Author's note: The chapter you've all been waiting for! And me, if you couldn't tell! It took me all of two days to write this baby! Enjoy!
Chapter 9: Don't touch my stuff
They stare at each other, her and the King of Asgard.
Even without his armor on, he wears more gold than she really thinks is necessary. It just makes her think of all the pureblood Lords sucking up to her after the war, obscenely displaying their wealth for all to see.
"Evelyn Rosalie Potter, I presume?" His voice is deep and rolling, very much like Thor's. However, she doesn't hear the compassion Thor's has anywhere in it. It's rigid and unyielding, prepared to strike down those who stand in his way. And while that might be a good quality for a King to have, she doesn't much agree with the lack of compassion it inspires. Especially considering he's supposed to be a peaceful King right now.
"You would be correct," she drawls, tipping her head to him in a mockery of a bow. The only King she might bow to would be Thor, and since he doesn't currently sit on Asgard's throne, she won't be bowing to anyone anytime soon. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence?"
"I would know the woman who inspired such loyalties in my sons that they would die for her," Odin intones, smartly making no more moves to approach any further. Her magic is already but a finger's snap away from going deadly.
She slowly raises an eyebrow. "Really now? You're sure about that? You're not just here to see what lowly woman caught the extra's eye? Because that's what it seems like to me." Her lips curl into a sneer that Snape would be proud of. "Thor did not die for me, you imbecile. He died for the people of Vanaheim. He died so that they might live. He died because Asgard had closed their gates to the rest of the Realms and we had no other way to transport people between the Realms. It was have Thor hold open the Gate or let the people of Vanaheim perish."
"Alskling," Loki murmurs while touching a hand between her tense shoulder blades.
She inhales sharply, letting her eyes briefly drift closed as she makes herself exhale slowly in an attempt to calm her already spiking temper. When she opens her eyes again, she fixes Odin with a look. "Do not belittle Thor's death just because you don't care for my presence in his life, Allfather. Thor fell keeping a whole people's safe. Honor that if nothing else."
Amazingly, Odin looks surprised of all things. "You think I object your presence in my sons' lives?"
Evelyn snorts. "I gathered as much when Asgard did the equivalent of slamming the door in our faces when we needed your help the most. Since I refused to see my husband beg to a people who'd turned their backs on him, I did the asking. I'm rather used to being the punching bag, you see. So I asked for help when Thor broke Mjolnir. I asked when Thor fell with Vanaheim. I asked when Nivadelir fell." She barks out a sharp, bitter laugh. "We only knew Asgard fell because the few Asgardian refugees we were sheltering felt their connection to Asgard rather abruptly shatter. All because their King finally fell. That is how I know what my worth to you is. I stood by your heir and yet you did nothing. You didn't lift a single fucking finger to help us mere mortals. You just stood by and hid in your golden halls until reality finally caught up with you and you lost.
"Also, how dare you call Loki your son after everything you've subjected him to! You constantly compare him to Thor when the two of them couldn't be more different! Of course Loki won't ever measure up to him! He's not Thor! He is his own damn person, and until you get that through your thick, obnoxious skull, I'm of the opinion that you can just stay the hell away from him!"
That, of course, sparks a reaction she expects. Odin's expression goes thunderous and she can feel his power stirring in the air. "You presume much to order me around, mortal."
"I'll presume all I want, thanks!" she snarls back, undaunted even in the face of an angered Odin. "You're the one who claimed him as your son, but you did a shitty job of being a father to him! Unless you'd planned to keep him locked up in Asgard all his life, the truth about his heritage was going to come out sooner or later. You're the bloody King! You could've done something to change people's minds about Jotuns! Instead you let your Jotun son grow up hearing that his kind are the monsters parents warn their children about at night." She points a finger at him, sparks dancing down her arm as she fights to keep from just blasting him. Confident in her magic though she is, she's well aware that's not a fight she'll be winning anytime soon. "My son's birth father was a werewolf, the monster wizarding parents warn their children about at night, but I made damn sure he knew I didn't give a flying fuck what any bigots said about them or him. That he was mine for all that I didn't birth him myself, and that I'd fight for him until my dying breath. What did you do, oh King of Asgard? You stole a baby in an attempt to bring two kingdoms together and then did nothing to further that idea! You let relations with Jotunheim fester to the point where your bloody heir sought to wipe out an entire people because they interrupted his fucking coronation!"
"You dare—!"
"Yes I bloody well dare!" she screams. "I married him, Odin Allfather! That makes him mine! Mine to protect, mine to love, and mine to fix because of your bloody fucking mistakes! Because I know a fucking thing or two about growing up always being second best for something you aren't even aware of! Of being judged because of what you were born as! Of being judged about something as fucking simple as your blood."
Up until this point, Frigga hasn't interjected in the slightest. She just lets Evelyn hurl insult after insult at her husband. Now, however, she steps forward. Evelyn does notice that she doesn't position herself beside Odin. No, Frigga stands on her own. "What exactly do you mean by that, child?"
"How knowledgeable are you about the wizarding world's current prejudices?" Evelyn asks instead of answering, not even protesting being called 'child'. To Frigga, practically everyone is a child. She just doesn't sound condescending about it like Odin.
"More so than my husband."
"Then you'll understand what I'm about to say," Evelyn says, only just resisting the urge to sneer at Odin again. "The first year of my life was actually full of love and laughter. I had parents who adored me, and uncles and aunts who loved me just as much. Then a fucking megalomaniac took it upon himself to destroy all that simply because of this stupid belief that one ought to be judged by the purity of one's blood rather than one's accomplishments. And my father, though he was pure of blood, was cut down because he chose to take a mudblood as a wife and stood in the man's fucking way. My mother fell the same way, and when the bastard tried to kill me, his curse rebounded and robbed him of a body.
"After that I was placed into the ever loving care of my mother's sister who quite frankly despised both my mother and myself. I lived in a cupboard underneath their stairs, and, until I was five and started going to school, quite honestly thought my name was Freak because that was all they'd ever call me. My aunt and uncle tried to beat what they called my 'freakishness' out of me, and greatly encouraged my cousin and his friends in their many games of Evie Hunting. I endured all this because I didn't know any better. That all changed, of course, on my eleventh birthday when I was suddenly informed that I wasn't a freak, I was a witch, and my parents weren't drunken wastes of space like my dear aunt and uncle would have me believe. In fact, my father was a Lord and my mother the brightest witch of her age, to say nothing of the fact that they both graduated top of their class and my father went on to become one of the best Hit Wizards involved in that particular war while my mother was pursuing a Mastery before my arrival.
"Now let's move onto my Hogwarts years, shall we?" She grins viciously, thoroughly enjoying the way Odin's paling the further into her story she goes. Frigga's expression is almost carefully blank, but she kids herself into believing she doesn't care what the Queen thinks of her life story. "My first year I came face to face with the wraith of Tom Marvolo Riddle, the megalomaniac who'd killed my parents, as he attempted to steal a stone with the supposed power to make him immortal and give him a body again. Second year I came face to face with the sixteen year old memory of Riddle preserved in a diary for fifty years and a basilisk that Slytherin got from Merlin knows where hidden beneath the school. The fucking snake even bit me. I only survived because the Headmaster's phoenix cried for me. My third year I got to deal with learning that the murdering raving lunatic who'd broken out of prison and reportedly coming after me was my godfather and supposedly the one who'd betrayed my parents to Riddle. Turns out the man who actually betrayed them was hiding as one of my friends' pet rat. Fourth year I got forcibly entered into a bloody tournament that had me facing nesting mother dragons, diving into a lake full of merfolk to rescue a friend in the dead of winter, and ended with me being part of a dark ritual to give Riddle a fucking new body and dueling the bastard before I was able to run away. Fifth year the Ministry refused to believe anything I said about Riddle's return, and I ended up with the words I must not tell lies carved into the back of my bloody hand because the cowardly Minister's loyal toady bitch had a personal vendetta against me. Not to mention, because of my own stupidity, I got my godfather killed when he tried to rescue me from a trap I walked into. That's also when I finally learned why Riddle wanted me in particular dead." Her smile is deadly and sharp and broken, and she relishes the flinch it produces from Odin. "I destroyed the Headmaster's office after learning that particular tidbit of information. Sixth year ended with Riddle's merry band of followers invading Hogwarts and the Headmaster dying at the hands of his own fucking spy. My seventh year didn't even happen, given that I was on the run the entire time. I spent a good chunk of that time with a Horcrux around my neck. A Horcrux, by the way, is a truly bastardized version of Soul Magic where someone breaks their soul into pieces via murder to anchor said soul to the land of the living. It's what the diary was in my second year. They like to try and take over your mind. In the end, I finally did kill Riddle, though not without dying myself. You see, Riddle had unintentionally made me a Horcrux." Her hand unconsciously drifts up so she can run her fingers over the lightning bolt carved into her forehead. "It's what gave me my scar. He killed me and the piece of his soul stuck in me, but my blood was running through his veins because of my parts in his resurrection. That tied me to land of the living and gave me the ability to return."
She inhales and exhales deeply, then pins a truly scathing look on Odin. "So explain something to me, Odin Allfather. How is it that I came out of all of that relatively fine with barely any homicidal tendencies at all while your son," she spits out the word like it's a curse, "who by your reckoning was loved the entirety of his life, felt the need to prove his worth to you. That he would feel he had to go to such extremes as he did, using the Bifrost to literally destroy the Realm of his birth, all to get you to even acknowledge his existence beyond being a pawn for your scheming? Tell me why you raised him for a throne you never even intended to give him!" She goes quiet then, chest heaving as she stares down the King of Asgard.
Loki is a solid warmth against her back, not having said a single word since he calmed her the once. His magic is gangled with hers, grounding her from flying any further off the handle than she already has. The hand latched onto her hip is almost painfully tight.
Odin clears his throat, eye darting briefly to his stone-faced wife. "Regardless of what you may think, everything I have done I have done to keep my sons, both of them, safe. That includes hiding the truth of Loki's parentage."
Evelyn can feel her husband's sharp intake of breath at that pronouncement. "You may claim to have kept the truth from him for his safety, but that decision is what caused the start of this whole mess to begin with!" she snaps back. "He hated himself because of that! You have no idea how utterly shattered he was when we first met! It took me forever to pick up the pieces and even begin to heal him! I'm still bloody working on it!" Loki's grip on her hip tightens just enough to send a jolt of pain down her leg, but all she does is lay her own hand over it. "Just so you know, the first time I ever told him I loved him, he looked me in the eye and asked me how I could bear to love a monster."
"Oh my son," Frigga breathes, looking at the two of them with tears in her eyes.
"I found him when he was at his lowest, and I built him back up. I will not have you undoing all my work, Allfather. I love Loki will all my heart and soul, and will love him no matter what, be he Odinson, Laufeyson, or even Friggason. So I suggest you get used to the idea I won't stand silent should I disagree with any of your suggestions concerning my husband." She draws in a rattling breath, the tears she's been fighting back finally getting the better of her. "Loki," she chokes out.
Her darling husband immediately understands that she's reached her limit and whisks her away without a word.
Sif heard about the unknown arrival because the guards can gossip worse than the ladies of court, but it's not until she meets up with Thor that her suspicions are confirmed. He's grinning brightly and there's a bounce in his step that can only mean good news. And the only good news he's been waiting for is the arrival of Loki's wife.
"She is here, then?" she asks before he can say anything.
Thor laughs, not even bothering to question how she knows. He's just as aware of the guards' tendency to gossip as her. "Indeed she is. Loki took her to meet with Mother for lunch."
Sif lets her expression soften into a warm smile, an action she rarely indulges in. "I am glad. Both for you and for Loki. When do you—"
She's interrupted when, in a whirlwind of magic, Loki and a red-haired woman abruptly appear in the middle of the training field. The woman chokes out a sob, collapsing to the ground as she buries her face in her hands. Loki follows her down, wrapping his arms around her and rocking her back and forth.
"What happened?" Thor demands, knees hitting the ground with a dull thud as he drops down beside them. His hands dart out like he wants to gather them close and shield them from whatever is hurting them.
Loki lifts his head just enough for Sif to see the look of loathing painted across her prince's face. "Odin happened," he spits out like a curse. This, in turn, sets his wife off. A scream of fury and anger and pain and heartbreak tears through the air, rattling Sif more than she cares to admit. Loki's wife screams and screams and screams, pouring out a seemingly endless amount of frustration. It's only when the hairs on Sif's arms start standing on end that she realizes the woman is doing more than just merely screaming. She has magick, same as Loki, and it's churning dangerously unseen in the training ground around them.
"Evelyn—" Thor starts just as Sif's ears start threatening to pop from the pressure.
"I can't believe the utter gall of him!" she shrieks, eyes as emerald green as Loki's blazing with untold fury when she lifts her head. "The utter—Merlin and Morgana, he wasn't even fucking apologetic! About anything!"
"I hadn't expected anything different," Loki states flatly, weaving a hand through his wife's hair.
"Father joined you for lunch, then?" Thor asks softly. There's something about his tone that sets Sif's teeth on edge. Then again, she's never heard either prince talk disrespectfully about their father and her King before, and yet the mere mention of Odin seems to raise Loki's hackles to dangerous levels.
"No, thank the stars, he did not," Evelyn snarls through bared teeth. She's panting, her chest heaving after her display. "He decided to grace us with his presence after we'd eaten. I rather took exception to that idea, and informed him of such. Also told him that I will bloody well not stay silent if I think he's trying to mess with my husband and to watch his step otherwise."
"I do appreciate the warning," Thor says a touch dryly. "I'd like some more time still before I must take up the throne, though, if you would."
Sif's jaw nearly drops at the casual discussion of Odin's untimely death.
Evelyn snorts, much of her anger draining away. "Just get your mother to sit on the throne then until you feel ready. I've only got one issue with her, and it has nothing to do with her ability to rule. She'd probably enjoy being able to put any annoying members of your court in their places."
"Mother can already do that, and is quite skilled at doing so. Who do you think taught Loki all he knows?" Thor teases.
"Hmm, well, hopefully she won't think too badly of me after that tirade I threw at her husband," Evelyn huffs, leaning into Loki's embrace. "Even if he did deserve every last word of it." Her gaze darts around, only just now taking in her surroundings. When emerald eyes land on Sif, she bolts upright with a startled squawk. "You didn't say you were with Sif!" She sends a pointed glare at Thor, who merely blinks.
"I was more concerned about you," he returns. "But Sif is a true and trusted friend of mine. She offered her blade to you to aide in dealing with the madman out for you blood without even having met you."
Evelyn groans almost dramatically, dragging a hand down her face. "Thor, you utter idiot, I just ranted and raved about her King in front of her! That's not normally considered a good first impression!"
Sif squares her shoulders, having caught one specific tidbit of information amidst all the screaming that now itches at her conscious. "You mentioned something about King Odin doing something to Prince Loki, about him interfering in some way."
Evelyn regards her almost warily for a long moment before explaining. "One thing in particular that I rather dislike about Odin's parenting skills is the fact that he expects Loki to be just a great a warrior as Thor. The idea itself is fine, it's how he goes about expressing his opinions about it that makes me want to hit him." She jerks her chin up defiantly. "Loki will never be a warrior like Thor anymore than you will be a maiden who tends to hearth and home. It's not in his nature. He is not built for it either. To try and force it out of him would lead to breaking him in both spirit and body, and that is something I refuse to allow."
Sif jerks as if Evelyn had slapped her. She'd honestly never thought about it that way, and now she's angry with herself that she hadn't. It's true, after all. She's defying tradition just as much as Loki is. She as a female warrior, and him being male and yet studying magicks to the extent that he is. To think that the notion never occurred to her is shaming, actually.
"I see."
And indeed she does see. For all the magicks that Evelyn possesses, Sif can see a fierceness about her fit for any warrior gracing the battlefield. It's a fierceness that Sif sees in herself, the willingness to stand her ground and cut down any and all who get in her way. Now she truly understands what Thor meant by her and Evelyn getting along. She finds herself rather eager to get to know the fierce warrior woman who has so captured Loki's heart.
And the spreading smile on Evelyn's lips tells Sif that she feels exactly the same.