teofse

Title: Forbidden Fruit.
Author: Teofse
Rating: probably NC-17 by the time it's done.
Pairing: Fandral/Loki
Genre: Slash. Romance.
Word Count: 6119
Warnings: Unbetaed. This is a WIP. Post Avengers AU. Disregards Thor: The Dark World in its entirety.
Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. No money is being made out of this work.
Summary: He is forbidden fruit to me. He is hopeless longing. He is the most bittersweet dream I've ever dreamed and the one treasure my status as a lowly warrior of this golden realm will never allow me to grasp.

Forbidden Fruit.

Jotunheim has greatly changed since the last time I set foot on it and the difference between my nightmarish recollection of the wind-ravaged wasteland of my memories and the peaceful beauty of the frozen glacier where the power of the Tesseract -which has been magically shrunk and is now encased within the metalwork that adorns the base of Gungnir's sharpest tip- has set us down both alarms me and leaves me wondering what has happened to this realm since that thrice accursed incursion.

Despite the fact that there's no soul in sight and that we appear to have arrived in some sort of deserted little valley far away from any sign of proper civilization, there is no doubt in my mind that something incomprehensible has happened here. Something... benign. Something that has as little in common with a brutal and unexpected attack meant to exterminate an entire race as a tender kiss has to the cruel lash of a whip.

Thor's blue eyes widen as he takes the scene in, clearly struggling to reconcile the very same memories that haunt me to the icy beauty that surrounds us.
“Is there any chance that the Tesseract has guided us to the frozen deserts on the west side of Vanaheim, father? My mind can't associate this landscape with the Jotunheim I remember.”

The king's lone eye surveys the valley with the same kind of terrifying focus that often brings his entire court to complete and utter silence without his explicit say so. A muscle twitches on his jaw as his lips press tightly together before he finally shrugs away whatever has displeased him with a contemptuous arrogance that both appalls me as a warrior and amazes me as a man.

“The Tesseract has lead as true. There are signs of frost giants everywhere I look. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if we were being watched as we speak. We may have come unannounced but our arrival can hardly have gone undetected by whatever passes for security detail around here.”

That simple statement leaves both Thor and me shuddering with equal amount of unease. Our gazes rake the pristine blanket of snow that covers everything in sight with newborn wariness, attempting to catch those clear signs of frost giant presence that the king speaks about, without success. My gloved fingertips curl around the hilt of my sword almost unconsciously and it isn't until the Allfather's displeased sigh makes us both jump where we stand that we finally manage to tear our wary eyes from the surrounding landscape in order to look questioningly at our inexplicably calm leader.
“You will both remove your hands from the handle of your weapons and sit upon those boulders with me. We may be being watched by skilled warriors of a race we do not trust, but we have come here in peace.”

My throat tightens in absolute rejection of such ridiculous course of action and my heart begins to pound with the knowledge that every instinct I posses is urging me to disobey my king's direct order before we are all slaughtered where we stand like a small pack of witless boars. Anxiety digs it's merciless claws inside my gut and cold sweat begins to bead at the top of my spine, commencing it's slow and nerve-wracking descent down my stiffening back as my shocked gaze tangles with Thor's, begging him to say to his father what his lofty station as the man's crowned heir will allow him to say without fearing a future spent in Asgard's hellish dungeons for daring to be sincere.
“Those boulders are low on the ground and utterly unprotected from a rearward attack. Abandoning our challenging postures and back-to-back shielding stand in order to sit ourselves in the most vulnerable position we can find like a brainless trio of exhausted, old men would only cripple us by making us look weak and giving all the advantage to our enemies.”

Odin's lips compress even further, mouth becoming thinner and thinner until it ends up resembling a white line that betrays utmost displeasure. His face is pale with anger and his lone blue eye fairly blazes with the fire of his rage, but he takes a single deep breath and studies his firstborn with the kind of somberness I'm most used to see him direct at Loki before pointing out curtly:
“We have come here in peace, child. Better swallow our pride now and allow those who are observing us to believe we are nothing but a brainless trio of exhausted old men than lose the chance to speak with whoever is in charge, as is our intention. Pointless bloodshed may be relatively easy for us to achieve, but it won't answer our questions.”

“We won't get any answer whatsoever if they strike us down here, father. And they will at least try, for their last interaction with us ended with their king murdered in cold blood and their realm struck with the power of the Bifrost.”

“Loki's actions may have been ill-judged, but they weren't all that cold-blooded. We were at war at the time, a war your own thoughtless incursion into this realm started, Thor. Do not tell me you've forgotten that already.”

Whatever my dear friend may have been about to say to that is cut short by the distinctive whistle of a single ice-tipped arrow as it cuts trough the air, passing merely an inch to the left of the king's right ear in unmistakable warning. Thor whirls around, growling loudly into the empty vastness that surrounds us, but that's all the reaction his father allows him to show as he circles his wrist rather harshly in a move designed to hinder his instinctive reach towards Mjölnir.

“We. Have. Come. Here. In. Peace.” The king grits once again in his heir's ear and I wish they'd picked another time to disagree on a point that could so very easily decide whether we live or die. Thor's frustrated roar shakes a few long icicles off their high perches, making them tumble around us with the kind of muted twinkle that would have easily masked the whistling of another arrow, had our enemies decided to let one lose at that particular moment.

My heart is in my throat as that thought lodges in my brain and my eyes rake the deceptively empty landscape with the growing realization that we are easy marks for whoever has dared to warn us. I'm blind to their location and so is Thor. They could easily overpower us with their long range weapons before we get close enough for our own to be of use, and I'm hoping that the fact that we are still breathing is more proof of my king's wisdom than consequence of our enemies' desire to 'toy' with us before they strike.

Nothing happens for a long time after Thor's enraged roar dies down. We remain standing for a moment or two before the Allfather drags us both towards the unprotected boulders where he forces us to sit with nothing but a commanding gesture and a stern look that only a fool would have dared to ignore. Whoever is out there doesn't lose another arrow, but doesn't dare to approach us either, and I'm left to wonder if there's really more than one Frost Giant watching us or if my gut is churning with the fierceness of full battle for a single and maybe even unskilled archer.

'Loki would have known the answer to that question.' I think in a moment of unguarded wistfulness and the fact that I know for a fact that my sorcerer prince would have been able to sense whoever is out there long before they attacked us leaves me resenting his absence all the more.

He'd have mapped our enemies' positions and the weapons they carry within the first two seconds of arriving and we wouldn't have been left here blind and wondering whether it's safer to risk acting now or wait. He would have simply known. He'd have decided on a course of action and we would have followed it through without any second-guessing whatsoever because Loki never failed to guide us true through every possibly peril with the kind of awe-inspiring self-assuredness that often led us right to victory, regardless of the fact that we were always distressingly blind to the importance of the role he played in our little escapades, and only started to realize how directly our success rate had been linked to his presence after his fall into the abyss had left our merry band thoroughly crippled.

“We're as useless as blind dragons without Loki. Our might is chained by our inability to perceive what his senses would have so easily picked up, if only he were here.” Thor whispers suddenly, echoing my own thoughts with such remarkable accuracy that I turn to look at him.

The king is sitting between us, as stern and stoic as a sculpture in a temple, but his knuckles have turned snow-white with sudden tension and his lone eye shines unhappily.
“I have never had the pleasure of fighting alongside your brother, Thor. Recent times have been too peaceful to declare a full out war and I never took enough interest in your youthful escapades to accompany you, as I should have. I've witnessed his prowess in the field of battle strategy, of course, but never saw him in action. Never cared to see him, either, despite my awareness that he would have greatly enjoyed being given the chance to show off his skills. I was too proud of his success in the field of scheming to risk facing disappointment when it came to his physical strength. I thought him weaker than every other warrior and couldn't make myself accept that truth. I was ashamed of his... shortcomings. Yet he never lost a skirmish before Midgard, and he fought in all of them.”

His father's words haunt me as they pierce my every defense, for I have always considered my love weaker than myself or Thor or anybody else, really. Everyone dismissed his skills as a true warrior centuries ago and none had the sense of keeping that opinion quiet when it mattered. We often called him a coward, an argr, a trickster to his face, blatantly dismissing his every effort and contribution in our campaigns. We used his reliance on magic to deny him a share of the glory we wouldn't have earned without him and ended up driving him away. Lost him to whatever madness made him choose the horrors of the abyss over us not through his own weakness but through our own unforgivable foolishness.

I sit stiffly on my boulder and can't help but ache for the past I can not change. For the brother-in-arms I so thoroughly failed and the sorcerer prince whose unique skills I dared to dismiss even though I've always benefited from the victories they earned us. I was not the only one who did that, of course, but I was the only one bold enough to claim to love him with a depth that should have never have allowed me to fake such thoroughly convincing scorn towards his person. Unworthy... How many times did I dare to call him such a thing when it was never him, but I, who should have worn the title emblazoned like a brand across my forehead? How can I think my emotions worthy of Loki when they've always failed to choose him? How can I look at his father and brother right now and claim to love him more than my own soul when I've never stood up for him or even by him? When I've never dared to raise my sword in his defense or my voice in recognition of the fact that I, Fandral the Dashing, I'm proud of the man he is?

An hour passes in utter silence as we sit and ponder equally gloomy thoughts. I'd bet we all miss him with similar fierceness and are equally afraid of failing him once again, now that the Norns have given us this blessed second chance. Time crawls by excruciatingly slowly until the quality of the light begins to change and not even the thickness of our best winter coats can stop the frigid cold from finally getting to us. Sunset approaches and with it dangerously cold temperatures draw ever nearer and my self-preservation finally kicks the self-pity that burdens me so in the teeth as it blazes suddenly forth, reminding me of all the things we should have done already, but haven't. We've failed to hunt for nourishment or seek shelter in the nearby caves. We've failed to gather whatever wood is there to be found in this godforsaken valley. Failed to scout the landscape for forgotten animal tracks that would have given us crucial insight into what sort of beasts roam the area in the dark...

“Do you think they will let us die here, victims of whatever crawls around under the light of their moons?” I finally ask my companions, wondering if I should rise and explore our immediate surroundings, attempt to gather at the eleventh hour the branches we've failed to collect, for something is always better than nothing and late is still acceptable enough a time to start acting, as long as there is breath and life within one's body.

“They will not. They wish to see us squirm, that's all. I am a king and my heir is right beside me. Jotunheim can not afford both the diplomatic and no-so-diplomatic repercussions it'll have to face for letting us perish here through no fault of our own.”

“They could always claim their guards detected our presence too late to assist us.” Thor points out gloomily, making his father laugh mirthlessly.

“That would mean they have a way to shield their actions from Heimdall and, so far, there is only one creature in the Nine Realms able to do that.”

“All roads lead to Loki, don't they?” I whisper under my breath unhappily, heedless of both the company I'm keeping and the common sense that urges me to remain as close mouthed as possible about my feelings. The king eyes me thoughtfully and I wonder what he seeks when he does so. There is something in his expression that I have never seen there before. A quiet hope. Unending worry. A sorrow that probably matches my own, even though its nature must be as different from mine as the sun is from the moons.

“They must now, for he is the reason we're here. Tell me, young Fandral, regardless of what has happened between the two of you in the past, would you willingly walk down a road that won't lead you to my son?”

My heart shrinks inside my chest as that simple but oh-so-very-hard question weaves itself around my senses. Every last drop of my pounding blood knows the answer instinctively, but the truth in this case hasn't been enough or even fair to Loki for a very long time. I can not in good conscience lay now claim to a future togetherness I once so thoroughly rejected. I can't use his father's willingness to repay my 'courage' during his trial to shackle my prince against his will. Or at all. I squandered that right almost as soon as Loki gifted it to me of my own free will, after all.
“I can't walk down a road that's been barred to me for centuries and I dare not challenge the reasons why Loki decided on such complete estrangement. I forsook the right to do so freely. I would not make the same choice now, but I doubt the Norns would care.”

“Why did you let my son go, if you love him so? Why didn't you think him... enough?”

The cold air freezes in my lungs and my throat closes so tightly that, for a panicked second, I wonder if it is indeed possible for a god to perish of heartbreak. I've been questioned many times before by beasts ten times more dangerous that my king will ever be, but then this is not a beast, but a man I deeply admire. A warrior king whose courage in battle is as legendary as his wisdom in peace. I, like many men in Asgard, have spent my entire life attempting to emulate the Allfather. Losing his regard would be a crippling blow to my pride but I know not the right words to answer his query without reminding him once again of my lowly roots, and lying to him is unthinkable.
“Loki was always enough. I'm the one who wasn't.”

“What nonsense do you speak, my friend? You're one of the finest warriors of the realm. You must have brought home ten kingdoms worth of loot in the last five centuries alone! Anyone at court would have been crazy to scorn your hand, if offered.”

Thor's clear outrage on my behalf soothes some of the pride that my constant awareness of my less than impressive origins so often wounds. I'm aware that my friend's assertion would have proven to be correct had my heart been wise enough to choose anyone in Asgard but the man it settled for: a king's child. A mighty sorcerer. One of the most beautiful and intelligent creatures to ever walk under Yggdrasil's shade.
“I'm the son of a peddler. I've learned the charm I'm so famous for at the knee of a cheat who wandered the realm aimlessly and survived on barely legal scams and the favor he often courted with his good looks. I have no title to my name. No land to call my own. No noble blood at all. I am a man of the sword. Honorable enough for plenty of people but not so much for a prince of Asgard. I know my place, Thor. I have always known my place, and it's never been anywhere near Loki's hand or heart.”

“Did my son cast you away with such words or did your own head whisper them treacherously in your ear while he waited for a sign of your commitment? Despite his station in life Loki has never shown much interest in his equals. I find it hard to believe that he would have dismissed you so, if he cared enough to bed you and, if what you claimed the last time we spoke about this is true and you were indeed his first lover, then it's obvious that Loki clung to his virginity like a miser clings to gold. And he gave it to you without any strings attached. Those actions alone, coming from such cautious, secretive soul, tell the kind of story that should have never ended in estrangement.”

My breath hitches as his father's words hit me with the power of all truths that are unveiled way too late. I have never, in all these years, dared to even imagine he could have come to me out of affection rather than a healthy dose of curiosity and the vague desire to be deflowered by a so called 'expert'. Now the idea that he may, just may, have once dreamed of a life spent beside me, as I have so often done myself, is simply too unbearable a thought to contemplate and I choke out a barely audible:
“Then I'm twice the fool, am I not? And I certainly don't deserve a single shred of the Norns' rare enough mercy. Loki has no reason to forgive me and I have no right to demand a second chance after failing so spectacularly to choose him.”

Night is falling around us, helping me cloak my openly sorrowful expression among shadows. My blunt words hurt me beyond reason as I release them out into the ether, letting them bring my deepest shame to life as I sit there and wonder what my life would have been like if I only had more courage when it mattered the most.

“You chose him spectacularly enough during his trial, child. You, literally, saved his life. If that doesn't earn you Loki's willingness to listen then I doubt anything can.”

“I didn't choose him then. I finally owned up to a truth I should have never kept hidden. Looking at it from that unflattering perspective one can hardly expect your son to be even marginally impressed by my actions.”

Odin laughed with amusement and shook his head from left to right, smiling quietly to himself for a brief second.
“I see you're as stubborn as Loki himself is, and too full of pride for your own good. You won't pursue him now because your honor won't let you, isn't that what you're trying to say? You failed to choose him when you first bedded him and now believe yourself too unworthy to request a second chance.”

“It's not a matter of pride but of trust, your Highness. How can I expect Loki to ever believe my claims of love when I leaped from his bed to that of a pair of wenches without so much as an outward twitch of conscience? Such actions, and the words that followed them, can neither be undone nor forgotten and their memory will forever taint every future interaction between us. The path that would have lead me to Loki is no longer open to me. I would happily sacrifice many things for a chance to change that truth, but nobody is handed the opportunity to truly choose or reject the same person twice in a single lifetime, so...”

“What if I were to tell you that you could indeed do so? What if I said that Loki is no child of my loins but the son my heart chose a long time ago? What if I were to confess that your lover isn't even Aesir? That I concealed his true appearance with magic and he only ever found out about his heritage by accident, shortly before his fall? What if I dared to say that he's truly a...”

“Loki wouldn't want his secret thus exposed, father. He was distressed enough when he found out that I've been told. I know not how he would react to the reality of having his true nature exposed to the eyes of a former lover. A lover he no longer trusts, no less.”

Odin's lips thin with clear displeasure at Thor's challenging interruption. His blue eye closes in the familiar bid for patience that I've witnessed plenty of times cloud his strong features in his interactions with his youngest child, but have never, ever, seen cross his face in his dealings with his firstborn.
“Loki's true nature is the sword he'll use against us as soon as he wakes, Thor. You heard his words at his trial: he never once called you brother. He dared to address me as the Allfather.”

“I'd just brought him back in chains. He was acting up against us, showing logical amounts of disbelief towards our apparent desire to protect him. Loki is suspicious by nature, father, but he'll have no other option but to trust our intentions when he wakes to find himself completely free and the entire realm on the brink of war for the purpose of avenging him.”

“If you genuinely believe such thing then your lack of insight into your brother's soul should shame you.”

“Father...”

“Loki will wield his true nature like a weapon against us. He'll use it to keep us at bay, allowing it to become both shield and wall between us. He'll twist it into the Norns only know what nightmarish half-truths to isolate himself further and reject us on the grounds that he's never been one of us. If there is a chance for Fandral here to see that past the horror of blue skin and deep red eyes that your brother so despises lies the same heart he claims to adore, then we may have one more voice to help us fight against such nonsense.”

Something clicks inside my mind as those words render me silent, shedding bright light where up until now there had been nothing but shadows, and my breath halts inside my lungs as my heart freezes with one single, awful, realization:
“Blue... Loki's new thread is blue.”

My companions turn sharply towards me, a unique trio of blue eyes that has never before now held much in common stares right at me with identically guarded expressions as my lips struggle to shape the unbelievable truth my head is reeling with:
“There is only one creature of blue skin and deep red eyes that my sorcerer despises: A giant... He's a frost giant.”

“Mind your words in this instant, Fandral the dashing. Mind your thoughts and your actions. Mind your every emotion, for this may be the only chance you'll ever have of righting your past wrongs when it comes to my son.”

The king's warning reaches me as if through a thick veil of both shock and utter disbelief. My eyes close as the bitter taste of bile rushes up the back of my throat, making me feel sick to the depth and breadth of my being, and all I'm able to think about in this instant is the memory of Loki's childish face so long ago, looking as pale and drawn as my own must look right now after having woken from a nightmare in which a rogue group of frost giants had, somehow, managed to capture him.
“His greatest fear... He's turned out to be his greatest fear. Why? Why did you teach him to dread his own race, if you knew what he was? I could never understand why you insisted on telling him all those stories about the raiders of Jotunheim when you knew they frightened him so. He never listened to us when we tried to tell him there were other, nicer, stories. He dismissed our words as mere comfort.”

The allfather must have aged five whole centuries in the last minute alone. His lone eye looks dull with bottomless guilt, but his mouth is a thin line that betrays neither malice nor the pride of a man who acted wrongly just because he could. He looks both fierce and determined to earn his own chance to right his many wrongs.
“I didn't have any other option. I knew the magic I used to conceal his true heritage would unravel as soon as he came in contact with a member of his own race. Put yourself in my shoes for just a second: I. Stole. A. Child. In. The. Midst. Of. War. I didn't do it out of greed, or pettiness, or even vengeance. I did it because something in that babe touched me profoundly. I have loved Loki like my own flesh and blood since the first moment I held him and I didn't want him to ever discover the truth. I thought making him fear his own would protect him. Keep him away from the frost giants forever. I never imagined he'd have enough courage to approach them, or to follow Thor into battle against them. I never imagined my own strength would fail me at the worst possible second or that the fear I so carefully fostered throughout his entire life would end up making his accidental discovery all the more traumatic.”

“He must have gone to the vault-room seeking the casket and you had no other option but to confront him there. That's why you fell into the Odinsleep in such inconvenient location.” I whisper quietly, racing mind finally bringing together the scattered pieces of a puzzle that has eluded me for so long: Loki's odd reaction to Thor's banishment. His father's sudden collapse. His uncharacteristic decision to attack Jotunheim when he's spent all his life trying to convince his brother to use the power of diplomacy over brute force to solve conflict.

“Yes.” The king confirms equally quietly, raking my features with the kind of intensity that only rattles me further and I know not what I would have said or done, if the Jotuns hadn't chosen that very second to finally make their move. One instant we were all alone in the darkening valley and the next we were being blinded by the light of a dozen small fires, bursting to life as one ice arrow after another suddenly landed on what we had so far assumed to be icicle formations on the ground but turned out to be some sort of flammable bushes.

Thor and I try to rise as soon as we realize what's happening, but the king wraps strong hands around our wrists, holding us in place.
“Save your hotheaded reactions to fired weapons for another day. They are just lighting up the area in preparation for a formal approach. We can't afford to look threatening at this point. We have come here seeking aid.”

My fingers release the hilt of my sword as reluctantly as Thor releases Mjölnir's handle and we both twitch with barely restrained animosity when our wary gazes detect movement straight ahead. The sound of metal hitting metal accompanies the chilling sight of a dozen heavily armed frost giant guards approaching us head on and cold sweat begins to bead at the base of my neck as soon as my eyes register the sheer size of them. The shortest must be at least 20 feet tall and they are all, save two, as corpulent as Thor.

They come to a complete halt in arrow-tip formation, close enough to kick us all in the teeth, if they feel like doing so, but far enough to be well out of our weapons' limited range. I stare curiously at their undisputed leader as he/she/it studies us with the same sort of displeasure I'd have used to examine animal excrement, and it's not until the giant moves its head ever so slightly downwards and to the side that the achingly familiar gesture that I've seen my sorcerer prince use a million times before hits my still reeling mind with an even more unpleasant realization: this creature who is standing so challengingly before us is somehow related to Loki. I can see it now in both its proud stance and the willowy shape of it's body when compared to its companions'. I can see it in the shape of its narrow face and thoughtful, cat-like eyes. I can see it in the color and texture of its long, ebony hair and the shockingly familiar curve of its thin lips as they twist upwards in the very same kind of scornful smirk Loki favors when confronting trapped enemies.

“Greetings, queen Farbauti, I haven't had the pleasure of basking in your company in many, many centuries.”

My king's polite address receives the most unladylike snort I've ever heard a queen exhale and my gut grows heavy with dread as her blood-red gaze narrows further.
“Odin, allfather. His son, the mighty Thor, and... what's the name of the bed-hopper, Helblindi?” She asks of the giant who stands directly behind her, pointing in my direction with a sharp lift of her chin.

“He is known as Fandral, the dashing, mother. He's one of the Warriors Three.”

“Dashing, eh?” She snorts again, raking my form from head to boots dismissively, before turning her not-so-amused gaze back on the king. “What have you come to steal from me this time armed with nothing but appalling boldness, a single, dwarf-forged hammer and a pretty face, you, thief? I hope your plan is better than it looks, for I ache to avenge my husband and I will so enjoy removing the eye I left on your face the last time I encountered you.”

“Your husband died in the midst of battle. We were at war at the time and he'd lead an attack that breached my court's walls. We defended ourselves with suitable force. His demise can not be avenged under the law of the Nine.”

She shrugs, clearly uninterested in either pleasantries or appeasement and her fierce eyes flash with unyielding dislike even as she smiles with enough fake cordiality to make me shiver.
“That would be beside the point, would it not? For you have come here uninvited, clearly seeking something I'm not planning to give you, which means you'll attempt, once again, to steal whatever it is from me. It's unfortunate for you that you've come so lightly armed then, allfather. Or have you forgotten that the last time you tried to rob me of my treasures you ended up leaving your eye, five hundred of your precious lieutenants and half your army rotting on my fields?”

“My son is dying, Farbauti.”

Her head turned sharply towards Thor then, examining him from head to toes with the kind of narrowed stare that would have made me tremble in my boots, had it been directed my way.
“He seems healthy enough to me.”

“My youngest son, Loki, is lying in his sickbed as we speak. Idunn's apples can't heal him, for he has the soul of a sorcerer and his ailment is one that affects his magical core.”

“Loki... that's the trickster one, isn't it, Helblindi?” she requests clarification from her own son once again and my heart falls all the way down to the frozen ground when the giant she addressed answers her with:

“That's the one who talked our rogue guards into attempting to retrieve the casket during the blond brute's coronation. The one who unleashed the Bifrost's power upon us. The one who killed father.”

“Is he now? Well. Well. Well... I'd say that is quite unfortunate for you then, allfather, for it is well within my rights to refuse aiding the one who has harmed my family so deeply. Laufey's death may have been an act of war, but his passing has left me a grieving widow and, as such, I refuse to grant you any boon that may help my husband's slayer recover his own health. Seek. Your. Cure. Somewhere. Else, Asgardian. For you're not welcome here. None of your ilk is.”

“Loki is not of my ilk, but yours, Farbauti. I stole him long ago from a temple in this land. He was wrapped in a blanket that carried the royal crest. Someone laid him at the feet of the Casket of Ancient Winters on the eve of our last battle.”

The queen froze from head to toes, midway through the turning motion she'd already started. Her child's face looked as close to ashen as his blue features could possibly come as he looked right at us over her stiffening shoulder, and I couldn't help the motion of my own hand, coming to rest on the hilt of my sword in silent warning, when I saw his huge arm lift. He used it to pull his mother closer to him, though, tucking her slender frame into his own impressively built one in a gesture that brimmed with so much protectiveness that my throat dried with the knowledge that they all knew exactly who the babe my king's words described had been, and were conscious that their queen still loved him very deeply, even after all this time.

“You better have proof that what you're claiming is true, thief, for I shall slay you where you sit for daring to reopen in vain the wound of my brother's demise, if it turns out that you're toying with my mother's heart.”

Helblindi's words are fierce, unyielding and so very full of hatred that they should by rights have killed us with the poison they must carry, but my king remains untouched by the violence they promise and nods in quiet reassurance. “I have proof.” He says and uses Gungnir to open a magic portal from where he extracts a single item. It's a small, baby-sized blanket, utterly white and looking as soft as Midgardian eiderdown.

Helblindi's threatening stance collapses as soon as his eyes settle over it and his gasp of shocked anguish compels his mother to finally turn her tear-stained face in our direction. Blood-red eyes zero in on the blanket, widening with clear recognition even as she takes a couple of ground-shaking steps towards the allfather. Huge blue fingers close around the pristine cloth, shaking with emotion as they do so, and her knees bend towards the frozen floor in the next second, bringing her face as close as it can possibly come to my king's own before she snarls upon it the only sentence her trembling lips seem able to produce:
“Bring my firstborn to me, thief. Bring. My. Firstborn. To. Me!”