Chapter 18
Loki doesn’t remember exactly when it was he fell for the headstrong young woman from Midgard, but he suspects it was sometime between the day she left the palace and the day she told him he had to marry for love.
He still thinks about that, sometimes. Often, actually. How he tried—tried to give up the crown, give up the powerlust, give up everything but the promise of a life with her. Tried to marry for love. And look at where it’s led him. To a pretty padded cell in the ground of the realm he had tried so desperately to escape.
He doesn’t regret it. Had he told his younger self this would happen, that’s the detail that would likely have shocked him the most—the lack of regret. The fact that he would do it all again, give up his life, his freedom, his throne, for a mortal! An Earthborn mortal, at that! Young Loki would have scoffed at the thought. He didn’t know back then, didn’t know what it would feel like to look into the soft of her eyes, feel the warmth of her hand in his, and the beat of her pulse, and the sound of her voice—
He misses all of those things (and more) very, very much. He misses them even more now that there is a very real possibility he would never see her again.
(For the Jotunn, never is a very long time).
When Frigga comes to fetch you herself for, uh, noonmeal, you’re relieved to find Sigyn didn’t lead you astray—your dress seems in line enough with the little snippets of Asgardian fashion you’ve seen thus far. Yards and yards of gauzy grey-blue fabric gathered into an empire waist, with an attachment of something between a shawl and a cape around your shoulders. The silhouette is different from what you were accustomed back home, but the level of detail is the same.
“I see you discovered the workings of the wardrobe on your own,” she says with a smile. You don’t correct her.
“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting very long. I must have been asleep a while.”
“Not at all. You needed the rest.”
You don’t mention your earlier run-in with Sigyn (and she, curiously enough, doesn’t mention the appearance of the new window). You don’t know enough about any Asgard-specific courtly intrigue to feel comfortable yet asking anyone about...well, anything.
When you die, she had said, he will go mad with grief.
Not if. When.
“Are you fond of botany?”
“Hm?” Her questions shakes you from your train of thought as the two of you walk down another gold-and-glass hallway. “Sorry, what?”
“You’ll be taking noonmeal in the garden today with two of my ladies-in-waiting.” One of her hands alights on your shoulder as she guides you towards an open door, through which shines even more sunlight. “I was merely curious if you are interested in flowers. Or what your interests are in general, really.”
“I…”
You stop.
Not walking, of course, but speaking. Because...what are your interests?
You’ve spent most of the past half decade dabbling in a bit of everything, and the past year in particular focused on event planning. But the more you think about it, the more you realize how little time you’ve been spending on any kind of leisure activities. Sure, you would journal, you would listen to music, you would indulge in a book or two...but only occasionally. Once in a blue moon, if you were lucky. When you take into consideration all of the time spent planning the minutiae of each different component of the wedding, in addition to all of the interviews and social events you were obliged to attend in the year following your engagement, your moments of rest truly were far and few between.
Do you...do you really have no hobbies?
“Teaching,” you blurt out. It’s the first thing that comes to mind, mainly because you’re thinking about home and Lady Amara and her job, but you’re really not sure why you said anything because your relationship with Lady Amara’s students was tangential at most… Still, it would be bizarre to back out now. So, with a nod, you decide to commit to the lie—after all, how much more of a hole could you possibly dig yourself into at this point? “Yes. Teaching. Children and, um, teenagers mostly? Etiquette and that sort of thing…” Stop talking! You’re making things worse!
To your relief, though, she doesn’t push for further details after you trail off. “That sounds wonderful,” she says kindly (perhaps that’s a bit redundant, seeing as how she’s never said anything unkindly). “You’ll take to motherhood quite well, if teaching is something you enjoy.”
You hope she doesn’t interpret your silence as intentional rudeness. It’s just...the word motherhood. It’s thrown you for a loop. You have a feeling it’ll continue to throw you for a loop for a very, very long time.
But you have no time to ponder that, now, because you’re walking into the garden and there are people to meet—“Gna, Fulla, this is our newcomer”—and there are smiles to wear, and pleasantries to exchange, and perhaps it’s not so different here from your life back home, after all.
Frigga’s ladies-in-waiting are skilled as she is in making you feel comfortable, in diverting your attention with tea and biscuit-like-things on little plates. So skilled, in fact, that you make it quite far into the conversation before you realize Frigga herself has departed. Royal duties, no doubt; you can sympathize, if only partly.
You don’t mention her absence. Instead, you direct your attention back to your present company. Fulla is asking you a question.
“You look to be around...humans live for what, a thousand years? Surely you can’t be more than a few centuries.”
“Twenty years, actually,” you say pleasantly. You have to stifle a laugh at their reactions. They look like a duo out of a cartoon, almost, these two. Not just their animated expressions, but the contrast between them; Fulla is a willowy, statuesque woman, while Gna is short and stout in a way that seems to beg for a pair of apple-red cheeks to match. “We live about eighty, ninety years. Some particularly lucky ones make it to a full century.” The two of them look even more scandalized.
“Midgardian years? Twenty Midgardian years?” Gna repeats, incredulous. You nod. “My apologies if I sound...disrespectful. But Norns, twentyyears…”
Fulla cuts in. “You must understand, none of us have seen a mortal in the flesh for quite some time.”
“So I’ve heard.” You flash her a playful smile, hoping a sufficient display of charm will distract from the nervous fidgeting of your fingers, twisting your ring around and around in a way that has become as familiar as breathing. “Am I what you’d expected?”
She quirks an eyebrow. “Dropping into the throne room by way of the Tesseract, daring to address the Allfather directly without permission, and proclaiming yourself to be not only the prodigal prince’s betrothed, but the mother of his unborn child?” She takes another sip of her tea and shakes her head, as though reliving the memory. “I’m not certain ‘expected’ is the word I would use.”
“You have kicked up quite the ruckus.”
“Particularly now that word has begun to spread.”
“Spread?” You’ve been in Asgard for less than forty-eight hours. “About me?”
Gna nods. “Certainly. You would be surprised how quickly gossip travels in this realm.”
“No, of course. I was just under the impression that Od- the Allfather, I thought he would want to keep this whole…situation as quiet as possible.” You give up playing with your ring in favor of clasping your hands together (though you can’t keep from tapping your fingers against your wrist).
Fulla chuckles. “Odin can no more stop the rumor mills than halt the flow of time itself.”
“In fact, I’d be less surprised if he managed to pull off the latter.”
“Indeed. And in this case, I think it may work in his favor.” She purses her lips, as though debating whether she should say what it is she says next. “And yours, for that matter.”
You lean forward, your interest piqued. “How so?”
“For his part, the whispers should help to obfuscate the truth. Half the stories I’ve heard speak of the young prince kidnapping a girl from Midgard and bringing her here as a hostage, a bargaining chip for his freedom.” A small, bemused smile rises to her lips. “Others paint you as having, er, seduced him to your will using profane human magics. Already it is becoming difficult to discern the truth from the fiction.”
“Lucky us,” Gna interrupts, giving you a painfully gentle smile, “that we get to learn the details first hand.”
Fulla covers your hand with hers. “Quite.”
“Right.” You return their kind looks, of course. But you cannot pretend there’s nothing left on your mind. “How do the rumors help me?”
The two exchange a heavy look. Fulla is the first to break it, putting her cup down with a sigh. “The Allfather is a powerful man,” she begins, choosing her words carefully, “and Asgard is vast, and well populated. With so many citizens, it can be easy to...well. Easy to lose track of people. Particularly if they are not well known.”
Oh.
“There are some charms that can be used for search parties,” Gna adds. “But those are blood tracking spells. They require the presence of a living relative to work.”
“Of which you—with the sole exception of your unborn child—have none.” In an instant, Fulla’s hand is back on yours. This time, though, she squeezes it, hard. Not so tightly that the pain is unbearable, but with an intensity that forces you to look up into her stern gold eyes. “It would be in your best interest for as many people to know of your existence as possible. Do you follow me?”
You nod.
“Good.” She releases your hand to reclaim her teacup and saucer, smiling lightly, as though the past minute didn’t happen. She stirs another small spoonful of sugar into her cup. “Now, you simply must tell us about Midgardian cuisine. Is it really as dull and lifeless as the histories say?”
After a few false starts, you stumble into a defense of all the different foods you loved back home, but your mind couldn’t be farther away.
You’d never expected to feel fully safe on Asgard. You are the sole human in a realm full of light elves and old-world deities; the risk was implied. You knew that.
But it’s only now beginning to sink in how much real danger you might be in.