Alfheiðr is born with a summer storm.
The air hangs heavy, wrought with the threat of warm rain and sonorous thunder, bright white scarring the sky -- her uncle, no doubt, worrying the floors outside your birth chamber along with her father.
He had tried to enter many times, your Loki. Snarling and growling that it was his duty as husband and father to be by your side, that to keep him away from you was treasonous and unjust -- Frigga had simply clasped your hands between hers and kissed your knuckles, murmuring sweet encouragement as your daughter fought to enter the world. The goddess of fertility and her handmaidens had you laid on a bed of finely woven gold silk and cornflowers, a damp towel across your sweating forehead, a half-empty ewer of water propped near enough to reach.
The pain is unbearable. Loki can feel it.
But the reward is as sweet as summer honey -- a wailing little babe, covered in blood and still attached to you, is placed in your arms after the 12th hour of excruciating pain. A shock of silky black hair upon her little head, eyes a bright, seiðr green eyes. It’s clear that you didn’t get a word in when it came to her appearance -- apart, maybe, from the tan of her skin. And Loki, oh, Loki, he--
He bursts through the doors at the first high-pitched squeal, eyes wide and glassy and--
“Alfheiðr,” you murmur weakly, eyes fluttering shut as the cord that bound you for nine months is severed. “Alfheiðr shall be her name.”
Loki weeps that day. Kneeling at your bedside, clasping one of your sweaty hands in his own, pressing his lips to your knuckles for so long that they become numb. His mother and her handmaidens leave your family quietly to celebrate the easy birth -- easy, you say, because you hadn’t perished. Your Loki’s eyes are veined with red and his cheeks are tracked with silvery trails, and he doesn’t fail to whisper his love against your skin with every minute.
But he does not hold your daughter.
Even when the handmaidens officially leave and you are free to walk and move around and recover and revel in the company of your daughter, he does not hold her. Not for lack of love, you gather, watching curiously as his love-filled eyes stay fixed to her, her tiny lips suckling from your teat. He stands by the doorway, arms folded and ankles crossed -- he’d placed protective spells on every entryway imaginable, piled the bed with blankets and charms of wellbeing, set a pitcher of your favourite tea at your side should you wish for it. But you don’t -- you’re weary and tired, worn out from the hours of pain and work.
“Take her,” you mumble, once she’s had her fill of milk. She sleeps, now, tiny eyelids scrunched shut tight, and through your haze of exhaustion you marvel at her -- the sun to your Midgard, it seems. She has become the centre of your universe. “I’d like to sleep.”
Loki straightens up like he’s been told some terrible, terrible news. “A-are you quite sure, my flower?”
“Yes, Loki.” You’re being short with him. After all, all he has to do is scoop the sleeping babe up and place her down into her crib -- a piece of art in of itself, carved from the wood of the greatest Asgardian trees to be the shape of a great sea vessel. The young princess is already spoiled rotten; why, just last week, you’d received a string of gems from the northern settlements! For the daughter of Loki-konungsson and his bride, a dainty note had read. May her years be long and happy.
“It’s just that, well, I’m sure she prefers her mother’s touch--”
“Loki, my love.” Your voice is sharp. “Take your daughter.”
“...Of course.”
You watch his face carefully as he takes the too-light bundle in his arms; eyes wide and panicked, limbs stiff and square. You frown, wincing as you try to sit up. Your fatigue is suddenly placed in the back of your mind, and your concern directs itself towards your husband; your husband, who, upon learning of your pregnancy, had navigated the entire 9 months with a level head and calm spirit; who had soothed your own panic away with kisses and whispered promises and assurances.
“Loki,” you say carefully. “Whatever is the matter?”
“Nothing, my flower,” he replies, quick. His eyes dart up towards you -- the exact same shade as his little girl’s, the babe he holds so awkwardly -- and he turns towards her crib. “I -- I’ll put her to sleep--”
“What are you afraid of, Loki?”
He splutters for a moment, though he is unfalteringly gentle as he places her down, tucking her blankets tight around her -- your heart swoons for a moment.
“Afraid? Of what, my love?”
“That’s what I want you to answer,” you retort. Loki returns from her crib a second later, sitting up beside you, though even then his eyes are trained across the room on his daughter. “You’ve barely held her -- and when you did, you looked terrified.”
“Well, I--” It’s started with his usual bravado, and your patience thins and snaps.
“Don’t lie to me, Loki Odinson,” you threaten. There was a time where you’d rather cut yourself than speak so brashly to your husband -- but he has lain himself bare to you before, and you have no fear of him. You’ve felt more pain in the last day than most will experience in their life; your inhibitions were left behind in the dirt.
Loki deflates. You see his throat bob under the weight of his subsequent gulp; his lips thin in a weary smile. “You see right through me, don’t you, wife?”
You take his hand in yours. “Only because I love you, husband.”
It is then that Loki tells you of his fears -- of his strained relationship with his own father, Odin, that you yourself have bore witness to; his constant self-imposed rivalry with Thor; his need to prove himself to a father who couldn’t care less. That night, Loki Odinson sheds tears for his daughter -- that night, he also sheds his fear.
X
When Friði is born, Loki is -- once again -- forced to wait outside. This time, though, he holds his princess in his arms; his little Alfheiðr clinging to his torso, her head on his shoulder and her thumb stuck to her mouth. It’s a terrible habit that you’ve been trying to rid her of, but the 5 year old is as resolute and stubborn as both her father and mother.
“Daddy,” the little girl whispers, wincing as another pained scream reaches them. “Will mummy be okay? She sounds hurt.”
Loki presses the girls head to his chest, kisses the dolly skin of her forehead. She smells of soap and lemon cakes -- lemon cakes she’s started stealing from the kitchens. She’s inherited her father’s trickster ways, that much is obvious, though many a time Loki thinks that she gets her own way simply with a bat of her eyelashes and a sweet grin, like her mother.
“Mummy’s working hard,” he whispers gently, “So that your brother can enter the world, big and strong.”... “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather spend some time with Thor?”
“No!” The little princess objects, shaking her head so vehemently that some of her hair escapes the intricate braid woven onto her scalp. “No! I have to see Friði first.”
“Okay. We’ll wait, then.”
And so they do. Alf’s attention changes like the wind -- one second, she’s running hurriedly up and down the halls, trying to see how fast she can reach the end of the corridor. The next, she’s hopping up and down like a rabbit, trying to get her father to join in on her energetic frivolity (which he does, for a time -- if not to satiate her whims, then to distract himself from the sounds of his wife’s pain). And then, after that, she wanders over to the grand double doors you’re hidden behind, standing on her tiptoes and stretching high to try and reach the gilded handles. Loki knows she’ll never reach them -- though tall for her age as she is -- but still, he calls a caution each time.
“Alf,” he says, warningly -- the little girl slumps, huffing, and skips away from the door with stomping steps that make her dress bounce with each movement. “None of that, now.”
“I don’t like this!” She whines, flopping down on Loki’s lap. “I’m bored and mummy is hurt and--”
The doors open, as if commanded by Alf’s oncoming tantrum; Loki realises with a start that the cries of pain have come to a halt. In its place: the high-pitched, bell-like whistles that had greeted him when Alfheiðr was born. Loki barely registers Alf’s delighted gasp -- his heart is spinning in circles, eyes wide at the wails of his son.
Friði Lokison.
He’s tiny. Smaller than Alf had been -- much smaller. And where Alf had taken mostly after him, it’s clear that Friði is his mother’s son; from the colour of his skin to the shape of his nose and his lips, to the curl of his hair on his head. Frigga beams brightly at the sight of her sorcerer son and her granddaughter -- scooping up the princess that comes running to her.
“Look, Alf,” the queen coos happily, tilting her towards your bed. “Your little brother.”
“He’s so small. And wrinkly.”
“And so were you, my little sorceress!”
Their talking fades into the background as Loki takes a seat at the side of your bed. You’re much less exhausted than last time -- eyes half-lidded, yes, and forehead sweating and stamped with stray hairs, yes, but you look up at Loki, bright and smiling.
“Your son,” you say, soft, smiling like the sun, and Loki feels as if he’s fallen just as hard as he had years earlier. “Our little Friði.”
And Loki holds his son happily, proudly, with his princess peeking over his shoulder and his queen at his side -- their perfect little family. His family, at last.