Frigga
Loki raised his voice at Thor’s retreating back. “And if I were proud of the man my son has become...”
His brother stopped and turned.
“Even that I could not say. It would speak only from my heart. Go... my son.”
Thor smiled. “Thank you, father.”
And he was gone, off to Earth, to Jane Foster and all the ideals his big heart could hold.
“No,” Loki said eventually, letting the illusion fall away. “Thank you.”
And all’s well that ends well.
Died with honour. He had to admit it had a nice ring to it, especially since he wasn’t actually dead. It made the parts of him that weren’t still sore as Hel from getting run through feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
One of the remaining pillars beside the throne shimmered out of existence. “Is that really how I appear to you?”
“Thor seemed to buy it,” Loki said, blinking up innocently at his father. “Though perhaps I fell a bit short on the obfuscation.”
Chuckling, Odin drew up beside him on the dais. “We shall have to ensure ‘my’ straightforwardness here today is not an anomaly to be questioned. Comfortable, are you?”
“Very. I never want to stand up again.”
“That is a lie, and I should know.” He ruffled Loki’s hair. An old habit Loki had made him break in early adolescence, but just this once, he smoothed his hair back without protest. “I’ve had to sit in that blasted thing every day for the past three and a half thousand years.”
“I think I shall endure it a while longer.” Loki slouched into a more comfortable position that wasn’t actually more comfortable. It was the thought that counted. “So what’s next?”
“You have walked Midgard more recently than I, son. Tell me, how long do mortals last these days?”
“Up to a hundred years, I think, if they’re lucky.”
“And how old would you estimate Jane Foster to be now?”
Loki thought for a moment. “I haven’t the foggiest. Didn’t they used to mature at fifteen, when they lived to be fifty? Then they should be mature around thirty now, and Jane strikes me as having been grown for a while. Perhaps sixty?”
“Well, no matter. Let him have her lifetime. The foundations laid here today will settle, and when he returns his righteousness will be unshakeable, the memory of you nice and rosy, and – assuming your best behaviour in the meantime – the past two years will seem so insignificant as to be non-existent. And then we... or what is left of us... will be a happy family again at last.”
“I don’t think so,” a new voice rang out.
Loki and Odin’s heads snapped up fast enough to sprain something.
Another column – conspicuously intact while all the ones around it had been toppled, and wow, had they really not noticed that? – flashed out of existence, and there, in the fading light of the spell, stood –
“Frigga,” Odin rasped, already moving, at the same time Loki cried, “Mumma!”
Gungnir was tossed carelessly to the ground for the second time in as many days, and father nor son gave a damn, not with their arms full of her.
“My love, how is this possible? I held your body –”
“Mumma! Mother, mother, you are my mother you’ll always be my mother, I’m so sorry –”
“Oh, I know, come here, come here, I’m sorry too.”
For all that they were bursting with questions, it took a while for Odin and Loki to calm down enough to hear the answers. (The first challenge was to stop hugging Frigga so tightly she barely had breath enough to speak.)
“I had meant only to deceive the elves while I got the mortal and myself to safety, but... well, opportunity arose, so I improvised.” she finally explained with a shrug. “It worked so well for Director Fury back on Midgard, I figured it was worth a try. The body you burned was a stray elf I slew on the way to my chambers.” She looked at her boys with a fond, impish smile. “Odin isn’t the only one who can perform real applied shapeshifting on the fly.”
Odin and Loki exchanged glances.
“So that’s it, then?” Loki said, still puffy-eyed, and with his recently cropped hair mussed because he had stopped trying to smooth it back the fifteenth time Frigga had delightedly run her fingers through it, but more chipper than he had felt in years. “I’m not dead, you’re not dead, none of us hate or pretend-hate each other anymore, hatchets were buried –”
“Yet you would chasten us for letting Thor think the two of you dead, wife?” Odin finished, clearly amused.
“Feigning death is a short-term, last ditch solution. In the long term, it is nothing but cowardice. And Thor is the last of us who deserves such pain,” Frigga said. “Heimdall will stop him at the gate, we will all reunite and resolve what differences remain like responsible adults, the three of us – and I do mean three of us, not three of us posing as two of us in yet another hair-brained political scheme – will arrange for the damages Asgard sustained to be restored and our defences to be reinforced, and before this week is out we will follow Thor on his vacation to Earth to see the sights, apologize to New York, and get to know our daughter-in-law. Is that clear, husband? Young man?”
“Yes, mother,” Loki said, contrite.
“And I think...” Quirking an eyebrow, she picked up Gungnir and shook it under Odin’s nose. “That I will be handling this for a while, hm?”
“Yes, my queen, my dearest,” Odin said, looking at her with such adoration one would think he would have agreed to give her his remaining eye if she asked.
They leaned together for a kiss, and behind their backs, Loki happily pretended to gag.