{A Mother’s Love}

Loki sat under one of the apple trees in Iðunn’s orchard, pulled his knees up, and looked up at the night sky. His stomach felt as if Thor had punched him with Mjöllnir. His normally cool skin was warm and sticky, even with the light spring breeze, and he felt an odd pulling sensation yet it appeared to be directionless. He tried to focus on it when the first gentle tugs had come during the breaking dawn, but by the Norns he couldn’t figure out which way to go.

Loki didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t speak to any of the Oðinsons, for they would just taunt him an ergi, and he wasn’t certain he could stomach hearing that word from Thor’s mouth right now. Just the mere thought of it made him want to vomit. He hated when they called him that or treated him like some Asgardian woman. He wasn’t. He was Jötun, and the Jötnar were strong regardless of if they bore or sired.

Sighing, Loki let some of his Aesir form fade. The skin of his fingers turned an icy blue, pale even in his Jötun form, and his nails became black. The air felt moist on his fingertips, hotter and more humid. Yet, there was also a relief in letting the illusion fade, in dropping the seiðr that wrapped around his skin, shielding it from the elements.

“What brings you so far into my orchard, little one?”

Flinching, Loki threw up his Aesir form and spun around on his knees. The beautiful Iðunn stood a few trees away. Her long, golden spun hair the only thing keeping her modesty in the sheer robes she wore. Eternally youthful, Iðunn looked not a day over a Midgardian millennium.

Relaxing his shoulders, Loki settled back against the tree. “The Oðinsons won’t dare to enter here.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she hummed thoughtfully as she approached, plopping down beside him. “Bragi and Baldur sometimes wander in.”

Loki eyed her apparent coy innocence. “Likely with very similar goals. You really ought to release your hooks from old Baldur, he’s already of marrying age.”

“Can’t a girl keep her options open?”

“Tch. Yours are about as open as your legs.”

That earned him a punch to the arm. It felt like a nudge compared to Thor’s roughhousing. Yet, he groined anyways as his stomach cramped up.

Iðunn eyed him curiously. “You’re awfully red for a Jötun, little one. Shall I call for the AllMother?”

“She is Aesir-turned and Vanir-born, what can she do?” Loki snipped. He had never gone to Frigga for an illness before, why would he do so now? Frigga had always been respectful towards him, but as Jötun he knew better than to ask for anything more from an Asgardian, regardless of his maternal lineage.

“Oh, I suspect a great deal,” Iðunn said nonchalantly, and then side-eyed him, “considering who she’s currently speaking to.”

Quirking a brow, Loki looked up at her.

“It has been some time since the Lady Nál has set foot in Asgard,” the perpetual maiden murmured. “Oi! Where are you going?”

Feet flying through the lush grass, Loki barely heard Iðunn’s call. He ignored the pain in his abdomen and the lethargy in his limbs. Instead, he focused on his seiðr, allowing it to lead him out of Iðunn’s orchard and into the deepest parts of Frigga’s gardens—a wilderness that no Asgardian warrior would step into, a paradise rich with seiðr and the quietness of contemplation.

Chest heaving for air, Loki didn’t stop as the pair of women came into view. He didn’t think. Eyes filled with tears of sorrow and glee and anger, he barreled into the thin, pale woman with long hair as black as obsidian. Borrowing into her chest, he hugged her fiercely and wept. How long had it been since he last saw her? Since he smelled the scent of home? How long since that fated day that he had been gifted away?

“Mamma,” he croaked, voice thick with tears and pain and joy and hurt.

“Oh, my dear boy, dýrmæta snjókornið mitt,” she murmured into his crown, her fingers combing through his matching curls. “How you’ve grown.”

“I missed you.” Loki sniffled, to full of too many emotions warring inside of him. “Why didn’t you want me?” He pulled from her, his tears springing afresh as rage won out. “Why did you abandon me? Throw me away? I am Jötun!”

“Shh, shh, my sweet,” his mother soothed, kneeling before him and cradling his face between her warm hands. She looked at him with such love it broke his heart. He didn’t understand. “I’m sorry I hurt you so, but know that I did it to protect you and because I love you more than anything in all of the Nine Realms.”

“DO NOT LIE TO ME!” he screamed, tearing from her. “If you love me, you would not gift me to the enemy!”

“Is that what you think of us, Loki?” Frigga asked gently as she came to kneel beside his mother. The two Vanir-born women looked so similar, save the hair and weight. Where Frigga was golden blonde and hearty, Nál was ebony and fragile. “Are we your enemy? Even after these three centuries?”

Loki’s lip trembled and he shook his head. Despite how he felt about other Asgardians, he could think of Frigga as nothing other than his foster mother. She had always shown him kindness and respect, had taught him how to focus the Aesir seiðr of Asgard and to wield a dagger. He was not as big or burly as the Oðinsons, a runt to Jötnar and Aesir alike, but she had shown him how to fight, how to hold his own against her sons.

“No, móður,” he mumbled and bowed his head. “You are not my enemy.”

“But the Aesir are,” she said understandingly, resting her hand on his elbow and giving it a comforting squeeze. “I know Oðin has been hard on you of late.”

His pale aqua eyes flickered up at her, then to his mamma, and then back down. “He calls me a Jötun ergi and tells me I should not rely on seiðr trickery so much.”

Frigga pursed her lips. “Then he’s a fool who ought to be reminded of who he married.”

“Do not listen to him, snjókornið mitt,” his mamma said. “You are half-Jötun and half-Vanir, seiðr is in your blood. To forgo it would be to forgo the very air you breathe.”

Loki’s head snapped up at that, his eyes full of hope.

Sitting back on her heels, Nál gave him a sad smile. “I’m sorry that the only safe place for you was a realm of barbarity and war. I know being here has not been easy for you, and I’m sorry I could not come sooner. I took ill after you left, and then Jötunheim was at war with itself. Things have settled now, and just in time, I’d wager.”

Frowning, he tilted his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“You are coming into your maturity,” she said, lightly touching his lower abdomen. He felt her seiðr entering him, cool and soothing the constant pain. “Your seiðr is gifting you a womb, Loki.”

Loki gasped, “But I’m a boy!”

“You are not,” his mamma said firmly, taking his hands in hers and looking him in the eyes. “You are Loki. You are Jötun and Vanir, but you are also so much more than that. Within you runs the blood of all seiðr-loved races, and the power to be whatever you want to be.”

“I don’t understand,” Loki said, clinging to his mamma’s hands as his eyes once again filled with tears. “Thor said I was a boy and that was why we could only be friends.”

“My son is a bit dimwitted, I’m afraid,” Frigga said apologetically.

“Never mind him, snjókornið mitt.” Nál pulled him into her arms, and her cooler temperature felt wonderful against his feverish skin. “Instead, focus on your seiðr. It is pulling you, is it not?”

He nodded against her shoulder, pressing his cheek against her cold relief. He was so terribly warm. Closing his eyes, he focused internally, to the normally icy seiðr within him that was currently liquid warm. It was like a too hot bath, sloshing inside of him. When he focused on it, he could feel it pooling and swirling low in his abdomen, likely making the womb mamma had mentioned. He could feel the smooth layer of it on his skin, protecting him from the elements with his Aesir form.

But there was also some of his seiðr that hover around him, pulling at him. This seiðr was also a part of him, though it existed just outside of him, and it acted like a sixth sense. At his current ability, he could expand it several meters, giving him a perfect understanding of his surroundings. However, sometimes it would give him little tugs, directing him toward something farther away. It was how he had found mamma so quickly. Now, however, it gently pulled in all directions, as if it sensed something, but couldn’t locate it.

“Is it pulling you toward Thor?” his mamma asked.

Loki shook his head. He knew Thor was on Asgard and that if his seiðr was directing him to Thor, it would aim him somewhere within the palace grounds—more likely than not the training grounds, where Thor spent most of his time with his four friends.

“It doesn’t seem to have a direction,” he admitted quietly.

“Then your félagi is not on Asgard.”

Loki lifted his head, confused. “Félagi?”

The two women gave him matching smiles, warm and understanding.

“For those loved by seiðr, we can sense our félagi or mates,” Frigga explained.

“For some there is only one,” his mother continued, “others have many. It was how your pabbi found me, despite Asgard once again being at war with Jötunheim.”

“But Thor-” Loki began, distraught. He had always believed Thor to be his mate. Yet, his seiðr did not point him to anywhere on Asgard. Loki squeezed his eyes closed. No, this couldn’t be. Thor-

“Shh, calm yourself, Loki,” his mamma soothed. He could feel his mamma’s cool hands rubbing his back and Frigga’s warm one his shoulder. “I did say that some have many mates, did I not?”

He looked up at her with teary eyes and nodded.

“The Jötnar would never have survived without the casket if they could only mate once, and they, perhaps more than any other, are very much loved by seiðr,” she said calmly. “Your seiðr recognizes within Thor the potential to be a mate, but that does not mean he is your félagi—your perfect mate, someone who balances you completely.”

“You can love Thor as purely and deeply as you so obviously do,” Frigga said, “but I urge you not to let that love blind you from one that could be so much better. A félagi pair are ones blessed by seiðr and the Norns alike, and it may be centuries still before you find them, but do not forsake them for Thor Oðinson.”

“You would speak ill of your own son?” Loki whispered, astonished by Frigga’s words.

She smiled at him and cupped his cheek. “Have you already forgotten, Loki? You, too, are my son, and I will see right by you.”

Fresh tears leaked from Loki’s eyes, but these ones more joyous than those of before, and he leapt forward, hugging both women fiercely—his mamma and his móður. Blood did not matter to these bonds as seiðr swirled around them, filled with love, and united the three in a bond deeper and more pure than anything that could be fabricated by blood devotion.