cloudspinner | (no subject)

He turned the wine glass in his hands. He wasn't really certain where he was going with any of this, which left him feeling very off balance. Normally, he considered his words far better. He had an intended end point for every conversation. But this time, there was too much swirling through his mind, too much troubling him. He didn't know where to begin, and so it was coming out so unevenly, so unmeasured.

"Being here for nearly two years has only highlighted for me how unlike the mortals I am," he finally said. "But I do not feel as if Asgard is home to me either." He smiled crookedly. "It was painfully obvious I did not belong at all amongst the Asgardians, when I grew up. Being what I am, that is not going to change."

Because he wasn't going to change for them. He just wanted to be Loki.

Frigga paused for a moment, trying to consider, but a lifetime of impulses was hard to suppress when it had been such a long life. She leaned forward slightly, "I do not see why you must feel the things are mutually exclusive. You are my son. If you thought there was no place for you in Asgard, perhaps it was because it was not the place that you wished- - or perhaps it was a place that needed to be more than what there was for you. You are Loki. There will always be a place for you, wherever you are and wherever you go, if you wish it."

"A place other than the dungeon?" he asked, dryly. "I am not the person Asgard wished me to be. I never was. I wasted many centuries trying, and I am done with it."

Though apparently not quite so done, since there were still certain things he did not wish to admit to Mother about himself. Hah, even then, still hiding.

"You are not all of Asgard, mother. If you were, I would feel far less hatred for that realm. And it for me, presumably." He huffed a laugh. "Perhaps some day I will meet this person you and Thor seem to think I am, but I do not believe in the existence of such a Loki."

"The dungeon was not for who you were, it was for what you had done," Frigga said. Was he still so stubborn as to admit to any wrong? Had she not searched for him endlessly until she found him after he fell, only to be dismissed by him? Was he so deeply entrenched in this identity he made for himself as one disenfranchised, unloved, and entitled to what he could get by strength or by wit?

But then what she had or would have said was stung out of her. She grew very still, and gracefully, carefully, set the wine glass on the table. "Do you truly believe I do not know you? That my love is for a phantom?"

Loki sighed. Well, yes, he should have expected this, since he hadn't come in with a plan. Of course they were going to rehash the old argument again, because it was an argument that neither side had ever won. Frigga had merely ended it with her death, so they could continue it now. But he also couldn't resist digging at it, because the argument had never ended. "Next time I'll be sure to merely smash everything with a hammer instead. Maybe then I'll get a vacation on Midgard for my trouble," he drawled.

He sat back on the couch, turning the wine glass slowly in his fingers. Always turning. "Then who am I, mother? For every time I think I've figured it out, it all falls to pieces again."

"Exiled, stripped of your power, disinherited, and disavowed," Frigga corrected. She had been furious with Odin for that last bit more than anything. "Do not doubt it: If Thor had not changed, Mjolnir would have never again heard his call. If Thor had not changed, or if his punishment had changed him for the worse instead of for the better, do not think that Midgard would have been his final place of rest. There is always response to change, but whether or not is restorative or pejorative depends on the nature of the change."

Was Loki's understanding so flawed? Did he truly see no difference between an impulsive act and a strategic assault? A man returned with repentance and with willingness to aid his realm and serve as opposed to a man returned in chains, cursing the name of all who would care for him? She could not allow those assumptions to stand.

But then... "Such a question, Loki," she said quietly. "Do you think a person's self is as immutable as the table of the elements?"

"Better that than rotting in a cage," he said quietly. It had driven him near to madness. "But for the exercise of being told my birthright is death without the following kindness of the ax's fall." His hand twitched, though he didn't quite spill the wine; he set his glass down carefully after that.

He crossed his hands carefully over his stomach. "I've so many birthrights I can't keep track of them all any longer. Blood-drinking monster, corpse, king of blasted, hated wasteland, king of Asgard, shadow of Thor. No wonder I'm so confused." For a moment he pursed his lips, trying to swallow down the words that came next, but he'd never been good at keeping anything from Frigga. "I'm as insubstantial as air. As light. There are an infinite number of Lokis, depending upon whom you ask, all crammed into one little shell. And I'm so bloody tired of it, mother. I'm so tired sometimes. I wish it would just stop, only I do insist on surviving even when everyone would rather I didn't."

Edited 2014-08-29 19:04 (UTC)

"I would not rather that," she said, quietly passionate. Frigga knew that darkness too well to wish it on her son. "There is no joy in stopping, Loki. There is no light, nor hope of light."

Her voice was tightly controlled. She did not like to think of what waited her when she left this place. She could only hope that Luceti had been an interruption, and that her soul would find its path among the stars, to the banqueting hall of her mothers.

Her heart hurt at Loki's outpouring, and she wished they had discussed this long ago. She only hoped that he would be able to take hold of all she had to offer for the cold comfort that it was, it was what she believed. Their people believed in Fate, in the tapestry woven before time, and Frigga had taken some comfort from this in her youth. As she grew older, however, she had begun to believe that things were not so simple.

"Oh, my son." Her voice was filled with love and compassion. "With so many titles clamoring for your attention, there is no wonder at such confusion indeed. I know not who told you your birthright is death, but so it is for all of us. We are born to live and we are born to die, that is our fate; that is the end of it. I have never been one to believe that all our actions between that birthright are determined and yet I am aware of the defining power of words. Our choice, then, is in what words we will accept and what words we will deny. Just as our power comes in manipulating that which we understand, we create ourselves by accepting who we are and within that understanding, moving toward that which we would become."

Edited 2014-08-29 20:37 (UTC)

"There is no hope or light forever imprisoned either, mother. Only boredom, and eventual madness. I'd rather die still myself, whatever that might be, than be reduced to a curiosity in a cage, there for sport." He had already made quite a few bargains to escape that fate in darker places. A slightly more comfortable prison was still the same four walls for all eternity.

I know not who told you your birthright is death-- he couldn't help but shake his head, a laugh that wasn't a laugh coming sharply to his lips. "Your husband told me that, mother."

He wanted to believe much of what he said. He hated the wheel of fate. He did not want to believe that Loki was a thing to be forever reviled, though if that was to happen, he would go down cursing it with his last breath. "It's very difficult to accept who I am when I am nothing I was ever lead to believe. Loki was a fabrication not of my making from the beginning." It felt like the struggle was taking ownership of that lie and making it something of his, rather than imposed from the outside. That was the true fight for survival, not just life, but the right to be what he was. If only he felt like he understood quite what that might be. Some days he felt he knew. This wasn't one of them, beyond vague outlines like Frigga's son, and brother to Thor, and liar, and magician. "To thine own self be true."

Not so different than certain conversations he'd had with mother before, perhaps. But now he had two years of other experiences, thoughts, to consider. And he also was no longer a prisoner. He could get up and walk away if he so chose. That knowledge made it feel very, very different.

"And there was no need for your imprisonment to last forever," Frigga said. "What makes you think you were kept there for sport? Who came to jeer at you? There was no one. If there was, I would have known."

In fact, Frigga had kept very close watch over Loki. The only times she had not been present where when he and Odin spoke and Odin ordered her to leave... as Loki now revealed. And that also struck her to the core, that her husband - Loki's father - would seek to strike such a deep wound within their son. How frustrated Odin must have been, how hurt... and how completely inexcusable. She shut her eyes and exhaled, a quiet, pained sound. He was not here for her to yell at him, and she would likely never see Odin again. Instead, she had to find a way to reach Loki, for the sake of whatever time they had left together and however long Loki would remember.

"How similar you are," she said at last. "Both of you know well how to take a partial truth and use it as a weapon. I thought that often, in that year, but never did I see it as clearly as I do now.

"As to the rest," she opened her eyes, "I have told you that we did not tell you of your adoption from the beginning because we did not wish to hurt you, nor for you to feel different or outcast. It is apparent to me now that we were not successful in that, and that is to my deep regret and shame. But I do not regret calling you 'son' when it has made you my son. That is not a lie. You were not brought into our household out of trickery or deception, though it may seem that way to you now. It was out of compassion and out of love that Odin brought you to me, both for you... and for me."

Odin had done his best to keep her shame and grief from the court. Perhaps he had succeeded and Loki truly did not know. It was not something Frigga spoke of with her customary frankness and ease.

"The only way to leave that prison was ultimately a planned escape," Loki said quietly. "Your husband made that clear as well, since death was off the table. "Kind of him to keep me for our lovely little talks."

He sat back a little as if slapped. Him, similar to Odin? He refused. "No," he said. "No. I'm not like him at all." For all his nasty jokes, that he'd learned to lie from the best, he hated Odin. He did not want to think the man had put any mark on him at all.

Loki opened his mouth to argue, but the last thing she said struck him. Simple words were the most important. He frowned. "Out of compassion for you?"

Loki misunderstood; he misunderstood entirely if he thought Odin's talks with him were meant to be nothing more than jeers at a curiosity in a cage. She would admit that Odin had grown increasingly hurt, frustrated, and angry at Loki's stubborn pride, his hateful accusations. She would even admit that Odin had not, in what audiences she had been allowed to witness, always kept his temper. But she knew her husband loved their son as surely as she knew the sound of her own heartbeat.

And yes, yes, Loki and Odin were so similar - their pride, their insight, their ambition, the grave distance it took to be king... and he did not see it? There was something to pursue, then, at a later time.

For Frigga could not continue to hold so many threads of the conversation and answer Loki's question at the same time. She was a goddess, thousands of years old, and a woman of grace, intelligence, and beauty... but she was still a woman. She could try to hold onto all their conversations, or she could give him now, while she could, a key that might help his understanding. The choice was simple.

Even so, she could not come out and say it. Some wounds were too deep to heal. Frigga's hands fluttered at her sides, a rare, useless movement. "Did you never wonder that Thor was so close to you in age when your father and I had been married many years hence? Or why, in all your years, there was never another child, a brother or a sister?"

Edited 2014-08-29 22:33 (UTC)

Loki frowned, brows drawing together. He couldn't see his mother's expression or gestures, only hear the note of strain in her voice, and he wasn't quite certain how to read it. "I suppose... I though it because we caused trouble enough for ten children, really." Because of course, growing up, his world had always been just mother, father, older brother. Why would there be more than that, or less?

Strange still, to think of it now that he was forced to truly realize that Frigga had only one son in the sense of blood, and that was Thor. But that was not so strange, was it?

"Volstagg and his veritable litter of children was the exception rather than the rule. Two seems a nice number." His lips twisted slightly as he fought the urge to dig at the fact that two, even if one of them was a cuckoo in that nest. No, Frigga was his mother in all ways that mattered, and that was a scab he would no longer pick. Let it heal.

Well. She supposed that it was a good thing, that he hadn't had cause to wonder as a child. He had been happy. That was something to remember when her failure as a mother yawned before her like an ever-growing chasm.

She shut her eyes.

Indeed, perhaps that had been something her body had been trying to tell her. How many times had she failed to give her child life, or life sustainable? What had made her think that she could take in such a needy baby? That her love would be enough? That she would be able to raise him up in the way he should go and he would be happy and healthy and able to care for others, serve his family and his people? Know that he is loved?

Frigga tried to calm herself. She knew this topic upset her. She had to beware of her own mind when it came to speaking of this. Calm. She must be calm, she must be clear - this was for Loki.

She opened her eyes. She would state things plainly. If concealing things from Loki had harmed him, then he would hear the truth now. "I tried many times to conceive. Several times I managed to carry the baby to term. Each died, frail and sick, before a fortnight had passed. If Thor had not been all that he is, as strong as he is, then Odin would have been forced to set me aside. It was a - difficult birth. After which, Odin refused to let me try again. It was the one request he entirely refused me, and he would not hear it spoken again."

He did not want to risk losing her again. Frigga swallowed and continued, "When he saw you, discarded for the same reasons our children had died but still fighting to live, still strong enough and so very alive, I do not believe he could have passed you by for all the realms. He brought you into our family and gave me another child to love, and I have ever been glad of it."

Loki was silent for a long time, taking in her words. He still could not believe that Odin's purposes had been so purely altruistic. The Allfather didn't think that way. But to Hel with Odin, this wasn't about him. Odin wasn't here. Mother was. And this.

It was something he'd never even suspected. What child would?

His expression was thoughtful, puzzled, as he considered what she told him, mulled it over, tried to fit him into what he understood. His understanding of his own childhood was now a shattered, warped thing, forever colored by suspicion and paranoia, the knowledge that he could never truly trust anything on its face.

But it explained one thing well, why Frigga had been so terribly stricken at his hasty words, his repudiation. She'd only had Thor, and thought she would have no more children at all. To be given another, even a squalling little monster, must have felt nothing short of miraculous. He could understand in a small way. He'd been so desperate for the return of his own child, the one that had never and would never exist, that he'd tried to create her from the whole fabric of reality, and fallen into a black despair he almost didn't escape when she'd unwoven before his eyes.

And for once he was rendered truly speechless by all of this. After long thought, he finally moved, carefully, to sit next to his mother, and wrapped his arms around her.

Frigga had tensed, both because the subject was difficult and because she was braced for another verbal barrage from Loki. She was halfway prepared for him to take yet another truth and twist it to wound them both; she was not at all prepared for compassion or understanding.

She did not make a sound when he wrapped his arms around her, not at first, and neither did the strain leave her body. Then she exhaled, shut her eyes, and wrapped her arms around her son, clinging to him tightly.

On the scale of Asgardians, Loki had never been an overly affectionate person. But it felt immensely, shockingly good to embrace Frigga like this. Perhaps because he knew, in his bones, that he would never do so again in Asgard. Not in this life. Another thing that had changed between them, perhaps; he knew too keenly the pain of having said hasty words he did not mean in hindsight, and then knowing he could never take them back or heal that wound because she was lost forever.

He would still speak hastily at times. He would still turn words to daggers. It was in his nature to do so. But perhaps now he might try to pause for a breath before he did so. And he knew that this was important. So important.

"I'm sorry, mother," he whispered. For this loss she'd felt, perhaps. But for so much more than that.

The moment was unreal enough without Loki's apology. There were times she had despaired that her son would ever let her hold him again, and now here he was, comforting her. It was good, and she was glad of it, as she was glad for him. She knew he still hurt, but this was tremendous growth on his part, and she was so glad to see it.

Glad to enough and proud enough to set the pain aside.

"It is well enough," she whispered back. "I only hope you will see that your place in our family is not a lie. You are truly my son, Loki. You are the son of my heart."

"I know," he said quietly. He had realized that, when it was far too late to do anything but mourn his mother's loss. He took a breath, let it out slowly. He knew that she might not like what he would say next, but this was part of his own personal fight as well, for the survival that self-definition offered. Odin was a topic upon which they would never agree; he would repudiate that bastard until his dying breath. But he felt it important that she would know this. "Since my return here, I have borne the name Friggason by my choice."

Edited 2014-08-30 19:11 (UTC)

...ah. That was important. It hurt to hear him cut Odin so entirely out of his life, and that was a battle that she would not cease to fight: She knew how Odin loved Loki. But Frigga had not spent lifetimes among warriors without learning how to pick her battles. And this was important, because since his return here, he knew that she had died, and since his return here, he knew the last words he had said to her. This was a repudiation of his previous claim, that she was not his mother. This was a taking on of that identity, a connection with their family, and... it was not the whole of what she wanted for him, but it was so much better than naught.

She knew the power of words, she had meant it when she said she understood their role in creation. It was a matter of understanding; names were perhaps one of the deepest magics. Frigga had always sought to empower her sons, not to tie them down. If this was the change in who he thought he should be, then, though it pained her to leave his connection with Odin to the side, she would have to trust the power of the bond they shared through millenia to see him through.

"Well," Frigga said, voice full of emotion, "it is a fine sounding name."

She pulled back enough to rest both hands on his cheeks and leaned forward to give Loki a kiss on the center of his forehead. A blessing. A gift. A simple outpouring of forgiveness and love.

Loki couldn't help but smile, partially because there was joy in hearing her say that, and partially because of course he always smiled rather than crying. "It sits well on the tongue, I thought."

He covered her hands with his, leaning forward slightly. It felt better, for having told her that, and knowing that she wanted him as her son, still. There was power in names, and he'd named himself this time.

"Thor and I avenged you. Together." It seemed important, to tell her that again. Though he still wished to carefully avoid the conclusion to that, for a multitude of reasons.

"I am glad," she said, a touch of steel entering her voice, though by far and away it was still full with the love and pride and strange touch of pain that made up maternal emotions. "It is good that Malekith no longer walks the earth, that his kursed perished with him. But I am more glad," she shifted to take his hands then and held them tightly, "that it was done by my sons, together."

Of course, she would have rather not died. But any warrior knows that he or she could be overpowered. Death truly was a person's only birthright. Still, she was proud enough that she did not want her murderer to live while she herself had perished. Malekith was of a certainty attempting to bring the universe into darkness; Frigga was rather glad her sons had prevented that as well.

No, he decided, he would not tell mother that ultimately it had been Thor who had done so, because Loki had been dead. Why grieve her for no more reason? No one else would be so cruel as to tell her that.

Instead he gave her a crooked smile. "Thor let me out of my cage for it," he said. "He planned it all on his own. I was rather proud of him. Subterfuge, if you can imagine it."

"It is rather hard to imagine," Frigga said with a touch of wryness, allowing the tone to return, inch by slow inch, to something more casual. She would much rather he not call his cell a 'cage.' She rather hated the connotation. But that was not a battle she was ready to fight right now.

She leaned back, settling comfortably against the couch. "Will you tell me what happened?"

"There is little to be told, really. Or perhaps little I can tell, for I was not privy to it and the Thor with us here has not yet lived it." He considered where best to start the tale. "I do not know what had happened at all, beyond the invasion being defeated. I saw the Kursed one, of course, but he did not deign to free me."

His smile fell away then, because yes, he'd made his mischief. And he would not have cared, not even now, but for the harm he knew it had done.

Should he simply gloss past it? What good would it do? He felt as if his mother might have forgiven him for his words, but for this? She had been wounded by the words. This, she did not know and therefore it could not hurt her. And yet. There were few things in his life Loki truly regretted, and this had become one of them. It ate at him like a cancer still. He'd told Rogue of it, and she'd told him it wasn't his fault, but still it plagued him.

And now this was the chance, to confess, to beg forgiveness. Loki, admitting what wrong he had done. But it was not often he thought anything he did wrong in any sense. But his words had, to his thinking, ended his mother's life. And that, he could not escape. Caught in indecision, he fell silent, hand coming up to his mouth so he could worry at one knuckle with his teeth.