Work Text:
Freyr sighed, hair the color of sunrise falling from its typically neat half-braided style without the crown of wood and holly berries holding it back. His white and green robes pristine, not a hint of dust on them, with his silver vambraces and hidden daggers, he nonetheless carried himself as though the world had decided to crush him from inside out. He didn’t have his twin’s untamed disheveled look, but it the closest that the King of Alfheimr came to letting his appearance fall. So many years of carefully cultivating an appearance of the prim and proper viceroy, turning a position of submission into a shield and a poisoned dagger against Asgard and its vile cockroach of a king, had given him the habit of always being presentable no matter if the setting were familiar, private, solitary, or formal.
But even all of those acquired habits didn’t mask the agony he felt at Freya bringing their fallen sister’s possessions to his quarters.
Freya’s general appearance, in that sense, was the more honest of the two. Hair wild and unkempt, her dress a simple white linen that sustained wrinkles from Freya sitting on her knees for a good deal of time, and weaponless – not the same, as fools would believe, as defenseless – Freya couldn’t be bothered to get out of her sleepwear and put on something more appropriate for one who will be crowned Queen of Vanaheimr.
Freya snorted and laughed and cried. They won. After millennia of games, of sabotage, of intelligence and counter-intelligence, of “losing” information or facts, of obfuscating stupidity, of helplessly watching when hands were tied…. Odin was dead.
The Aesir warrior aristocracy was no longer the sole oligarchy on that wretched realm.
Alfheimr and Vanaheimr were no longer under Asgard’s precious “protection.”
They won the war.
Frigga was dead.
“There was nothing any of us could have done,” Freyr said.
“Not now, no,” Freya said, “But if I had agreed to marry that gunk sucking cockroach, Frigga wouldn’t have needed to sacrifice herself for some mortal who would die in a few decades anyway.”
“Perhaps she would have,” Freyr said, “Perhaps if you had married him to spare Frigga from such a fate, you would have despised anything and everything that came from him. You would have ignored Thor’s very existence any moment you didn’t actively hate him even though his only crime, as a child, would have been his origin from Odin’s loins.”
“It would have done the boy good to have someone criticized him properly,” Freya said.
“Criticize, yes. Hate him for everything that he did regardless? Did you want to create another Loki?”
Freya snorted, “That boy would have had the love of the warriors and his father, I don’t see the parallels to our Loki.”
“Stop being foolish for the sake of being obstinate.”
Freya sighed, nodding.
“I would have been such a horrible mother to him that he would have gone to Frigga as the only adult willing to give him genuine emotional support.”
“Probably would have made things worse,” Freyr said, “Especially if he ever found out he was not a child of your body.”
Freya winced. However much Thor irked the twins by simply being every single quality of the Aesir warrior aristocracy exaggerated, that didn’t imply the twins did, in fact, want the lad to live a life like Loki’s. The lad mostly meant well. Mostly.
“If that’s the case, he should be told immediately by someone he trusts,” Loki said, entering the King of Alfheimr’s private chambers like he was always there but no one had noticed him.
Loki bowed, one sovereign to another, “Freyr King. Freya Queen.”
“I am not the Queen yet, little poison claws,” Freya said, “Now come over here, stop acting like your uncle and embrace us already.”
Loki’s smile was soft with hint of timidity. He hugged his aunt and uncle, breathing their scent in, remembering the warmth of the two adults in his life that actually bothered to take his side when he was right. The ones that taught him to search for his magical core. The ones who encouraged him to fight in a manner that put his strengths into the forefront. The ones who shaped him the most.
He missed his mother.
With a tremble to his sigh, Loki let go and took stock of his mother’s possessions.
The desk made of mahogany where Frigga would always do the kingdom’s books. Loki could see the small dents with bits of his mother’s script from too many hours per years she’d write without something between the paper and the desk. The chair of the same wood still staying strong and regal even without its mistress sitting on it.
The dresser with its delicate carvings of waterfalls framed by the large mirror decorated with sapphires from Nidavellir. Unbidden, a tear fell down Loki’s cheek upon gazing at the open blue lacquered jewelry box. He remembered that bracelet. He remembered the going to Nidavellir and bartering with Bhatran for her skills and for her instruction in return enchanting five weapons of her choice. The golden bracelet with the intertwining sapphires and emeralds in the shapes of Lady’s Bedstraws had been a gift to his mother after he became a man in the eyes of the law.
He remembered Thor, well meaning but dim and bigoted Thor, scoffing and telling him that hunting a wild bigelsnipe and presenting his kill would have been a more meaningful gift and testament to his manliness.
Freyr gently picked up Frigga’s treasured bracelet and offered it to Loki.
Loki stared at it with foggy eyes. “She would have wanted you to have it,” Freyr said.
“It’s rude to return a gift.”
“It was her favorite,” Freyr insisted, “Love her, treasure the memories you have of her, remember her by it. Never forget that she loved you.”
Loki took a deep breath and held his hand out. Freyr clasped the bracelet on, leaving it dangling over his pale wrist.
Freya coughed, “I will take her weapons, you take her desk.”
“Aunt Freya—”
“Well, you are hardly going to use the one-eyed bastard’s, now are you?”
“No, but—”
“And Freyr doesn’t need one. Meanwhile, I can use papa’s old one. Waste not, want not.”
Loki smirked, thankful. “Alright, you win. Meanwhile, I shall take the jewelry box and you may take the dresser.”
Freya raised an eyebrow, “Oh?”
“I might not be able to use it all the time but,” Loki shrugged, “’Tis a new era for Asgard, what better way to show it than with a King who does not fear nor disdain all that is feminine.”
The twins shared unreadable glances and then smirked.
“I want to see you shine at my coronation, little poison claws,” Freya smiled.
She placed the jewelry box on the desk and levitated the dresser and the metal weapons’ chest and teleported away, presumably to her new quarters.
“Why aren’t you wearing your colors anymore?”
Loki raised his eyebrows. “I do, they are my official regalia.”
“But not in private,” Freyr noted. “Why?”
Loki fell silent for a beat. “Did you know that particular shade of green was Jotuunheimr’s official color?”
Freyr nodded, both a confirmation of the question and his own suspicions. He gestured Loki to follow him. They walked to his personal balcony and stepped out. None could see them thanks to the illusion permeated through the balcony that made all who gazed upon it avert their eyes to something vastly more important than a patch of stone with ivy.
Freyr gestured at his kingdom, all light and forests and shining magic and millions of years of oaths and petty vendettas. “Look out. What do you see?”
“Alfheimr. Your kingdom.”
Freyr nodded, “When I was appointed viceroy after we lost the war, what do you think I saw?”
Loki’s eyes widened, understanding but not comprehending. “An insult. But it’s Alfheimr, it’s not the same!”
“Isn’t it?”
Loki was about to open his mouth but didn’t allow himself to. It was a stupid reaction, he knew better by now and if he didn’t he’d make a poor king indeed.
“It isn’t,” Loki admitted, especially to himself.
“Any insult, my little serpent,” Freyr said fondly, “Only hurts if you allow your enemy to make it something pejorative. Take the intended insult and turn it into a source of pride.”
Loki exhaled shakily, no tears falling but eyes misty nonetheless.
He closed his eyes and his aquamarine tunic turned moss green.
Freyr smiled and kissed his nephew’s forehead, “One day at a time.”
“One day at a time,” Loki agreed.
“Gaea.”
Loki and Freyr turned and saw Freya, this time in a more presentable golden gown with her trusted boar Hildisvini at her side.
“Thor’s mother, she’s the Midgardian earth deity called Gaea,” Freya said. “Odin claimed her name was Fjorgyn and thought we would seek the mother out on Asgard. Foolish of him to assume we wouldn’t realize that was another one of Gaea’s names.”
“That’s why Thor has always been well protected in Midgard no matter the levels of self-destructive stupidity,” Loki mused.
Freya snorted, “Thor’s banishment was a slap in the wrist and Odin knew it.”
Loki sighed, it was up to him to break the news to Thor and he knew it. Neither his aunt nor uncle had any more patience to spare for the Thunderer.
“Can she be contacted?”
Freya nodded, “Though I only know of her, I have no idea if she will take offence to the one who, while merciful, banished her spoiled brat to Midgard contacting her.”
“Nevertheless,” Loki said, “It must be done. Thor cannot learn about his heritage from anyone else or in a manner similar to how I found out, not if we don’t want to set back all of the progress he’s made.”
Freya snorted, unimpressed. Freyr elbowed her but didn’t contradict her. Thor was still giving his superiors temper tantrums that resulted in the trainees of his group being hospitalized. As far as the twins were concerned, there was no progress to worry about.
“He defended a trainee that was being harassed for preferring the company of his own sex,” Loki said, exasperated, “I call that progress.”
“If you say so,” Freya said. “Socialization aside, I fear I will never understand your continued loyalty to Asgard as a whole.”
She leaned until her forehead touched Loki’s, “I never understood Frigga’s either. But don’t doubt for a moment that we love you even as we defend our own kingdoms’ interests with every dirty trick there is.”
Loki smiled and took her hands in his, squeezing gently, “I won’t. I love you too.”
He squeezed one more time before letting go with a smirk, “Don’t think for a moment I won’t use everything at my disposal to get that contract with the dwarfs.”
“Do your worst, little poison claws. I know I will.”
Freyr laughed. No matter what Kings Loki and Freyr and Queen Freya do, they will always remain a family.