less common trait in you stemmed from your origins. But if you're thinking that there's something wrong with you because you're Jotun, some…some cloud hanging over you that formed on Jotunheim…it's simply not true. Your swimming lessons, they went well, didn't they?" Frigga asked, just to keep talking, to get him talking, to try to refocus his thoughts and pull him out of this spiral that frightened her.

Loki nodded after a moment. "I liked them," he said simply, as though he were still that youth.

"And you became a strong swimmer, and excelled in your training in the water, yes?"

"Yes," he said, and it was something he hadn't thought about in quite a long time, but he'd done better than Thor – rare when it came to their formal physical training.

"So whatever instincts carried over from Jotunheim, you have long since grown out of them. You are your own person, Loki. And who that person is…who you want that person to be…much of that is up to you. But none of it is up to Jotunheim."

"You believe I have…outgrown nature?"

"I believe you have outgrown nature having control over you."

Loki considered it. He wasn't convinced it was true, or that it was even possible.

"Don't let this control you, either. This…this fear, this loathing of where you came from. Don't allow it such power over you. It has led you down enough dark paths."

"Don't allow it such power." Loki's mind sharpened around those words. He had been doing that, hadn't he? Perhaps. Hadn't he decided that he was taking back control? This was not control. What did it matter that his hair was black, that he had feared water, that he had barely spoken for two years, that Thor had somehow managed, perhaps, what Frigga had not, and knew his thoughts during that time. Thor had no talent for magic, of course. If anyone had managed that, it was Loki, not Thor. The thought brought a hint of a smirk to his face. That was control. Farbauti thought only a Jotun mother could have such a bond, and only with the child she had carried. Loki had managed it with an Aesir child with whom he did not share even a drop of blood. Still, he thought with a shiver, he was glad he had no clear memories of that. There was no need to dwell on something he couldn't even remember, and there was certainly no need to let it have any kind of control over him. He would win this war and regain his complete freedom. Farbauti and her two idiot sons would be stuck on Jotunheim playing with the Ice Casket, a toy for grown-up Frost Giants.

He took a deep breath and met his mother's gaze. With a flourish of his hands he withdrew the leather parchment bearing Farbauti's message, signature, and seal. "The Frost Giants are out of the war."

Frigga sat back and smiled. "Of course they are."

Loki shook his head in mock annoyance. He still wasn't fully calmed, but he was much more settled than before, and again able to project what he wished, regardless of his actual feelings. "You could at least pretend to be surprised."

"When you are truly determined to accomplish something, my son, you rarely fail to do so. You gave them the Ice Casket?"

"I did," Loki said, and explained how he'd altered the magic on it, binding it to Jotunheim instead of to Asgard.

"Ingenious," Frigga said. "They won't be able to use it to attack another world. And that explains how you managed to take it off of Asgard. You still know Maeva's magic well, don't you?"

Loki made a dismissive face. "Odin knows?"

"Of course he knows. He's the one who told me. He was angry at first; it doesn't look good, you understand."

"I understand. That's why I stole it instead of asking and arguing."

Frigga smiled a smile that was reserved solely for her sons when she chose not to quarrel with their unique forays into illogical reasoning. Or when she chose not to quarrel much. "I said he was angry at first. He came around to the idea that you had a good reason for what you were doing rather quickly, actually. Had you explained your intentions, I have no doubt he would have supported you from the start."

Loki frowned and blew out an annoyed breath. This, at least, this conflict between him and Odin, was grounding. Familiar. Very familiar, he thought, as something Heimdall said came back to him. "Had you told me what you planned when you let Laufey into Asgard, I would have obeyed you." It grated on him. Not wanting to dwell on it, he offered Farbauti's signed statement to Frigga.

She took the document Loki held out and quickly read through it. "Addressed to everyone but us. Also not surprising, I suppose. But from Farbauti? That is a surprise. She signed it as 'Queen and Sovereign Ruler of Jotunheim,'" she said, looking to Loki for explanation. He had avoided speaking of anything specifically about Farbauti, Helblindi, or Byleister, other than the mention of Farbauti's black hair, so she wasn't going to ask, at least not now. With her current responsibilities on Asgard, though, she needed to understand the political situation.

Loki nodded slowly, relaxing further. "If I had to guess, I would say she's always thought she should rule Jotunheim. She said neither of her sons is ready to rule, she spies on them both, she said Laufey had done Jotunheim no favors, and prepare yourself for this one, Mother. The third party in the civil war, Dirnolek? She paid him to attack her sons, in hopes it would unite them against him. Unfortunately for her, her sons didn't unite and Dirnolek decided he actually wanted to win."

Frigga exhaled slowly, eyes widened. She said nothing. Loki wouldn't want to hear that this story of Farbauti's cunning and hidden hand of control very much reminded her of him, not least in his own scheming to prevent Thor's ascension by allowing Frost Giants entry into Asgard.

"Who knows what their actual rules of succession are, but I think the Ice Casket dropping into her lap was exactly the pretext she needed to take power for herself. Her sons will step aside for her, and Dirnolek…I'm sure she knows how to handle him, too. She was a bit premature to sign that way, but I wouldn't be surprised if she's already consolidated her power in this short time. Any ruler of the other realms who questions it can go to Jotunheim and find Farbauti in charge."

"All right. Jotunheim is out of the war," Frigga said with a formal nod, but saying nothing more, letting Loki dictate the flow of conversation in whatever way made him more comfortable.

"On to Vanaheim, then," Loki said, mentally reviewing what he'd learned about Gullveig's questionable actions and Asgard's plan to use that against him, a plan Loki intended to improve. Just thinking about Gullveig and Vanaheim had seemed utterly impossible not even an hour ago; now it was simple and even invigorating. "Have you been able to document everything?"

"I have. And thirty-one of the forcibly returned Vanir have provided official statements about being forced to renege on their oaths. Most anonymously, out of an understandable fear for their families on Vanaheim, but a few agreed to allow their names and faces to be used. We've also collected stories from them about political arrests and the crushing of peaceful dissent. And now we have this document as well," she said, gesturing to Farbauti's statement.

A smile spread across Loki's face. "And now we will bring him down."

/


Sorry for the super-long delay, these were very much not normal circumstances. April 2017 is forever for me the lost month of my life. But I've gone on enough about that! I want to extra-special thank everyone who dropped in a comment on the last chapter, as I was feeling quite miserable at the time and you truly brightened my day. This chapter is extra-long so no responses to guest reviewers here this time but if the next one is normal-sized (I don't remember!) I'll try to swing back around next time. 'Til then, fellow travelers on this looooong journey!

Previews for Ch. 169: Jane has an encounter that doesn't go as expected, Loki runs into someone he hasn't seen in a while (at least not in the regular timeline...), a past experience weighs on Thor with uncharacteristic effect.

Excerpt:

"Loki," she said, the first to see him and the first to approach. "I hear your silver tongue has talked the Frost Giants right out of the war."

"Giving them the Ice Casket had a little something to do with it as well," he answered with a nod.