Fill: Skin Deep
You are my son, Loki. Fill for a norsekink prompt.
Frigga enters the royal chambers alone. Odin and Thor have remained behind in the throne room, talking. There has been so much deception, so much loss. It will take time to heal the wounds of these dark days and of Odin’s lies. However well intended they may have been, lies they remained. Fissures have sprung up in the House of Odin. Fractures exist now between husband and wife, between father and son, between brothers. They will mend, as all things do, and there is one thing that Frigga knows for certain: they have all the time in the Nine Realms to heal these wounds. Yet they do not have the missing member of their small family.
Loki’s absence is a raw agony in her breast.
She had waited at the entrance hall as Odin and Thor returned from the fractured Bifrost all those months ago, their blonde hair glittering in the sun. Yet as she looked at them, her eyes searched for the raven hair of her second son. She frowned, unable to see him. Her eyes then took in Thor and Odin, both with tear tracks on their faces. Frigga was acutely aware of the members of the court standing behind her, of the Warriors Three and Sif. She stepped forward, embracing her husband, then her son. With a growing dread in her stomach she touched Odin’s face. “Loki?” she asked.
The Allfather shook his head slowly, his lion’s mane of hair wavering. He raised his gaze to his wife’s. “He fell” Odin said. It was only hundreds of lifetimes, millenniums of duty and keeping herself together in public that had kept Frigga’s knees from giving way and the anguished wail rattled in her throat, forced down until a moment of solitude could be found.
Now, months have passed since Loki’s plunge off the Bifrost. No sign of her son has been found and he is once again hidden from Heimdall’s gaze. Once the doors close behind her, she allows herself to let out the anguished breath that she has been holding. Her grief is a tangible thing, as great and terrible as the storm that howls outside the palace walls.
Frigga crosses to the vanity, removing her jewels and trappings of her high office. Queen she was born to be and Queen she remains. She sighs, removing her hair pins and the blond locks cascade down her shoulders. A soft footfall behind her has her spinning about, looking for the source of the sound.
“Who dares to entire the royal chambers?” she takes a step forward, eyes darting around the room.
A soft voice emanates from the shadows near the bed. “Mother.”
Joy sparks in her heart and she darts forward towards the sound. “Loki!” Yet as she gets closer, she sees him pull back deeper into shadow. She stops, saying his name again, “Loki?” Her son steps forward into the torch light of the bedchamber. What she sees terrifies her.
She had always known that Loki was Jotunn, of course. Yet even when he had first arrived, sheltered in the embrace of Odin’s arms, his skin had been the warm pink of the Aesir. Now, the pink and the heat was gone, replaced by the cold chill and ice blue skin of the Frost Giants. Gone was the smooth skin and it its place was roughness, highlighted by runes running over his flesh. Yet the most drastic change of all was his eyes. Loki’s green eyes, so alive and so fierce and so clever were now eclipsed by burning red. He raises his hands towards her.
Without thinking, reacting to a Jotunn in her inner most sanctum, Frigga takes a half step backwards. In the span of that footstep, her mind catches up with her. Yet the damage is already done. She reverses course, hurrying toward her son.
Loki’s face is the picture of agony. His hand remains outstretched towards her. A cruel smile twists his lips. “So you as well then, Mother? As all of Asgard hates me, I thought to look to you for acceptance. But of course I am no better than any of the others, just another Jotunn. Look there, it is the Royal Family’s pet Frost Giant. Look, children, look at how disgusting he is!” He turns back and Frigga knows that he is preparing to flee again.
“You are my son and you are beautiful,” she says. Loki stops, half-turns to cast a glance at her face over his shoulder. He is searching for deception, lies, looking for the falsehood in her words. There is none to be found. This time, it is Frigga who extends a hand. Loki reaches for it, but stops with scant centimeters between their fingertips. She knows it is because he fears to burn her skin with his Jotunn coldness.
“You are my son,” she repeats, “and you are beautiful.”
He scoffs. “I am not your son. I never was.”
“Oh, Loki. Such cruel poison falls from your lips. It cuts me.” Loki looks shocked at this. Frigga sighs. “Perhaps you are not my blood, not born of my body. Perhaps you never slept under my heart. That is because you slept in my heart. The two most precious moments in all my long years are the first moments my sons’ were placed into my arms. I held Thor just after he slipped from my body. I cradled you as you were brought to me from the battlefield. Blood does not alone make a family, Loki. Love makes a family. And you, my son,” she closes the last distance and brushes her fingers against his, “my clever, cruel, magical boy. You are so loved.”
Her skin does not blacken immediately. She leaves her fingers there for a few moments until the cold becomes too much and she has to break the contact. Loki makes a sound in his throat. It is one part disbelief and one part longing and it breaks Frigga’s heart.
She reaches for the source of her power. She is the Goddess of Family, of Hearth and Home, the Allmother, and no force in the realms will keep her from holding her child and comforting him. She wraps herself in magic and pulls Loki into her arms. He comes with a small struggle, then his arms raise and wrap fully around her body. He buries his face in the crook of her neck. She feels the tears start and before long, his lithe form is wrecked with great sobs. All through the tears, she strokes his face, traces his runes, and murmurs to him.
“My son. My son.”