Roskva in Utgard (Norse mythology)

[persephone_kore]

Title: Roskva in Utgard
Characters: Roskva, Loki, Thor, Thialfi
Fandom: Norse mythology
Summary: Roskva competed in no contests at Utgard, but the humiliation of her brother and her gods doesn't sting any less for that. The giants hitting on her doesn't really help either.
Explanation: This story will make more sense if you're familiar with the

Comments

[khilari]

the world's stretchiest cat

For some reason this line cracked me up completely :D

This was really good, I liked Loki in it and Roskva's impressions of him. Roskva herself was a great character, I hadn't thought of her having to deal with giants hitting on her but she probably would. Her not realising that periods happen every month really drove home how close to starvation she's been living.

Was that last line Loki figuring out how he lost his contest?

[persephone_kore]

Hi, and thank you!

For some reason this line cracked me up completely :D

Oh, good. I debated whether the tone worked, but I liked it enough I kept it anyway. And she's so grumpy about it.

I'm glad the Loki characterization meets with your approval. :) Roskva... I don't know, sometimes my brain ambushes me with personalities for otherwise obscure characters. Now I like her and want to write her again, but I am a little stymied as to topic. Hmm.

For some reason, when I sat down to think about her perspective on the whole thing, the giants hitting on her showed up... well, not quite first thing. Second or third, I think. And she's with her brother and two gods and still, as far as she knows, completely vulnerable. In some ways this may feel more hopeless than being alone but with some imaginable rescue.

Was that last line Loki figuring out how he lost his contest?

Mm-hmm. At the very least, the dawn of suspicion.

[khilari]

Thinking about it those giants were being a bit stupid. If they'd pushed Thor into losing his temper he'd have found out quickly enough that their strength was illusory.

I'm sure Roskva has a perspective on other myths but she's generally not there for the climax, so I don't think I'd know what to write about her either.

[persephone_kore]

Well, unless they had convenient mountains to slip into the way... but yes, that's meant to have played into why they stopped where they did.

I've actually got a couple of ideas now for playing with, anyway, even if they might not be fit for posting.

[jetamors]

I actually don't know anything about Thor's visit to Utgard (I guess I should look it up), but I still really enjoyed this. Roskva and Loki are kind of an odd pair, but you do a good job of showing their friendship.

[persephone_kore]

I shall summarize

[jetamors]

Thanks so much! (And sorry for the late reply, I was traveling this weekend so I got all confused over what I had and hadn't replied to.) Reading your summary now, I kind of feel like I've read this before, but then again a lot of the elements are common to other mythology and folklore.

Now I kind of wonder which challenge Roskva might have done, if she'd been challenged.

[persephone_kore]

I think this is one of the more often retold stories, so you may well have seen it.

Somebody doing their own highly modified retellings stuck her in a spinning contest against a spider, but the other contests are all physical prowess in one way or another. There are warrior giantesses in some of the stories, but I somehow don't think Roskva's under any illusions about matching them. So I kind of made a story out of her not having done any. Although I think making Loki nearly choke on his drink was pretty good, even if it was a total accident. ;)