#love them. love this hot elf bastard. i feel ill | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

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Godddddd I'm so upset that I dislike yen this much, doing main quests in skellige and Freyas ppl were doing stuff and she again disrespected other cultures with Geraly being against, "I may be inhumanly beautiful" I know she's meant to be confident but wowww. She's not confident and worried for Ciri she just comes off arrogant and selfish and vain. Like, fuck.

The ultimate mood, anon. My Witcher fandom life would be so much easier if I enjoyed Yen ... but I just do not lol. Remember how I mentioned that things were going to get even worse than her stealing and using a potentially dangerous artifact? Yeeeaah. She also resurrects Ciri's friend to torture him for information, all while destroying another sacred garden to get the power to do it! It's not even a "She's so evil and I love it 😏" situation for me because the game tries so hard to convince us that she's still The Best. Geralt's sexy soulmate, Ciri's adoring mother, the baddest bitch around who gets things done and does it with an effortless confidence... all while ignoring how horrific her actions and attitude are. Oh sure, other characters speak ill of her at times, but considering how much Geralt is written to adore her, no matter what you choose, that's all undermined. I love morally gray/evil characters, but I've never enjoyed them when the text refuses to appropriately acknowledge that side of them. Nothing is more frustrating to me than a story that frames disliking a character as the unambiguously wrong thing to do, especially when the text is piling up reasons to dislike them and, as a result, ignoring or shrugging them off their actions as not that bad. Yen is a rather extreme example of that for me. Despite her attitude, her choices, and other characters outright going, "Why do you like her?" the story as a whole works under the assumption that it's correct to like her anyway because Geralt loves her. And he loves her for... reasons.

They do meet before the wish, but only just. Major "The Last Wish" spoilers in this paragraph, so feel free to skip. Basically, Geralt and Dandelion run into trouble with a djinn, he goes to Yen for help since she's a sorceress (first time meeting her), he instantly falls for her because she's gorgeous and such (there's an elf there who is also madly in love with Yen. Men just... fall for her, instinctually), she heals Dandelion, Geralt agrees to pay her, but Yen has already decided on the payment she wants. She takes control of Geralt's mind and forces him to attack the town to seek revenge on those who have insulted her, resulting in him waking up in prison awaiting execution for "his" crimes. Meanwhile, Yen has gone after the djinn for herself because power/trying to regain her ability to have a kid. Geralt escapes, finds her failing to master the djinn (an attempt which btw has endangered the whole town) and despite what she's done to him, Geralt tries to get Yen to escape with him. She refuses, set on capturing the djinn even though it's obvious she can't. So as a last resort he uses the final wish to bind their fates together, saving Yen from the djinn in the process. Aaaaaand then they have sex.

So yeah, their rocky relationship is one of the main reasons why I can't enjoy Yen. For some their tumultuous history is evidence of realism, for me it's evidence that they're not actually very compatible and they're only together because a) that's the fantasy trope: protagonist men get together with the hot sorceress and b) because the magic is literally ensuring that they can't escape one another. I mean, canonically their fates are tied together by magic and canonically they spend about 20 years swinging between passionate love and fearsome fights... but there's supposedly no connection between these two things? No chance at all that they keep coming together because magic is drawing them rather than because they actually want/should be together? I wrote a meta a while back about the short story where they meet, which includes a present day scene where Geralt is criticized by another character — Nenneke — for running out on Yen. Thing is, he tries to explain that he left because she was "too possessive" and this is... flat out ignored. By both Nenneke and the fandom. There's a strong trend of ignoring Geralt's words in favor of a pro-Yen interpretation of events. He says he left because she was too possessive and she treated him like ____ — he's not allowed to finish the sentence and say what she treated him like because Nenneke interrupts him, saying she doesn't care about his version of events. Major yikes imo! She turns a claim of being possessive into Geralt not being man enough to stick around. The fandom likewise turns this into a case of Geralt getting cold feet and running out because he's a bastard who hates commitment. Likewise, Nenneke and the fandom claim Geralt is trying to get Yen money as a way of appeasing his guilt for leaving, he claims he's doing it simply because he still cares for her — even if he doesn't want to be with her — and knows she needs it. Geralt's words are frequently dismissed, in the same way others characters' opinions of Yen are dismissed. Any mark against her is treated as either a lie, or a convoluted claim that they don't really know her... never mind that an understanding of why she may act this way doesn't excuse the behavior itself. (Plus, the whole "Yen had a horrible upbringing, so of course she struggles being kind" perspective always fell flat to me when so many, including witchers, had horrendous upbringings too. The whole point is this world is a mess and most everyone suffers). It's supposedly true love, yet if someone came up to me and went, "I magically tied my fate to this woman to keep her from getting herself killed and we've spent the last couple decades having what many would term a rocky relationship, to put it kindly. I left once because she was too controlling. She once cheated on me. I likewise hooked up with others during our frequent breakups. A mutual friend used magic to get me to have sex with her — also while my lover and I were broken up — and though I view it as a dumb decision I'm happy to forgive her for, my lover is ready to commit murder because again: possessive. A lot of the time we're only a family because of our daughter. I once thought she'd horrifically betrayed us both. She didn't, but it says something that I was so ready to believe it, huh? Hmm? Permanently separated? Of course not! I love her. We're destined to be together after all :)" I'd be like, "Uh... you sure about that, dude?"

Not that Geralt doesn't make his fair share of mistakes in the relationship — he absolutely does — but I don't think it helps his case that he's immature in other ways and, frankly, that he's a very strong, badass witcher. It's easy to turn the hints we get about their relationship into a simplistic "emotionally naive man can't give the poor woman the commitment she wants" situation. Given Geralt's status as the badass fighter of the tale, it's likewise easy to dismiss his admissions of her being "possessive" and his general discomfort. He's the man. He's the witcher. If he's making any claims about how Yen isn't treating him well, they must be excuses, or exaggerations, because real men, especially physically powerful men, would do something about that — a something that's not sneaking out in the middle of the night. A lot of people read Geralt leaving as the ultimate proof that he's an immature bastard who doesn't deserve her. I read him leaving and think, "What were you trying to get away from? What was going on that made you think you could only leave by sneaking out without a word?" To me, that doesn't read as someone who felt safe, comfortable, and respected enough to do anything but slip away and try to wash his hands of things. And I'm not just pulling this "Geralt is at least somewhat afraid of Yen and isn't comfortable establishing boundaries with her" reading out of my ass. When Yen wants Geralt to kill the golden dragon for her and he refuses, saying he doesn't care anymore, his thoughts are:

He expected the worst: a cascade of flames, flashes of lightning, blows raining down on his face, insults and curses. There was nothing. He saw, with astonishment, only the subtle trembling of her lips. Yennefer turned around slowly. Geralt regretted his words.

And everyone is like, "See! Yen has improved so much. Geralt nearly made her cry, but she's supposed to be the bad guy here?" Meanwhile, I'm going, "Uh... anyone want to unpack why he expects fire, lightning, insults, curses, and blows to his face for telling her no? Why he's astonished that she wouldn't use her magic against him? Anyone think that Yen refraining from attacking Geralt when he refuses to murder on her command is a pretty low bar? No? Just me?"

Geralt and Yen's relationship makes me uncomfortable and a great deal of that discomfort derives from how much of the Witcher fandom shrugs off the fictional warning signs. I mean, I post primarily about RWBY. We watched a man in that show try to sneak away with his kids when his villainous wife planned to use them for a eugenics plan... and the fandom still blames him for that, refusing to admit that he was in an abusive relationship. Because that doesn't happen to men, right? I'm not saying it's the same for Geralt and Yen, simply because they are written to be soulmates. An abusive relationship was, quite obviously, never the authorial intent. However, I am saying that the a "This isn't a healthy relationship" reading is there, it exists as an interpretation, and both the story and fandom's tendency to dismiss it is something that hasn't helped me enjoy Yen's status as an otherwise well written, complex character. Their equality supposedly stems in part because they're both so flawed, yet each time I see a list of Geralt's supposedly equal faults they're... lacking imo. "Geralt bound himself to Yen without her consent." Yeah, to save her from dying from the djinn she was trying to enslave, after she refused to leave, while her actions threatened a whole town. "Geralt ran off without a word." Mmm hmm, anyone care about why? And my personal favorite is a scene you may not have gotten to yet (or may not get depending on your choices), but suffice to say, Yen is supposedly justified in physically attacking Geralt if he dares to challenge her in any way. That's the main takeaway across the fandom: If Yen is pissed off, you must have done something to deserve it which, in the relationship deliberately written to be "stormy," is something that sets all the alarm bells in my head off. Honestly, it kinda makes my skin crawl to go, "Geralt didn't deserve that" and get responses back of, "Yeah he did because he [insert basic human action here]." The Witcher world is hard and cruel, absolutely, but that doesn't mean I personally enjoy seeing an equally messed up relationship presented as something that's enviable in its flaws. "That's actually true love because the magically bound man who often expresses discomfort with his lover, written by a male author with a very iffy perspective on women, says it's true love." Crazy theory here, but... maybe it's not?

Idk, lots of rambling on my end tonight! For me, Geralt/Yen reads as something rather tragic which, in a canon that unironically upholds the relationship, and in a Yen-adoring fandom, doesn't make enjoying her character any easier. I keep coming back to Witcher 3, the comics, the show, even the books going, "Maybe I'll like her this time?" but nope, still trying lol.

#witcher #mymetas

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matymatsu · 5 years ago

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ishuzoku reviewers hc's sfw/nsfw or in general?

I will do the main three and just sfw headcanons for now. Also, when I say general headcanon, I mean reader inserts or just about the characters lmao

Crim

Crim is bi. That’s not even a headcanon, it’s just a fact lmao

He’s always been a lowkey sinnamon roll, having dirty thoughts while in the clouds of heaven. He felt guilty about them and like when he got on earth, tried to keep it to himself.

If he could, he would totally date Elza don’t @ me he’s a furry askfjflkas

He’s pretty vanilla honestly, he doesn’t really have any fetishes. Most of them just embarrass the hell out of him

He’s a soft switch. While he is submissive, he still enjoys being on top sometimes and being the one in control. However, they’re very rare occasions.

While prefering to go by he/him pronouns, he does enjoy women’s clothing. He’s always wanted to try on one of Meidri’s dresses but too scared to ask

Stunk

Due to the pressures his dad brought on him and being referred to as the bastard noble by some chatty assholes, Stunk left home. He didn’t have any ill-will against his old man and they left on decent terms but, he prefers not to talk about it regardless. He wants to live as himself, not as ‘that noble’s son’.

His love of elf girls started at a young age when he had a crush on one of his dad’s concubines. She was a young elf who showered him in affection and was always sweet to him. He assumed it was because she wanted to stay in good graces with his father but, he never complained.

He got the scar on his cheek from his first quest as an adventurer. It wasn’t anything special but, he always tries to build it up when telling stories.

He’s had a few adventurer girls come flirt with him and even invite him to their tents. As flattered as he is, he prefers succugirls, less of a chance for hurt feelings.

Speaking of which, he actually has pretty bad commitment issues. He likes the idea of settling down with a beautiful woman and having great marital sex but, being tied down isn’t something he’s ready for.

Zel

Zel loves human milfs. They’re young enough to not have disgusting, old mana and mature enough to have hot ass bodies.

While not the biggest fan of the Roleplaying brothel they went to, he does enjoy roleplaying in general. His favorite is definitely magic teacher seduces student.

He’s used his young, boyish looks to his advantages for sure. Older, human women can’t resist such a cute face.

Surprising to some, he’s a switch like Crim. However, when he’s subbing, he’s a power bottom for sure. It depends on the type of woman he’s with but, most of the time, he’s still on top.

Is an absolute boobs man, you can’t convince me otherwise.

#after two days of having an out of body experience and mini panic attacks for hours i finally finished this thing lol #God my mental health is detriating KJFASLKJAFS #Interspecies Reviewers #Ishuzoku Reviewers #Crim #Crim Interspecies Reviewers #Stunk #Stunk Interspecies Reviewers #Zel #Zel Interspecies Reviewers #ask #headcanon talk

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worstfruit · 5 years ago

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Okay so i reworked this using bastardized doric, which i intend to lessen over time but i think its still a bit much

The tower wasn’t anything like what Gwen had anticipated. It was far too kempt for starters, and though it was deep within the woods outside of town, it was still just sitting out in a clearing. A bit too obvious for her liking.

And yet, on the opposite end of the spectrum it was far too subtle. There were no twisting vines or dead trees. No heads on pikes, no ribcages or femurs strung up on display. In her experience, that meant a trap. Dazzle camouflage—hiding in plain sight with how garishly cute the garden was. She’d never met a wizard who grew chamomile. But even after waiting and watching and sneaking around every angle, Gwen hadn’t triggered any sort of trip wire nor spotted even an open archere in the stone. There was a locked cellar just around the back, next to the small plot of tilled soil. The lock looked rusted to hell, likely from disuse. The garden, though brimming with wildflowers, was a bit out of order as well, and Gwen had to wonder if anyone even lived inside the tower. Still, it did meet the description the locals gave her (an unassuming but old stone pillar erected in the forests southeast of Backwater), and was exactly where the bandits said it would be (a clearing found left of a fresh deer carcass a short distance off the path’s second fork, the side with the big boulder).

She’d been a paladin long enough to learn that if it walked like a duck, and sounded like a duck, then it was probably a duck. Besides, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and at the moment, Gwen was in quite the pickle. Not three weeks prior had she been ousted from her Temple and indefinitely suspended of knighthood by her order. Taking down a necromancer, one that had alluded authorities for over 6 months, would be just the kind of deed she needed to get back in good graces.

Gwen readied her sword and stepped towards the stone structure, still anticipating some sort of magical barrage. An explosion, maybe even just a ‘hey you!’ But as she made her way up to the dry rotted entrance door, there was nothing.

Based off reports, she was half expecting hell itself. A fortnight prior to her expulsion, the temple formally briefed a number of paladins on the mission, recounted ongoing complaints of dug up graves, missing corpses, and robberies from the town of Backwater. It was a small and poor little stop along the way to Capitol; one of the few human villages between the Mission and High Elf territory, mostly used as a last minute night’s stay or provision pick up.

Tangent reports of missing cattle, children, and even the infirm were lumped together due to how small the townships outside of Backwater were. The bandits, who had tried to ambush her during her initial trek through the woods, informed Gwen of an elderly spell caster who conjured demons and brimstone from his own hands. The Backwater locals’ descriptions varied from vampiric in nature, down to common thugs, but all stories had a few principle things in common: he was old, he was in the woods, he worked with fire, he lived in a tower, and was evil. Taking in the scenery before her, Gwen sized it up. She certainly was at a tower in the woods.

For a moment, her manners almost got the better of her and she raised a gloved hand to knock. Thinking better, she gently pushed against the arched door to find it unlocked. It was ill fitted for the doorway, shrunken with age and it glided without touching the threshold.

Generally, necromancers were known to have a penchant for decay, dilapidation, just a general unkemptness that this tower absolutely did not have. The interior was lackluster to say the least; a bit old but otherwise rather mild in all regards. The floors were rugged with some dust in the corners, the stairs narrow but clearly well used, and there was even a small boiler with a little shitty kettle atop. Keeping her hands on the hilt of her blade, Gwen continued onwards, taking gentle steps so that her sabatons did not clack too loudly against the cobbled floors. She used to rugs to muffle her steps, stretching her short gait to match their haphazard patterns. She noticed a number of odds and ends befitting of her grandmother more so than a necromancer; things like doilies and little dried out gourds with sad little faces painted on them, a cracked tea cup here and there, some with tea leaves wet at the bottom. Still—Gwen had been spurned too many times to assume, perhaps the wizard was an elderly woman, or perhaps it was all a ruse. Cute or not, she had a job to do and a reputation to save.

Doing her best to ignore all the warning signs (or, lack thereof), Gwen pressed onwards, towards the spiraling stairwell. There were a few tomes laying about. She stooped to flip through one, noting that while the contents weren’t strictly of a necromantic nature, they were still damning nonetheless. Poison herbs and writing on anatomy, charts of stars and moon phases, a grimoire here and there and even one on exotic animals.

The stairs were lined with melted wax, an odd wick here and there sticking out like stray hairs on a bald man’s head. The tower, save the open door and natural sunlight pouring in from the top, was poorly lit and only so large; though there was no apparent latch door-- there may have been a basement along with the cellar; there was really nowhere else to go quietly but up. Even the archeres were boarded up with odd bits of rays poking through and spilling onto the bumpy walls and cracked wood; it made her ascent a bit difficult but Gwen was nothing in not cautious. She waited long enough for her eyes to adjust to the shadows before pressing onwards.

The next level was even more cramped than the first, and more of a resting area than an actual floor. Gwen froze just as her line of sight passed over a step and into the room—just around the curved corner of the tower’s central support pillar (a massive, cylindrical oak beam), there was a chair. Tartan fabric, frayed, with feather filling coming out about the seams and around the corners, but atop the chair sat…something. It was small, maybe the size of a medium hound, greenish skin and a shock of red hair and cloth curled around itself. She couldn’t quite understand the anatomy if it from the glimpse she got before concealing herself behind the beam, just that it was alive and likely asleep.

Gwen peaked back around just to confirm her suspicions. The beast was tiny and most definitely asleep. Oddly enough, it was also clothed in what appeared to be a little cloak, fit for a child. She could identify its head, its long and pointed nose, two bat like ears and two giant, but closed eyes. It breathed in a gentle rhythm, clawed paws and feet tucked by its side much the way the temple’s pet cat curled up on Gwen’s bed some nights. It resembled a sand imp, ghastly little creatures all wrinkles and teeth. She didn’t want to wake it up to find out if it had the very same fangs.

Next to the chair was a small rickety stool with a book atop, and on top of the book was a half-eaten apple, already yellowing. She looked as far as she could upwards. There was enough of a ceiling for her to guess the third floor was a bit more substantial. As quietly as she could, Gwen moved her foot upwards. She hesitated placing it down unto the next step; if the creature was anything like a sand imp, she did not wish to wake it. Even before she finished her step, she saw its ears twitch. Perhaps this was the warlock’s familiar, and perhaps she was lucky to have caught it sleeping on guard duty.

Rather than continuing upwards, Gwen considered her options. The thing was small. It would be a but a stain on her long sword. But, if it really was some sort of fucked up, green sand imp (perhaps it was rabid or jaundiced), then it was probably fast. Their claws were nasty and they were just intelligent enough to know exactly were to slide them between the seams of plate armor. It’s almost as if they were completely willing to die, just so long as they could make you bleed, even just a little. They had zero regard for their own safety, no sense of reasoning, and no hesitation. It would be like a setting off an alarm bell for sure; loud creatures they were. She hated them more than feral, rabid rats, and while she would surely be able to take one (yet alone a puny, runty, sleeping one), she would rather not.

Which brought her to the next option. The creature all but confirmed the identity of the tower’s primary inhabitant. What sort of old woman would live with a pet sand imp? And, by law, familiars and death magick were strictly prohibited and punishable by, well, death. Love or hate the elves, they had a moral code she could agree with.

Gwen didn’t like to play executioner often, but for her own sake, she was strongly considering the alternative to continuing forward to confront the villain-- which was to go back to town, rile up the locals, gather a shit ton of wood and hay and oil and slow burning lards, and light the sucker up.

Nodding resolutely to herself, Gwen slowly, ever so carefully turned to head back down the stairs. She was feeling pretty pleased with her decision making, a bit clever too (she had found the tower after all, and could report the deed back to her temple even if she wasn’t the one to personally kill the necromancer. The townspeople would think her a hero and she would be allowed back into the Order, surely), until the very same little, shitty kettle she had spotted earlier flew right past her head. Gwen didn’t even have a chance to duck. It clattered against the stone wall loudly, spewing scalding hot water and steam all about. Thankfully, her armor caught the brunt of it, though a few flecks nipped at the nape of her exposed neck and she felt a painful flush of wet air blossom against her cheek and eye. Without hesitating she lunged forward and tackled the offender. She didn’t have of a chance to get much of a glimpse besides a hunched cloak and some white hair.

Her shoulder made contact and the two hit the floor, Gwen’s plate and mail pealing against the stone like a muffled bell. She flipped herself over to throw him to the side so she could land face up. Whoever had attacked her fell by her side with a dull thud. She used the pause to grab at her sword and roll over so that it was against them in a warning. Gwen miscalculated this move, however, and instead of holding the sword to their throat, her adrenaline and weight forced her forward much more quickly than she had intended. The blade plunged into the figure’s middle like a paring knife into a mushy peach. She heard a weak ‘oof’, before she felt the give of steel against flesh. It took a moment for it to register that both of them had stopped moving.

She clambered away and regained her footing using the boiler to stand fully. The ‘necromancer’ was on the floor, staring at the ceiling with glassy, bloodshot eyes. It was an impossibly old man, clean shaven and white like porridge. He wore a fuzzy purple cloak and a blue, linen nightgown beneath. His middle was a burgeoning blossom of bright red, two sinewy legs poking out from beneath his sheer gown and thick robe, twitching in a way that reminded Gwen, once again, of the little black cat that slept at the foot of her bed back at the temple.

Remembering the sand imp, Gwen gasped and turned towards the stairs waiting for another attack. Instead, she saw the green thing poking its head around the corner, clutching the empty tea kettle to its chest and staring at Gwen with big, yellow eyes. Just like the temple cat, Pitch.

Neither she nor the creature moved. Instead it moved it’s eyes from Gwen to the dead old man and back a few times, before finally opening its mouth (to which Gwen could see that it indeed had sand imp teeth) and saying “Is ye the witch?”

The last thing Gwen expected to hear was a voice. Words, intelligible common! It even cocked its head, clearly surprised, clearly afraid, clearly upset but otherwise completely unmoving.

She didn’t answer. She was stooped, breathing heavy, and unsure how to even answer the question. So instead she stood up straight and opened her mouth, then closed it, then looked to the freshly dead man on the floor for an answer. Receiving none, she looked back to the imp and cocked her own head back it. “What?” was all she could muster, though the incredulity in her voice certainly carried other questions. The imp, a he based off the voice, which was scratchy and a bit high (yet so clearly NOT a child, she would have to hear it again to confirm how oddly inhuman yet…human it sounded) adjusted its stance in a way that suggested he was reminding himself of where he was.

“Ah. Er, Ah mean ye. He.” The imp pointed to the man with a shaky claw and let out a short, desperate kind of laugh, and then spoke so quickly that Gwen almost didn’t catch it, “Vern aye says the witch he mairriet fair go cum ben back fur his heid een day, sae, is ye her? The witch?” He retracted his hand and used it to clutch the kettle even tighter to his chest. “Ye're gonnae kill me neist? Gonnae get me head too!?”

Gwen didn’t get the chance to answer or even ask for clarification; the imp seemed to realize his own words and swallowed them faster than he had said them, and without any warning, he chucked the kettle, as hard as his little twiggy arms could, directly at Gwen.

This time she didn’t have the chance to duck.

Gwen saw stars. The kettle was cast iron, and the imp was stronger than she gave it credit for. It connected with her forehead and sent her sprawling back against the tower’s wall with another clang. Gwen threw her hands to her face, cursing loudly and sliding senselessly against the wall and floor as she tried and failed to gain purchase. The wet rugs bunched at her sabatons and the tea kettle kept getting caught underfoot and rolling her backwards. She heard, rather than saw, all four of his clawed feet scuttling up the stairs like a frightened dog beneath the sounds of her own struggle. With a scream, Gwen kicked the rugs free of her feet and the kettle clean across the room, shoving herself upright. The paladin screwed her eyes shut and threw her sword down.

“Come back down here!” she screamed, stepping over ‘Vern’s’ body so she could reach the stairs. She wasn’t expecting an answer. “I won’t hurt you!” Gwen added in a much quieter voice. That was partially true, she wanted to ask the thing questions, and generally liked to refrain from violence if it could be helped. Unfortunately for Gwendoline, it could rarely be helped, and her entire face was smarting. She waited a beat for a response and then began trudging up the stairs, ignoring the dull throb emanating from the impact zone throughout her entire head.

The chair she had seen earlier was empty, and she continued upwards to the third level, all the while speaking in as calm but loud a voice she could manage through grit teeth; “I need to know more about Vern, he may have been a very bad man! Let me ask you some questions, please, and I won’t take anyone’s head!”

The third floor was a bit less boring than the first two. The walls were covered by a bookcase, the wooden panels following the curve of the stone walls behind them. Each shelf was full of knick knacks and dust. Jagged chunks of crystal and spindly plant stems with fuzzy leaves, bird and fish and rat bones, metal instruments and trinkets and tubes set up in between all of the books. The shelves broke in the center of the room, an arched little cove cut into them where an oil lamp hung unlit. Beneath was a small table with various, incriminating things on it, like mortars and pestles and scales, all kinds of little glass vials and broken bottles, quills in dried inkwells. Enough to convince any layman of Vern’s profession, surely.

There was a latch door on the ceiling, but the rope ladder attached to it hadn’t been completely unfurled; instead it hung limply so that the rope was in a loose coil, stuck against the nail lock. The thing was still in the room.

Next to the stair entrance on Gwen’s right was a sad little bedroll, not even a cot, with bits of hay sticking out bellow the fur blanket on top of it. The blanket had a lump beneath it, and the lump seemed to have a long, pointed nose attached.

Even assuming it was out of tea kettles, Gwen didn’t want to alarm it. Instead of addressing the lump, she simply spoke with a steady, but softer voice, to the room at large.

“I am sorry if he was your friend, imp. I. I did not intend to…end his life. Honestly. He caught me by surprise. I am a paladin from the Order of Fragan’s Templar, to the north of Backwater. I was tasked to…investigate reports of a necromancer terrorizing the woods surrounding Backwater and the road to Capitol. I truly mean you no harm, so long as you intend none in return.”

The lump stirred, poking a claw out so that the fur could be pulled back to reveal a narrowed, yellow eye. This time, his voice was more level, accusatory even, than afraid.

“Seems like a gayand quick in-inspectigation.”

“Investigation. I was attacked.” Gwen bit back.

“Ah didnae hear ye cum ben in. Didnae hear anyain let ye in.”

“You were asleep. The door was open; I didn’t hear anyone behind me!” Gwen pinched the bridge of her nose, “I entered just to talk, but since it was dark I was on alert. I was told this man was very dangerous. I saw you and. Well, I became frightened!” She paced forward and stood before the bedroll, using a foot to kick the fur clean away from the imp. He remained bent over, looking up at her. “So, you are Vern’s…familiar? He was a practitioner of some sort, I see.” Gwen gestured to the room around her.

The imp sat up onto its knees, still staring up all small and pathetic.

“A wis his slae.” He said, simply. He seemed to chew the rest of her words over but remained silent otherwise.

“Slae-slave? Was he practicing the dark path?” She asked after a moment. The imp shot her a questioning look. “Necromancy! A wicked pact with some malignant force?” Gwen pressed.

“Uh, he. Ye mean, the witch? Fit path? The wids?”

“Did he raise the dead? Was your master some sort of evil wizard, or otherwise unlawful caster? Did he rob graves, steal towns children and sacrifice animals, consort with the spirits and the like? And please, annunciate this time.”

The imp seemed to understand this and nodded slowly, placing a claw to his lower lip.

“Nay, Ah dinnae think sae.” He adjusted himself to stand and crossed his arms over his chest as if he were self-conscious in regards to what he was about to say, “He mostly wrote mince doon in, uh, in books fur fowk fa couldnae reid. They’d pey him tae scrieve a lot, or make tae make queer balms an sic, stuff thon smellit odd or brunt bricht in jars, an sometimes he e’en conjured portals!” He relaxed a bit as he explained, seemingly distracted with his own tale, moving his hands about, “Or skin a coney--”

“A coney?” She had to pause this time around, though she initially noticed he talked a bit oddly, she hadn’t heard him say enough to catch the accent. Even still, it wasn’t familiar. Mostly understandable, when he talked slow. Perhaps similar to the Northerly elves at most, but very off.

“Jumpy fur craiter, wit the lang lugs an sic.” Fizzle mimicked whatever a coney was by grabbing at his large ears and making an unidentifiable face.

Gwen just shrugged, signaling the imp to continue.

“Deer too, but then he fair hae me skin it an take aw the coin an fur an then!? Guess on whit he dae. He’d gae an send it off tae the witch! He aye talkit aboot her! The witch! The witch I thoucht ye wis. But yer’re no? Yer’re no gyan…tae kill me, richt?” He finished, seeming to remember he wasn’t alone and looked up at Gwen like he’d just spilt milk.

Gwen found herself leaning in, even squinting as she tried to decipher just what the little creature was saying. She caught the gist of it all, up until this point, but he spoke so fast, and all of his words had a way of melting into each other, stumbling and lilting at the oddest moments. She almost wasn’t sure if it was common tongue.

She put her hand to her mouth and rubbed her upper lip. So. The man hadn’t been a necromancer. She eyed the imp a bit as it spoke. It could be lying, or perhaps not know the difference between a portal mage and a necromancer. She let his question linger in the air for a moment before regarding the creature with a sigh. Gwen at least understood that he did not want to die.

“No imp. I will spare your life.” She said, with a bit more monotony than she had intended. Had she not been so distracted with the current predicament, she might’ve found the way he perked up endearing, in a pitiful way. Like a pig spared the slaughter. But, instead, Gwen sunk to floor next to the imp (even when seated, it barely met her eye line) and pressed both hands over her mouth once more, staring straight ahead. “Vern. Vern was his name, you said?” The imp nodded. “Vern…did he have family? Friends, the like?” she asked from beneath her gauntlets.

“No…I dunno aboot the witch, bit, aside frae me an a puckle fowk, nae a body comes bi affen.”

“Fowk? Do you mean folk? The people. Like, towns people, from Backwater? Do they come often asking for things like portals and potions?”

The imp thought for a moment, his red irises rolling up to the side to regard a stray cobweb floating down in a beam of sunlight.

“Na, no anymore. Ah actually cannae remember fin we haed ane. Mebbe aroon lest hairst.”

“Huh?”

“Hairst! Neeps n pumpkins, ye ken?”

“Pumpkins.” She was losing patience. Luckily, Gwen dealt with her fair share of Northerners while posted at the wall, though the conversations were often limited to work related issues. “H-harvest? You mean the autumn, when the leaves fall?” Fizzle nodded excitedly. And in turn, Gwen nodded solemnly, then stood to pace in front of the imp. His head trailed after her movements. “Okay. Yes. We are getting somewhere, despite the clear barrier of tongues. And you, what is your name?”

“Fizzle.”

“Fizzle. Good. Yes. Were you, fond? Of Vern?”

Fizzle simply shook his head, a definite ‘NO’.

“He enslaved you, you said? Made you do things against your will and skin rabbits for no pay?”

“He foond me innae tree stump ane day an pit me innae sack! Ah was hidin an he still foond me. Ah dunno how! Ilky time Ah triit tae scowp awa faet, he wad aye track me doon an 'en dunk me intae the river till Ah cooldn’t stain it na mair!” Fizzle crossed his arms and huffed, looking away for a moment to consider his words before looking back up to the woman. “Aye, he did bad magick. But nae daith magicks.”

Gwen leaned forward excitedly, latching onto one of Fizzle’s words. “Okay, okay, so…would you perhaps say that he was a bad man? A mean man?” she asked, eyeing one of the many decorative squashes peppering the tower. It stared back at her.

“He wis mean an he lovit tae zap fin ah let kettle fussle afore fly cup. Een time he gart me boo like a bench, ower on ma hands an knees an he dane putten his feet on ma back, aw kis ah accidentally brunt his favourite stool!”

Gwen nodded eagerly as she walked around the room, and continued shaking her head to herself well after Fizzle had finished speaking. There was ample evidence supporting Vern’s ‘treachery’. From his choice in literature to the indentured servitude of a sick sand imp! Gwen was smiling to herself as she considered this: he probably enchanted the poor beast to make it sentient (and green)! She was sure the Order would not be pleased about that in the least. Truly a vile, vile man!

“Okay! Great.” She clapped her gloved hands together with a metallic smack, startling Fizzle; “Well, there we have it, my little friend! I came to investigate Vern. I followed the tips of the towns people, and two unscrupulous bandits who tried to accost me on the road here! They told me of his ways, how he had devils shooting fire from their hands. I entered his tower in search of him, just to talk! To confront him, and yet the coward attacked me without warning.” She paused her theatrics to turn and look at Fizzle, eliciting a nod from him which made her assume he was following along and compliant. “So I defended myself! And rightfully so, as I come to find, he’s put some sort of evil enchantment on you, to make you walk upright and wear clothes and speak as if you’re a regular halfling! What other forest critters he must have tortured!” Fizzle raised a brow ridge at this, but Gwen continued on, “The townsfolk will be happy to be rid of that man, of this I am certain.”

“Fit div ye mean, enhancement? On me?” he looked himself over, but saw nothing awry.

Gwen bit her lip. Was it cruel to tell a donkey it’s true nature? Certainly not if it, as donkeys ordinarily cannot understand you. But a talking donkey? Who ever heard of such a thing. Informing poor Fizzle as to what he was seemed akin to kicking a puppy begging for scraps. Needless cruelty (and Gwen had her fill of that for the day). But the imp just looked up to her, and despite her best efforts, she found herself relenting. She figured he deserved to know, and besides, she liked animals quite a lot.

“Well, you are but an imp, are you not? Never in my days have I encountered a walking, talking imp. Let alone a green one! And so far north.”

Fizzle was shaking his head before Gwen was even finished, “Am fae wye wye up north, past the waa.” Fizzle considered this for a second as he noted Gwen’s confusion, “The big, lang rock. Miekle rocks n sic! Man made.”

“The wall?”

“Aye! The waa. Vern wis buying dwarven wares n fit not, fin he fand me up near the mountains. Aire’s a lot o’ ma kin up aire. The caves an moors are ours. Belong tae us.”

“The north? The Great North, with dwarves?! I’ve never heard of sand imps living anywhere but south! In the salt flats and around the shores with those wild folk.” Now Gwen was shaking her head. “That would explain the accent, however.”

“Nae wi Dwarves, no, jis near tham. We hate dwarves an they hate us, an ah div nae ken fit the fuck an imp is, bit am a goblin, lady. A’ve nivver been faarer sooth nor here.”

“Repeat that last bit, where you just cursed at me.” Gwen asked, impassively. She was staring past the little thing, gears turning in her head trying to work out what he was saying.

“Err, Dwarves, richt? Sae, they hate me, an I hate ‘em. Dunno if they name us ‘imp’, bit Aim tellin ye, Aim a goblin.”

Gwen shook her head dismissively—semantics didn’t matter, and she was certain that whatever a ‘goblin’ called itself didn’t change the fact that it was an imp. She knew there were multiple tribes of elves who looked different enough from one another, and humans and halflings and dwarves had the tendency to range from an alabaster white to deep, rich browns and near blacks depending where they lived. Maybe sand imps weren’t just confined to the sands! Maybe they could be green?

“No matter, Fizzle, let’s just keep this between you and I. Those I answer too are not particularly fond of Northerners, and will have a much easier time understanding sand imps.” She filed away his strange account for later consideration; more important was the matter of staging the scene. Fizzle shrugged and continued to look up to her expectantly. It dawned on her that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. If the town’s excuse for law enforcement came to access the scene, they would surely want to get rid of the little guy. Gwen sort of pitied him. He had been helpful despite the kettle incident, and she didn’t exactly want to send him from his recent slavery straight to death. “But we will worry about that when the time comes. For now, I need your help.”

Gwen was not proud of this talent, no, but she recognized it as a valuable one nonetheless.

Over years of training under Thalodin Lldewig, she had learned many ways to…suggest things. Through dress, body language, gesture, facial expression, choosing words, and perhaps most importantly, through setting up bodies of evidence (as well as literal, dead bodies) to insinuate. Certain things. Many things. In fact, according to Thalodin, you could say just about anything, without actually ever saying a word. Things that may benefit him, and keep any officials outside (or sometimes, even inside) the Order from asking too many unnecessary questions.

Gwen didn’t like to think of this as lying. She detested lying. Every time she muttered even a white lie, she could feel the eyes of her patron saint burning a hole through her, even from a young age before she ever committed herself to the Order. But again, her mentor had the unfortunate habit of stretching the truth to such a degree that he was ‘forced’ to stage the occasional ‘crime scene’ in a way that may have ‘flattered’ him more than it should have.

It was something that took Gwen quite a while to come to terms with, but eventually, it rubbed off on her. She didn’t like to steal, to cheat or lie or kill, yet situations like Vern’s had been requiring her to do just that as of late.

She thought about her recent expulsion. The shame made her stomach sink and cheeks burn bright. But then the anger set in. Gwendoline was far from perfect and she was so keenly aware of this. It didn’t bother her, if anything it was a reminder and motivation to continue striving for grace; to earn redemption and pass it along to others who needed it more. There was nothing she hated more than injustice and while she knew it was not her place to enact revenge, seeing such wild imbalances in power such as the Elven nobility or even among her own temple’s magistrate made her blood boil.

So she killed an elderly man? It was an accident, and it was done. If she was smart, it could benefit her, and even Fizzle (though admittedly, she was far less concerned about that if she were being honest.) It would quell the minds of the townspeople and perhaps scare off whatever else was lurking in the wood.

She considered these things as she dragged Vern out of the tower. Fizzle helped Gwen to locate a wax dipped tarp Vern kept in the cellar. Together, they slid the tarp beneath his body and Gwen had opted to do the heavy lifting while Fizzle focused on cleaning. Once the blood was sufficiently cleaned and the floors decent, he was to collect all of the tea cups and gourds and doilies in the tower and put them in a sack. By then, Gwen would have staged Vern’s body; dressing him up in more practical battle attire and scoring the earth around their supposed fight stage.

#LONG #r

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bailesu · 6 years ago

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Ladies Legendarium April Story - Prompt - Not Wholy Shut in Books.

Even now my heart desires to test my will upon it, to see if I could not wrench it from him and turn it where I would – to look across the wide seas of water and of time to Tirion the Fair, and perceive the unimaginable hand and mind of Feanor at their work, while both the White Tree and the Golden were in flower!’ He sighed and fell silent.

- The Two Towers

If I ever see Feanor again, I am going to beat him like a redheaded stepchild.

-- The Chronicles of Aredhel (ignored by Pengolod in his works)

But he isn’t a stepchild.

-- Turgon in The Chronicles of Aredhel

The Untold Story Can Now Be Told Below the Break

Aredhel had not expected death to feel liberating. The pain was gone and she flew over a seemingly endless ocean; the strangest thing was the dramas which played out upon them, which seemed to all involve humans, and a few of which also involved Dwarves and Elves, though Orcs were more common than either of those.

She heard a song and she knew that voice, the voice of Nienna. Singing at the end of the world, accompanied by her brother Mandos, the great call which drew home to Valinor the souls of the Fallen. She did not want to go to Valinor, but she wanted to be free. Free of the alternating gilded cages and hells she had been trapped in by choices gone bad and things beyond her power.

There might be another cage in Valinor but for now, she flew free and she had not realized how much she needed it.

The call drew her to the Halls of Mandos, but strangely, no one seemed to notice her arrival; she flew in a window and wandered the halls in the form of a bird, unsure if this was some new ability she had gained or a temporary effect of the call.

But suddenly, she was weary, so she found a statue to perch on and slept.

In the way of her life, she awoke on the floor, returned to her normal form, only now she was translucent. Everything around her was so solid.

And oddly empty, as if it had been made to hold far more people than it now held. She could not have said how many days she wandered, lost in memories and her own thoughts, trying to find *someone*. Surely Mandos had not abandoned his halls or died. Where were the dead???

A light drew her; the bobbing ball of light floated around her as she studied a strange wall painting; it was very crude but lively, some poorly sketched hunters using spears and bows on animals. There was a life to it, a power, though it was *so bad*. Had a dead small child drawn this? But it was taller than she could reach and she was a full grown, if oddly crystalline, adult.

Even Thingol would have needed a ladder.

//Human Art//, the ball of light said to her mind.

//One of the Ainur,// she said softly.

//How did you wander into this wing? There’s hardly anyone here because humans only stay a little while, then go on to the Halls of the Creator,// the ball said. //They call me Illimix.// Beat. //They being the humans I tend.//

//I have never met a human,// she said softly. //Only heard stories.//

//They are so hasty,// Illimix said. //I will take you to the Elven area . Some of your kin are there, Lady Aredhel.//

She blinked. //You know my name.//

//It is written on your beautiful soul,// he said respectfully.

She followed him for a long time; all the art here was terrible, but there was a vividness and a power. If they had lived long enough to develop their skills.... but they died like flowers. Flowers on Arda, anyway.

Finally, they entered an area with much more beautiful art... but there was less life to it, though it was new to her. She greeted some she had known, but their conversations are not part of this saga.

Finally, Illimix led her to a room where a redhaired man and a redhaired woman were sitting and talking; many other translucent elves were listening. The woman, however, was solid, unlike the man. She knew them, Feanor and his mother Míriel Serindë. Arguably the greatest elf who had ever lived, if you valued creative vision and art, and his mother would have been high on that scale as well.

He continued pontificating on some idea he had come up with to infuse the essence of wind into wood, to create ships which could fly. He did not seem to notice her as she approached, but Miriel did, studying her cooly.

“Lady Aredhel, this is your uncle Feanor and your... step grand-mother? No, that’s not right...,” Illimix said, now speaking with words and getting a little agitated.

“It is good enough,” Miriel said. “Just call me Lady Miriel,” she said to Aredhel, surprising her. “Feanor, your neice is here.”

“I have no nieces,” he said firmly. “Father’s marriage to Indis was a sham and invalid. Now as I was saying...”

“The Valar approved everything,” Miriel said, frowning. “Like it or not, Finwe married Indis with my blessing, for it let me rest as I needed. I bear her line no ill will.”

“Did he tell you about how he abandoned us to die?” Aredhel demanded of Miriel. “How we had to walk through the ice of the Helcaraxe? How he burned one of his own children to death because he was too stupid to count? How the Trees could not be saved because he was utterly selfish? How his own father died because he was dumb enough to stand with Feanor, who only loves the works of his hands and nothing else???” Aredhel trembled with rage.

“Calm down, this is a place of peace!,” Illimix said, uttering a song of summoning to get backup.

“What have you ever made? What tales of yours will be remembered?” Feanor asked. “One day, I will be free of this prison and I will recover what is mine. You have nothing to recover,” he said harshly.

“You will be remembered as the Man of Blood, the Elf who let Morgoth into his heart and became a kinslayer, even of his own *child*,” Aredhel shouted.

What ensued would become known as the Great Beating, a legend which would resound for eternity, because though Mandos tried to prevent its spread, eventually those who saw it were released; it would linger with them for all of eternity, for Elves do not forget.

Sadly, even the Great Beating could not cure Feanor from being a smug bastard.

But Aredhel had to *try*.

-- The Chronicles of Aredhel

Frodo put down the book and looked at Bilbo. “Did that actually happen?”

“Well, tomorrow, we can go to where she lives and you can ask her yourself. Sadly, we will not be able to visit Feanor, as he is still bound in the Halls,” Bilbo said. “I know you would like to see your friend Boromir.”

Frodo stared at the floor; Bilbo’s house here was not a hobbit hole, but it was comfortable and comforting. “I must. But that must wait; I cannot cross all of Valinor like this.”

“You should read the whole thing, so we can both ask her questions tomorrow and see what is true and what is for fun in it,” Bilbo said, then fell asleep on the spot, startling Frodo.

But a good book and good kin, hot tea, and warm food soon sent Frodo to sleep as he wondered what Aredhel was doing now.

“Mother, I think it’s time for us to end the annual throwing of Father off a cliff in effigy,” Maeglin said to his mother. “I learned a lot about letting go in the Halls of Mandos.”

“So did I, but for him, I make an exception.” They could hear stone shatter. “And I had to do it today; the Ringbearers are visiting us and I wish to ensure you make a good impression on them.”

Maeglin feared that impossible, but his mother, who had always believed in him, for her, he would try anything. It was hard for an Elf to change, but he was trying, trying to be what she’d always hoped for him.

“You can’t throw them off a cliff if they compliment Uncle Feanor,” he said warningly.

“I can be subtle,” she said.

This worried him more than if she promised a cliff-tossing.

THE END

#Ladies Legendarium April #Aredhel #This one is for NC-Fan #Fanfiction #Legendarium

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thrandilf · 6 years ago

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So Distracting Ch 4

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000896/chapters/35060810

Anders didn't see Fenris for several days and counting after being walked in on the morning after by resident chantry brother Sebastian, who was more gracious about it than he imagined most chaste clergy would be. He tried not to fret, knowing Fenris was likely busy or needed time to himself. He tried not to imagine he'd scared him or somehow hurt him- he hadn't, right? Fenris certainly hadn't seemed pissed off and yet he kept himself isolated.

"Anders."

He groaned. He was grinding and mixing healing poultices with a mortar and pestle, trying to have some peace and quiet without the spirit in his head thinking at him. "Yes, Justice?"

"I don't understand how humans are so conditional day to day."

"Huh? How so?"

"Why do you write with more eloquence and work harder when the elf has recently used you for gymnastics?" Anders burst into laughter and Justice pressed on. "I don't see the correlation!"

"It's- oh Maker! Justice. This is too good- don't you inhabit my body too?"

"Yes, but the sensations between your legs shouldn't affect your mage manifesto. Explain it to me."

Anders giggled, reminded of the countless times the dwarf Oghren tried to ask Justice about his views on the horizontal hokey-pokies without ever outright calling it sex. "It's healthy, Justice. It's exercise and pleasure in one, and that's not even touching on how soothing it can be to be held and kissed. People have more energy when they're warm, well fed, relaxed, happy, and perhaps been to bed with someone. My head is clearer, although you might disagree."

Justice considered it seriously. "It isn't anger but well being that affects your energy? Your devotion and drive?"

"Well- it's both. Can't believe you Fade beings don't understand sleep and food and touch. Quality of life affects quality of everything. You do know you've been backseat driving in a HEALER'S head and learned absolutely nothing about my physical and emotional needs?"

Justice seemed to be thinking very hard. Spirits generally didn't like considering their point of view in need of change, even with such simple things as "sleep is medically NECESSARY TO LIVE". Anders realized that Justice only read his righteous anger as useful up to that second, and never other feelings of joy or mirth as anything but passing distractions.

"I apologize for misjudging your needs. I make it a point to not misjudge. I've only ever been one thing. I am blind to anything beyond morality and action."

"Well, I guess when you're a spirit who can opt out of sharing my taste buds delicious spices and hot meals don't mean much."

Justice shifted in Anders's mind, like he was about to make a profound declaration. "If your physical desires affect your mind and quality of health in this way, then I approve of Fenris and request you allow him access to you at least twice weekly."

Anders's hand slipped and his mortar and pestle clattered to the table and dumped his herbal mix everywhere. Anders pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes and spluttered. "WHAT?! Did you just- oh my GOD-"

"I fully approve of the elf. His physical routines regarding your body's libido have drawn out a much more effective and persuasive vocabulary in your writings. Perhaps not only his physique but his resistance against his own oppression is inspiring."

"Noooo no no no! Even /I/ don't fully approve of the elf! Fenris-"

"Judging by your efficiency levels and mood, he's most beneficial to you approximately every few days, although there were no negative side effects for having sessions closer than that. Perhaps he has need for more frequent bouts with you and would be agreeable to you servicing him thrice weekly. Why is your face so noticeably heated?"

"We're done. We're so done. First I was and still am the center of hot gossip in all of Hawke's friend circle, and now YOU'RE trying to PRESCRIBE me sex at routine intervals each week!"

Justice was confused again. "Schedules are good, are they not? They are a constant."

"Not for this! It isn't how it works!"

"Isabela sees an elf woman every Thursday at 8pm. Humans do well to schedule appointments."

"Fenris would be ghastly offended if I acted like he was a sex worker to schedule times with. I'll try to spend more time with him when he's sociable again, okay? I'll send something over to cheer the broody bastard up."

"Agreed."

"Then are you done?"

"No." Maker, Justice really was bluntly honest all the blasted time. "I inhabit you, yet you're reluctant to discuss this development with me. Why? Openness is key to our existence."

Anders sighed heavily. "Aren't there perhaps spirits of Embarrassment in the Fade for you to understand this?"

A rare laugh emerged from Justice's consciousness. "They never appear to anyone."

-~-

Fenris didn't remember painting his floor wine bottle green, but upon focusing his eyes he realized that it was simply more of the floor was covered in bottles where he was slumped against the bed than there was visible floor. He groaned and leaned his pounding head back against the bed frame with a sigh.

What was the use of blacking out drunk if he didn't wake up with any new insights? He'd made a hasty retreat, frightened of how Anders possibly felt for him. He lay low and tried to reason out his emotions, drinking and working out and sleeping the rest of the days away, frustrated and desperate to stay hidden away. Even despite his impressive fortitude, the idea of another drop of wine made his head spin.

He wanted Anders- a mage.

It couldn't be.

Fenris wasn't one to cry, even in physical agony he focused more on wrath than the pure spiritual pain. He bent his head forward against his knees, curled into his chest. A soft sob escaped him and he burst into tears, hiding his face. All he wanted was to try and be happy, and the horrors of the only life he'd known followed him all the way to Anders's arms. He didn't know anything about love. Fenris only knew having agency and power taken from him- an ability Anders undoubtedly had. A fucking mage who in heated moments, bragged about how wonderful it must be to be a magister in Tevinter.

Was he so stupid as to care for someone only out to hurt him or was it paranoia and fear that kept him alone? Fenris didn't know. Neither option led to happiness.

A familiar knock rang out on the door and Fenris tensed for a split second and immediately relaxed as his ears twitched from the footsteps. Hawke.

"Fenris? Hello?" Hawke opened the door to Fenris's room and in with him was the heavenly aroma of apples and cinnamon. "Oh, Fenris."

With anyone else, Fenris would consider attacking them until they left, but Hawke he could trust. Especially with a tray of something smelling so enticing. He lifted his head and Hawke set the glass pan down on the bed and slid next to Fenris, putting an arm around his shoulders. "Who do I need to kill?"

Fenris sniffled. "No one I couldn't kill myself."

"Is this about Anders? Can you talk about it?"

Fenris hadn't seen anyone in days and Hawke's warm presence at his side calmed him. He closed his eyes. "I'm scared of Anders." His voice was barely a deep scraping croak. "Not that I couldn't rip his body to shreds, but of what he's doing to me. If- if I give myself to a mage, or to anyone at this point, I'm terrified I'll do the wrong thing or let myself be owned. I don't want to enslave myself to someone or let him get too close and- and I don't know."

"Being in a vulnerable position is frightening."

"Hawke, what do I do?!" Fenris wiped his eyes. "Anders confessed wanting to be mine and how he wants me to feel cherished. When I'm holding him I feel protective and I want to touch him and see him smile. It feels unreal. I can't help feeling I'm being set up. Manipulated. Why- why do I care about him?! Is it even real?"

Hawke squeezed Fenris's shoulder. "There's a lot going on here, and I understand how overwhelming it can be. I've fucked up a lot of relationships back in Ferelden. I have regrets, but I'd never want to take back caring for someone. I'm pretty sure Anders doesn't have any ill intentions towards you, Fenris. If anything he's worried he drove you away. Anders, Merrill, and Sebastian baked that apple crisp because Anders wanted to do something nice for you and Sebastian was trying to teach Merrill about human food."

"Anders did?" Fenris inhaled deeply and his stomach gnawed with hunger. "But he sent you here with it?"

"Well, he didn't know what kind of mood you were in. What if you never wanted to see him again? He thought he must've upset you. The man doesn't have a death wish."

"Oh." Fenris shrugged. "I should've just talked to him."

"It's alright."

"I don't think any of this is alright."

Hawke leaned over close so their heads were together, still holding Fenris's shoulders. "You're one of my best friends, Fenris. I love you. I love you and I swear on my life I'll never let someone abuse you ever again."

Fenris wilted. "Because I can't tell if I'm being used or mistreated. Because you're a mage and I have to trust one of you will be decent."

"No. It's because people need their friends to care about them and watch their backs no matter where they came from or who they are." Hawke stood up and held out the warm pan of apple crisp. "Now, our lovers were very sweet in almost setting my house on fire. Merrill didn't get cinnamon on her nose for us to not eat this."

The apples made Fenris's mouth water and he wiped his eyes for the final time, sitting next to Hawke on the bed and the two of them diving into the most divine thing Fenris had ever tasted. The dessert was gone in under a minute and Fenris smiled, sighing with contentment and pure bliss as he licked his lips. "Good. Good yes good."

"Same." Hawke finished his bite and they sat together in comfortable silence. "How're your reading lessons going?"

"I don't have to pause as much, but it's still slow going," admitted Fenris. "My penmanship is even worse."

"I've got time."

-~-

Anders was relieved to see Fenris again the next day. Fenris nodded at him and their hands brushed together as they walked side by side. They traveled through Lowtown with Hawke, running errands and adding more tasks to their endless roster. Isabela and Merrill trailed behind them and Anders couldn't keep quiet.

"Isabela, why on earth did you place a bet on Fenris and I?"

Isabela grinned. "I wanted to sleep with him, so I decided any outcome he had would be to my advantage. To always winning!"

"Wait you- but why would you bet on ME versus yourself?!"

"It's simple- if I slept with Fenris, that's a win. If he slept with Hawke, I have endless teasing ammunition to throw at Hawke. So then to make you sleeping with him beneficial, I put a small bet on it so tada! I'm pleased with any choice Fenris makes."

Anders expected Fenris to be mortified, offended at the very least, but he just huffed with a smile. "I'm flattered- why did you want to sleep with me? Anders has given me a taste for hearing compliments about myself."

Hawke snorted and Anders blushed as Isabela spoke. "Lanky, pretty eyes, elfy, magical fisting, angsty haircut, enjoys a strong drink- need I go on? Anders is unfairly lucky."

Merrill had a curious look that filled Anders with anxiety. "What about Anders? Why not sleep with him? He's cute."

"Hello?????" squeaked Hawke with mock alarm.

Isabela playfully smacked Anders's butt. He grinned at her and then realized he should probably have protested until he saw the amusement in Fenris's eyes. Bratty elf had a soft spot for Isabela. "Been there, done that. The electricity trick was nice and Anders is- oh I'll let him have some privacy. Very good, but not my type. I prefer real gold to the stuff on your head."

"Um, thank you? I guess?"

Merrill thought for a moment. "Why not bet Fenris would sleep with me?" Fenris turned and gave Merrill such a withering look she giggled. "Oh yes, sorry. We get along very poorly."

Isabela flung an arm around Merrill. "9 AM on a Tuesday, care to go drinking after Hawke's done showing his junk to every shopkeep in Kirkwall?"

Merrill's giggles were infectious and Anders couldn't help laughing. Fenris tried to keep a straight face but a low chuckle escaped him. Hawke turned around with an attempt at a scathing glare. "I can't take any of you lot ANYWHERE!"

In the midst of the group's laughter, Fenris leaned to whisper to Anders, "My place, tonight."

#fenders #fanfiction #anders dragon age #fenris dragon age #my writing #long post

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ventrue-rosary · 6 years ago

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The Price of Privilege - Part 4

Part 1 || Part 3

City bounds came into view on the horizon when the sun hit its peak in the sky. A hot and unforgiving summer day, Amaranthe was grateful for the shade the looming gates and cluster of tall buildings brought, but the thought of entering sat ill at ease with her. The gaggle of a dozen people kept at bay at the cities entrance offered no comfort.

‘Void-father, what now?’ Reginald groaned. He dismounted Temperance. ‘Wait here, my Lady.’

He melted into the crowd, out of sight. Amaranthe climbed down from her own mount, feeling too exposed poised high above everyone else, even though they paid her no heed. They were too preoccupied trying to barter entrance into the city.

‘Excuse me?’ The woman she addressed turned to face her. A tall human with three claw-marks cutting diagonally across her face. A shield-maiden, judging by her attire. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘Admittance into the city is delayed indefinitely—for everyone. Even the traders can’t get in with their cargo.’ She nodded to Amaranthe’s left, where a carriage laden with boxes was parked. ‘But most of us have urgent business in the city—we’re not taking no for an answer.’ The shield-maiden looked her up and down. ‘Fancy clothes. You should be careful, lest someone peel them from your corpse. Name’s Helga. You?’

‘Where are my manners?’ She curtseyed. Narcissa would be ashamed at her lax regards to common courtesies. ‘Amaranthe Vaenna Darcelle.’

‘Ama-what?’

‘Just call me Amara. It’s lovely to meet you.’

‘Hmph. No one's ever said meeting me is “lovely”. Then again people I meet usually end up skewered on my sword.’

Reginald appeared at Amaranthe’s side. ‘My Lady, it would seem that…’ He spotted Helga and his words sputtered to a stop. ‘...Helga?’

‘Dragons blood, is that you Reggie?’ She grabbed his forearm and gave his arm one shake. ‘How the fuck have you been?’

‘I’ve been better. There has been so turmoil these past few days. Oh have you met my Lady?’

Helga smirked. ‘Oh *you’re* Lady?’

‘Not that way,’ he said quickly, flushing again. ‘I’m her royal protector.’

‘You protest too much. Am I that ugly?’ Amaranthe asked, unable to help herself.

‘No no it’s not that!! I just…’

Amaranthe broke out into giggles, Helga roaring with laughter.

‘I jest, Reginald, I jest.’ The laughter died on her lips as she remembered their situation. ‘Helga, I don’t suppose you could get us into the city?’

‘I was going to ask you for that favour, seeing as how you’re...Royalty?’

Amaranthe winced. ‘I’m not in favour amongst certain crowds due to my heritage.’

‘Bastard daughter of a Queen is still the daughter of a Queen. Certain privileges will be afforded to you.’ Helga shrugged. ‘It might be worth a shot? So long as you tell them I’m part of your armed guard.’

Amaranthe cast a glance at the guards. Tall, burly and intimidating. ‘I guess…’

She spun the signet ring she wore on her left hand anxiously as she approached them. They squinted at her.

‘Like we’ve told the others, half-breed, no entry allowed into the city at this time. Go back to whatever hovel you crawled out of.’

Reginald bristled at the insults hurled at her but Amaranthe held up her left hand. The golden signet ring on her ring finger glinted in the sun.

‘I am the heir of Queen Narcissa, and as you can see I carry with me her blessing. As law decrees, I have every right to request a meeting with the local digntary.’

The guard laughed on her face. ‘Dignitary? In Luskan? Oh you must be far away from home. By all means, go speak to our illustrious “ruler”. Biggest building. Right next to the gate.’ He continued chuckling as he opened the gates, allowing the trio entry.

As soon as the squeak of the rickety wooden gate opening was heard, the gathered people yelled and surged forward. The guards pushed Amaranthe inside, then slammed the gate shut. From the other side they heard indiscernible yelling and slamming sounds.

‘Well my Lady...welcome to Luskan.’ Reginald made a sweeping gesture towards the city. Immediately to their left was a large four-story house the guards informed them about. Th building looked like it was in disrepair, broken windows boarded up, part of the slating had fallen away and crumbled to dust on the street below. straight ahead a bridge over the canal cutting through the city streets led further into the city.

‘This must be the building the guard mentioned.’ Amaranthe stepped towards the wooden door, and knocked twice. No answer. She knocked again.

Helga wiped away the grime coating the sole window pane not blocked by wooden planks to peer through. ‘Place looks abandoned. Perhaps we were misinformed.’

‘With all due respect this may be a waste of time, my Lady. We should go speak with my contacts. I know where to find them.’

Amaranthe pushed herself up against the wooden door. It swung open under all of her weight. ‘We should. And we will. But first In would like to see and speak with Luskan’s nobility. It is wise for us to have friends in high spaces.’

The empty entry hall was choked in dust and cobwebs. There were three doors, one on each side, the third directly opposite them.

Amaranthe forged on straight ahead. She turned the handle and opened the door, and was greeted with a nocked arrow inches from her face.

‘Strangers aren’t welcome in Luskan. I would very much like to know how you got in. But first, state your name and business.’

She held her hands up in surrender. Reginald and Helga bared their weapons. Amaranthe glanced at the bow-wielder, a red-headed male elf, spite in his blue eyes.

‘Put down the bow, lad,’ Helga warned. ‘You’re outnumbered.’

He laughed. ‘Are you sure about that?’

Looking up on the balcony over-seeing the room, at least a dozen other arrows were aimed down at the three of them.

‘I suggest you answer my original question.’

‘Amara. These are my friends. I am looking for Luskan’s leader.’

The elf lowered his bow and but kept the arrow nocked in the bowstring ‘You’re looking at him.’

‘You?’ Reginald asked.

‘Yeah, me. You got a problem with that? If you do, my Rat’s will have a problem with you.’

Reginald shook his head. ‘No, not a problem. Just many questions.’

He turned to Amaranthe. ‘Answer for an answer. Rupert Grimshaw, Supreme Leader of the Rat Kings, and the protector of the fair streets of Luskan. The people look to me for leadership, and protection.’

‘A criminal.’ Reginald spat in front of his feet.

‘I prefer the title of “opportunist”,’ Rupert grinned. ‘And now I see three very big opportunities in front of me.’

‘Listen, we are looking for people. Can you just point us in the direction and we’ll go?’ Reginald said tiredly.

‘Let us not be hasty. The lady wanted to speak with me. What can I do for you, beautiful?’

She disliked the way he uttered the last word, and how his eyes skimmed down the entire length of her body. Amaranthe wanted to be away from his perverse gaze and fast.

‘It is as my compatriot says. We are simple travellers, looking for friends. As the ruler of these lands, you must be familiar with your subjects, yes?’

‘Travellers, you say?’ He pointed to Reginald and Helga. ‘They look damn well armed for travellers. And you...how much did that dress and circlet cost you? I wager the amount of gold they cost could feed this entire city for a week. Travellers, my ass. So how about the truth this time?’

Amaranthe froze up, her mind unable to conjure a story. She could sense the eyes above, watching them. One wrong answer might cause them all to loose their deluge of arrows down upon them.

‘Truth is, we are opportunists too,’ Helga interjected. ‘Our lady is the leader of her own group, Avarice’s Folly. We’re just here to reunite with our men.’

Rupert cocked his head at Helga curiously. ‘Avarice’s Folly? Never heard of them.’

‘We don’t operate in Luskan,’ Amaranthe said hastily. ‘We’re only here for our men.’

‘This...this child is you leader.’ He scoffed. ‘She doesn’t even have a sword.’

‘I am not a child. And I do not need swords, not when my compatriots are so skilled with theirs. I would not recommend testing their mettle.’

Rupert gave them all a look up and down. Then he thrust one hand up. Amaranthe held her breath, her eyes fixed on the archers above. Everyone here knew that at least one sword would cut down Rupert before the arrows reached them, but they would not escape unscathed. He slowly lowered his hand. The weapons disappeared from view. Amaranthe exhaled.

‘So, you have some names for me?’

#the price of privilege #the price of privilege part 4 #amaranthe vaenna darcelle #dnd #my writing

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feynites · 7 years ago

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Children

I wrote Thor: Ragnarok fanfiction.

I... don’t even know. It’s not even funny. (The movie is hilarious, though, definitely recommended.)

None of Frigga’s children were carried by her.

This is a thing she does not like to dwell upon. They are all hers, in all their faults and glories, their privileges and pains. Triumphs and mistakes. They have all been fed and soothed and rocked to sleep in her arms. Sung to and told stories, and loved more fiercely than they could possibly know.

But for a supposed Goddess of Fertility... perhaps it is peculiar.

For a Goddess of Love? Not so much.

Hela was the first. Odin went to war against the dark elves, by his father’s side, and from the battlefields brought back a babe. Bundled in blankets, small and pale, with Odin’s blue eyes staring back at Frigga. And her first though was betrayal. Sinking dread and anger and anguish, as she looked at Odin, who could not meet her stare.

“The mother?” Frigga had asked, cutting right to the chase. She and Odin had been married, but had produced no issue, as yet. They had only lain together a few times, though, and children were always difficult to conceive among immortals.

Or, they were supposed to be.

“Gone,” Odin said, simply. Gone. Not dead, not exiled, not anything more. Just, gone.

Hela had cried.

Frigga had looked at the little babe, then, and something in her had softened. Not for Odin; he would face her displeasure for a long while hence. But an infant could hardly be faulted for her father’s transgressions. It was not for Hela to decide whether to be conceived or born, and as Frigga carefully reached out and took the bundle from her husband’s arms, she knew it was up to her to decide what kind of life this child would lead. Whether she would spend the rest of her days paying for someone else’s indiscretion, or not.

“I will not pretend she is mine,” Frigga had declared. “But I will not pretend she is not yours, either.”

So she had said, and Odin had nodded in acceptance. Hela was the firstborn child of the crown prince of Asgard.

But in time, Frigga’s words had ruefully come back upon her. Hela was a sweet babe. No lie – she was eager and full of smiles, always ready to learn, always reaching tiny, chubby hands out to be lifted and held and offered kisses. She rarely cried, though she could scream her head off when she was frustrated. Her dark hair all in disarray, face red and fists balling, until Frigga picked her up. Then she would always stop. She liked to be carried, did Hela. It soothed her.

Frigga never pretended that Hela was her daughter. Rather, it simply became the truth of its own accord.

And if sometimes, she looked at the little girl and saw a certain shape to her ears; detected a certain dark quality to her magic, Frigga did not see why it should matter. She forgave Odin, and he swore to her that it would never happen again. Their next child would come from the both of them – though, Hela put back such plans, as did wars and conflict. Bor’s death, and Odin’s ascension, and Frigga’s increased reluctance to let her husband back into her bed. Forgiven was not quite forgotten, after all, and their once-easy passions had turned awkward in the wake of Odin’s betrayal.

Hela was not raised a bastard, though. Frigga would not permit it. Her daughter became the crown princess, and most of the common folk did not even know that she wasn’t trueborn. And that was that. If Frigga herself refused to make an issue of it, then no other member of the court could gain much ground with their objections, either.

And for years and years, that was Hela’s life. Princess of Asgard. Student at her mother’s knee. Frigga taught her daughter magic. Taught her manners, and weaving, and how to defend herself, with knives and with words and with all the authority at her command. Hela grew tall and sharp-featured, lovely but austere. She frolicked with the giant wolf pup that Odin brought for her, and she watched the Valkyries at their training with wide, wonder-filled eyes.

“I want to fight like that,” Hela confessed, as they sat by Frigga’s fires, working away at a new tapestry for the halls. “Someday, I will be queen. Asgard’s ruler must be a warrior, or our enemies will think us weak.”

Frigga hummed. It was a fair thought, she could concede. Bor had built their realm through strength of arms, and Odin was expanding it through the same. The bifrost was a mighty invention, but one subject to limitations as well. It had not always prevented invasions. When Hela was still a girl, Frigga had repelled a group of assassins herself, before carrying her from the palace in a flurry of bloodied knives and crackling spells.

“You could not join the Valkyries and keep your title,” Frigga mused. “But they serve the crown. If you would like instruction, I am certain one of them would be pleased to be your tutor.”

Hela had considered the prospect, before nodding decisively.

“Yes. That would be a good idea,” she decided.

Sometimes, in long later years, Frigga would wonder if it was her fault. If she should have diverted Hela’s attention. Should have learned her own lessons sooner, so that she could better teach them to her daughter. Lessons in the folly of conquest, the hollowness of war, and the lies of warriors. But most days, she knows better. A mother’s words can only do so much against the pressing weight of a whole civilization. Asgard’s ways were its own, and as crown princess, Hela would have always wished to embody them.

She was good. She learned quickly. Her magic was powerful, and Odin did not share his father’s disdain for the womanly arts. He encouraged Hela to make use of all the skills available to her, and when she proved herself ready and eager enough, he took her to the battlefields alongside him. Hela, riding astride her great wolf; rending her way through armies until their enemies began to speak of her as the Goddess of Death.

Until even Asgard granted her the mantle. That was when Frigga began to fear, though. Not Hela – but what Odin’s campaigns were turning Hela into. It was no idle thing for the people of Asgard to grant titles. And Death was a terrible burden. A solemn and complicated purview, which seemed to promise that Hela would carry the weight of battlefields and funerals with her forever more.

“It makes me strong, Mother,” Hela assured her. Cold hands closing over her own. “Death makes me strong.”

“You are your own strength,” Frigga had countered. “The titles others give us pale in comparison to the weight of our own choices. Never let them decide who you are, Hela. That right is yours alone.”

She had wanted her daughter to understand that there was always a chance to turn back.

Hela had smiled, and nodded in understanding.

But Odin’s take on the situation… differed.

“The rulers of Asgard draw their strength not from themselves, and not from their titles, but from Asgard,” he asserted, venturing towards them. He stared at Hela as a soldier, these days. It made him look like Bor. Frigga understood the necessity of it, of presenting the right face in public. But she thought he took it too far. He was Hela’s only father – at least in private, he needed to be her father. Not her king, nor her General.

But Odin insisted. He knew the throne, and the burdens of expectation. He knew what Hela would face, in the far, far future, when neither of them would be there to guide her.

Frigga deferred to his wisdom.

The elves, it is said, always had a propensity for binding themselves to their realm. To the lands they called home. To her dying day, Frigga never knew what went on, when Odin led Hela down through caverns and pathways deep within Asgard. But when they returned, Hela was much stronger, and Frigga could feel the change. The way the land answered to her. The way it sang in symphony with her heartbeats.

It reminded her, for the first time in years and years, that Hela was not her blood.

And it made her look at her husband again with the sting of betrayal resting heavy in her chest.

“Did you plan this?” she asked him, when they were alone. “An elf-blooded heir, to bind to Asgard itself? To make a weapon of?”

Odin was silent.

Frigga reared back, and struck him as hard as she could. And that was hard. The mark bruised his cheek, and even with the proper form, fractured her wrist. Odin took it in his hand, and she was too furious to flinch.

“Do you really think so little of me?” he demanded.

“Do you really think me that great of a fool?” she countered. “When I forgave you, it was for the ill-conceived passions of a hot-blooded warrior. It was for a tryst. A mistake is one thing, but this was no mistake.”

“It was,” Odin insisted. “It was a mistake. But one… one which yielded advantages. I did not plan for Hela.”

He was lying.

Odin lied as easily as he breathed, and Frigga would not pretend that she caught all or even most of his falsehoods. But this one she spotted. This one she felt, down deep in the heart of her own nature. Goddess of Love. That was what the people called her, and loved she did. Wholly and foolishly and truly, and so she knew it was not a lie when Odin said that he loved her. And she knew that it was a lie, when he promised he had not meant to betray her.

It was too much.

“I am leaving,” she decided.

“No,” Odin said. But it was not the denial of a king. It was the plea of a husband – and that, Frigga could ignore at her own discretion. The sting of it was simply too much.

She had not meant to leave Hela. Her daughter was newly come into great power, that was true. But she was also a grown woman, of rank and influence, who held the devotion of many followers, and was more than old enough to own her freedoms. Even if she stood at the heart of Frigga’s conflict with Odin, still, she was not to blame for it. Had she been thinking more clearly, had she the wisdom of great foresight, or knowledge of the future… she would have stayed. Even as furious as she might have been with Odin. She would have stayed, to help her daughter understand her power, to see the real choices that lay before her.

Back then, Odin was not a great believer in choice.

But she left. She left Asgard for the home of their allies in Vanaheim. For quiet gardens and places filled with contemplations, where she ruminated on the past and the future, on love and loss, on herself, and Odin, and the network of realms that was spreading beneath their feet. War and chaos and conquest. Frigga was no great opponent to it, she could admit that. She found battlefields unpleasant, and would often smile to herself as the warriors celebrated their great victories of arms, and think that they were oversold as compared to the victories of diplomats. The victories of mages, and those who moved mainly in the circles of women.

But that was not condemnation.

When next she saw Hela, the six realms under Asgard’s rule had become nine. Many of which yielded only with great and lingering hostility. Jotunheim was the most dangerous among them, particularly given that Laufey could carry winter to any realm he visited, and in so doing ensure that the conditions of his battlefields always favoured the Frost Giants. Though Asgard had claimed his realm, the king-and-queen had yet to acknowledge their throne.

Hela’s crown was strewn with icicles, and her eyes looked pale and strange. And she did not embrace Frigga in greeting.

“Your highness,” she said.

“Daughter,” Frigga acknowledged. The words merited a strange look; a tightening of her lips, followed thereafter by a hollow smile.

“As you say,” Hela agreed. It did not escape Frigga’s notice that the words were carefully chosen. As if Frigga was making a claim – but Hela herself was no longer entirely conceding the point. It felt like missing a step in the dark, though she kept her composure. They had spent years apart before. Hela had never hesitated to call her ‘mother’, but relationships hit upsetting points, at times.

Frigga had gone to Odin.

There was much to discuss. Though in the end, they had spent the lion’s share of their time in silence.

“Why does Hela not embrace me?” she asked, at length.

“…You left,” Odin says. “What was she to think? Her mother leaving her at the irrefutable revelation of her elven heritage.”

Frigga felt stunned. And she was beginning to grow weary of the sensation.

“I always knew!” she snapped. “That was not what drove me off.”

“And I have told her so. But she does not believe it,” Odin replied, weary-sounding. He had slumped, then. Sinking into the chair at his back. All chairs seemed as thrones when Odin sat in them, but that day, he painted the picture of a king over-burdened by too many things. And despite her anger, Frigga felt sympathy. Sympathy, and remorse.

“I have been gone too long,” she mused.

“You had every right to go,” Odin conceded. “None could fault you for leaving and never coming back. I waited for you to send word of your intentions to divorce me. Truth be told, it would have been fair.”

Frigga sucked in a long breath through her nose, and let it out in a sigh.

“I considered it,” she admitted. “I married a cunning prince. More the fool I, to think I would never be cut by the sharpness of your plans.”

Odin ran a hand down his face.

“Such plans. Such grand designs. My father’s glory – my own. My daughter’s. Of late, I have begun to wonder what is really coming from it all. My dreams are blood and fire. There is no peace. I thought I would do better than Bor. I thought I would bring an end to this all, one day. Unity and then harmony. Not perpetual discord. It is why I…”

“Why you killed him?” Frigga surmised.

Odin looked at her, and gratifying, it was his turn to look stunned.

She shrugged at him in return.

“I knew,” she admitted. “I always knew what you had done. It seemed fitting. Bor was an unkind father, and an unfit king. I would not speak so of him in public, of course. And I saw no reason to make issue of the act. You enjoy having your secrets – and I prefer to know them quietly.” And she is beginning to think that a fair turnaround may be to keep him wondering, on what secrets she knows and does not know.

Odin laughed. Only once, and ruefully.

“I underestimated you,” he conceded.

“It is a bad habit,” she replied.

Silence came again. But when it passed, she sat beside her husband. And even ventured a hand towards his own. This, she thought, she would never forgive him. And in the days to come, she suspected there would be more things that would fall into that category. More machinations that would cut her. But she was better braced for it, now.

And truth be told?

She liked being queen.

Not the noblest of reasons to forgive him. But perhaps that was why they made such a fitting pair, in the end.

“Trying to achieve peace through bloodshed seems like trying to dry your hands in the rain,” she mused.

“Well, it is not so simple,” Odin replied, with another heavy breath. He glanced at her, and then looked across the room. “Factions create discord. One king, uniting all the realms – but then enforcing peace. Bringing everyone together, rather than destroying each other in ever-escalating conflicts… it seemed a better plan than my father’s. One strong ruler. One great kingdom.”

“And you meant to make an heir powerful enough to hold it,” Frigga concluded. An edge to her voice, again.

She wanted him to admit it. Out loud. What he had done, to her and to Hela in the course of his machinations.

“I love you both,” he said.

“I am the Goddess of Love. I know,” she reminded him, sharply. “That is not what I asked.”

“…Yes,” he relented. But even then, he could not pretend to disapprove of his own actions. Even then, there was a glimmer of it in his eyes. Ambition. The beauty of the plan he had laid out. Oh, and it was clever. A child of elven and aesir blood. Bound to Asgard, and strengthened by it. And as Asgard’s strength expanded, so would hers.

“Your plan seems to be going well,” she determined. Settled, somewhat, by the admission. It wrenched at Odin to admit his lies.

“It has reached its limit,” he refuted. “Even with Svartalfheim as little more than a graveyard, nine realms is nearly more than can be managed. Our people do not replace themselves fast enough, and our soldiers can only be in so many places at once. I have begun to permit Vanir into the ranks – controversial enough, even with Heimdall serving as a laudable ambassador, and loyal subject. But we can scarcely recruit frost giants or trolls or full-blooded elves. Imagine the likes of them being revered as Warriors of Asgard. I might as well sit Hela’s wolf on the bloody throne.”

And yet you certainly do not seem to mind fucking them, Frigga could not help but think.

She was much too well-mannered to say it, of course.

“So. Move to the next phase of your plan,” she determined.

Odin inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“Until your return, that had seemed as if it might be impossible,” he admitted. “What is required now is diplomacy. Treaties. Jotunheim will still be a matter for warriors – for Hela and myself. But if Nine Realms is more than we can hold through strength of arms, then we must find other means of establishing order. Diplomatic overtures. I must make some, of course, as King. But you… you are my better in that field.”

Despite herself, Frigga did find the flattery effective.

“And so my return is fortuitous,” she concluded.

He looked at her again.

“I ask that you serve on behalf of the realms, to create peace,” he said. “But I will not ask that anything between us be… hastily resolved.”

It was not an ideal resolution, perhaps.

But, it was a start.

Frigga took her leave of her husband, and sought out her daughter again. She found Hela in the armoury. Admiring a new weapon of hers, amidst the stark lights of the chamber. Her hair was down, and shorter than Frigga had last seen it.

“Weapons break in my hands now,” Hela said, as she approached.

Frigga chuckled, just a little.

“I imagine you present a worthy challenge for the smiths,” she noted.

“It is certainly honing their skills,” Hela conceded. Finally, she turned towards her, then. “Are you afraid of me, Mother?” she wondered. The name seemed to slip from Hela without conscious thought, if the way she swallowed afterwards was any indication.

Frigga smiled, and something in her unclenched. Just a little.

“I fear many things, Hela, but when it comes to you, my fears are for you. Not of you. A mother’s prerogative is to worry,” she declared, and moved closer. When Hela did not object, she reached over and tucked some of her hair back. “You cut it,” she noted.

“Actually, no,” Hela admitted. “It was burned on the battlefield. All I did was trim off the singed edges.”

“You could regrow it in an instant,” Frigga pointed out.

“Oh, Mother. That would be dishonourable,” her daughter replied. “A warrior who cannot defend their parts does not deserve to keep them.”

So the saying went. Frigga was pleased to find that her daughter’s character, though colder and more distant, had not changed that much.

“Well, if that is your choice. Perhaps you might let me braid it? There is plenty enough still, and I have missed sitting with you in peace.”

Hela’s expression wavered a moment. But then it grew more distant, again.

“Some other time, perhaps,” she decided. “I have a busy schedule. War waits for none, not even I. And there are many necks lined up for the execution block. A crown that cannot hold its territories does not deserve to keep them, either.”

Frigga hesitated.

“Execution block?” she asked.

Hela raised her eyebrows.

“Indeed. I am the King’s executioner, after all. A fitting rank and title for a Goddess of Death.”

That news did not suit her. Frigga frowned, and Hela took a step back.

“That is grim work,” she noted.

“It has its perks.”

“I would say that it is beneath your station,” she ventured, reluctant to sway from her point. “Did your father decide this?”

“We agreed upon it, at my suggestion,” Hela said. “Death can be a waste, at times, but the territories have been growing bolder. Better to cut off one head to make a point, than to have an open rebellion and hundreds of lives pointlessly lost instead. Death is a warrior’s calling, in the end. To imply that an executioner holds an ignoble position is to discredit the very foundations of Asgard.”

Frigga hesitated.

“The foundations of Asgard are death?” she asked, carefully.

Hela regarded her for a moment. And then she turned, and gestured towards the doorway that led to the crypts. To where the warriors of Asgard were indeed… buried in its foundations.

“Do you truly believe otherwise?” she replied. “Or do you just prefer not to look it in the eye?”

A fairer question than Frigga might have anticipated. And one which remained with her, long after the conversation had ended. It was a question that itched the back of her skull, that weighed her conscience, and constricted her heart, when Hela interrupted peace talks on Alfheim by charging on the elven high city. Fenrir tore a high priest limb from limb, but the act only served to rally the elves and end negotiations with the delivery of a sword. A declaration of war, and Alfheim’s intention to break free of Asgardian rule. Odin’s orders for Hela to stand down went ignored – and Frigga’s own voice seemed hollow, useless, as she endeavoured to fight a tide that seemed determined to sweep everything away.

A tide which rushed over Asgard, when Hela seized control of the palace.

She is not wrong, Frigga found herself thinking.

That was the strangest part.

Her daughter was wrong in many ways, but, this… this was the Asgard she had been raised to lead. This was how she had been trained and brought up. Odin’s daughter, Odin’s weapon. Frigga’s daughter. Frigga’s sweet girl. She was the Goddess of Death, and she was the crown princess of Asgard, and nothing else could make sense to her except that death was the key to ruling. That all she was doing was trying to preserve what she had been told was most important, in all the realms.

The throne, and her place on it. Her ability to hold it. Keep it. Deserve it.

“And so it comes full circle,” Odin mused. “As I killed my father, and supplanted him, now my heir seeks to do the same.”

Frigga wanted to close her eyes.

She fought to keep them open. Staring towards Asgard, as the last Valkyrie fell from the sky.

“Let me go to her,” she asked.

“No. She will kill you,” Odin said, with finality that assured her that he was convinced on that point.

“She is only doing what she believes she must. Someone has to show her that there is another path,” Frigga insisted. “I am not a weakling, Husband. I taught my daughter her tricks and spells. Let me go to her, or I will never forgive you. I swear it. If Hela falls I will never forgive you.”

Odin looked at her a long moment.

“Then you will never forgive me,” he declared.

But in the end, he underestimated her again.

The trip to the palace itself was easier than it should have been. The risen dead do not see well even when their quarry is not invisible. Frigga moved like a shadow, and pulled her magic to her. It was a deep well. She had never tapped into the whole of it – there was something frightening about such a pool, with no bottom in sight. Only the stretching darkness, a yawning thing that put in her the fascination of wondering what it would be like, if she let go and fell completely into it.

Her better sense knew it would not lead to good things, though. Love could be as inevitable as death, and as maddening as chaos.

Still. It was there, at her fingertips, as surely as magic had ever been at her daughter’s.

Frigga had woven love into every tapestry they had ever made together. The threads would always lead her to her child. But, it made it more difficult than not to hide from her, too.

In the palace, her illusions failed her, as she came to the throne.

“Mother, dearest,” Hela greeted. Stained with the blood of the Valkyries she had once admired. And likely still did, at that – it was by Odin’s orders that they attack. It was by Hela’s nature that she fight, to keep her throne.

To deserve it.

“My daughter,” Frigga replied. “Do you feel betrayed?”

Hela hesitated. And when she looked towards her, there was a surprising openness to her expression. A hope, lurking in her eyes. Despite the hardness, despite the death and destruction, the brutality and the viciousness. There was confusion, too. A question, pressing at the girl Frigga had raised. Everything she was doing made perfect sense. It was all she had ever been taught to do.

“I am betrayed,” Hela replied. “Father has grown weak. He has no stomach for battle anymore. He should step down – I would have let him step down. If he no longer has the strength to do what it is needed then it is only right that I ascend to the place that has been promised me.”

“And then what?” Frigga asked. “You are not an empire in and of yourself, my sweet girl. Fear and death cannot hold every realm in the cosmos.”

“They have held nine so far,” Hela argued.

“And they are strained by it,” she countered. Then her voice softened. This was her daughter, this was her child. This was the girl who had stolen her heart, the first time she laughed. “Listen to me. I know the sting of betrayal. When your father first brought you to me, I felt it. But there is a reason for everything Odin does…”

“No!”

Hela’s lips thinned, and her jaw clenched.

“Hela,” Frigga attempted, but her daughter shook her head.

“No, do not dare defend him,” she insisted. “You weak-willed, foolish woman! Some queen you have made, letting that man disgrace you for so many years. What did you even marry him for, if not to see your own child sit upon the throne of Asgard? But instead you have spent centuries raising his bastard, raising his eldest when I am not even yours! Do you think I will listen to the counsel of so simpering and pathetic a woman as you?”

The words cut like the knives she had taught her daughter to wield.

“I am your mother,” Frigga insisted, voice cracking.

Hela’s eyes were bright and hard and her hand trembled around the hilt of her blade.

“Liar,” she whispered, just before she threw her weapon.

It struck a wall of magic, as Frigga’s hands gleamed, and she reached for the deepness of her own strength. She was only one chance. Her magic could stop Hela, could save her, where destruction would otherwise be inevitable. Her daughter was strong, but she had forgotten too many of her mother’s tricks. Lost in the tide of wars, in the simplicity of strength and the scale of terrible battles. Frigga wove illusions, and evaded attacks, and when at last her daughter began to counter her spells, she pulled up others. The palace shook, not from the strength of rattling blows exchanged, but from the wavering of reality as magic flooded the halls.

Frigga tried.

But Hela’s strength was bound into the firmament of the very ground they stood upon. Asgard was an anchor that no illusion could best for long, and no barrier held, no trap stuck, when the realm around them resisted it so well.

The fight ended as Hela’s blade at last struck true, and Frigga felt the cold star metal bite into her breast.

Another shock.

The spellwork melted from the walls around them. Hela stared at her with wide, blue eyes, and before she could slump to the floor, her daughter reached out and caught her.

“No,” she said, then. “No, no, wait, no – Mother, wait, no-“

The blade came out again, more painful than it had been going in. Hela’s hand burned as she pressed her magic to the wound, but the healing spell was weak; and the pressing weight of it all seemed to drag Frigga downwards, instead. Down deep waters even further past the well of her magic. The doors to the palace shook, and Hela’s face was pale.

One chance, to save her and Asgard as well. If Odin fought Hela, the only outcome would be one or the other’s destruction. Perhaps even both, given how tied their daughter was to the realm.

“You cannot die,” Hela was whispering. “You cannot die, no, listen to me, you cannot die, you have to stay here, stay here and help me, please…”

Help.

Help her daughter.

Frigga closed her eyes, and rather than reaching up, she reached in. She was bound to her daughter and her daughter was bound to Asgard, and Asgard was built on death. Death, beyond, the lingering space of the lost souls. Like a hollow between the roots of a great tree. She could not reach that place. But with the waters of magic, she could flood it. Lifting a doorway up to the surface, to where the air broke open and a portal stretched open.

Escape route.

The palace doors broke.

Frigga’s limbs felt like ice. Blood pooled around her, and the winter blue of her daughter’s eyes vanished from view.

She did not remember much else, before she woke in a healer’s chambers. Weak and uneasy. Her mind wavered between awareness, memories disjointed, melding with dreams and an urgent sense of panic, that had her rising too hurriedly from her sickbed. She felt wrong. Weak in too many ways, all at once, and she could not recollect why, but she knew she had to find her daughter. Her frightful urgency carried her through the halls until finally Odin had caught her, and bodily carried her back to her sickroom.

“Hela, where is Hela?!” Frigga demanded.

“Hush,” he soothed. “She is safe. I promise you, she is safe. We are all safe, now.”

“I want to see her!”

Odin took her face between his hands.

“I know,” he said. “I know, my wife. She is your daughter and you love her, and it is only right that you should see her and reassure yourself of her well-being. But you cannot go to where she is. I promise you, I swear it on the throne, no harm will come to her where she is now. You must trust me. And you must calm down – you have been gravely injured, and your magic… you have depleted yourself beyond what I would have considered survivable, Frigga. It is only by the grace of good fortune and timing that you are still alive.”

His words soothed her. She could feel some magic in them, drawing her towards calmness in turn. But where, ordinarily, she would shrug such things aside, instead she found herself simply drifting along with it. Her breaths evened out, and her heartbeat slowed. As Odin brushed her hair back from her face, she calmed.

It took days for her to recover enough to actually get an explanation out of him, however.

Hela had been banished. To a realm which she could not reach, a place sealed by Odin. It was, in his words, the only solution. Their daughter was exiled, but alive, untouchable to those who might seek vengeance against her, unable to continue her assault on Asgard’s people.

“What is it like, this realm she is in?” Frigga wondered. Thoughts spinning, tilting – listing oddly in her head. Hela was a grown woman. Hela was a little girl, who climbed into her mother’s bed whenever bad dreams assailed her. She needed soft lights and warm blankets, and her Fenrir, and she needed to be stopped, and… and…

“It is her realm,” Odin told her. “It is a place entirely of her own making, her own corner of Asgard.”

“Is she alone there?” Frigga pressed.

“No,” Odin said. “Others pass through. I do not know that all of them will be friendly, but none will ever be as powerful as she is there.”

In the end, his assurances were enough. They had to be enough – they were all that Frigga had. Even as her body recovered, and her thoughts became more stable, her magic refused to replenish itself. Where once there had been a well, instead there seemed to be only a great pit. At times she felt drained, even when there seemed to be no reason for it. It took years before she could cast even simple spells again, and always, they tired her. Always it felt as if she was wrestling bare fragments of her strength away from something else.

But whenever she thought too long on it, her mind would end up elsewhere. And she would forget, until she recollected and then forgot all over again. The sight of Hela, the mention of her name, would bring it back. And she would wonder, until she found herself running in circles again.

Even without being able to focus upon it, she knew who was responsible.

What did you do to me? she needed to demand of Odin. But her husband was on Midgard, fighting Laufey and Ymir, earning the esteem of the strange mortals which dwelt there. She sent letters, or perhaps she only imagined them. The responses which came back never seemed to answer the questions she had thought to ask, though she could rarely recollected what, in specific, she had written down. The palace was badly damaged, and so renovations were made.

Hela was unpopular, for obvious reasons. Her image was covered up. Domed ceilings painted over with fresh, blank canvas. Tapestries taken down, paintings moved into the depths of storage. Frigga did not forget her daughter. But after a time, it began to feel as though she did not quite remember her, either.

When Odin comes back, I will ask him, she told herself.

What she would ask him remained unclear. But perhaps that was something she would know when she saw him again.

But when she did see Odin again, it was as she answered his request that she meet him on Midgard. And when at last she arrived at the place of his choosing – a wide, sunlit field at the edge of an ocean – he was holding a bundle in his arms.

Hela, Frigga thought, irrationally. Before Odin could speak, she rushed forward and took the little babe from him. Blue eyes stared up at her, and for a moment, her heart broke in relief. For a moment, reality did not matter – she had her daughter again, she had a chance again.

But then her gaze landed on fair wisps of hair. Fair. Not dark. Her thoughts stuttered, and reality asserted itself again.

“What is this?” she asked.

Odin bowed his head. Reaching out, he rested one hand carefully atop the baby’s.

“His mother is a Midgardian deity. Gaia,” he asserted. “She is tied to the essence of this realm, but not in a way that would ever pass to her offspring. I promise you, this time, there was no planning on my part. The dalliance was… well. I do not intend to excuse it. To explain, perhaps. I was lonely and she had a similar countenance to you. A wild divinity. But no interest in parenting a single infant, when her instincts towards motherhood encompass the better part of an entire planet.”

Frigga stared. She did not know what she felt. Perhaps it was a horror too profound to describe; perhaps it was anger too deep to name. Perhaps it was despair, and maybe it was even coloured by a strange sort of hope. Whatever it was, it was too much to articulate. For one perilous moment, she nearly tossed the baby into the sea.

But then she looked at him again.

It still was not the baby’s fault.

“Does he have a name?” she asked.

Odin let out a breath, and retracted his gentle touch.

“I had not presumed to give him one,” he admitted. “In truth, I had thought of hiding him from you. But I know you, and I know you would think that worse. You may keep him, if you like. Or I shall find another place for him. A place where he will be cared for.”

Frigga closed her eyes, and held the baby. And in the rush of it all, she wept. She had thought – had truly thought, for one moment, that it was Hela. It is not; and yet, in a sense, it is. Another baby, brought to her by Odin’s betrayal. Another infant whose future will now depend upon her decision. To accept, or cast away.

It was not, in the end, a decision she required much time to make.

But she made it differently, this time.

“He is never to know that he was not carried by me,” she said. Looking at the sea, rather than either the infant or the man. “Do you understand, Odin? You bring me as many bastard babes as you like, but once you do they are mine. I will take him to Vanaheim, to my place of seclusion. And you will tell all the court that I am with child, and make it so that time will hold this infant in stasis for a year. Then I will emerge with my baby, and none will be permitted to question it.”

Odin was quiet, for a long moment.

And then he bowed his head again.

“You are kinder than I deserve,” he said.

“This is not a kindness I do for your sake,” she informed him. She could not even rightly say if it was a kindness at all. A fear, more like.

“I know,” he assured her. “And yet, it is still true.”

Odin placed the spell upon the babe. His deftness with magic was growing, where her own only seemed to be diminishing. It nagged at her thoughts, that disparity. But not in a way she could properly grasp, before other, more pressing matters asserted themselves over it.

She named her new son Thor.

In his cradle he slept for a year, while Frigga checked upon him frequently, and ensured the spell was holding well and causing him no harm. She rested, and felt as though she was wading through a long dream. In her actual dreams, at times, she envisioned fights. Battling Hela in the palace of Asgard. Battling an elf she did not know, in her daughter’s place. Protecting something. Someone. Searching for someone, too. She dreamed of walking like a ghost through the lines of the palace holding cells. Inside, there was darkness. She dreamed of blue eyes looking down at her, and a voice calling for her. No, Mother, no, don’t leave me. Footsteps, running. Tiny arms reaching up to her, up and up from a darkened place. But no matter how she ran towards them, no matter how she reached, she could not draw her child back to her.

When she woke, she felt heavy. As if she had spent the long night crying. But her cheeks would always be dry.

And then the year passed, and Thor was woken from his stasis sleep.

Frigga brought her son back to Asgard, where they were met with jubilation. It was much different from Hela’s arrival, which had come with whispers and rumours and uncomfortably averted gazes. None doubted that Thor was Frigga’s son. Just look at his fair hair! His apple cheeks! Thor was loved, loudly and exuberantly, and with an edge of inexpressible relief.

A trueborn heir, people thought. Surely that will go better.

They said it without saying it. Mention of Hela was… it was not done.

And in fact, there were days when even Frigga struggled to focus on the memory of her child. But still, she lingered. A ghost that would not fade.

Part of Asgard. Always.

Thor had her eyes. Odin’s eyes.

Not two years after he had delivered Thor into her arms, Odin pressed another babe into her grasp. One with green eyes instead of blue – and oh, that would often strike Frigga. That the child born of ice should but the one without any of it in his stare.

“You lay with Laufey?” Frigga guessed. She was surprised; not that Odin would do it, but that the Jotun king would. Their people could sometimes be inexplicable, though. Strange and unyielding in one moment, and shifting away to something else in the next. Physically. Socially. Laufey was a king one week and a queen the next; though in Asgard, he was always referred to in the masculine form. Such was the preference of the Aesir.

“No,” Odin said.

Frigga looked at him, and let her skepticism show.

“This babe is half Aesir,” she noted. Nothing else would explain the strange confluence of abilities, the shifting of his – or hers? Perhaps ‘their’? – little form. But… green eyes did not run in Odin’s line. Nor were they ever heard of in frost giants. Frigga had some green in her line, but, that was neither here nor there at the moment. It was fortunate as a cover, but obviously, she had not been running around Jotunheim with Laufey.

“I do not know who sired him,” Odin said. She did not suppose he had much reason to lie about it. He had become more subdued, since Laufey took one of his eyes. “I found the babe in one of the giants’ temples. Slated for sacrifice, no doubt. I have never seen a child so young display magic so great.”

The babe fussed, and Frigga paused in their talk to soothe him. Thor was napping; he tired himself out playing with some of the larger gems and jewellery pieces in one of Frigga’s chests.

When the new little one had quieted, Frigga regarded him. An ache already growing behind her ribs.

“He is born of two worlds,” Odin said. “Of such things are peace treaties born. An heir of Laufey, raised in the house of Odin…”

Frigga looked at him, and he trailed off.

Her own eyes had their fair share of ice, when need be.

“And so your thinking was to bring him here, raise him in Asgard, and then… what? Send him back to rule Jotunheim one day, in deference to your throne?” she surmised. “For someone of a wise reputation, Husband, you are keen to repeat past mistakes.”

Odin’s brow twitched, as it did when a mark hit home.

“I would not have thought you one to consider her a mistake,” he said.

Hela. Say her name, Frigga thought. But for some reason, she did not think to voice her complaint out loud.

“She was not a mistake. No more than this little one is,” she said, instead. Looking back down at the babe. Unable to keep from smiling, when he blinked curiously back at her. “But if you wish to go through with this, you know my stipulations. He will be a second son. You will put him in stasis, and I will go and take Thor, and sequester myself again. And I will not permit you to deny him any rights or dues that would be afforded to any other second son.”

“People will wonder if you leave again. It is more uncommon for a new mother to vanish without attendants, with a young heir in her arms,” Odin countered.

“I am sure you will think of a grand explanation,” Frigga replied, serenely. “Or else, you will give Laufey back his heir, my dear Son of Bestla. I know the people of Jotunheim do not sacrifice their children.”

Odin did not seem so resistant as he might have been, had she truly upended his plans. But then, he had known her for as long as she had known him. And the guilt in him was a true thing, at times. Not true enough to stop him as often as she would like. But enough to give way to more than he might otherwise agree to.

At length, he inclined his head.

“I have taken the treasure of Jotunheim,” he asserted. “Without it, the realm will deteriorate. It will take centuries. But it will still decline. I do not aspire to repeat my father’s choice towards the dark elves. If Jotunheim is to survive, its treasure must one day be returned. This child could be the saviour of an entire realm. A king. A great diplomat and statesman, there to herald a new age for-”

“He is a baby, Husband,” Frigga interrupted. “And we shall let him be just that. Hm?”

Odin quieted, with a rare, wavering moment of embarrassment.

“…For now,” he agreed.

So Frigga took their new son, and Thor, and retreated again. It was not so tidy an effort as the first one, however. Several of Odin’s guard had been there when he first found Loki. They knew the ruse. And Heimdall, of course, knew all of it – but Frigga trusted his silence. Still, rumours spread, and with them disquiet followed. Thor was bright and energetic. Whatever influence a Midgardian immortal’s blood had upon him, it was very difficult to discern from a typical Aesir child. The first time he changed the weather, none but his mother even guessed it was his doing. Watching him cry in the midst of a great downpour, after being told to come inside from a game he did not wish to see end.

Controlling the elements was a rare thing, among Aesir. Not unheard of. But… very rare. Odin himself was the only one she had ever known to do it. And he owed that gift to his mother’s line.

But no one even hesitated to attribute Thor’s inclinations to his father’s blood.

Loki was different.

The dark-haired child, the rumoured bastard, who Frigga loved so dearly. So clever and eager to learn, with his streak of viciousness, contrasted with a honeyed tongue, and a desperate need to be loved. Frigga felt more protectiveness for him. Thor was safe anywhere in Asgard. But Loki was treated differently, and he knew it.

Frigga knew it, too.

She wanted to tell him. But the thought always came and then went with no action taken upon it. It is not you, she would think to him, when gazes would awkwardly skitter away from him. When the guards would look at him askance, and the older members of the council would tell him to be quiet, where they might indulge Thor’s own eager suggestions to them. It is not you, my son, they are not seeing you…

No matter the reason, though, all of Asgard expected Loki to be trouble.

And her second son was an accommodating child. He did not like to disappoint anyone.

“Do not hurt your brother,” Frigga scolded, with a rare severity for her youngest, after the first time Loki stabbed Thor.

Loki’s expression fell towards contrition.

“It was an accident, I thought he was wearing his enchanted vest…” he said. But she could see the lie in his eyes, and the contrite expression failed as his lips twitched. Thor was alright, of course. Fully mended and enjoying several treats as a reward for good behaviour at the healer’s, and very clearly planning on asking Frigga for a pet snake in the future.

Her dreams filled with a serpent, and an ocean, and a golden-haired man fighting until the both of them were dead.

She was not planning on getting Thor a snake.

Reaching out, she took Loki’s chin, and tilted his head until his gaze met her own.

“If you are going to be a liar, my son, you are going to have to be a much better liar than that,” she told him.

His expression turned uncertain. Well – he was her son and he was Odin’s son, after all. Amazing enough that his siblings were as straight-forward as they had been. Sooner or later at least one child was bound to inherit their shared capacity to distort the truth. Loki had learned much, she suspected, simply from watching his father, with those keen eyes of his.

“Come with me,” she decided.

“Mother?” Thor chirped. Cookies finished, it seemed. “Can I have a –”

“No, sweetheart, you cannot have a snake,” she told him, and had to endure watching his bright face fall. “But I have heard that one of the healers’ cats has had kittens. Perhaps, if you finish your studies without getting into any more trouble this week, we might get you one of those instead.”

Thor’s face lit up. He was fond of most animals, really. Snakes, cats, rats, hounds, boars, foxes, deer… wolves…

She closed her eyes for a moment, before turning back to Loki. Who was watching her; as ever.

Taking his hand, Frigga led her son through the archway to her own personal study. It was a room which Thor tended to avoid. Not that he disliked reading by any stretch – he loved stories of all kinds – but he was not permitted to run in libraries, and that severely curtailed his inclination to linger in them. Loki preferred them, perhaps for that very reason. He watched curiously as Frigga gathered up the books she needed. A History of Asgard, and Battles of the Nine Realms, and Warriors of the Aesir.

Motioning at her youngest son to sit, Frigga set them up at the library’s little table. She brightened the lamp there with a snap of her fingers. And as always, Loki watched the magic with open fascination.

“History books?” he asked, uncertainly.

“Yes,” Frigga said. “Fiction is a lie which everyone knows is a lie, and agrees to pretend is true for a while. Magical tomes will often be filled with tricks or missing information. Or mistakes. But to see the true craftsmanship of liars, there are no better books than history books.”

Her son blinked at her.

“History’s a lie?” he asked, and sounded skeptical of the notion. “Which history?”

“Well, that is the question,” Frigga replied. “How do you know when someone is casting an illusion spell, if you do not see them cast it?”

Loki considered the question. Accustomed to her style of teaching.

“Sometimes they do not get all the details right,” he said. That was something Frigga was teaching him in his own magic. How to get the details right.

“Exactly, perfect,” Frigga commended. Loki smiled happily, and she moved the lightest of the three volumes towards him, first. “Lying is the same. You have to get all the details right. The trick with history, of course, is that you cannot lie about all of it. So there will be places where the details fail to align. If you can find me five lies in these books, then I will tell you how I figured out that you stabbed Thor entirely on purpose.”

Her son’s self-satisfaction wavered, as her own tone shifted. He finally had the grace to actually look abashed, then.

“It was not anywhere vital,” he said, instead. “…He fell for my trick.”

“Thor is easy to fool, because he loves you,” Frigga explained. Something in her chest twisted unexpectedly, at that. An old hurt. Old enough that she had not expected it to twinge again. And something else, something nagging at her. Pulling at her. But, when she tried to figure it out, she was left only with a hollow note of exhaustion.

Her magic never had really recovered from… from, that incident.

“Mother?” Loki prompted, brow furrowing.

Frigga smiled, and his own expression eased.

“Find me a few lies,” she reiterated. “You will have time to read, considering that you are not going to be allowed to cast any spells for the next two weeks.”

“What?! Mother, no,” Loki protested.

“Yes,” she countered. “We have been over this, If you are going to misuse your magic, then you are not going to be allowed to do your tricks.”

Loki groaned and wheedled and did his best to look hopelessly wronged over the matter, but Frigga did not budge. She would tolerate a great many things from her children, but stabbings went too far even for her levels of indulgence. And eventually, her youngest gave up his hopeless crusade, and did indeed set about applying himself to the books she had found.

Books with gaps. Loki needed to know what she could not find the words for.

Perhaps he could discover it for himself.

None of Frigga’s children were carried by her.

Years upon years later, she thinks of that. As she hides a girl, a girl with a connection to something dangerous, with darkness inside her and power and so much cleverness. Sweet girl. Frigga’s magic has never recovered, but she still has it. Still knows how to deftly use what is there, to protect what she must. It has all gone wrong again, she thinks. Has been thinking, even as her thoughts have grown scattered and strange and harder to express across the years.

There is always a reason.

Your father always has a reason.

But it is not always a good one.

She hears Thor’s shout, when she falls. She feels herself sinking. Down and down, falling through the empty well again. There is not enough of her left to hold on. Odin’s hands brush her face. She can feel him, feel sorrow.

It feels like a long exhalation, from a breath she never knew she was holding.

Oh.

She sees it, then. Sees herself, and her daughter, and Odin. The gateway she had opened, to a place between places. One of many. What she had, in her delirium, meant to be an escape route. She sees Odin fight. Sees him push Hela through the gateway, and seal it behind her. Binding it; his blood, and her…

Her magic.

Oh, you bastard.

She tries to pull him through. Drag him into death, too. Let the gate break. Hela, Hela…

Love is many tethers. As she slides away, she knows that she cannot take Odin with her. But oh, she tries. Oh, she calls. Her magic follows her at last. Spilling away; weakening the opening, and flooding through with her to the places beyond . Valhalla, at last.

What terrible parents they have made.

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