I have a confession!
“Tree? Oh, no my Prince, you were not impaled by a tree. Do you remember being impaled by the frost spear?” Eir prompted.
Loki was thoroughly confused… slowly the memories started to clear up as he remembered but so did the pain. His face contorted into a grimace.
“Ugghh… now I do, is everyone else fine? Are we at war with the Frost Giants?”
Odin breathed a sigh! At least his younger son's best weapon, his brain, is not affected!
“No Loki, we are not at war. If Laufey decides to take actions against Asgard, they will be seen by Heimdall and dealt with. Everyone else from Asgard is fine.” Odin left out the part where Thor waged a war on Frost Giants to avenge his brother so as to not worry his youngest. He needs the rest. Odin was not prepared to meet a conscious Loki. In fact, no one who has lost so much blood and is injured so badly and close to heart should not be conscious and speaking. No wonder he seems to be in pain, but still… Did he underestimate Loki's seidr capabilities at healing? Should he thank him for saving him and Thor?
While Odin was wondering what to say, Eir and Frigga had moved to provide Loki with analgesic potions so as to reduce the pain.
“Who is Sylvie? Is she someone you wish us to meet Loki?” Frigga asked. She had a mischievous glint in her eyes. Oh dear! It dawned upon Loki that his mother probably thinks that Sylvie is his secret lover and he wants her to meet them, he involuntarily blushes, which deepens the Frigga's smile.
“Oh, um, she's a friend from Alfheim! I met her at the library during my last travel to that place.” Loki quickly tried to cover up.
“I see, and is she a close friend for you to remember her at such an hour and make her eagerly meet us? You almost told her that we are ‘her Mama and Papa’” Frigga teased further.
Damn! Should he feign unconsciousness? Damn it, even the old man is smiling. “Umm… I'm not sure, we barely met, it must have been a dream…” Please stop pursuing the matter further, wait a sec, where's the idiot centre of everyone's attention? “Where's Thor?”
Odin's face immediately became grim. While Frigga looked angry? What is happening here?
“You are smart Loki!” The old man is appreciating him? Loki tries and successfully keeps his face neutral. “You knew the quest Thor is taking you on was stupid and dangerous. Yet you went with him?”
“I see you received my message from my guard, Ivide. I was counting on him to reach you faster!”
“I was in a meeting, he couldn't have reached me any earlier than he did Loki. So, you did not want to go and yet you went?”
“I tried explaining Thor why the idea is a bad one, I tried to make him come back as soon as we set our feet on Jotunheim, but Thor has never listened to me and I could not leave him alone!”
“Why Loki? It ended with you being impaled! You could have been dead! Sacrificed while saving your brother and father?” Odin, looked so disheartened. It confused Loki. Is this man for real? Is he asking why he did not leave Thor alone to die? Is this his closest to admit he loves him? Cool, maybe he should confess a bit too.
“I've always been at his back and no matter how jealous I may get of Thor for leaving me in shadows, I love him and I can't imagine a life without him. I don't know if you ever wondered how Thor managed to accomplish half of his quests, allow me shed some light on my role, I protected his back all this time, he would be dead by now for all the stupid quests he has undertaken, had it not been for the seidr I casted to protect him. I can't leave him to die by allowing him to go on a quest alone with ‘his’ idiot friends!”
“Lo-” Odin tries to interrupt, but Loki continues, he needs to mix a lie within truth…
“No, I'm not, ever, leaving him alone! It was my dream or vision, that led him to Jotunheim. The battle, the blood I saw before loosing consciousness, it was nearly the same as the one I saw in dream. It seems I had a vision after all!” Go on old man, if you don't speak the truth now…
“It wasn't a vision Loki, my darling!” It's Frigga who speaks up. She looks proud. And is currently glaring at Odin.
“Thank you for saving Thor, my son. I must confess a truth, it has stayed hidden for far too long!” Odin sighs.
“Loki you are my son, have always been and will always be! The moment I picked you in my arms, I knew it. You are my son, in all but blood.” Hmm. That seems like a line probably taught by Frigga to Odin. Did they discuss what to say? Oh no, Loki forgot to give an astonished look. He's still having an impassive one.
“Are you okay dear?” Frigga asks.
“Ummm.. I'm fine,I guess.. I had considered a possibility that I may not be an Odinson… I don't look like Thor, Odin or Borr for that matter. I'm Friggason, aren't I? That explains afffinity towards seidr arts.. Uncle Freyr knows about this, doesn't he? Always preferred me over Thor? Explains why Thor was chosen as the heir to the throne. I was never a candidate, you just said that ‘we were both born to be kings’ to keep the lie, didn't you Allfather?” Finally, he doesn't have to avoid saying ‘Father’ anymore to keep the lie. Frigga looks amused, while Odin looks close to bursting in emotions. Is he angry that he just tried to say that Frigga probably cheated on him? Or because he questioned his choice of Thor over him for the throne? Or because he made it clear that he never felt like his son?
“Loki, my son-” Seriously stop stressing on that old man! “I'm still your father and Frigga your mother, though she did not birth you!” Loki remembers to look astonished this time, deliberately gasps a little. Frigga immediately places a hand on his shoulder, in an attempt to calm him perhaps. Why was she not there the other time around?
“Then who am I? Am I an orphan taken out of pity? A martyred warrior's son? A -”
“The war with the Jotunheim had been too long! I had begun to lose hope, everywhere I saw, I saw massacre and bloodshed, I was aggrieved, what had a simple misunderstanding between the two kings had led to? I wanted to end the war, yearned for peace. I yearned to see Thor, whose years after birth I had missed in war. When the war neared it's end. I found you, on Jotunheim, a Jotun baby. Perhaps left on the altar of the temple of the Casket of Ancient Winters exposed to elements, shivering. Small for a Giant's offspring, abandoned, suffering, left to die. Laufey's son.”
“Laufey's son?” Loki repeated the words he had said the other time, he cannot afford to give away his secret.
“Yes”
“Why? You were knee-deep in Jotun blood. Why would you take me?”
“You were an innocent child.”
Alright build up your anger Loki!
“No. You took me for a purpose. What was it?... TELL ME!” Frigga gasped. She had never seen her youngest angry.
“I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day. Bring about an alliance, bring about permanent peace... through you.”
“What?” Loki knew exactly, what that plan was. Seriously, child marriage was your plan old man? You couldn't admit it while your not-son was having a breakdown. Do you even realise what you could have averted had you told your plans?
“But those plans no longer matter.” What an idiot! If he could facepalm, Loki would!
“So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me?”
“Why do you twist my words?”
“You could have told me what I was from the beginning! Why didn't you?”
“You're my son... I wanted only to protect you from the truth…”
“What, because I... I... I am the monster parents tell their children about at night?”
Odin hastens to deny, “No! No!”
Frigga's grip immediately becomes too tight on his shoulder, is she worried he might slip away?
“You know, it all makes sense now, why you favored Thor all these years, because no matter how much you claim to love me, you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the throne of Asgard!”