ideals, desires, and truths - for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ofsilvertongue
Jan. 5th, 2014 09:40 pmbelovedoneAs far as most subjects of the Realm Eternal believed, their queen’s concerns began and ended with bearing healthy royal heirs, standing staunchly by while her husband went off to war, and making certain she always looked presentable and elegant.
But there was more to being an effective queen than being a pretty bauble or a smiling silent supporter.
Or so Frigga thought. And far more good she could do for her realm otherwise.
While the All-Father crafted peace and prosperity with tools of war and power, his wife worked behind the scenes, sometimes entirely without his knowledge. And there, her tools were not magic or blades but diplomacy, tact and charm. They were words.
Words like those she had been sending out in letters for the last three centuries, secret correspondence with people her husband had no idea she even knew.
With a realm that most were forbidden to even communicate with directly.
‘Tis better, as many a wise man said, to ask for forgiveness than permission. If her husband knew what she proposed he would have stopped her before she even had a chance to begin, dismissing it angrily as a fool’s errand. Impossible, and thus never giving her opportunity to prove otherwise.
But the truce they had with Jotunheim was more a stranglehold than a partnership. And Frigga would much rather replace it with a better one. One forged, perhaps, through an old standby when it came to the shoring of nations and the building of empires: the ties of kinship and unity offered by an advantageous political marriage.
She had started the venture carefully. Waited until the wounds of defeat were no longer so raw, a hundred years and more after the last battle – when her children were still little more than that.
But Frigga had foresight, and she was looking to the future. And this plan if it came to fruition, she knew, would take a long time.
A very, very long time.
First she’d done her best to forge relationships, find those she thought she could rely on to provide her with honest and accurate information. With so much bitterness and lack of trust awaiting her, it seemed this step took the longest of all. Once the lines of communication were open she learnt everything she could of the current noble families among the Jotun.
Who had the most power, land, titles. Who was most connected to the throne; who was most loyal to the throne, not always the same thing.
Who had children of an age with her sons. And of these, what were their attributes, their temperaments?
From this list collected at last, through the years she winnowed her options down cannily and with a firm judicious hand.
Thor would be king one day. He was expected to be allowed his own choice of bride when that time came. And it would be unthinkable to most that their ruler be partnered to anything other than fellow Asgardian.
But the House of Odin was blessed with another child.
And it was a cynical but very true fact that in these particular types of schemes and negotiations, extra princes and princesses could be very…useful.
Now here was hoping the child that’d been used as a bartering chip without his knowledge could, once presented with the tale, somehow come to view it in that light.
It was a warm spring day on Asgard. The view outside the large arched window offered sights of flowering trees and chirping birds, and when the gentle breeze blew it carried a faint scent of natural perfume. Normally on a day like this, Frigga would have liked to move any visits or discussions onto the balcony, or maybe even the courtyard.
But she didn’t dare. Right now privacy was favored; it was vitally important there be not even the slightest chance anyone would overhear them.
And she had the nagging thought that for the conversation she planned, at some point after they began talking, there might end up being a raised voice or two.
Unable to remain seated she walked the floor slowly, anticipating her son at any moment.
She was still trying to organize her thoughts and plan her words, deciding how would be best to begin.
On a table near her sat a small chest made out of beautifully-forged silver metal, inlaid with dark stones. It was large enough it would have to be lifted with two hands, big enough it could hold something the size of a very thick leather-bound book inside. At a glance it was clearly very valuable. But it would look strange to most Asgardian eyes, for the craftsmanship was clearly foreign, and unfamiliar.
Frigga glanced at it while she waited for Loki’s arrival.
But there was more to being an effective queen than being a pretty bauble or a smiling silent supporter.
Or so Frigga thought. And far more good she could do for her realm otherwise.
While the All-Father crafted peace and prosperity with tools of war and power, his wife worked behind the scenes, sometimes entirely without his knowledge. And there, her tools were not magic or blades but diplomacy, tact and charm. They were words.
Words like those she had been sending out in letters for the last three centuries, secret correspondence with people her husband had no idea she even knew.
With a realm that most were forbidden to even communicate with directly.
‘Tis better, as many a wise man said, to ask for forgiveness than permission. If her husband knew what she proposed he would have stopped her before she even had a chance to begin, dismissing it angrily as a fool’s errand. Impossible, and thus never giving her opportunity to prove otherwise.
But the truce they had with Jotunheim was more a stranglehold than a partnership. And Frigga would much rather replace it with a better one. One forged, perhaps, through an old standby when it came to the shoring of nations and the building of empires: the ties of kinship and unity offered by an advantageous political marriage.
She had started the venture carefully. Waited until the wounds of defeat were no longer so raw, a hundred years and more after the last battle – when her children were still little more than that.
But Frigga had foresight, and she was looking to the future. And this plan if it came to fruition, she knew, would take a long time.
A very, very long time.
First she’d done her best to forge relationships, find those she thought she could rely on to provide her with honest and accurate information. With so much bitterness and lack of trust awaiting her, it seemed this step took the longest of all. Once the lines of communication were open she learnt everything she could of the current noble families among the Jotun.
Who had the most power, land, titles. Who was most connected to the throne; who was most loyal to the throne, not always the same thing.
Who had children of an age with her sons. And of these, what were their attributes, their temperaments?
From this list collected at last, through the years she winnowed her options down cannily and with a firm judicious hand.
Thor would be king one day. He was expected to be allowed his own choice of bride when that time came. And it would be unthinkable to most that their ruler be partnered to anything other than fellow Asgardian.
But the House of Odin was blessed with another child.
And it was a cynical but very true fact that in these particular types of schemes and negotiations, extra princes and princesses could be very…useful.
Now here was hoping the child that’d been used as a bartering chip without his knowledge could, once presented with the tale, somehow come to view it in that light.
It was a warm spring day on Asgard. The view outside the large arched window offered sights of flowering trees and chirping birds, and when the gentle breeze blew it carried a faint scent of natural perfume. Normally on a day like this, Frigga would have liked to move any visits or discussions onto the balcony, or maybe even the courtyard.
But she didn’t dare. Right now privacy was favored; it was vitally important there be not even the slightest chance anyone would overhear them.
And she had the nagging thought that for the conversation she planned, at some point after they began talking, there might end up being a raised voice or two.
Unable to remain seated she walked the floor slowly, anticipating her son at any moment.
She was still trying to organize her thoughts and plan her words, deciding how would be best to begin.
On a table near her sat a small chest made out of beautifully-forged silver metal, inlaid with dark stones. It was large enough it would have to be lifted with two hands, big enough it could hold something the size of a very thick leather-bound book inside. At a glance it was clearly very valuable. But it would look strange to most Asgardian eyes, for the craftsmanship was clearly foreign, and unfamiliar.
Frigga glanced at it while she waited for Loki’s arrival.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 02:46 am (UTC)Perhaps not the wisest of responses. Even as the uncensored words escaped her, she was cognizant of that.
But she was so tired of this -- worn down and exasperated by centuries upon centuries of feeling like the only soul left on Asgard who remembered there was a time when the Jotun came and went from their realm as easy as the dwarfs or the Vanir. When they were perhaps not loved but at least no more disliked or mistrusted than any of the other older races among the nine main branches of Yggdrasil.
Maybe she was. She'd overheard enough Asgardians who should have the same memory sneering at the the Frost Giants, using language to describe them as beasts and monsters.
And yes -- it was true she might have felt differently, had she not as a queen and a woman been spared the experience of the direct horrors of war. She too might have come to have a very different picture of their once almost-allies, if she'd known dark nights spent hunched down in alertness and fear, aware every moment of the possibility of a painful and brutal death at the hands of a towering warrior with sharp teeth and eyes of murderous scarlet flame...
Even so, however, Frigga could not pretend to be ungrateful for her objectivity.
And as to Loki's secret worries that she indeed knew more about his private affairs - and predilections - than they'd already discussed?
He was right to think his mother wasn't a fool. If it was the kind of thing she wanted to contemplate, certainly by now she would've uncovered a thing or two. But the fact was she was his mother. Every once in awhile her thoughts might turn that direction, a picture starting to form - and she would briskly clamp down on it and cast it out, convinced it was simply none of her business.
She didn't care what Loki did and she didn't need to know. And that was all that she had to believe on the subject.
Her mostly unthinking assumption her son would be somehow amenable to a union with another male had less to do with knowledge he was paranoid over her having...and more to do with knowledge she already had that he did not. Namely regarding his origins.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-14 07:12 am (UTC)But he wasn't. He was born of a time where Frost Giants were known to forsake what may have been a fragile alliance and taken with them the lives of too many honorable Asgardians in the process. He was born of a time where his father was forced to bear the mark of their bitter hatred and savage viciousness. He was born of a time where the Jotun were not friends but enemies, a race who had proven themselves untrustworthy and suspicious, a race no better than the Svartálfar or the Fire Demons of Muspelheim and his own utter disregard for them was not easily put aside.
Her words and the tone with them were well deserved, even if they take him slightly aback. She was right, of course. Loki was raised to behave better than this, to accept even the most unwanted news with grace and dignity and a pragmatism befitting a son of Odin. Another time, her sharp disapproval would have been enough to remind him of his place.
But not this time.
His anger boiled over at the corrections, contorting his expression as he snarled, "Beneath me? This entire proposal is beneath me." It was in no way the correct thing to say, but his fury was too great to think about altering his words as they spilled forward.
"I was raised to be a king, not the excitement of some lowly lord's son!" It's language much too inappropriate to be given in front of any lady of the court, much less his own mother. Any other time, he would have the decency to be ashamed. "The All-Father will not agree to this. He will not allow this deviancy to be seen in his court."
no subject
Date: 2014-01-15 07:33 pm (UTC)And then, in an instant, too soon for it even to be commented on, the color vanished in favor of her skin turning white-pale instead. The tension and foreboding threatening to just about literally drain the life out of her. The worse he reacted the harder it was for her to bear, the greater and greater her apprehension grew. She felt sick to her stomach.
For if this was how Loki reacted at hearing he was to wed a Jotun, how would he feel at hearing he actually was one?
"Oh how I wish at times like these, we could have simply raised you knowing the truth."
This unhappy wish falls from her mouth before she can help it, a rushed and ardently breathless murmur.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-16 05:29 am (UTC)But her words did not match the expression on her face, didn't explain why her skin paled so quickly. His anger did not ruin his ability to read the changes in her. It anything, it made him that much more keen.
"What truth?" He asked, his voice dropping in volume but not in intensity. "What truth could make what you've presented to me any more favorable?"
no subject
Date: 2014-01-16 06:07 am (UTC)All that he was now. All that he thought he was ever born, and destined, to be.
How much of it was about to be destroyed?
Nothing will be the same, after this, came the evil thought, tempting her into freezing her tongue.
How many ages had she waited for this chance? Come what may, no matter what, she would always feel better knowing it came at a time and circumstance at least partially under her control, rather than Loki or Thor somehow accidentally finding out on their own. And no matter her husband's assurances, that was always what she feared.
She had come this far. It was too late to turn back now. She had to be steadfast in her convictions, the way she always tried to be.
"The truth...that you were not born on Asgard, Loki," she told him, voice matching his own. She felt a weight leaving her body as she at last exorcised this secret, and yet it left her even more exhausted all the same. "That though you are our son, and always will be, we did not come by you in the conventional way."
She moved towards him, wanting to be close enough to reach out to him when the dam broke. "Your father...in the aftermath of that last battle, on Jotunheim, he found a baby left behind in the ruins of the temple. Laufey's son. Left there, presumably, to die; left there, as fate would have it, for him to find. That was you, Loki."
no subject
Date: 2014-01-16 06:58 am (UTC)If the announcement of Frigga's intention to marry him to some being he'd never met had felt like an ending to his life as he knew it, as he had planned for it, then this was as if the world as he knew it had dropped out from beneath his feet. As if the air in his very lungs had turned to lead. The outrage had all but disappeared from his expression, his rage bleeding out of him as if from a fatal wound and leaving behind a numbness that could only be attributed to his shock.
He couldn't have anticipated this, but perhaps he should have.
How often had he felt that he didn't belong among his peers? That he was strange, that he was different in ways that he had no name for. Different, because he was the very monster that the people of Asgard regarded with an unshakable sense of fear and distrust. Different, and now the secret of why the darkness of Thor's shadow always seemed to be without an end was finally revealed to him.
Laufey's son.
A stolen piece of the realm they nearly destroyed. A whim made of...what? Guilt and pity. Regret and recompense for the blood pooling at his feet.
Laufey's son.
He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his mind, trying to dislodge the words stuck in his throat. "Why?" The look in his eyes when he looked at her was desperate, as if he wanted to plead with her to recant her admission. "Why would you keep this from me?"
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Date: 2014-01-16 07:11 am (UTC)She wanted to whisper to him over and over again, I am sorry. I am sorry.
Sorry that it had to be like this. Sorry that they couldn't have had honesty from the beginning. Sorry that she had to be the one to tell him; that she wasn't brave enough to do it sooner, without an excuse. Sorry for -- for everything. For things that were beyond her control.
And for things that were not.
She reached for his arms, fingers gripping him reassuringly. Trying to give him something to hold onto, if nothing else. Trying to keep him here, with her.
"The All-Father didn't want you to know. He did not want us to tell you. He thought it would be harder for you, growing up; that it would make things worse. I didn't agree, but...he only wanted to protect you, Loki. Please. You must understand."
no subject
Date: 2014-01-16 08:27 am (UTC)The laugh that bubbles out of his throat was harsh and broken, hardly a laugh at all for the raw sound it contains. They wanted to protect him.
Suddenly her touch was too much to bear and he jerked himself away from her with a shake of his head, re-establishing a distance between them because he could feel himself cracking, this being the final blow to the foundation of his strength and there was only so much pressure one single point could take before it splintered. "Protect me? Protect me?" His voice his barely more than a hiss, his eyes already burning despite his refusal to accept this weakness in him building, this mad hysteria that wanted to claw its way out of him.
Her words were missing something. Something important. Something key. "His hands were covered in Jotun blood. What difference would one more infant make? No, he took me for a reason." Of this, Loki was absolutely certain. Fate had nothing to do with it. His had been a rescue of opportunity. Why?"
no subject
Date: 2014-01-16 07:05 pm (UTC)Her mouth dropped open and at first all she could make was a stammering sound, taken aback that this of all things would be something Loki felt the need to question.
"Your father is many things, among them fearsome to his enemies and any criminal...but a king should have mercy. Killing a soldier, in the heat of battle, is a far cry from slaughtering an infant. It would be no less than murder."
She tried to emphasize the firmness with which she believed her words herself, the better to make Loki understand and accept them. As she would've always assumed he would, up until now.
"He wanted to give you a home. To see that you were loved, and grew up happy. Surrounded by the privileges and opportunities you deserved, as your birthright."
no subject
Date: 2014-01-18 07:46 am (UTC)This was why none of his efforts had been good enough. This was why Thor had always been favored so far about him.
"Is this my birthright? To be deceived? To have my future given to the most desirable prospect?"
You're just a pawn. You're just another relic to be used when the opportunity calls for it. It's a wonder they didn't just lock you away with the casket you were brought with.
"You didn't want to see that I was loved. You wanted to see that I was complacent until you had a use for me!" The words come before he can stop them, the harshness of his tone clashing dangerously with the pain in his eyes.
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Date: 2014-01-18 04:40 pm (UTC)Since he would not let her reach out to him, since he pulled back, she offered her hands out to him instead, palms up, beseeching. Her very openness the offering of a supplicant.
"I am giving you many burdens all at once. I know this. I should have tried to find another way. But alas, I could not. I don't expect you to feel as if you should forgive me. But...look at me," she entreated, firm yet emotive. Voice strong even though it trembled. "Do you truly have any doubt that I have ever loved you?"
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Date: 2014-01-20 06:42 pm (UTC)He was so tired suddenly, as if her question had done nothing less than carve out of him the bright, painfully vicious passion in which his words had been spoken, hollowed him out and left behind naught but an echo of what had been there. Numbness his brain supplied for him, and perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, a defense mechanism to shield him from the torture of her truths that would surely be his undoing.
"I know not what I think of you in this moment." He barely registered the first tear spill from his eyes, as if to make up for the distance already put between them by his tone, but his refusal to go to her. He made no attempt to brush the wetness from his cheek and if more decided to follow that track down his skin, he does not notice them. "For if it is in your love for me that you bring to me these burdens, I confess I cannot feel it."
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Date: 2014-01-21 05:20 am (UTC)Horror that he was aching and angry and devastated, and she had not the least idea how to comfort him.
She had made it her life's business to never ever be at such a loss. To always have some idea how to help when things went awry, to know just what her husband her sons needed and do whatever she could to provide it.
But here, she didn't know. She did not know for once, and to feel so helpless left her adrift in a way not dissimilar, ironically, to what Loki was feeling.
And though she wracked her brain still she could some up with no idea what to say or do now. How was she to soothe these injuries when they ran so deep, when they were regardless of intention wounds she herself had wrought?
"Please," she had to whisper; "do not think me cruel, or unkind, in telling you these things. I know it may not seem as much to you, but I swear that my end aim was only to help you."
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Date: 2014-01-27 02:30 am (UTC)Frigga's cleverness could not fix this problem, her tenderness that she wanted to give him too little too late. He wanted to scream, to rage, to curl in on himself and disappear. He wanted to be free of her words and her pained looks before any more revelations could be dealt as fatal blows to his. He wanted to wake in his chambers and return to blissful ignorance of the truths she brought to him.
"And such powerful help you have proven yourself to be, my Queen." The distance was growing into a chasm that had no bottom, affection replaced with formality that left his voice threatening to break even as he stubbornly pushed forward, accusations heavy in his eyes and his smile a poisoned, vicious thing on his lips. "If you have anything more for me, please, let me beg your merciful aid in knowing lest I become lost without your guiding hand. Please, share more with me or let me retire from your deep wealth of generosity before I tax you too greatly."
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Date: 2014-01-27 04:31 am (UTC)At the words he next gave her, the mocking and cruel and coldly venomous portrait of indifference and deference he presented -- and that awful laugh that in its own way to her ears sounded more like a scream -- something in her too collapsed. She remained upright, yes, but her shoulders drooped. Her gaze lowered itself, heavily, seeming of its own accord to the floor.
What could she do now, but finish? They had each had more than enough.
"One thing," she murmured, her voice hoarse and unhappy. "One last thing and then no more. He will not be coming to you, Loki."
She swallowed, her eyes beginning at last to swim with tears.
"I tried and I tried...but none I dealt with would yield. None, Lord Járnvid included, would consent to giving their child to Asgard. There was nothing I could say or do to sway them. And so, you will be going to him."
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Date: 2014-01-27 05:15 am (UTC)His masks had all taken too much damage to hold together and it was all he could do to piece one together from the jagged remains he had left to him to hide his pain and it still wasn't enough. Equal parts of fury, heartbreak, sorrow, and scorn flicker over his expression as her words fade and Loki let silence fill the space in between, his own voice failing him.
"You are clever." His words, when he found them, were as jagged as his the expression he wore, a whisper wrapped in nothing but pain.
Of course he wouldn't be permitted to stay in Asgard.
Of course.
What did it matter when he had no real place to claim in this realm, no blood ties to legitimately call his own?
What business did a Jotun have in the court of an Asgardian king and his kin?
"To use your pawn to its fullest value and rid yourself of its burden once it suits your needs no longer in one fell swoop." The smile on his lips was a ghost of its former self, too beaten down to even hold onto his bitter anger in its entirety. "I commend you, truly, for how well you have crafted your proposal. Your skill in strategy could rival that of our All-Father himself."
keywords, man.
Date: 2014-01-27 11:10 pm (UTC)A quiet gasp escaped her before she could help it, his words - not entirely unexpected, and yet - like an abrupt thin dagger to her heart. As her head raised sharply in an unthinking reaction to gape at him in wounded horror, the tears ran freely down her face.
She should have reproached him. She should have argued, tried to defend her position more, defend herself.
But she didn't. Couldn't. Not now, not this way.
She could only hope that time would...that somehow...
She would simply have to have hope.
Either way, it was done. It was all done. There was certainly no turning back from it now.
She did her best to calm herself. Swallowing moisture back onto her tongue, bringing air back into her lungs so she could speak and try to breathe. Schooling her face into a saddened but otherwise blank mask.
"I pray that one day you will come to understand and appreciate what I meant for you by doing what I have done here. And that it could be nothing further than what you now accuse me of. That, truly, is my only and dearest wish."
sobbing
Date: 2014-01-28 09:27 pm (UTC)Her horror and her tears settled into his stomach like poison, twisting through him and burning him from the inside out. There was no happiness to be held in the wake of his sharp, harmful words. There was no victory in her struggle to compose herself when he knew how her heart must ache.
There was nothing except the numbness that spread further, wrapping around him so tightly that even standing before her felt like too much effort.
"If there is nothing else," he started and it was a clear dismissal of her words, of all the wishes and desires of her heart that he wanted no part in. "I would ask your permission to take my leave."
such sobs, many feels.
Date: 2014-01-29 12:00 am (UTC)She almost perversely wished she could somehow find it in herself to be angry at him, for coldly dismissing her so. Anger would at least feel useful. Anger would certainly hurt less.
But it had never been in her nature to let anger easily come to her. And she still had too much sympathy for the pain her son was feeling, alongside her own, to be able to launch at him any ire.
She hoped Loki at least found some shallow, empty comfort in the ire he was able to offer her.
"You have my permission," she returned, stiltedly regal. If he wanted the queen and not his mother, then that was exactly what he would get. May he be content with that outcome he had wrought thus on himself. "And also, you have my request that if you must leave my company, you retire to your chambers. Alone. To best take in all of what you have been told here."
Her polite wording could hardly mask what was intended as a firm, resolute command.
She did not want Loki to run off, and vent his upset in some unhealthy way. Or found himself embroiled in some other trouble. Much better he be confined to the safe familiarity of his rooms whilst he overturned his no doubt numerous new thoughts, after everything she had placed on him all at once.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 03:40 am (UTC)Her command--because it could be viewed as nothing but--left his anger flaring dangerously, building so hot and so swiftly that control of it nearly teetered out of his grasp. How dare she send him to his rooms like a child. How dare she confine him to solitude instead of letting him choose the ways he would grieve the outcome of this conversation. How dare she take more from him after everything she had already claimed from him.
His lip curled in the echo of a snarl, eyes flashing his outrage and his indignation. Loki almost demands of her do you think me an animal that you can cage just because you have sold my freedom? but stops himself just short.
No. No, he won't. He won't continue this further.
"As you wish." He said, his words dripping acid before he turned sharply on his heel to make a swift exit out of the room without looking back. He may have decided to seclude himself on his own, but that it came as an order left him considering doing just the opposite purely out of spite alone. What more could she do to him, after all, that would make an impact?
But he was in no state to tolerate the company of others and the cold silence of his chambers was a much better target to subject his anger and pain at than any who walk within the kingdom.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 05:02 am (UTC)But nothing came of it. He stormed out. She was able to let the tension out of body once more.
At least he could still see reason enough to know when this was done.
She didn't say farewell as he left. She didn't say anything. She only watched him go, heart in her throat, praying that however he demonstrated his rage is private afterward he would find at least some rest, and that in the morning perhaps he would feel...a little bit better.
She didn't dare hope that all of this, all that had been done, would be a storm that blew over for awhile.
Turning her back to the door, sparing only one last glance at the silver chest still waiting on the nearby table, Frigga went towards the window to look out over the gardens and to Asgard beyond them.
She would wait awhile. And then she would talk to her husband. And then one of them - possibly her as well - would have to talk to Thor. And then there would be preparations to begin making. Another letter, one of many, to write to Jotunheim.
There was so much left to be done today. And so even though her heart was aching, she couldn't let herself feel the sorrow or how tired she was yet.