Before the Norns

The yellow firelight flickers unsteadily across the ceremonial dagger in Thor’s hands, as if calling attention to all it signifies. All that Odin requires of him.

He could hurl it away, but that would merely declare his allegiance; it would do nothing to save his brother. He could throw it straight at Odin, but that, too, would be futile; even were it balanced for throwing, even were he trained to make use of such a thing, it would never get past the defenses of the Allfather’s throne.

Thor knows he has a reputation for being quick to act and slow to think things through, but he’s not stupid; he just doesn’t often see the need to hesitate.

Most of the time, the stakes aren’t nearly so high.

Some pivotal decision lies before you, Loki had said. Without this awareness, you might make a decision too hastily, without considering all the factors at play. You can’t solve every problem by hitting it with a hammer.

No. Not a hammer. And where he tends to just swing Mjolnir around and expect his enemies to fall before him, this time he’ll have to take Loki’s tactic, and strike directly at the weakest point.

Casting his gaze skyward, he looks, perhaps for the last time, at the mural that depicts the royal family. Or, at least, the illusion of a family, for whatever reasons Odin had seen fit to commission the lie. (Loki, it seems, is not the only one to use deception, when it suits him.)

Again, Thor is struck by the absence of Frigga, on today of all days. Surely it’s by design: Just as Odin had the foresight to bind Loki before revealing his plans, perhaps he ensured that Frigga would not be around to confront him, to defy him.

Odin does not brook defiance. Not even from his own family.

(There are rumors that he killed his own father in order to claim the throne. None repeat them when they know Thor is listening, but he has heard them nonetheless.)

Publicly, Frigga has never defied him, but for this… Thor cannot imagine that she would simply stand aside and let him execute her favored son.

And Loki is her favorite, has been for as long as Thor can recall; no one else in Asgard has ever esteemed Loki over Thor, but their mother does. Or seemed to. And yet she must have known Loki’s true nature, which means she’d kept the lie for a thousand years. It beggars belief.

Still… could she have kept the lie as Odin has, raising Loki merely as a sacrifice?

Being a good judge of character has never been among Thor’s skills; he’s never needed to do more than determine friend or foe, and the foes are usually obvious. But he cannot believe that Frigga would treat Loki so, that she would be party to this deed.

His gaze brushes the ceiling again: Thor and Odin in red. Loki and Frigga in green.

He makes up his mind: Unless and until Frigga gives him reason to think she’s a monster, he will trust that her love for both of them is true. (But until he has some believable explanation, he will not leave Loki alone with her.)

When the muttering of the crowd picks up again, growing in pitch and fervor, Thor silences them with a look; the sternness of his countenance must be frightening indeed. From their expressions, a good many of them think his ire to be aimed at Loki, think that he’s about to harm the unfavored son of Asgard—and they like it. They’re here for a show, now. He has to push back the part of him that wants to strike that cruel anticipation off their faces.

Oh, he’ll give them a show.

“I grew up believing that Loki was my brother,” he muses, slowly. “We both thought that he was Aesir; why should we not? And yet he often sought my counsel, wondering why he could never seem to measure up to the rest of us, why he so often fell short of his peers.

“I guess that’s clear, now,” he adds, with a brief glance at the throne.

“A thousand years, and I never questioned it.” He grins, suddenly, and his voice booms out across the room. “After all, we all know what the frost giants are like! Were you not raised on the same stories, Sif?”

He shoots her a look, and gets a cautious, baffled frown in return.

“Huge, fearsome monsters,” he continues. “Nothing like my brother, who has always been small and weak… pitiful, really. Why, it took him months to be able to handle a wooden practice sword! My first day in the training ring, I could lift a battleaxe—not that the Weaponmaster let me lift it for long!”

Tyr’s stony face betrays no reaction to the memory, but a few chuckles from the crowd put Thor a little more sure of his stride.

“And what weapon has he chosen, this mighty warrior of Asgard?” Thor asks, gesturing at his brother offhandedly. “A sword, a spear, a war hammer?” He laughs, and more laughs rise with his; any familiar with the court would know Loki’s preferences. “Behold, the only warrior in all the Realm who throws little knives around!”

“And takes down prey more skillfully than your hammer can!” Sif shouts. “At least we have meat and a pelt left, instead of a bloody mess! ”

“Ah, yes,” Thor says. “And is that not another trait of the frost giants? Vicious, bloody predators. Prone to snatching up little babes and devouring them whole! How gruesome the tales we grew up on.” He huffs. “Perhaps I should have guessed Loki’s nature when he would push aside roasted boar to eat up fish and vegetables. Or when he shied from battles! How often have we mocked him, Fandral? Always the voice of caution, so concerned with our safety!”

“Aye, and we’d all be dead now, were it not for him!” Sif shouts, as the Warriors Three exchange glances.

“Oh, a hundred times over!” Thor agrees with a grin. “The many times I’ve rushed into battle, caring nothing for the risk, and it was only Loki’s tricks that spared us a grisly end. Tricks! He’d hide me from plain sight, conjure up a fog, make it look like we had dozens of warriors at our backs; he’d ferret out the weaknesses of our foes and turn their own weapons against them.

“No warrior of Asgard was ever so crafty,” he says, toying with the blade in his hand. “But of course, he’s not of Asgard, and doubtless he would have turned such tricks against me, given time. How hard it must have been for him to stay his hand, when I so readily left myself at his mercy! Had he but stepped aside and let me fall, he would have been heir, and not a soul to suspect him. Yet each time, he protected me—and suffered our mockery yet again.

“But perhaps he was too much of a coward.” Thor’s voice turns scornful. “I have never seen a son of Asgard worry so! Concerned that we had not brought enough supplies, that we would not be back in time for our duties, that perhaps this enemy was too great for our skills. Yet fearful or not, he came with us wherever I bid. Where I rushed in, he followed.”

“What courage is it to know no fear?” Sif demands.

“Silence!” Tyr returns, finally fed up with her outbursts. The Einherjar turn toward her, ready to oust her from the throne room at the Weaponmaster’s signal.

“No, she’s right,” Thor says thoughtfully, tapping the tip of the dagger against his chin. “That is the difference between Loki and me… or, well, one of them. A man who is fearless—reckless—is certainly no coward, but it cannot be said that he is brave. Is it courage to stick your hand into a viper’s nest if you believe the viper to be gone, or yourself immune to the venom?

“No, courage is the act of overcoming fear. Why, by that measure, my own is laughable! But Loki, who knew the risks better than any of us, came anyway.

“Then again, perhaps that’s mere stupidity. Are they not brutish beasts, these frost giants, easily befuddled, easily fooled? We used to trade tales of how we would trick the poor, dumb creatures. And Loki’s plans put ours to shame; how odd that he would turn on his own people so readily. A frost giant at heart, dreaming up plans to take down the might of Jotunheim.”

“He never knew! ” Sif all but screams, and the Einherjar are upon her, two of them lifting her bodily from her seat and slamming her against the wall, one gauntleted hand over her mouth that she might not further disrupt the proceedings. They look to Tyr to see whether they should go further, escort her from the room, but he shakes his head; it is enough that she is silent.

Thor tamps down the fury rising in his heart at seeing Sif mistreated simply for speaking the truth; his anger will not help her, not in this.

“I suppose he didn’t know,” he agrees, turning away from her. “While we considered how to down a single giant, he’d dream up elaborate plans to take down whole clans! That is,” he adds, chuckling, “when we could drag him out of the library, of course.” He wrinkles his nose. “Always studying, that boy, while my friends and I were in the ring, training for war. Small wonder it took him so many centuries to master a weapon. If we had not compelled him, now and then, to come with us, doubtless he would have remained with his nose in his books until Ragnarok!

“And what has he been studying, these thousand years?” Thor spreads his arms wide. “We’ve all seen the results: No man in all Asgard has harnessed the power of seidhr as Loki has. Well,” he allows, “no man aside from Odin Allfather, of course. But the rest of us are too busy learning battlecraft to devote any time to, as the Allfather says, a womanly art.”

Turning back toward his brother, Thor takes in the blue skin, the markings. The red eyes narrowed, watching Thor, as if trying to figure him out. There’s hurt there, and confusion, and betrayal, but also something that Thor hopes is a sign his brother hasn’t lost faith in him entirely. If he can only hold on a little longer.

“Loki knew full well that his talents in combat were laughable,” Thor says, “and so he made up the difference with tricks; it was the one talent by which he might defend the Realm. Though by now he has mastered both seidhr and combat; indeed, he may be the deadliest warrior I know. Small wonder that even the mighty Allfather fears his power, and must bind it so.”

He looks down at the dagger in his hand again, and swallows. His words are running out; Odin’s patience will not last forever, and Thor cannot hope to sway the crowd so much as to destabilize it, leave them doubtful of their conclusions.

Whether that will do any good for him, or for Loki, it is a final thing that he can do for the Realm. If this is all he has the chance to do, it must be enough. He has never been a fine talker, but he can push back against the lies of the deceiver, remind the people of the call of justice, and reduce that mob fever among them that might well lead to another war against a land already crippled by the hand of Odin the Destroyer.

The cost to himself is immaterial. Truly, Thor cannot say what might be the end of it, when he makes this final move: One way or the other, the choice remains in Odin’s hands, but one does not defy the Allfather and simply walk away.

A gruesome sight floods his mind, one he’s seen but twice in his long life: In Odin’s private chambers, a pedestal holding the half-living head of Mimir, which whispers advice from the sage’s great stores of knowledge and wisdom. Before Thor had even been born, Mimir had died in battle, and yet Odin denies him Valhalla, pleased to bind him to the mortal plane so long as Odin has a use for him.

Thor’s head is unlikely to join Mimir’s; there’s little there to be worth keeping. Had he a gift of mind or speech or sight, perhaps…

Like Heimdall, whose unique gift of sight allows him to guard the Realm from all that might threaten it, spending his life in eternal vigilance. Surely he is aware of the night’s events. Does he approve of Odin’s plan? The gatekeeper does what is best for Asgard, but surely… surely not this.

Again, Thor sees himself breaking Loki free, running them both across the rainbow bridge to the Bifrost, in hope of safety on another Realm. Would Heimdall stand in their way, upholding the Allfather’s wishes? Or might he have the portal waiting for them, to spirit them away before the Einherjar caught up to them?

Would he accept Odin’s wrath upon him, for acting against him? Odin could not execute him, but Heimdall could well share the same fate as Mimir, his head on a pedestal, reduced to his basic function: the eternal watchman, and nothing more, not ever again.

Thor shudders. If anyone notices, they probably think it’s for another reason entirely.

“‘Nothing your father does is ever without a purpose,’” he muses aloud, echoing his mother. “I always believed—I knew—that my father was the best father, the wisest king; I knew he always had a plan in mind. When Loki doubted his worth in Odin’s eyes, I comforted him with that notion. I hoped, someday, that I could be as great as my father, but Loki… he never held any illusions of that, and hoped only to win his approval.”

Once again, he centers his gaze on his brother, and narrows his eyes. “We were told so many tales of the frost giants,” he says. “How savage they were, how deceitful. Bent on conquest, and incapable of courage or compassion. The worst monsters in all the Nine Realms.”

The murmurs of the crowd rise again, but Thor tunes them out, finding himself transfixed by memories of Loki, small and vulnerable and not yet hardened against attacks either physical or verbal. Their shared childhood, and the lies it was built upon that have only just come to light.

“The frost giants’ cruelty horrified my brother,” he says, wondering if anyone in the court will ever again see Loki as Thor does. Perhaps it does not matter. “Many nights he would seek my reassurance that they couldn’t hurt him—not here in Asgard. That the guards would keep the giants out; that our parents would protect him, I would protect him from the monsters that haunted his dreams. That I would slay any number of Jotnar to keep him safe.

“But now, it seems that the one frost giant that threatens him the most… is inseparable from the Loki that I knew. I cannot slay one and save the other; either both must live, or both die.”

Solemnly, Thor steps up in front of Loki, looking down at his trembling form. Still gagged, still held by the guards, Loki can do nothing but shake his head helplessly, tears cascading down his face and quickly turning to ice.

"And of course, being a Jotun, he is not to be trusted; betrayal is simply part of his nature."

When Thor raises the dagger, the shouts grow louder; Loki’s eyes widen, and then, as Thor takes one slow step closer, Loki’s face crumples and he drops his head, hanging limply from the grip of his captors, shudders running through his body.

"But it is not part of mine," Thor says. “Our fates are woven by the Sisters—who favor the daring, and there is always an element of choice. So… may the Norns be watching.”

Loki stiffens, and looks up just as Thor pulls the blade across his own palm, rich red blood starting to drip down his arm. The room has fallen utterly silent; one does not invoke the Norns lightly, and almost never by name.

And few of them might recognize the invocation of the blood oath, but Loki and Odin would be among those few. After all, Loki was the one who taught him.

“I swear before the Norns,” Thor calls out—loud enough that no ear in the entire room could fail to hear him—“that I will never take a wife, or sire an heir, unless Loki is allowed to leave this room alive and free, this very hour, with his magic returned to him. If he is harmed, or not released, then the line of Odin will die with me.”

Turning, he gazes serenely into the face of Odin, who is on his feet now, untempered rage threatening to boil over. “Before Urdhr and Verdhandi and Skuld,” Thor concludes, “I swear it.”

Odin’s mouth moves, but he can’t seem to decide on words; a few garbled growls are all that he manages as his face grows ever more red.

Red like the blood pooling at Thor’s feet.

Thor raises his chin. “I grew up believing that the frost giants were monsters and enemies of Asgard,” he repeats calmly. “And yet I find that for all their supposed savagery, they are nowhere near as cold or cruel or heartless as the man I once called ‘father.’”

The man who could kill him where he stands. Or steal his powers away, and cast him to the farthest reaches of Niflheim, among the rotting corpses of the dead. Thor can’t bring himself to care; he drops the dagger and turns his back on Odin. Kneels in his own blood, face to face with an incredulous Loki.