Whelp, this chapter turned out longer than expected.

Chapter Five: Labor Pains

The argument did nothing to stop Death from visiting him the next morning. She acted as if they never fought and any time Loki complained, she let it slide right off like rain along the smooth surface of a window. Nothing bothered her and she resumed her usual antics for the remaining months of her pregnancy.

However, there were a few times when the hormones got the best of her.

It first happened when she took Loki on a walk in the palace garden and spotted a baby bird on the stone path, the little wings flapping indignity as it stumbled around like a drunkard. Loki watched her crouch down the best her ever-growing belly allowed to scoop the chick into her hands and set it in a nearby nest built into a crook between two tree branches. The entire time she held the baby bird, her whole body trembled from sobs. When the bird's mother landed on a branch to chirp angrily at Death for daring to touch an injured chick, Death wagged her finger, pointed it straight at the feathery fowl, and scolded it for not taking better care of its baby. The bird at least had the patience to shut up during the lecture and awareness to look a little ashamed when Death finally left the bird family alone.

She cried at the end of the sad book, staining Loki's shirt sleeve with her runny mascara. Another time, Loki caught her in the archives, reading the life stories of children who died at a young age. Loki noped out of that one real quick.

She dragged Loki to the nursery to help decorate it because she couldn't decide on a theme. For reasons beyond him, Death thought the baby might not like her choices, so she spent the rest of the time in a rocking chair, staring silently at the blank walls with tears rolling down her face. Loki just picked a green and black color scheme trimmed with gold and left Death to slowly rock herself into madness.

She got upset when the dining hall ran out of her favorite snack and went on a sob-filled tirade about the cruelty of life, even for a cosmic entity like herself. She made a list of potential baby names and then got angry at him when he said he didn't like any of the options. The resulting papercut from her chucking the list at him card-throwing style was worth it to see the unamused look on her puffy, red face.

Loki had gone through all the changes and side-effects of pregnancy before when he had Sleipnir, but he never acted this dramatically nor cried over the smallest things like nursery decorations. He did, however, find a lot of things annoying, something Death also seemed to share.

For instance, she often complained about the smell of certain foods and went so far as to even ban the kitchen staff from making a few certain dishes. Loki took this as an opportunity to irritate her, so he snuck the forbidden food into his room and timed it perfectly to have the scent linger in his room whenever Death came to visit. The utter look of disgust bought him a few precious minutes alone until Death charged back in armed with an air-freshening spell and a small army of maids to clean everything.

Meager privacy invaded by maids going through his clothes, Loki retaliated in full force. Over the next few months, he found other ways to irk Death in the hopes she would leave him alone or finally get annoyed enough to let him go home to Asgard. He chewed with his mouth open to gross her out. He rearranged the archives until the librarians there kicked him out. He repainted the nursery in an eye-piercing neon yellow, which resulted in Death ordering the poor staff to redo it and place guards at the entrances to keep Loki out.

He made a list of ridiculous baby names and pretended to like them so much that Death had to leave the room to calm down. Her frustrated yell echoing down the hallway warmed Loki's heart and he grinned for the first time in eight months.

He once snuck into her chambers and replaced all her clothing with the ugliest pieces of fabric including a potato sack he stole from the kitchen. That one backfired because she stormed into his room wearing nothing but a towel and promptly demonstrated how she could summon her clothes at will like how Loki could with his magic—if he still had access to it. Then she took his favorite shirt and intended to wear it like a dress except it only reached her waist because of her round belly stretching the material, forcing her to also steal a pair of his pants.

She never returned his stolen outfit. As revenge for losing one of his favorite outfits, he poured glue on her throne, built a rather obscene statue out of rocks in the garden, and let a bunch of birds loose during one of her meetings. The escalating pranks did nothing to hinder her from visiting Loki every night. Her annoying resolve didn't stop Loki from pushing back in the only way he knew how.

As a final act, he even convinced a reaper to join him in his mischief. They staged a scene in the garden, making Death think the baby bird from earlier had fallen from the nest again and met a gruesome end at the claws of a stray cat. When Death discovered Loki and the reaper had moved the baby bird and the nest to a different part of the garden and fabricated the whole thing, she immediately killed the reaper in an explosion of light that left spots dancing in Loki's eyes for the better part of two days and his ego devoid of his usual confidence.

Laughing in the face of Death might've been a mistake.

The bird prank ultimately broke Loki's streak because Death banished Loki to his chambers; he couldn't go to the library or dining hall anymore. Servants delivered his books and meals, and guards rotated on a strict schedule to prevent him from leaving his room.

In hindsight, he should have anticipated the repercussions of pissing off Death, but he had grown rather bored, a little homesick, and extremely frustrated at his confinement in the Afterlife. Acting out had been his only opportunity for revenge—the dish best served cold flung backward and bit him harder than anything he could throw at Death. She ruled the Afterlife; poking the dragon always resulted in retaliation.

At least he only had to suffer through boredom instead of watching his entire family and loved ones die because he had been too aggravated at Death's choices and the resulting lack of freedom to make his own. So far, Death had not made good on her threat to harm Sigyn if Loki stepped out of line, and he hoped his pranks had not pushed Death to the edge. As much as he enjoyed knocking Death down a few pegs, he did not want a repeat of the reaper explosion or anything horrendously similar happening to Sigyn.

Being restricted to his chambers like one would ground a disobedient, moody adolescent did not stop him from fighting back any way he could. If he couldn't pull pranks or wreak havoc in the palace, then he would use the next best thing everyone knew him for: his words.

He insulted Death's outfits, critiqued her hairdos, bashed her eating habits, and threw every jab and offense he could produce at her. Death, unfortunately, had thick skin and didn't let his words bother her.

Except, she had grown sensitive about her appearance, and so Loki pounced on every opportunity—and even created a few of his own—to let her know of his judgments. He made her cry a few times, and if not for the seed of hatred she had planted the instant she brought him to the Afterlife growing steady inside his heart, he would have felt remorseful about watching a pregnant woman cry over her changing body.

"Does this dress make me look fat?" Death asked one morning, somehow still unaware she walked right into his trap. By now, one would expect her to learn not to ask him physical appearance-related questions, but she had become distracted between balancing her daily appointments with the royal healers, running the Afterlife by herself, and fending off a small faction of reapers and very, very minor death gods who wanted to overthrow her.

Loki forced himself to keep a straight face even though every part of him wanted to break out into a grin at her obliviousness. He raised his book to cover his twitching lips.

"Yes."

Death turned from where she stood staring at herself in a full-length mirror. Her lips shifted into an open-mouthed pout and she let out a small noise of offense.

"Why are you so rude?" Death asked, her dark eyebrows knitted together in indignation.

"Why are you so perverted?" Loki shot back.

"I am not—"

"Says the woman who trapped me here to use for her own pleasure and gain." Loki kept his eyes focused on his book. "Anything you tell yourself would only be a lie."

"You're a deceitful, pathetic bastard," Death muttered. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, spun on her heel, and continued scrutinizing her outfit in the mirror.

He caught a frown on her face in its reflection—a telltale sign he had gotten through her rough exterior and attacked her sensitivity. He masked his smirk by licking a finger to turn the page of his book.

"Takes one to know one."

"You are a terrible husband."

"In case you have forgotten, you are the one who spent...who knows how long...watching me. You chose me; I never wanted this." Loki finally looked up from his book and uncrossed his ankles from where he sat on his bed, legs outstretched. He met her gaze in the mirror and glared. "If anything it's your fault you didn't do your research about personality types before you selected your husband."

"Love has blinded me," Death hisssed. "I may have overlooked some of your flaws, but I knew full well who I chose."

"Then don't complain."

"I thought you would love me like you do Sigyn." Death placed her hands on her stomach, her head tilted downward to stare at her nine-month-pregnant stomach. The baby would come any day now. Loki didn't know if he should dread the day Death gave birth or feel excited for this nightmare to finally end—if she even let him leave afterward.

The scoff came out more like a snort. "You're sorely mistaken." Loki placed a marker in his book; the topic of the Egyptian god Ra's descent into the Underworld no longer held his interest. He set it on the bedside table and stood to confront her. "For starters, Sigyn hasn't kidnapped me and held me captive for nine months."

"We have already discussed this many times before," Death said, turning to meet him, her chin held definitely. The height difference of at least eight inches and her stomach jutting out made the act a little less intimidating. He had also gotten used to the presence of her power and no longer—at least, externally—feared the land of deceased souls. "I have only done what is necessary."

Loki rolled his eyes.

She closed the gap between them, coming to a stop a few inches away. Her hands clasped her belly and he saw a tiny wince pass across her brown eyes before it smoothed into straight anger.

"I am aware of what you are trying to do," Death said, her eyes narrowing.

"And what exactly am I trying to do?" Loki asked with as much innocence as he could muster.

Death raised an eyebrow and let out a smothered groan almost too quiet to hear. She played it off by fixing her posture and rolling her shoulders back.

Loki didn't let her 'damsel in distress' act bother him. He knew enough of manipulation to see the tell-tale signs of someone playing with another's emotions.

"Your pranks and insults are not going to convince me to let you go," Death said, her lips twitching faintly. She shifted in fake discomfort and placed a hand on the small of her back to alleviate the weight of her belly. "It takes more than that to bother me."

Loki wisely decided not to mention he had made her cry several times. Instead, Loki glared and said, "You're the one in control here."

"I'm not stupid…" Death growled, the bite waning into a small grunt of pain as she winced again. Her shoulders dropped and she hunched forward, her hands pressed into her stomach.

Loki quickly took a step back to avoid getting puked on. She moved faster, flinging out an arm and catching him by the wrist. She blew a deep breath between clenched teeth, her hair falling to obscure her face. Loki watched her body tense and slowly relax only for the cycle to repeat.

"This little act of yours will not gain you any sympathy," Loki said. He tried to pull free from her grasp but her hand tightened, her sharp nails drawing blood from where they dug into his skin.

"I'm not—" A groan interrupted her and she doubled over again, her hand on his arm the only thing keeping her upright. "I think…the baby…"

Loki yanked his arm free. With her support gone, she collapsed onto the floor, her eyes screwed tight in pain as she tried to breathe through the worsening contractions. She shot him a frosty glare and then called for the guards.

They barged into the room, pushed Loki to the side at spear-point, and helped Death to her feet. Half-carrying, half-walking, a guard on both sides kept her from tripping over her feet as they rushed out of the room.

Loki contented himself with staying behind and finally having some time to himself. The arrival of more guards who grabbed him by the forearms and practically dragged him after his pregnant wife crushed his hopes. Any protests the entire way to the healing wing fell on deaf ears.

They stopped at a waiting room, shoved him inside, and planted themselves outside the door—a clear warning to stay. Loki tried to sneak between them and got the dull end of a spear jabbed into his gut for his attempt.

The waiting room had no windows or any entrance besides the one under constant surveillance. It had the same theme as the rest of the palace: the vines, flowers, and other natural decor intertwined with dark stone. Plush, green armchairs lined both sides of the room, all empty. Out of options, Loki dropped onto a chair, rested his elbows on his knees, and placed his face into his palms to glare at the stone floor.

The pained cries of Death drifted down the hallway, audible even in here.

Good, let her suffer.

Childbirth, in all honesty, had probably been the worst pain he had ever experienced. Part of it might have stemmed from Sleipnir having four limbs more than normal and the fact he had to hold the form of a female horse for the entirety of it to prevent any damage to his actual internal organs not designed to bear offspring. Still, despite everything Death had put him through, he had some empathy for her current situation.

He didn't send any well-wishings, though. Glad he didn't have to join her and stand beside her bed as she delivered a child he had no desire to meet, he contented himself with sitting in the waiting room and plotting.

The entire birthing process would weaken her, and even a fool would realize it and seize upon this opportunity to escape. The guards wouldn't take much to defeat; a few well-placed blows and a stolen spear would knock them flat. He knew enough of the palace's layout to navigate the halls and find the quickest way out.

Outside the palace, he would locate a reaper, threaten it if it didn't obey him, and force it to teleport him out of the Afterlife. He still had the issue of not having access to his magic, but as long as he had a reaper on his side, his plan did not require it. Once he returned to Asgard, he would have his mother assist him in removing the spell.

Death might eventually follow him so he would have to work fast to regain his powers to stand a fighting chance. Perhaps, if fate decided to give him a break for once, the baby would distract Death enough to convince her to leave him alone.

It was a long shot and many things could go fatally wrong, but at this point, he would take any chance he could get, no matter how risky. If anything, he wanted to see Sigyn one last time before Death wiped him from existence.

A knock on the door startled him from his scheming, and he may have incorrectly—if not justifiably—assumed Death had heard his thoughts and came to confront him herself.

Instead of his dreadful wife, a well-tailored man stood at the doorway. The guards let him through and when Loki did not respond, the man walked over and stood in front of him.

Loki glared at the stranger, first annoyed at the intrusion and then almost furious when he recognized the man as the reaper who officiated the wedding. The same gray eyes, the same neatly trimmed dark brown goatee, the same hand-pressed suit in a charcoal gray…

Leaping to his feet, Loki sneered at the man, a little unnerved by his calm demeanor.

"What do you want?" Loki snapped. "To marry me off to some other woman I hate?"

The reaper at least had the decency to look ashamed. "I apologize." He had the same uppity lilt accompanied by his ram-rod posture shared amongst those of noble status. Yet, his gray, downcast eyes showed his honest remorse. "Her royal majesty gave me no choice in the matter, but it does not excuse my actions."

Loki rolled his eyes and turned to find a seat further away to free himself from the reaper's overbearing presence.

"Please, I mean no harm," the reaper continued.

Loki scoffed and spun on his heel.

"'No harm', huh?" Loki repeated in a higher pitch. He approached the man and jabbed a finger into the reaper's stiff suit shirt. "I'll have you know when Death wanted her heir, she tied me to her bed like a damn dog. How in all the Nine Realms is that 'no harm'?!"

The reaper stood silent. The stoic act annoyed Loki; he folded his arms across his chest and tapped his foot in impatience.

The reaper scratched his goatee and frowned.

"If there is any way I could amend my mistakes, please let me know," the reaper offered. Another pause, and then he added, "My name is Vincent..."

"I don't care."

"I wish to assist you."

"With what?" Loki growled.

"The spell binding your magic," Vincent answered.

The reply caught Loki off guard, and he spared a nervous glance at the stoic, armour-clad soldiers standing watch outside the waiting room. They did not appear to have heard Vincent's blatant declaration; if they did, they either did not care or would report Vincent's insubordination to Death later.

"Did Death send you here?" Loki asked, studying Vincent's face and body language in case any indication of falsehood betrayed his true intentions.

"She did not," Vincent replied. From what Loki could tell from the reaper's perfect posture and grim expression, Vincent held no ulterior motives. "I would have come sooner, but Lady Death has not let you out of her sight for long. She is distracted now and it would be wise to use the time to our advantage."

Loki wanted to believe Vincent. Distrust resulting from constant betrayals kept a healthy amount of skepticism within him. If this scheme failed, he could not imagine the consequences. Any reasonable person would assume Death sent Vincent to test both their loyalties. If not for the instinctual feeling in Loki's gut, he would have been more suspicious of the posh man standing before him. As much as he wished he could have left the Afterlife sooner, the best-laid plans took time and patience to smooth out any potential—fatal—flaws.

Preoccupied and weakened by labor, Death would not respond immediately if Loki tried to escape. Though Vincent had stood witness and participated in the wedding that sealed Loki's fate, Vincent's genuine contrition offered Loki the only chance of an ally in the entire Afterlife.

If he passed on this, he might never get another chance.

Now or never.

So be it.

"How exactly will you…break the binding spell?" Loki asked.

"There are methods still unknown to you," Vincent said. He dug into a pocket on the inside of his jacket and procured a vial of black ink. Unscrewing the lid, Vincent continued, "I can only crack it; you will have to do the rest."

At Loki's nod, Vincent dipped his index finger into the ink and brought it toward Loki's forehead. Finding it a bit ridiculous, Loki shot a nervous glance at the guards first, and finding them ignorant of the plotting, lowered his head for Vincent to reach. The ink felt cool against his skin as Vincent drew a few small runes onto his forehead. Some of the ink ran down along his nose, and he resisted the urge to wipe it away in case it interfered with the spell.

Vincent stepped back, repocketed the vial, and motioned for Loki to close his eyes. Loki complied and Vincent began muttering in a language Loki did not recognize.

Almost immediately as the words left Vincent's lips, the runes on Loki's forehead began to burn. The pain radiated from his head and down to his chest, then to his extremities until his entire body felt ablaze.

Screwing his eyes tight and clutching his chest where his heart protested the agonizing fire, Loki collapsed into a chair and gritted his teeth to keep himself from crying out and alerting the guards of their disobedient actions. Vincent kept muttering, statue-like aside from his moving lips. The burning crescendoed into a song of firey darkness, building and building and barreling past any threshold he assumed would have finally knocked him unconscious or vaporized him from the inside out.

Right on the cusp of spontaneous combustion, the tide turned and the pain subsided leaving behind a throbbing ache of a body pushed far beyond its limits.

Loki fought to breathe against the buzz pulsing through his veins. It took a moment for him to recognize the familiar thrum of his magic fighting against the block, searching for any splinters in the seal.

Peeling his eyes open, Loki gazed down at his upturned palms. He curled his fingers into an experimental fist, almost high from his magic crying for release.

Loki brought a hand to his forehead and wiped the sweat from his hairline. The ink had disappeared, having left no trace on his clammy skin.

"I have done all I can," Vincent said. The faintest hint of a smile tugged the corner of his lips upward. "The rest is in your hands."

Loki felt a grin cross his face. Spurred by adrenaline, he planted a hand against his chair and pushed himself to his feet. Vincent gave him space to shatter the bindings holding his magic captive.

Closing his eyes again, Loki let the humming consume him. The room fell silent as all other distractions besides his magic calling for him faded into the background.

He tugged and pulled, unknotting the tangle wrapped around his power. Slowly, it came loose, unwinding like a stubborn web clinging to the last blades of grass before the wind blew it away. He severed the ties, broke the chains, and loosened the ropes.

It unraveled and snapped like a vine drying out and breaking from a stronger force ripping its hold on a suffocating tree away. The branches of his magic sprang to life, stretching at the relief of breathing again. He kept yanking the vine away, letting his magic blossom and turn its leaves toward the sun.

One last tug and he would finally be free...

"Loki?" a feminine voice said, quiet yet urgent.

Loki's eyes flew open and he whirled around, hoping more than he ever had in his entire life not to find Death standing there.

A young red-headed woman, presumably a nurse judging by her white dress and handkerchief over her hair, smiled at him.

"What?" Loki snapped.

He gave her a brief assessment. Standing a little over five feet tall and having the delicate features of someone who rarely saw the sun, the woman could not be any less intimidating.

However, not wanting to repeat his previous, ill-conceived notion of besting an unsuspecting, innocent-looking woman in a fight as he had done to the Jeoseung Saja reaper Jiwoo, he waited for the redhead to approach him first.

Behind him, Vincent waited patiently, showing no sign of having sensed a threat.

"Your wife…" the nurse continued.

Loki stuck his nose in the air and sniffed. "I do not care about her."

The woman frowned at the comment; she corrected, "Your baby awaits you next door."

Loki paused. It couldn't be that long, could it? Did cosmic entities not have the same labor pains as everyone else? He swore he had gotten dragged into the waiting room mere minutes ago.

"She just went in," Loki countered. Labor took time, and unless the rules differed for Death, nobody took minutes to give birth.

"It's been five hours," the woman replied, curt and rather smug in response to Loki's shock.

What?

How…

She left, not waiting to see if Loki followed. Loki turned toward Vincent, unsure if he wanted to see the infant or not, especially while on the brink of escape. Vincent nodded, which did far too little to clear the indecision. Loki didn't know if he should interpret it as an assurance to continue breaking the spell or to see the child first before escaping.

Something tugged Loki forward, and he moved as if guided along by an invisible string. He found himself moving out of the waiting room and down the hallway where a quartet of guards stood sentry outside a closed door. The red-haired woman waited between the guards and smiled when he approached. The guards paid him no heed; their sharp weapons glimmered threateningly in the light.

The nurse entered first once the doors opened to show a well-lit room decorated with many flowers along the walls. It had the same feel of the nature-entwined aesthetic of the entire palace while still presenting a more medical appearance to prove it operated as a maternity ward.

Curtains covered the large windows to block most of the sunlight. Pale lights flickered in the metal containers attached in intervals along the walls. In the middle of the room, a bed shaped like a bent tree branch covered in thick foliage held Death half-upright. Her eyes fell on him and her smudged, rouge lips spread into a gentle smile.

"Loki…" Death whispered, her voice calm and tired yet overwhelmingly soft.

Loki froze at the threshold. Death looked weak and vulnerable lying on the bed propped up by fluffy pillows and surrounded by a trio of busy nurses. Her hair, messy and tangled, lay fanned out on the white pillows like a blot of spilled ink against fresh snow. Her skin had a faint tinge of pink across paler-than-normal cheeks, and for the first time Loki had ever seen, sweat beaded her hairline. The metallic smell of blood hung in the air, the flowers and vines not enough to cleanse the scent. Her eyeshadow, usually impeccable and subtly extravagant, ran in rough smears along her skin.

He could turn tail and run; she couldn't catch him in her current state. He could do anything he wanted and she could do nothing other than order the guards to defend her. His magic hummed again, begging for freedom.

One push—one push and he would finally shuck the spell snaring him to this place and abandon the woman who forced him into a horrid marriage. He could shove all thoughts of the Afterlife into the deepest recesses of his mind where they would never see the light of day again.

Vincent's spell worked; now, it just needed the final pull to remove the vine holding him captive.

The hushed cry of a baby shook him from his scheming conspiring and he took an unconscious step forward to cross the threshold. Death watched him move further into the room, drawn in a daze by the sounds of a wailing infant. Her hand reached out to brush his wrist as he neared; he strode right past her toward the cradle tucked into the corner of the room opposite the curtained window.

The red-haired nurse turned around, holding a bundle of squirming cloth in her arms. "Congratulations, Prince Loki. It's a girl."

She handed the swaddled infant to Loki and moved away to give him some privacy. The wiggling child kept wailing and he frowned at the shrillness. None of his sons were this noisy; well, at least not the other two besides Fenris who had taken to yapping absurdly often and far too soon.

However, as Loki stared down at the infant in his arms and swathed tight from the neck down like a shiny, thick, black cocoon, his frown shifted from barely veiled disgust at Death's offspring to something akin to fondness. Her cries lessened from a shrieking, ear-splitting howl to soft hiccups until she finally calmed down.

Her eyes, framed by long dark lashes, peeled open to reveal pale, green-gray irises. Black, silky hair curled out along her head in unusually thick waves for a newborn. It stood out in stark contrast to her rosy yet paling skin and chubby face. Her mouth moved as if sucking on something or wishing to yell again, but then her eyes tracked Loki's face and she paused.

For someone born only minutes ago, the expression on her face, one of undilated attention, had the look of someone already beginning to comprehend her surroundings. She had only heard Loki's voice before while within the womb. Yet, the way she stared at her father, who had not spoken to her, it appeared she already recognized him.

It was both startlingly intimidating and adorably loving.

"Hi," Loki breathed, unable to form any words against the forceful sense of Protect overwhelming his heart. He had felt the same way when he first held Sleipnir, and then Jormungandr, and then Fenris, only this time it hit harder.

He's holding a baby girl.

He has a daughter.

He loved his sons, yet something about having a daughter struck a cord deep inside his jaded soul.

To top it all off, her lips moved again and she smiled. At him.

Loki melted on the spot.

Perhaps it was the power he felt radiating from her warm and tiny form. Though small and completely dependent on others, she contained something terrifying inside her squishy body. It reminded him of the energy surrounding Death and threatening everyone simply from her presence. Based on appearances alone, one would not assume something so cute and mini housed something so powerful it controlled the end of all life.

It both terrified him and made pride swell in his chest.

His daughter had Power, with a capital P—one so unique because it came from him.

Perhaps it was the resemblance. She had his hair, his skin tone, his sharp facial features, and eyes that were paler but still a shade of green instead of Death's deep brown.

Perhaps it was the wide-eyed innocence plastered all over her face. Or the complete trust she had in him to not only hold her but to smile fondly as if greeting a loved one for the first time in ages.

"As the father, you get to name her," Death said, once again souring the mood by speaking.

He half-turned to place her in his peripheral. Death smiled from her bed, her brown eyes focused in rapt love on the bundle in his arms.

Loki ignored her, the anger for his detested wife dampened by the tiny infant smiling up at him. The entire room faded, leaving him wholly captivated by the beginnings of a life tucked safely in his elbows and close to his chest.

Beneath the blanket, he could feel her heartbeat, steady and true to solidify the undisputed presence of his child. She may have been Death's daughter, but she looked more like her father than her mother. The infant, swaddled so tight she couldn't move her arms, did not solely come from Death, she came from him.

His child.

His baby.

His daughter.

Ironic, how new life could form through death. A soul created in the Afterlife. A union between the living and the eternal end.

A name popped into his head, one meaning of life eternal. Destiny. Daring. Dauntless. Mystery. Secret. Concealment. Moonlight. Hope.

"Hela," Loki said, and his daughter's smile widened. "Her name is Hela."

A quick Google search for Hela name meanings actually does bring up some of those examples. I don't know why anyone would name their daughter 'Hela' but I guess it's similar to Helen. I did have a Thor in my class last semester, so I don't know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯