Stjarnavetr

9 years later

Stjarnavetr

The room was still dark when I awoke to an indistinct tickling at my upper thigh. It was warm and wet and for a few moments I was confused before reaching down beneath the blankets to feel Loki’s mop of black hair. I laughed quietly and tilted my head back onto the pillow with a small smile, adjusting beneath him as he nipped playfully at me with his teeth.

“It is a bit early, no?” I asked sleepily.

“I couldn’t wait for breakfast,” came the muffled reply.

My laugh was cut short when Loki spread my thighs with his hands and pressed his mouth abruptly against my center. I rolled my head to the side when I felt his tongue on me, eyelids fluttering closed. It was a gentle affair that began without any sense of urgency; just his short methodical licks and wandering tongue. I combed my fingers through his hair as he worked on me, relishing the gradually building heat deep in my belly, that eventually burgeoned into a soundless restlessness until my body could not keep still, and I began to shift under his languid ministrations, and no longer able to stifle the soft, heated moans that fell from my lips.

I arched my back with a faint mewl, twisting my upper body in a sort of almost exasperation. Soon his maddeningly slow pace had me clawing at the bed on either side of me, squeezing his head between my thighs and panting my frustration. He relished tormenting me and knew my body so well that when I was about to tumble over that precipice, he would shift his face to kiss or nip lightly at my inner thigh, cruelly dragging me back from my release. 

“Loki,” I muttered through gritted teeth, attempting futilely to lift my hips into his mouth, but he did not respond. Back and forth he teased me with his tongue, until my entire body was on fire and slick with sweat, legs trembling on either side of him because I did not think I could take another minute of this torture. I whined his name now, warbling and needy. Hot tears gathered at the corner of my eyes and I twisted beneath him, seeking any touch whatsoever whenever he stopped.

He must have finally taken pity on me, because he resumed laving at that little bud, more ardently now, sucking and circling, until I mercifully came undone. My exclamation of pleasure was hushed, tempered with the knowledge that the children were still asleep. I arched my back so hard that it hurt, legs squeezing Loki so tightly I doubted he could breathe. His tongue did not let up, propelling me higher and higher until it was too much and I was practically crying now.

I frantically pushed at him and whimpered his name because I could not muster the strength to shout any more loudly. To my relief, he drew away. I gradually relaxed back onto the bed, whimpering when Loki gave me a final, mischievous lick. He skimmed his nose through my curls, then up and out from beneath the blankets to press lingering kisses across my belly. Any time Loki and I lay together, he always made sure to lavish affection to those parts of me I once had been ashamed of after giving birth. My body had changed much with Svássaedra, especially considering how quickly she had grown within me—things moved and stretched and drooped and my skin was afterwards scored with dark purple lines that eventually faded to long, pale indents. 

The first time Loki made love to me after her birth, some months later, he immediately perceived my hesitancy. His first instinct was not surprise, but anger that I tried to conceal parts of myself from him. He made me look at him and spoke sharply to me that I had done him the honor of bearing him a child and I would not be ashamed of myself or my body. He made sure to repeat all of it some years later when I became with child again and bore him a son, before I had the chance to once again bemoan myself. 

Our son, whom Loki had insisted on naming Réttrmund, was, much like his sister, unexpected. He resembled neither of us entirely. He had curly brown hair and his father’s eyes—the prettiest pale green—and a sweet freckled face. His disposition was just as sweet, and he was terribly shy but rather curious. Svássaedra, on the other hand, had grown into a rather headstrong child. Her hair had remained pale blonde since birth, similar to mine, with lovely grey eyes that reminded me of the rainclouds in Vanaheim that in early spring would gather over the mountains and turn to thunderstorms. I liked to think Svássaedra had the thunderstorms of my homeland roiling within in her, but really it was just glimpses of her own father’s temperament. 

“Stjarna?”

I blinked slowly and stared up at Loki, who was now lying between my spread legs and hovering above me on his arms. His roguish, lopsided smirk sent a rivulet of heat through my already warm and thrumming body.

“Mmm?”

“Are you still here with me?” he inquired, lowering his head to press a sloppy kiss to the side of my neck. I smiled dreamily, just as he shifted his hips to slide into me. He chided me when I bit back a moan. “No, no, I want to hear you.” 

I balked, afraid that the children might hear even though they were on the other side of our chambers, separated by the receiving chamber. Loki knew my worry, but instead of assuaging me he gave a sharp thrust, causing me to gasp loudly. 

“Loki—!”

“That’s it, darling,” he breathed, keeping his voice low as he rolled his hips against me, and causing my breath to catch in my throat. He was so deep inside me it was almost uncomfortable, but it still felt too good to fight him. He rested his head against mine as he resumed his long, languorous strokes. His soft grunts only served to urge me closer to my end, already fast approaching once again. This time, however, Loki was not concerned with teasing—his thrusts became erratic, almost frantic. I tossed my head, accidentally bumping it into his, while the pathetic sounds pouring from my lips negated my earlier concern. 

“I don’t know if I’ll do the spell,” came Loki’s rough voice, next to my ear. My eyes fluttered open and I dug my nails into his sides.

“What?” I gasped in confusion. Spell? I could barely think with him moving inside me like this. He rubbed his nose against my temple, warm breath fanning over my sweat-damp skin.

“Don’t you know how delicious you look, Stjarna? With your belly full of me?” 

I tilted my head back and chuckled with the realization, squirming against him because he had stopped moving for the briefest of moments and my body was screaming for him to go on. While Loki had been rather aggrieved with my first pregnancy, my second one had gone much easier. While it took multiple assurances from Eir, Loki eventually warmed up to the idea and even in the few weeks before I gave birth, was ravenous for me.

He talked about it sometimes, whispered into my ear with an impish nip or suggestive lick of his tongue; would lay in bed next to me and trace the faint lines on my belly and sigh and say he would not mind to see me with child again. We had only briefly discussed it some time after Réttrmund’s birth. Loki, in fact, had been the one to bring it up and I had been surprised to know he was not entirely unopposed to a third. 

Loki ground his hips hard against me, educing a wanton moan from my lips. He sucked lewdly at my neck, moving almost lazily inside me. I gasped his name euphorically, piteously, wanting him to go faster, anything—but he maintained his maddeningly deliberate pace.

“Loki, please—”

“What do you think of that, darling?” he murmured, as if I was not on the verge of tears again. I was delirious at this point, I would agree to anything.

“Yes, yes, just—gods, Loki, please—”

I could feel his lips curl into a smile against my skin before he slipped an arm beneath my leg and bent it backwards to open me up and plant himself just a little deeper inside. I moaned his name like I was in pain, moving to grip the bedsheets so hard that my fingers shook. 

Loki began a more arduous rhythm and the room was soon filled with the sharp, wet snap of his hips against my inner thighs. I could barely draw breath he was going so hard, but it did not matter because I came moments later—the sound that erupted out of me was loud and unseemly, as pleasure wracked through my already strained body. Loki did not last much longer and came shortly after with a faltering groan. He hovered there above me, slowly moving in and out as he finished, then buried himself deep and went still. 

He opened his eyes to gaze down at me, attempting to steady his heavy breathing. I smiled almost sleepily up at him as I floated down from my high, savoring the pleasant little waves fading into nothing and his intermittent fluttering inside me. I knew what he was doing but I did not care. I wanted it. I wanted all of him and anything he wanted. I lifted my arms and he immediately came to me, leaning down to gently nuzzle against me. All I could think of—all I could feel—was how desperately and completely in love I was with him.

__

Not even an hour later, I sat on a stone bench in the shade of a tree in one of the larger palace courtyards. Svássaedra and Thrúd, Thor’s daughter who had been born a few weeks after Svássaedra, were running around with a few of the other palace children—all children of other nobles here at court—trying to tag each other, falling into the soft grass and shrieking playfully. Running behind them was little Réttrmund, who was years younger than the rest; his little legs propelled him after the other children, but he did not seem to mind being slower, judging by the large grin on his little face. Thrúd’s governess dallied in an archway chatting with one of the queen’s handmaidens, but kept one eye trained always on the little golden-haired princess.

Loki had gone to an advisors’ meeting this morning, but likely would be done soon. Many years ago, Loki would have bemoaned such a chore to me, but no longer. These past years in Asgard had been a new beginning for us—most especially for him. He and Thor were carefully learning one another again, and their relationship had blossomed in a way not even comparable to before. It was obvious Thor had missed his little brother and regretted greatly the way things had gone, and though Loki might not have admitted it, he had missed Thor. Childish grievances and bygone ambitions were cast aside or forgotten, and all ill will banished. In the palace and perhaps outside of it, there was still some lingering prejudice against Loki, but he was striving to prove himself to Thor and the realm that he was changed.

Sometimes it still did not seem real, for so much was different. Even sitting here watching the children play, I would not have assumed such a thing possible years ago. I knew Sif, Thor’s wife and queen, did not particularly care for Loki and I, and I suspected it may have carried over to our children, as well. Despite this, Thor encouraged our children to play together. After all, he said, we were family.

Eventually the girls wore themselves out and Svássaedra and Thrúd settled in the shade of a nearby tree, while Réttrmund carried on cavorting with some of the other boys. Recently Svássaedra had been committed to teaching Thrúd seidr and both girls were confused as to why the princess could not produce any magic. I watched in amusement as Svássaedra took Thrúd’s hand and instructed her in how to make green sparks.

Suddenly, Réttrmund shouted something. I glanced up to see him frozen in his tracks, staring in my direction with a big grin on his face. His exclamation drew Svássaedra’s attention.

“Father!” she cried, and she jumped to her feet and ran past me. I turned to glimpse Loki strolling into the courtyard. He smiled and leaned down to scoop Svássaedra up. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck as he carried her over to the bench where I sat, then sank down next to me. He leaned over, kissed me on the cheek, and asked Svássaedra what she had been up to. She explained childishly that Thrúd could not produce magic and Loki nodded thoughtfully, as if he actually was considering why that might be.

“Some are simply more adept at it than others,” he eventually stated. When Svássaedra seemed displeased at his vague explanation, Loki added, “You know, I wasn’t very good at it either when I was young. It was your mother who taught me seidr.”

“No,” I quickly corrected. “It was Queen Frigga. Your grandmother, Svássaedra.” 

“Does Réttrmund know magic?” she inquired, scrutinizing her brother who was meandering toward us, though getting distracted by random flowers or twigs upon the ground.

“Yes, though he cannot harness it yet.” 

“Well, we don’t know that yet,” Loki cautioned, as Svássaedra opened her little hand and he touched her palm, and her seidr reacted with his against her skin.

“Of course he will be able to wield seidr,” I chided. “He is half-Van.”  

“What is his other half?” Svássaedra wondered curiously.

“Jötun,” I replied, ignoring Loki’s immediate scowl. I picked Réttrmund up when he finally reached us and placed him on my lap. I kissed the top of his head and asked him if he was having fun. He mumbled something unintelligible—perhaps he said he was hungry—and relaxed into my embrace, big green eyes focused on Loki.

“Jötun like Father?” Svássaedra chirped. 

“Yes, just like Father, because you and your brother are half of him and half of me,” I said with a smile, touching her nose and causing her to giggle and retreat farther into Loki’s arms.

Loki pressed his lips together, but I ignored him. He disliked any mention of his true parentage—and had grown rather irate the first time it was explained to Svássaedra when she had inquired—though I refused to indulge his anger. I would not have our children growing up ashamed of themselves because of it, and would not allow him to instill in them the same kind of hatred he had for himself. 

Part of the reason he was so loath to let them know was because of how interminably twined his parentage was to the treason he had committed against the realm. The children would have dishonor placed upon them, Loki feared, and would grow up burdened by his own past failings. We both knew the children would inevitably find out if we did not tell them first, and we planned to eventually, but I deemed them too tender an age still to understand, especially little Réttrmund, and even Svássaedra despite how serious she often acted.

Taking pity on Loki for now, however, I changed the subject.

“How did the meeting go?” I asked, running my fingers through Réttrmund’s sandy brown curls.

“Like every other meeting. Mostly it concerned the banquet for the new Alfheim ambassador.”

Svássaedra, already bored, jumped out of Loki’s lap and ran back over to Thrúd, and Réttrmund squirmed out of my arms to follow his sister. Loki gazed at our daughter, lips curling into an amused smile when a few minutes later she tried to once again show Thrúd how to conjure a spark.

“The children are still going to Konavefr’s?”

“Yes, I’ve requested a couple of days off from Svássaedra’s tutors. Konavefr and Dreyma have a whole day planned for them in the city tomorrow.” 

“They’ll like that.”

“Also, do not forget, Loki, we have dinner with your brother and the queen tonight.”

Loki groaned. He had forgotten. “Must we?”

“Well, Thor has been insisting for some time. I feel like it cannot be put off any longer.” 

“Fine.” 

So that night, Loki and I dined with the king and queen while the children were put to bed by their nurse, who watched them when either of us were unable. I would rather have dined with the children before they left for Konavefr’s in the morning, but Thor had been begging for weeks now to meet with us. Dinners with the king and queen were not nearly as unpleasant an affair as Loki always made them out to be, as Sif admittedly had warmed up to us some since our unexpected return. I still would not by any means have presumed us close—as I understood her wanting to gauge for herself Loki’s changed nature—but I am sure Thor had done his part speaking on our behalf to her over the years.

All went well enough. Mainly we spoke of the children—Svássaedra and Réttrmund, and Thrúd and her new little brothers the twin princes Modi and Magni, who were not yet out of their cradles. The last topic of discussion was the banquet tomorrow night for the new ambassador from Alfheim, which nobody really was looking forward to, but protocol dictated a banquet to welcome new emissaries to court.

After dinner, Loki and I retired to our chambers. We spoke in hushed whispers so as to not wake the children, even though their rooms were on the opposite side of ours and waking them was unlikely. We undressed and fell into bed and spoke softly to one another until we fell asleep. 

The next day, Loki and I took the children into the city. I still remembered years ago that first ride down to Konavefr’s house after our return. The way my heart had been pounding in my chest, and my clothes sticking to my skin for my cold sweat as I walked up to that door and knocked on it. The shocked confusion on my step-mother’s face, then the largest grin I had ever seen as she engulfed me in a warm embrace and cried out for Dreyma to come and see who it was at the door.

It was a tearful reunion, ultimately. Konavefr wept when I told her of Father and how he and Mother were reunited in death. Her tears were happy ones, however, as she had my mother had been the best of friends in Vanaheim. I spoke to my brother Réttrmund’s widow, Dreyma, yet unmarried since his death, of his presence in Helheim, and how he and Father were together. She wept, too, and through her tears admitted she looked forward to the day when she might see him again. 

Our meetings these days were obviously less sorrowful, especially with the children. Today, we passed a few pleasant hours with with Konavefr and Dreyma, and later on my nephew Herlid who came to visit with his sweet wife who was heavily pregnant with their second child. After visiting, we kissed and bid the children goodbye, then returned to the palace.

There was plenty to distract us that day and the next while the children were gone. I visited Gullhár that first afternoon, who was once again living in the palace as she was betrothed to one of the nobles here at court. I had been thrilled to learn she was here after my return, and it almost seemed like old times—us wandering the corridors and grounds of the palace, talking of everything and nothing.

Unlike old times, however, I could not sit with her at banquets. My new place as Loki’s wife was up at the high table with the king and queen. After the feast I could mingle, though, and did so at the Alfheim ambassador’s banquet that night. While there was music and dancing, Gullhár and I elected to stand off to the side and pass the rest of the night in talk.

The next day, Loki excused himself from another advisors’ meeting and told me he had a surprise for me. My suspicions were aroused when he had his horse saddled with foodstuffs and a rolled blanket, but I kept them to myself as we rode down to the city’s edge and then out past the city wall. My hunch was confirmed halfway to our destination, but I still said nothing and instead let the anticipation roil excitedly in my stomach. 

Eventually we came through the fields outside the city, a bucolic expanse of rolling green hills and clear streams, dotted with large stands of trees and farther on great forests where hunts were held, and then finally to our destination: a little glade hidden between hills, nestled under a thicket of trees, with a small bubbling spring. 

Loki had discovered the glade in his youth and first brought me here centuries ago when I was but his mistress, and it became a little haven for us when we wished to escape court for a day. We had not been here since before his fall into space and I had not given much thought to it even in the decade since our return. Loki told me he had been thrilled himself to recently rediscover the spring. I could hardly contain my delight as Loki laid out the blanket and food and we snacked on bread and cheese and fruit while the horses grazed nearby. 

After we had eaten, Loki and I stripped and swam in the spring. The water was cold at first, but we quickly acclimated. We floated around, talking and laughing—my snapping at him when he splashed me one too many times—until we finally climbed out and lay down on the grass to dry off and nap beneath the swaying leaves. Some time later Loki stirred and pulled me on top of him so I could ride him, and afterwards lay propped up on his arm next to me, playing with my hair and admiring me with a small smile.

Lying here under the dappled starlight seemed to rouse certain memories for me, both good and bad. Discussions long past that likely he did not remember, but I did. The last time we had been here was our last taste of tranquility, before everything fell apart—before he had betrayed everybody and everything he had ever known. 

I am sure Loki could not discern my thoughts, but he certainly could sense the change in me.

“I didn’t think I’d ever come back here, you know,” he said, releasing my hair to stroke my fingers between us. “I’d imagined us here after my capture in Midgard. When I was rotting in the dungeons with nothing to do.”

I nestled closer to him, feeling a chill with the breeze. “What did you think about?” 

“Making love to you, of course. But just laying here with you, too, like now. Alone, under the stars. It didn’t seem to matter what was going on, Stjarna. Being out here with you was my peace. Like there was nothing to go back to, nobody waiting for us. No city, no palace, no obligations. Just us.” 

“Do you ever think of it still?” I asked quietly, and he rolled onto his back and tucked an arm under his head. 

“Think of what?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured, allowing my fingers to wander aimlessly over his pale skin. Down the planes of his hard abdomen, to the little dark hairs below his navel. “Everything. Before…”

Before the children, before our deaths. Long, long before that—when we had been entangled in that interminable web of treachery and deception and blood. Notions of things that lingered like a sickness in the back of my mind, even all this time later. 

“Yes,” Loki finally admitted. “Sometimes.”

“Do you wish things had been different?” 

“How do you mean?”

I was silent for a long time. It almost seemed odd to bring such things up now, after such a beautiful day together. It was out of place, too, as we had not discussed anything like this in a long time. Yet, returning to a place where memories seemed to tarry in the shadows tended to bring them to the forefront of one’s mind. 

“I just mean… how things turned out,” I clarified, still stroking his skin, tracing the fluttering patterns of light through the leaves. “About kingship. What your life might have been like had you gotten the throne, or kept it after… after…”

Loki did not speak for a while. When he finally did, his voice was soft and restrained. Careful, almost.

“Yes, I think of it still. Mostly of how miserable I would be. How foolish I was to even want the throne in the first place. I remember once Mother told me that the throne changes you. That it was a burden she did not wish for either of her sons. At the time I couldn’t understand. Didn’t want to understand, really. I resented her, but…” 

He trailed off, but I just watched him.

“When I actually got the throne I realized how right she had been. What an idiot I was to have coveted it at all. I should have known nothing good would come of it, especially considering how I eventually got it, and what it ended up costing me. It wasn’t worth it.” 

He did not specify, but I knew what he meant. It was not worth losing his family—the friendship and respect of his brother, and the lives of his mother and father, and me. He had left me alone in his pursuit of the throne and kingship, then dragged me into his schemes and put us both in incredible danger. Thinking of it even now made me nauseous, but it was so long ago now. Almost a lifetime, it seemed, because in the years since it felt we had indeed lived an entirely different life. 

“What if I had never come to Asgard?” 

“If you never came to Asgard?” he echoed in shock, glancing at me.

“Things would have been quite different, I think.”

He rolled me onto my back, then moved to hover above me on his arms.

“Yes, I suppose everything would have been quite different. I’d probably be dead right now.”

I tilted my head curiously.

“Stjarna, did I ever tell you what Thor told me after we came here from Helheim?”

“No.”

“You recall Mímir, don’t you?”

“Yes, you told me about him.”

“The bastard was rather cryptic when he deigned to speak to me, but loose-tongued enough with my brother after he became king. He admitted to Thor that my destiny, written by the Norns long before even my birth, had changed multiple times during my life. It all had to do with you.” 

I stared at him, surprised.

“Who knows where I’d be now if the Van prince’s mistress had not come to Asgard all those centuries ago? Do you remember the way you held out against me? Some years, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I laughed, “because you were annoying and spoiled and had never been told no.” 

Loki smiled toothlessly, though I could not quite identify what it was sparkling in his pale green eyes. He lowered his head to press delicate kisses up and down the side of my neck.

“What about Midgard, Stjarna? Do you recall that freezing little room at the inn?” 

Some years after my arrival in Asgard, Loki had slighted me in some way and taken me on a rather impromptu trip to Midgard to make up for it, because he was immature and knew not else how to actually appease a woman. I did remember the little room at the inn very well, however; it had been winter there at the time, and we were relegated to a small dark room with naught but a single taper.

If I really thought about it, I could almost hear the tender reassurances, and a veneration like I had never known even after a century as Valdrlund’s mistress in Vanaheim. Loki’s careful but passionate touch, kisses hot on my body and between my legs, then us twining together there on the bed and knowing each other for the first time; and then the peace to lay there in the chilly dimness afterwards, enfolded in his arms.

“Who knew it would have led to all this?” Loki wondered, and his breathing was growing heavier. “That I’d still be as obsessed with you half a millennia later… that we’d wed in the land of the fucking dead and you’d bear my children…” 

As he nuzzled me, I could feel him hardening against my inner thigh. I let my head fall back with a small smile and languidly stretched out beneath him.  

“I never stopped loving you, you know,” he said, shifting his hips between my legs so he was lined up at my entrance. “No matter what happened, no matter where I was…”

I held Loki’s gaze as he slid into me, mouth falling open in a silent moan and fingers digging deep, until he was sheathed completely inside me. Everything was hot—his body on mine, his lips and his tongue—and I almost imagined I could feel his heartbeat inside me, pounding in tandem with my own. 

“What a fine woman the Norns gave to me,” he whispered in adoration, beginning a slow but forceful rhythm with his hips, and at first there were no words between us; only our soft groans and gasps that gave way to feverish panting, and then to his murmured endearments into my ear, until his low voice mingled with the heat and pleasure coiling in my body, overwhelming all else before we crossed that threshold together.

Once we were spent, we lay there entangled on the sweet grass; touching and kissing and speaking gently with one another, until the light began to go and we roused ourselves and headed back to the palace.

__

Despite the fact we were supposed to pick the children up the next day, Loki seemed content to spend a lazy morning in bed, so long that breakfast time came and went and our food that had been laid out in the other room went cold. He pretended not to hear my protestations, claiming rakishly that my thighs on either side of his head muffled my voice to him. 

“We must be going soon,” I sighed, after he had wrung a second orgasm from me. I pushed at Loki’s shoulder with my foot until he sat back on his haunches with a self-satisfied grin. 

“Why?” he asked, pushing my leg out of the way and leaning back over me to trail airy kisses over my belly and up to my breasts, leaving smears of my arousal on my sweat-damp skin. “We have time.”

“That is what you always say.” 

“And it always works, doesn’t it?” he purred, giving one of my nipples a playful lick.

“Dreyma might worry,” I objected.

“I doubt the children won’t keep her occupied. Besides, you weren’t complaining earlier and I was going to fuck you again before we left.” 

My lips parted in surprise; he said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You won’t let me fuck you properly when the children are with us,” he explained, switching to lavish attention to my other breast. “You’re always so worried about waking them. Now you can be as loud as you want…”

“But we have woken them before,” I retorted. 

Loki rolled his eyes, but I recalled some months ago when I had been perched on the edge of Loki’s desk in our bedchamber, with my legs thrown open and his face nestled between my thighs much like only moments before. He had been insistent on hearing what he was doing to me and he had—and so ultimately had Réttrmund, who wandered sleepily into our bedchamber dragging his blanket, and only made his presence known after Loki had finished me off. I was so mortified afterwards that I didn’t let Loki touch me for over a month after that, much to his chagrin.

“So?” Loki scoffed, and I pressed my lips together at his lack of shame. “He’s so little he won’t remember it. Besides, how else am I going to put another one in you?”

“Oh, so that is the plan, then?” I laughed, rolling my head to the side.

Loki sucked and nibbled at my breasts until I was tender and squirming with anticipation beneath him, before he flipped me over so I was on my stomach and he could pepper kisses up and down my spine. Despite my protestations earlier, we both knew I would lay there and let him do whatever he wanted to me; and so I relaxed onto the bed, thinking perhaps it would not be so bad if we were a little late.

__

A few hours later found Loki and I sitting in Konavefr’s little kitchen. I was bouncing Réttrmund on my knee while Konavefr advised Loki there should be more guards at the market on busy days to help prevent theft, as one of her friends had been robbed of her coin purse. It concerned her so because her friend had accompanied them and the children to the market the day before and Konavefr was worried something might happen with the children. 

Svássaedra was playing outside with Hjaldr, who had come to visit his mother Dreyma today, and who was allowing himself to be dramatically tackled by her when she caught him after giving chase. I could hear Hjaldr’s laughter mingling with Svássaedra’s delighted, childish screams through the open window.

Loki assured Konavefr he would speak to Thor about increasing security in the markets, then excused us as it was already mid-afternoon. I had the children say goodbye to Konavefr and Dreyma and Hjaldr, and I kissed them goodbye, and we rode back up to the palace with Svássaedra in front of me on my horse and Réttrmund huddled in front of Loki.

As Svássaedra chattered on without taking a breath about how she had bested Hjaldr earlier at their game of tag, and all the interesting things she had seen at the market, I observed Loki talking to Réttrmund a little farther ahead. Réttrmund kept giggling and Loki was smiling, too, pointing and speaking about things I could not hear. A couple of times Loki turned his head to flash me an impish smile.

Once we made it back to the palace, I insisted on taking supper with the children. Loki had food brought and while I fed Réttrmund on my lap, Svássaedra repeated everything she had told me on the ride back to her father. He listened raptly to her rambling, nodding and interjecting every so often to encourage her. 

After dinner, I put the children down. Usually Loki helped me, but he had another advisors’ meeting early tomorrow morning and had to review some papers before bed. Svássaedra was loudly insistent that she was too old to go to bed as early as Réttrmund and she should be able to stay up with us. She put up such a fight that I had to resort to threatening to fetch Loki. At that, she quickly retreated to her bed and bid me goodnight.

I entered our bedchamber to find Loki leaning over his desk, scratching notes onto a piece of paper. The fire across the room burned brightly, which cast a flickering orange glow over the dim room. I changed into a nightgown and tumbled gratefully into bed, settling onto my pillow with a heavy sigh.

“The children are asleep,” I announced, snuggling deeper beneath the blankets.

Loki glanced at me. “Did Svássaedra give you any trouble?”

“Yes,” I muttered. “She is a willful girl.”

“Like you.” 

I laughed cynically. “I was never so willful as that child.”

“I have a hard time believing that,” Loki snorted, putting his things up and finally undressing to come to bed. “I’m sure your own mother complained to your father when she lay down at night at how obstinate little Stjarnavetr was.”

I rolled my eyes, but he caught my small smile. He slid into bed next to me and lay on his side, propping his head up on his hand. He placed his other hand on my hip and played with the thin fabric of my gown between his fingers.

“And what of you?” I mused. “Did the queen put you and Thor to sleep at night?”

He shrugged, allowing his hand to drift higher up to my breast, where he circled his thumb over my nipple, which sent a rivulet of heat straight to the spot between my legs. 

“Sometimes. We had nurses who did most of that.” 

I smirked at mention of nurses. After Svássaedra’s birth, with Loki being restored to the princedom, protocol had dictated that she be mostly cared for by a nurse when weaned. I was hesitant, but went along with it, and then had been furious when I missed her first steps. Loki told me it was simply the way with royal children and that both he and Thor had had nurses, to which I promptly and angrily replied, “And look how both of you idiots turned out!” Loki, realizing this was not a fight he would win, did not question me further and the very next day requested from the king larger chambers so Svássaedra could have her own room with us, and the nurse was dismissed from most day to day duties.

“You’ve told me before the queen would sing lullabies to you both?” 

“Yes, when she put us to bed herself. She’d also tell us stories.”

I smiled. Just like Loki. He enjoyed sitting with the children before bed, fascinating them with tales of magic and giants and dragons, all stories told to him and Thor by their mother when they were little. 

“Which was your favorite?”

“Probably the one about Ymir and the forming of the universe.”

“Tell me.” 

“Tell you?” he echoed, raising his eyebrows in amusement.  

“Yes,” I murmured, even though I knew the story well. I pushed him onto his back and moved to straddle his waist. “Tell me a story, Loki.”

I could already feel him pressing into my center as he settled his hands on my hips.

“Very well, Stjarna. Let’s see… in the beginning there was Ginnungagap, a barren abyss that existed between the spitting fires of Muspelheim and the frozen wastes of Niflheim.” 

At mention of Niflheim, I could almost feel the sting of snow prickling on my skin and the brightness and desolateness—not a memory I was too pleased to recall. Loki must have perceived the subtle change in my expression, because he pulled himself up so his back was against the headboard and I still seated on his lap. He ran his hands down my bent legs, until his fingers slipped under the hem of my nightgown. 

“There were many great rivers in this void that flowed with venom,” he continued. “From the refuse of one of these rivers was formed the first giant, a great being called Ymir.”

“What did he look like?” I interrupted with a small smirk, guiding Loki’s hands up beneath my nightgown until I lifted my arms and he pulled it over my head. He tossed it over the edge of the bed and settled his hands onto my sides, slowly moving down to the curve of my hips.

“I’ve never thought about it,” Loki mused, tightening his grip on me. Now he was pressing even more insistently against the spot between my legs and a delicious ache was beginning in me. “What do you think, darling?”

“I imagine he was quite ugly if he was borne of some venomous, primordial sludge,” I giggled.

Loki smiled, but said nothing as he circled my hips on top of him, coating his length in the wetness that had begun to accumulate between my legs. His eyelids had grown heavier, his breathing deeper. 

“What happened next?” I whispered, bracing my hands on his shoulders and lifting up to position him at my entrance. 

“He was killed…”

Loki’s words tapered into a soft groan when he slipped inside me, and I gingerly lowered myself until I was fully seated on him. I was so wet that there was no resistance. I curled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, leaning forward to press my forehead against his. We sat there for a long moment as I adjusted to his length inside me, breaths mingling faintly in the air between us.

“Who… who killed him?” I finally asked, brushing my lips against his, and beginning to languidly rock my hips against him.

“The descendants of the first god, Búri,” Loki answered breathlessly. “When they slew him his blood was as a flood, creating the oceans of the worlds and his bones the mountains—”

I kissed him suddenly, pushing my tongue past his teeth, and lifted up on my knees only to come back down hard on him. Loki cursed into my mouth and wrapped my hair around his fist and yanked my head back so my neck was exposed. He kissed and sucked at my skin as I rotated my hips, groaning at the feeling of him moving deeply within me.

“What else?” I gasped.

“His—his skull became the sky and his brains the clouds—”

“That’s a bit macabre, is it not?” I remarked, grinding down onto him so he dug his nails into my skin. He shifted impatiently beneath me and I knew he wanted me to go faster.

“Perhaps, but Svássaedra seems to like it well enough,” came the hot, breathy reply, as he lowered his head to take one of my nipples into his mouth. I let out a harsh breath as he sucked it to hardness, not bothering to be delicate, and teased it with his tongue between his teeth.

“She would,” I chucked. “She is just like you.” 

“Is that a bad thing?” he inquired. He must have grown tired of waiting for me to move faster, because he shifted beneath me, wrapped his arm around my waist, and without warning flipped me onto my back, all while remaining snugly inside me.

“Do you know how difficult it is to have two of you to deal with?” I smirked, but then gasped when he pulled all the way out and then plunged back into me, practically driving the breath from my lungs.

“Nonetheless,” he growled, “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

He bent his arms and licked a long line up the side of my neck to my ear, like he was tasting the sweat beaded there. His breath was hot on my skin, hips grinding insistently against me as if there was any more room inside me to fit him.

“What?” I panted. “Thinking about what?”

“Getting you with child again.”

I peered up at him in the dimness of the room when he pulled back. I bit back a small laugh, despite the aching between my legs.

“Oh, is that so?”

He did not respond—only held my gaze and started with those leisurely in and out movements. My breathing became uneven, my needy whines and lilting sighs of pleasure harder to muffle. Loki paused every so often to gently roll his hips against me, exhaling long and slow. I lifted up to meet his kiss, took his bottom lip impishly between my teeth before he pulled away to resume his languorous thrusts, which I met enthusiastically.

I moaned his name, only vaguely aware of how loud I was being. That sweet burning between my legs and the tightness in my belly seemed to drive all coherent thoughts from my mind. All I could think about was Loki above me and inside me, edging me gradually toward my release. Higher and higher, until I was straining against him because I was so close. His name fell desperately from my lips. I was restless beneath him, digging my nails into his backside and urging him to go faster with my legs wrapped around his narrow waist, but he would not. 

I opened my eyes, stared up into his own focused on my face, and moments later finally came undone. I cried out and squeezed my eyes shut, toes curling and body arching beneath him. I heard Loki say something close to my ear, words growled at the edges of my fatigued mind, but I could not even begin to bother to understand them what with the stars bursting behind my eyelids. I clutched Loki’s body tightly to mine, somewhat hindering him in his own movements, until the white hot waves crashing through my body at last ebbed into hot little ripples. Loki was still moving within me, only slightly now, and I cracked my eyes open to wearily examine his face. I had not even noticed he came, too, but now I could feel it warm and sticky between my thighs when he pulled out and fell onto his back next to me.

Unthinkingly, I moved my hand between my legs, feeling the culmination of our lovemaking there, but before my palm could heat with the magic of my seidr to wither Loki’s seed inside me, he caught my wrist and clicked his tongue.

“Ah ah,” he chided. “Did you think me unserious before, Stjarna?” 

I fought a tired smile as he released my hand and slipped his fingers between my legs, causing me to flinch with the sensitivity. I made a small sound in the back of my throat when he lazily teased that little bud at the top of my sex.

“Somewhat,” I said, squeezing my thighs on his hand and lifting my hips into his touch. 

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be thrilled with another one.”

“Do you want another? Truly?” I wondered. I recalled his words to me a couple of days ago, when he had threatened to not perform the spell after we lay together—a threat that he had made good on. 

“I would not be opposed,” Loki answered. “I’ve told you this.”

He dragged his fingers out from between my legs and up to my belly, where he traced random patterns onto my heated skin to leave sticky wet trails.

“Would you not?”

He nuzzled his face into my neck. “Is that surprising to you, darling?”

“A bit.” 

“Mmm… why is that?”

“Well… Svássaedra and Réttrmund are a handful as they are.”

“So?”

I laughed quietly when he started lavishing kisses up and down my neck.

“You are incorrigible, Loki.”

“Would you have me any other way?” he grinned, pulling back.

“No,” I whispered. “Never.” 

Loki drew me close as he rolled onto his back, so I was nestled into his side and head resting against his chest. I closed my eyes and played with the smattering of hair on his chest, enjoying his own meandering touch upon my back. After all we had been through, there was no safer place to me than in Loki’s arms. Nothing could touch me when he held me like this. It was almost as if time stopped, and sometimes I liked to imagine a kind universe had carved out a brief amount of time for us to simply be. 

I lay there for a while, letting his soft breathing and heartbeat lull me to sleep. To hear it strong and steady in my ears meant all was right in the world, for I knew what it was to not hear it. After a few minutes, I heard Loki whisper something. He might have said “I have you.” Or perhaps he said “I love you.” Either way, I was too tired to speak—I only gently moved to squeeze his fingers in reply—and soon after sank into a dreamless sleep. 

Stjarnavetr

It was early morning, still too early for the room to lighten with the new day. Instead, with the balcony doors thrown open, the room was lit with the soft, wan starlight, but it was enough that I could see my daughter sleeping next to me. I was lying on my side and Loki behind me, one arm wrapped tightly around my middle. His gentle breaths fanned across the back of my neck, fingers twitching every so often. 

Svássaedra had woken us multiple times throughout the night, but now had been sleeping peacefully for the past couple of hours. While Loki had promptly fallen asleep behind me after her last feeding, I had not.

All I could do since was stare at her. 

I listened attentively to her soft breaths, studied her little sleeping face; lightly traced her brows, her pink lips, and her tender, shell-like ears. I kissed her fingers and her toes and rubbed my nose on her tiny palm, marveling at how such new, sweet innocence could exist. She was so new and clean, yet unspoiled and so unknowing. 

I spoke in hushed whispers to her, low enough to not wake Loki who was a rather deep sleeper. I told her of Vanaheim and the good I could remember of it, about the virtue and the honor of her grandmothers, regaling the artistic skill of her grandfather and the prestige of the other. Telling her all about her father and what a good man he was and how loved she was, even if he might not know how to show it yet.

The day before when I had been drifting in and out between her feedings, I had surreptitiously observed Loki. He was seated in front of the fire, holding our daughter and just studying her. His expression had been difficult to read, when occasionally he touched her tiny face or her fingers, cocking his head almost like he was confused at the bundle in his arms.

Eventually, Svássaedra awoke and started squirming next to me, then her eyes were open and she was crying again. I gathered her gently into my arms and sat up, grimacing for the dull ache that flared between my legs with the movement. I pulled my nightgown down and allowed her to latch onto me. Loki stirred next to me, mumbled something, then draped his arm over my lap, right below Svássaedra, and pressed his face into my side.

While she fed, all I could think about was how much I loved her. I had loved my mother and my father, my siblings and Konavefr and Dreyma and my nephews; all my friends here at court and the queen and Loki, of course, with all my heart. I would never have thought I could love another more than him, but how hopelessly untrue that was I knew now. It was an all-consuming, unspeakable thing roiling within me, simply to gaze at this little physical manifestation of our love.

Once Svássaedra slowed down, I carefully switched her to my other breast. Eir had instructed me to do that. Part of me felt inadequate because I felt I should have known more, despite the fact I had obviously never borne a child before. But there were many things Eir had told me to be conscious of, and to send her a message immediately if anything concerning were to occur. She was supposed to come this morning to examine the babe, anyway.

The movement—and Svássaedra’s gurgling when she was done—finally woke Loki, who slowly rolled onto his back, then sat up and planted a kiss on my bare shoulder.

“How is she?” he asked sleepily.

“Well, I think,” I replied in a whisper. “She’s been feeding as much as Eir said she would.”

Just then, there came a soft knocking on the door. Loki was out of the bed moments later to answer it. Eir crept in with a small smile on her face, followed by her assistant Erendi, who was holding what appeared to be a pile of clean cloths. While Eir came to check on Svássaedra, Erendi set down the pile and began gathering all of the leftover supplies from the day before from the table.

“How was the night?” Eir inquired, taking Svássaedra gently from me. 

While I spoke with Eir in a hushed voice, I could sense Loki in my periphery, standing back, staring at us like he had no idea what to do or say. Eir finally took Svássaedra across the room once Erendi had the table cleaned off, and I glanced at Loki and held my hand out. He immediately came to me, took my hand, and sat on the bed next to me. 

“Stjarnavetr, I brought some clean clothes and a towel for you to bathe. I’m sure you would like to this morning, and I need to look at—oh, my! Stjarnavetr, have you two decided on a name?”

Eir beamed when I answered and remarked what a lovely name it was. Erendi came to us and Loki froze when she held out a pile of the cloth to him. He took it awkwardly, then Erendi grinned.

“For the bath, Your Highness.”

He looked somewhat uncomfortable, but I sensed it was not necessarily from the thought of helping me bathe. I turned to slide of out bed and bit back a small groan with the movement. Honestly, the thought of bathing or even using the chamber pot worried me. I had gotten up the night before to use it and it had actually been quite painful, and it had taken everything I had not to wake Loki in the other room with my pained groaning. 

Loki came around and helped me up and he took me into the bath chamber. He started a bath as I pulled my nightgown off, which stank of my dried sweat from the past couple of days. It was a relief to have it off. I eyed the pile of cloths Erendi had given him. There was a fresh nightgown, a couple of fluffy towels, and a small bar of wrapped soap placed on top.

“I know you like it boiling,” Loki remarked with a smirk, turning to face me while the tub filled. He had his hand stuck in the water, using his seidr to further heat it.

I stood there awkwardly, suddenly feeling conscious of myself. It seemed so silly, because I could not remember ever having felt like this in front of Loki, but I knew the reason now and it sent a small wave of shame through me. When the tub was full and the water hot, Loki helped me into the tub. I settled carefully into it, unable to mask my discomfort. 

“Is it too hot, darling?”

“No,” I said, a little more sharply than I intended. 

“Do you hurt?” Loki asked, pulling a stool up next to the tub to sit with me.

“Some,” I admitted softly. “I will be sore for a while, but Eir says despite your daughter taking so long to come out, all went well and I did not tear.”

“Tear?” Loki echoed, brows creasing. His expression prompted a laugh from me, which in turn caused a painful twinge between my legs. Once Loki had recovered from the thought of such a thing, he ran his fingers absently up and down my arm while I soaked. The hot water was delicious on my skin and I eventually leaned back and closed my eyes.

“You seemed perturbed earlier,” I commented.

“When?”

“When Erendi handed you the towels.”

When Loki did not reply, I opened my eyes. He appeared to be contemplating something.

“It was odd,” he finally admitted. “The way she addressed me, Stjarna. I can’t remember the last time somebody called me that.” 

“Erendi was with Eir before,” I said. “She remembers you as the prince of Asgard.” 

“Yes, well, I don’t know if I’m considered that anymore, which in itself is odd to think of,” Loki mused, slipping his hand deeper into the water and twining his fingers with mine, resting on my belly. “Considering my being a traitor and the beheading and all that, you know.” 

I smiled, but it was an empty smile. Part of me had forgotten, what with being sequestered in these little chambers together with our new baby daughter, that there was an entire world outside that door that despised Loki—a cruel reminder that our fates were far from secure. I think Loki was thinking the same, because neither of us spoke again until I asked him to hand me the soap.

I was able to clean my front easily enough, but Loki assisted in washing my back. I dunked under the water and raked my fingers through my hair a few times, then Loki helped me stand. He grabbed a towel as the water rushed off of me, and again came that odd pang of embarrassment, which surprised me. I clasped my hands together in front of me, as if to uphold some pathetic charade of modesty, despite the fact that I was standing completely naked in front of him.

Loki, however, only wrapped the towel around me and helped me out of the tub. I quickly dried off, then tugged on the new nightgown, feeling much better than before. We exited the bath chamber and I carefully crawled back into bed, noticing that the cloths that had been laid on the bed to catch any bleeding were changed out with fresh ones. Eir was puttering around on the table across the room and Erendi was pacing with Svássaedra in her arms, cooing and singing Asgardian lullabies. 

After examining me to make sure everything was healing well, Eir and Erendi left, leaving supplies for Svássaedra. Just minutes later, two Einherjar showed up carrying a large, intricately carved wooden cradle between them. 

“A gift from His Majesty King Thor,” one of them grunted as they sat the cradle carefully by the side of the bed. I was so taken aback I hardly knew what to say and could only call out a small “thank you” as they departed. 

We were left in peace the rest of the day and night. Most of the time was spent in bed, with Svássaedra in her new cradle next to us except for when she needed to feed. Late that night, Svássaedra was sleeping and Loki and I were in bed, him propped up on the pillows and I laying against him. He was relating to me his and Thor’s conversation in the dungeons, right after we had arrived back in Asgard. How Thor knew everything, courtesy of Mímir, the disembodied head that had been returned to the Allfather after relations broke down after the Aesir-Vanir war thousands of years ago. I knew who Mímir was, Loki had spoken to me of him before our deaths, though the details were a bit hazy. 

Thor knew of Loki’s true parentage and his children by the giantess Angrboda. He knew of the deception of his father and what had been planned for Loki even before his birth, and the treachery of those gods he had once considered his friends here at court.

“He is sorry for it all,” Loki murmured, stroking my arm with his thumb, head resting against mine. “He almost began to weep, Stjarna.” 

“Did you forgive him?” I asked softly, playing absentmindedly with the sparse hair on his chest.

“No, but not because I wouldn’t,” Loki admitted. “In truth, none of it bothered me. I just… I don’t care about anything that happened. Everything I’m told, it feels like it was done to somebody else. Then they say it was done to me.”

I understood what he meant. I had felt some of that, too, thinking about my previous life. I knew my memories were my own, but occasionally they felt foreign, like I had made them up. Yet, I did not want to say that I was happy for Loki, considering the unspeakable things that had been done to him near the end of his life, but the fact he seemed content enough with it all comforted me. There was no hatred in his voice, nor bitterness. 

I lifted my head and kissed Loki. He returned the kiss, nuzzling his nose against mine, and combed his fingers through my hair. Being pressed against him like this, in his arms, almost made me forget the tenuousness of our situation lingering ominously outside that door. I did not want to bring it up, however, for fear that the truth might shatter this illusion of safety.

Loki deepened the kiss, pushing his tongue past my teeth, and pulling my body tighter against his. I laughed softly and tilted my head back. 

“You know what Eir said,” I chided.

“I know,” he said. “I’m just kissing my wife, am I not allowed to do that?”

I shot him an amused, disbelieving look, but allowed him to resume his kissing down my neck, to my collarbones, then down even more to the tops of my breasts.

“Will they stay this big?” Loki asked, as I felt the brief wetness of his tongue on my warm skin. I could not help it, I laughed out loud, then glanced worriedly over at Svássaedra, who thankfully did not stir. Loki smirked up at me, fingers descending down the side of my body until he slipped them beneath my shift. 

“Loki—”

He hushed me and lifted his head to capture my protest with another kiss, resting his hand on my bare hip. He did nothing else—just kissed me until my lips were swollen and my entire body tingling. I could feel his arousal pressing eagerly against me, but he made no move otherwise. I squirmed against him, trying to quash the burgeoning heat in my body. 

It almost felt strange, since it had been so long since we had lay with one another, because despite the desire I could feel pooling inside me, the thought of the pain of actually laying with him right now made me nauseous. I did not say anything though, because his kissing me was pleasant enough, and eventually when he was satisfied with himself and I nearly breathless, he tugged me against him and I fell asleep to the meandering of his fingers over my skin.

__

The next morning, after a light breakfast, Thor paid us a visit.

He crept over to the cradle after greeting us, clearly more interested in Svássaedra than anything. I had just laid her down after her own breakfast, so she was still awake. Thor stared at me, asking silently for permission, then carefully lifted her up to hold her in his large arms. He beamed down at her while Loki scrutinized him from across the room, though I could not discern his expression. I moved next to Thor, watching in silent delight as her little eyes roved aimlessly over his face.

“She is beautiful,” he remarked slowly, like he was in awe. “My niece.” 

“Thank you for the cradle, Your Majesty—”

“Thor,” he quickly corrected, unable to tear his face away from Svássaedra. His grin widened when she cooed and squirmed in his arms. “Formalities are not needed here.” 

I glanced at Loki, who was still observing us with an air of caution. I held my hand out for him, encouraging him to come close, and he did silently. When Svássaedra’s squirming became too much a few minutes later, Thor handed her back to me, then straightened.

“She’s strong,” Thor commented pridefully. “Perhaps one day she will become a shield maiden!”

“I think she must first learn to walk before we give her a sword,” Loki replied dryly.

“Loki,” I snapped.

Thor laughed. “She is beautiful, Stjarna, but I must admit she is not the only reason I interrupted your morning, which I apologize for, by the way. I’m afraid I also must borrow Loki.” 

Fear immediately seized my insides and I instinctively clutched Svássaedra closer to me, earning an indignant gurgle from her. Thor saw the poorly subdued panic on my face and quickly waved his hand, assuaging me.

“Worry not, I’ll have your husband back to you shortly. Loki?”

Thor turned toward the door. Loki quickly kissed me, flashed me an uncertain grin—likely to reassure me even though he seemed almost as uncertain as me—then followed Thor out of the room. 

__

Loki

The apprehension sitting heavy in the pit of my stomach felt odd as we exited the room. Thor could see it clearly etched upon my face and offered me a brotherly smile. I didn’t know where we were going, so I just wandered along with him.

“I want to thank you,” I finally said, a bit stiffly. “For allowing me to be with her. I suppose as king you were advised against it.” 

Thor was quiet for a long time.

“Indeed, but… I thought she was dying. Eir sent an urgent message. If you don’t still hate me brother, gods forbid something bad was to happen to her. To let her die without you by her side would have earned me your eternal and well-deserved hatred.” 

Though his words might have been perceived as cold, I knew what he meant.

“She really is beautiful,” Thor said, lightening the mood a bit. “Your daughter.”

“Yes, she is. She looks like Stjarna, thank the gods.” 

“Sif wants a son, as does the kingdom, but I would not mind a daughter. Boys are troublesome enough, aren’t they? Getting themselves into trouble, getting themselves killed…”

I stared at him, surprised at his sardonic expression.

“How does it feel, Loki?”

“What? Dying or having a baby?” 

“Having a baby,” he laughed. “Though, I would like to discuss later how all that death stuff went.” 

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m still trying to process it, to be honest. I never gave much thought to… children.” 

“I don’t think any of us suspected things would go as they did,” he sighed, and there was something else underneath it all. Maybe a tiredness.

“Thank you for the cradle, by the way,” I added, even though Stjarna had thanked him earlier.

“I wanted to give Svássaedra the one Sif and I had made in anticipation of our child, but Sif was firmly against it. She had a hand in the design, you know, so I had to have the royal carpenter build another in a hurry.” 

“I suspect Sif isn’t too pleased with everything,” I said offhandedly, though in truth I honestly could not have cared less. I knew she probably would even see me dead again. “She doesn’t like me.”

“No. She never did, but she’ll come around. Being married has calmed her down a bit, I think.”

I raised my eyebrows, incredulous. “You think so?”

“Well, I like to think so. I like to think it’s changed both of us some, for the better. Sif does wish to fight again, but cannot now for the sake of the child. She will once the babe is born, though, I have no doubt. For now she sits in our bed and eats sweets all day. And apples. She has quite the penchant for apples.” 

We were silent for a while after that, still just walking. Every now and then a courtier would pass us in the corridor and quickly bow, throwing inquisitive or even disapproving glances in my direction. Thor ignored them, though. Finally, after some time, he spoke again.

“Loki, I hope our children may play together, if you allow it.”

“I’ll have no say whether our children play together or not,” I responded sagaciously, but not cynically. It was the truth. At this point, I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t be imprisoned in the dungeons by the time Svássaedra got to the point where she could play.

“Oh, they will,” Thor dismissed. “They shall be good friends, I hope.” 

We turned into a courtyard, dotted with trees and statues and open to the starry sky.

“Friends?” 

“Yes, of course. They’re cousins, after all.” 

“Thor… I’m sure you didn’t drag me away from Stjarna to discuss the baby.” 

“No,” he admitted, squinting up into the sky. “I did not.” 

I braced myself for the inevitable. He turned to me, looked directly at me. 

“Loki, I want you to stay in Asgard, with Stjarna and your child.” 

My lips parted in surprise. That had certainly been the last thing I’d expected him to say. 

“I want our children to play together, to grow up together.”

“I’m not so sure your wife would be entirely comfortable with the idea of your child associating with mine.” 

Thor shrugged. “She’s a stubborn woman, but she’ll get over it. You’re my brother, and Stjarna as good as my sister now. I mean it, Loki. I want you and Stjarnavetr to stay in the palace. Raise your children here.” 

“What do you advisors say about that?” 

He laughed, somewhat uncomfortably. “Some of my advisors would see you executed… again.”

A coldness spread through me, but then Thor shook his head.

“I wouldn’t allow it, though. You’ve paid your debt to the Norns already. I’d think  you dying once would have to placate even the most stringent of them. I cannot help it if the queen of death saw fit to reverse what was done.”

“What of Frey?” 

“Ah, that fucker. He’s going back to Vanaheim by week’s end, by my order.” 

“And what does the Van king say?” I inquired carefully. “What of the treaty?” 

The Vanir Njord, Frey, and his sister Freyja, had come to Asgard thousands of years ago after the Aesir-Vanir war in exchange for two Asgardians—one of whom was Mímir, who ended up returning anyway, though a little shorter than when he had gone. It was all part of the treaty after the war.

“Oh, Loki, you fucked the treaty when you killed Freyja.”

“Stjarna, then? She’s alive again, like me. What say her home realm?” 

“Well, technically she did die, fulfilling their order for her execution,” he explained, appearing somewhat confused. “I am not sure what they did with her body. I did receive a report from the Van ambassador that they buried it in some unmarked grave, beyond the castle boundaries…”

At least Stjarna’s remains had received a more honorable death than mine. I didn’t pause to think how that might work physically, since we were here alive again. If her grave were to be uncovered, would her bones still be there?

“So they will not come after her?” 

“Luckily for us, King Járnvándr cares not for such diplomatic nonsense.”

“Járnvándr?”

“King Valdrlund’s youngest son. He ascended to the throne after… your wife killed his father. Anyway, he does not care for the games his father tried to play. From what I’ve gathered from ambassador’s talk, I don’t think he particularly liked his father. Lucky for us, he’s not been any trouble.”

I nodded, remembering that Stjarna had mentioned him to me before in Helheim. Thor settled on a large stone bench under one of the trees. I sat next to him.

“Frey is why I would not advise leaving the realm, brother. I can protect you here. I cannot elsewhere within the Nine Realms and if he were to know you’d gone, I have no doubt he would go after you. Stjarna and your daughter will be safe here in Asgard, Loki, I can assure you.” 

“And I?”

“You, as well.”

“Yes, but… what would my purpose be here? I am despised still, I know it. I doubt the people of Asgard would take too kindly to me carrying on here as if nothing had happened.” 

“Mmm. Well, after I learned from Mímir the true nature of things, word may have gotten around.”

I furrowed my brows. “What do you mean?”

“There was a bit of a clean out, you could say. Of the court. I would not be surrounded by snakes weaving words of poison in my ear, Loki. There is still some distrust, I cannot deny, but it’s generally known now how wronged you were by Father. I’m sure word has spread even further, you know how things are.”

“I suppose.” 

“What I mean to say is, you would not be set upon by an angry mob if you were to wander down into the city.”

I laughed quietly at that, and Thor grinned and clapped me on the shoulder.

__

Stjarnavetr

I was sitting with Svássaedra in front of the fire perhaps two hours after Thor and Loki left, talking softly to her about nothing in particular, trying to distract myself, when there came a knock at the door. I rose slowly out of the chair with a wince and went to answer it. Outside stood an Einheri.

“My Lady, His Majesty King Thor has requested you be moved to larger chambers.”

“Oh,” I said, glancing back into the room. “Er, there is the cradle.”

“I will have it brought along afterwards. Please follow me.”

I did so and followed the guard out of the room. At first I kept my eyes downcast as we moved through the palace, fixed on the hem of his long yellow cape, but we did not have far to go and the closer we came to the new accommodations, the more tightness I felt in my chest. I did not bother to tell the guard there had been no need to fetch me; I remembered the way still and could have come here entirely on my own. Once we made it to the door, the Einheri opened it for me and I stepped through, breath caught in my throat.

His chambers were just as I remembered. Nothing, it seems, had been touched. From the doorway I could discern a thick layer of dust on everything—the table, the books and the great bookcases set into the wall. The tapestries and fur rugs were caked with a fine layer of gray, as well, which when beaten out would reveal their bright colors and textures again. There was no wood in the fireplace, just a large char mark on the bare stone from thousands of fires past, many of which I had sat in front of. 

I turned to the Einheri, lips parted in surprise. 

“I…”

“His Majesty would not have Prince Loki’s chambers touched after his… demise. He would sit in here sometimes, you know. Be in here for hours and order none to bother him. A chambermaid has been in and out the past few hours. I don’t see her so she might have gone to get some more supplies, but His Majesty wished you moved before nighttime. I believe the rooms should be mostly in order before dinner.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, watching as he gave a quick bow, then turned and shut the door.

I slowly turned, eyes sweeping over the receiving chamber, holding my daughter close. Memory after memory came flooding back as I wandered around—Loki and I sitting at that table, eating and laughing; seated before the fire in those large, comfortable chairs, and sometimes lying on the thick fur rug on the floor in front of it. 

In his bedchamber, his large bed, decked in luscious dark red, looked fresh. I assumed the chambermaid had been in here already cleaning, as I did not see dust anywhere. I stood there for a long time, still clutching a sleeping Svássaedra to my chest, and eventually my lips began to tremble and my eyes filled with tears. I started to weep like a fool standing there in the middle of the room.

I kissed Svássaedra’s head, who swiftly awoke with my quiet cries, but did not begin wailing herself. I turned around and went back into the receiving chamber. In that moment, I wished desperately Loki was here with me. Did he know? 

Suddenly, the door opened and a wispy girl in servant’s garb entered with a small basket full of rags and other cleaning supplies.

“My Lady,” she greeted, curtsying to me, but appearing alarmed at my tears.

“Ignore me, please,” I said softly. 

“Should I come back?” she wondered, eyes wide.

“No, no, please.”

I sat down at the table—my old spot—and nursed Svássaedra. The chambermaid busied herself, but out of the corner of my eye I could see her every so often stare curiously at me. Perhaps half an hour later the same Einheri who had led me here returned with another guard to drop off the cradle Thor had gifted us, along with some bundles of wood. They placed the cradle in the bedchamber, stocked the fireplaces, and left.

The chambermaid departed a couple of hours later. She had not finished, but it was close to dinner and she promised she would return tomorrow to finish the bookcases. I put Svássaedra down in her cradle and tentatively made my way to a large chest against the wall, near the wardrobe. I unlatched the lid and inside found piles of musty, though still neatly folded clothing—my clothing. I gingerly lifted out the first piece: a deep blue robe, embroidered with delicate designs of gold and silver thread. I gingerly put it on, swallowing the tears I could feel rising in my throat. I had no idea why donning the robe felt so emotional, but quickly collected myself so as not to wake the baby. 

Not even ten minutes later Loki and Thor arrived. I came out of the bedchamber, fingers nervously gripping the front of my robe. Loki stared, taking in his old rooms. He looked at me, down at my robe, then at Thor, who smiled.

“I know your chambers aren’t completely ready, so I wanted to see if you and Stjarnavetr wanted to dine with Sif and I tonight.” 

Loki glanced at me again. Even though outwardly I may have seemed perfectly stoic, I think he could sense beneath it all I was not quite as tranquil.

“I appreciate the offer, brother, but I think I would like to dine with my wife alone tonight.”

Thor, who likely was expecting that answer, and as always seemingly unperturbed, nodded. He clapped Loki on the shoulder.

“Good night to Loki, Stjarnavetr.”

And he was gone with a twirl of his long red cape.

Immediately I burst into loud sobs. Loki was across the room in a second and immediately enfolded me into his arms, placing a hand on the back of my head to stroke my hair. He said nothing, just let me cry against him while kissing the top of my head.

“I’m here, darling,” he said. “You’re safe. Svássaedra’s safe. We’re okay.”

I nodded, but still could not speak for my weeping. Finally, I pulled back, wiping uselessly at the large wet spot from my tears on the front of his shirt. Loki gazed down at me, unsmiling, and I could see the concern in his eyes. I knew not why I wept. Though it had not been explicitly stated to me, obviously Thor meant for us to stay if he had put us back in Loki’s old chambers. The relief was overwhelming, the realization that I did not have to worry anymore.

Loki tenderly brushed a stray lock of hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ear.

“I didn’t know where he was taking me, Stjarna,” Loki said. “It seemed familiar, but… I didn’t know until he opened the door. I can’t believe he kept it like this.”

“The Einheri told me Thor used to sit in here by himself.”

Loki’s brows furrowed.

“He missed you, Loki,” I clarified, sniffling. “He kept them because he missed you. There was still a part of you here.” 

Loki released me and walked around the room, brushing his fingers over the still dusty bookshelves, the table and the backs of the carved chairs. He opened the doors to the balcony, revealing the city twinkling below and the darkening landscape beyond, rolling hills and forests that he had I had explored in the preceding centuries.

“It hardly feels real,” he remarked quietly.

“What did you two talk about?” I asked, wiping at my face again with the sleeve of my robe.

“He wants us to stay,” he replied, turning toward me. “He recommends it, in fact.” 

“Why?”

“All is well, Stjarna,” he assured, coming back to stand in front of me. “Frey will return to Vanaheim. Thor says Valdrlund’s son is not concerned with anything that’s gone on with our return. But… he believes…”

“Yes?”

He sighed. He did not wish to upset me. “He says Frey would come after us if we were to leave Asgard.”

I slowly looked down.

“I’d tend to agree with him,” Loki said softly, putting his fingers under my chin and lifting my head. “How do you feel, Stjarna? To stay in Asgard?”

I shook my head and clasped his hand in both of mine, bringing it to my chest. “I care not where I am, Loki, as long as we are together.” 

He smiled and leaned down to press a lingering kiss to my forehead.

“What did I do to deserve a woman such as you, Stjarna?” 

“You must thank your mother for that,” I laughed, and he pulled back. 

“I will make sure to do that one day, when I see her again.” 

“Well, hopefully that day is a long way away. I need you here with us for the foreseeable future.”

Loki kissed me again, then asked where Svássaedra was. He wanted to see her. 

I led Loki by the hand into his bedchamber, where Svássaedra slept soundly despite my hysterics just minutes before. I watched with swelling pride as he doted on her sleeping form, before shortly servants arrived with dinner. 

When the plates were laid out and the servants gone, Loki and I seated ourselves—him in his old spot and I in mine. Dinner was a quiet affair, somewhat due to not wanting to wake Svássaedra, who miraculously was still sleeping, but also because the silence seemed to both of us an almost comforting thing after everything.

After dinner, Loki replenished the fireplace and we sat in front of the fire, murmuring softly to one another until I grew too tired to keep my eyes open. Loki helped me to bed, then pulled Svássaedra’s cradle close to my side, knowing she would waken soon to feed.

But for now, all was quiet.

Loki undressed and crawled into bed once I was settled. He wrapped me in his arms beneath the blankets and pulled me tight against his body, burying his face in my hair.

“We’re okay, Stjarna,” he murmured, rubbing his nose against me. He reached up with one hand to stroke my hair, grazed his thumb across my cheek. I took his hand and curled my fingers with his, for the first time in a long time feeling as if I could actually believe it.

__

Despite only getting a few hours of sleep due to Svássaedra, I awoke feeling more hopeful than ever. I did not even notice Loki was not in bed with me, since the first thing I did was to roll over to check on Svássaedra. I got her up to feed, changed her with some clean linens that had been brought the day before by the chambermaid, then went to find Loki.

I found him standing on the balcony, hands resting on the parapet. It was still early. The dark blue sky, daubed with stars, was giving way to the warm light of the rising sun. Loki glanced at me when I came out. I walked up next to him and he pulled me close, careful not to bump Svássaedra, kissing the side of my head as I settled against him, moving her to one arm. 

“While I do find you just as handsome in Midgardian clothes, I think we still need to get you some new ones,” I remarked, tugging playfully at the hem of his shirt. Loki chuckled and looked down, then smiled at our daughter, who cooed.

“Yes, they’re a bit worn, anyway.” 

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

“I was thinking about my mother.” 

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I miss her. I wish she was here. And Father.” 

I twined my fingers with his. 

“You’ve still got family here, Stjarna. Have you thought about when you might want to see them?” 

I observed the city, rising for the morning. I had thought of them just last night—Konavefr and Dreyma and the boys, my brother’s sons. They would be close to grown by now. Another brother who had disliked me in life, but who still I would love to see again.

“Soon.”

“Tell me when and we’ll go,” Loki said, kissing me again. “Svássaedra is so little still, but we’ll figure something out.”

We were quiet for a long moment.

“It still seems strange that we are here,” I remarked quietly.

“It will be an interesting story to tell Svássaedra, certainly,” Loki laughed. “And your family. And Thor, too, he’ll want more details.”

“After everything… it almost does not seem real. Is it really over, Loki?”

“Yes,” he murmured, turning my face to his and kissing my forehead. “It’s over.”

It was an easy thing to believe, already. All the pain and despair and death—preceded by centuries of unknowing happiness, all now to end like this. A thing I had always dreamt of, that I might eventually be more to Loki than a mistress. More to somebody than a nothing. He loved me. He would die for me, and I for him if it came to it. And our daughter now, who he would learn to show the love he had been so in want of in life. No grief, nor bitterness. Nothing left now but a desire to live happily and in peace.

I looked down at our daughter, at her big grey eyes, and then back up to Loki, who was gazing fondly at me with that little half-smile of his that I loved.

All I had ever wanted.

The heat of summer intensified and the days lengthened. Loki bought the boys a little inflatable pool for the front yard, which was brown and cracked and more dirt than grass because the sun had baked it dry.

After Sigyn lubed the kids and Loki up with sunblock—and herself with a generous heaping of Bain de Soleil—she’d lounge in the hot pink jelly fold-out chair and watch Loki play with Narfi and Váli in the pool. He’d glance up at Sigyn every now and then, wink and blow her a kiss. She smiled the first time, but after that always seemed more focused on her celebrity gossip magazine that she’d stolen from work. 

Loki met up with Angie at least twice a week now, sometimes three times, despite his grueling work schedule at the plant in Muspel. He always made time for her. They fucked a couple of times in the old White Castle parking lot and once in the bed of his truck on a ratty blanket on the edge of town when it was a sultry, cloudless night and they could see the stars. He visited her at work a few times and they had sex in the employee bathroom up against the wall, and when he went to her place they’d do it in every room and on every surface.

He loved having sex with Angrboda. She was so different from Sigyn. She actually liked having sex with him. She liked going down on him and when he fucked her in the ass. In fact, she asked for it. Sigyn, on the other hand, thought doggy was kinky.

Loki could still remember the first time he’d asked Sigyn for a blow job, the look on her face like he had two heads. When she eventually relented and went down on him a few months later, he could tell she hated it. Didn’t matter if he loved eating her out or fingering her, whatever—Sigyn didn’t bother to even pretend for him. Didn’t like to cuddle on the couch, either, but she sure as hell expected biweekly foot rubs. 

Loki had put up with the shitty sex at first with Sigyn because he wanted to be a good boyfriend. Then a good fiancé, then a good husband and father. But good fiancés didn’t cheat on their pregnant fiancées. Good husbands didn’t cheat on their wives. Well, Loki did, but he suspected Angrboda rather liked the thrill of fucking a married man. He was no better, considering that he never stopped her when she started sucking his dick. 

Besides that, Angie was just so much more interesting. She liked good music, had a disgustingly dark sense of humor just like Loki. She was into tarot and crystals and all sorts of other weird shit. For his twenty-sixth birthday the year before, she’d gifted him a small Mason jar wrapped with twine and filled full of bay leaves, salt, rice, and a handful of green rocks, which he didn’t understand but kept tucked away in his nightstand drawer anyway. 

Yeah, things were good for a while.

Until suddenly they weren’t. 

Late one Saturday night, a couple of months after they’d reconnected in the White Castle parking lot, Angie messaged Loki.

We need to talk.

Weird, Loki thought, before nervously replying, Do you want me to call?

No. In person.

Ok. Tomorrow?

Sure. I’m at work til 5pm.

Is something wrong?

Maybe. Don’t worry about it til tomorrow.

Are you sure you don’t want to talk? I can be at your place asap.

No, it’s ok. 

Ok. Let me know.

The next afternoon around 4:30, Loki drove to the Citgo where Angie worked. It had rained earlier in the day, but all the clouds were gone now and the sun unrelenting, so the air was hot and thick and soupy. Sigyn had to go into work, so Loki left the boys with their retired neighbor, Bragi, since he didn’t expect to be gone for long.

Loki drove around back, where he had correctly guessed Angie would be. She was standing by the big green dumpster, a Newport Red stub dangling precariously between her fingers. He parked his truck by her, turned it off and got out, leaving the door hanging open.

“Hey,” she greeted, somewhat offhandedly, as he approached her, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“Hey. Are you okay?” 

“Yeah.” 

“What’s wrong? Why’d you need to talk to me?” 

“Loki,” she sighed, scratching her eyebrow with her thumbnail. She seemed flustered. She was never flustered. Suddenly he was even more anxious than before.

“What?”

“I… need to tell you something.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked. She didn’t look good. He wrapped his arms around her middle and pulled her close, but her body was stiff against his. 

“Loki… I’m…”

“Yeah?”

“I’m pregnant.” 

Loki’s gut dropped and he let go of her. “What?”

“My period’s late. Like really late. I’m irregular anyway so I didn’t think anything of it, but it’s been, like… over a month now. I took a few pregnancy tests the other day because I just… I wanted to know, and… they were all positive.”

“Fuck,” Loki groaned, raking his fingers through his hair.

“Well, what do you expect?” Angie retorted waspishly, tossing her cigarette down and smashing it with the tip of her shoe. “You don’t like using condoms and you don’t like pulling out.” 

“You’re not on the pill or some shit?” 

Why hadn’t he ever asked? He just assumed because she fucked other guys she’d use something. 

“No. I had an implant in my arm, but I think it might have expired.”

“Ugh, what the fuck, Angrboda. Are you sure it’s mine?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s yours, I promise. You’re the only one I let finish in me.”

He gritted his teeth. 

“I’m pretty sure it happened when we had sex in the White Castle parking lot that night,” she added, almost unsurely. “I don’t think the dates make sense otherwise…”

“Goddamnit. What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” Angie said tenuously, which wasn’t good enough for Loki. 

“I can’t have three kids,” he insisted. “The twins are already enough. I can barely afford them as is.”

“I know, Loki,” Angie responded absently, staring off to the side. Loki squinted at her. 

“Wait, you’re not gonna keep it, are you?” 

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, come the fuck on. Are you fucking serious right now?”

Angrboda pressed her lips together in annoyance. “Spare me the theatrics, Loki.”

“Ange, this is the last fucking thing I need right now.”

Angie raised her eyebrows, incredulous. “You don’t need this right now? What about me? I make fucking nine dollars an hour!”

“Listen, I can—I can give you the money. Just go to that clinic over in Alfheim.”

“Loki, I don’t know if I want that—”

“You literally just fucking said you make nine dollars an hour.”

“I know, but… ugh, I don’t know, Loki, I still have to think about it—”

“There’s nothing to fucking think about,” Loki shouted, and Angrboda stared at him like she didn’t even know him. Her eyes drifted down to the pavement, then she swallowed and gave a small nod. He added, a little more softly now, “I don’t need another fucking kid, Ange.”

“Yeah. Fine.”

Loki sighed, awash with relief, not even registering the stoniness of Angie’s face. He reached into his pocket to grab his wallet just to give her something for now, he would give her more later, but Angie waved him away and shook her head.

“Keep it. I don’t want it.”

“What?”

“I said keep your fucking money. I don’t want it.” 

Loki glanced up at her in surprise, despite having just shouted at her.

“Ange, I just wanted to help—”

“Fuck you and fuck your help,” she barked over her shoulder, already headed toward the back door of the store.

Loki clenched his fists, then turned on his heel and climbed back up into his truck. He slammed the door shut, sat there stewing for a few minutes, then drove angrily back home. He went next door, picked up the twins from Bragi, and tossed him a twenty.

Afterwards, Loki fixed the kids a quick lunch of leftover shredded chicken and string cheese, then put them in the duct-taped playpen in the living room when they were done eating. He collapsed backwards onto the couch, allowing their giggles and babbling to melt into the background. 

He loved his boys, but he couldn’t fathom another. Not to mention what the hell Sigyn would do when she found out. Stepping out on her was one thing, but knocking somebody else up… well, her patience could likely only stretch so thin. Would she finally divorce him? Didn’t fucking matter if she did, Loki thought bitterly. Angie wouldn’t want him, anyway, even if she did decide to have his baby.

Honestly, Loki was surprised it had taken this long for her to get pregnant, considering how much they’d fooled around over the years.

They’d known each other since they were kids. She was the younger step-sister of one of Thor’s best friends. Loki’s parents made Thor drag him along to hangouts when he was younger, and that’s how he met Angie. She was a few years younger than him and kind of a weirdo, so they never really hit it off in the beginning. Loki was kind to her, however, which was more than she got at home according to Thor.  

Things only really changed between them when one day she came to him, completely out of the blue, and asked him to take her virginity—she was thirteen and he was sixteen. 

Loki thought it was a joke at first, then refused when she told him it very much was not a joke. Back then he was dating a girl in his class named Skadi, and the idea of sleeping with the little sister of one of Thor’s friends that he only saw occasionally wasn’t his idea of a good time. But the next time he saw Angie, she begged him because all of her friends were already sleeping around and she didn’t trust anybody else to be her first. He relented eventually. 

Their first time wasn’t bad. Loki had already slept with a couple of girls at that point, so at least one of them knew what they were doing. Loki intended for that to be it, because Angie didn’t really interest him. He’d slept with her as a favor, really.

Despite this, they ended up sleeping together again just a few weeks later—Loki couldn’t remember which of them initiated it, probably her—and then again a couple of days after that because suddenly he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Loki ended up leaving Skadi and he and Angie started dating a few days after she turned fourteen. They were off and on for the next few years, but would still have sex even if they were seeing other people. They just couldn’t seem to leave each other alone.

One time, the summer after Loki graduated high school, Angie had a huge blow up with her then-boyfriend who was in college. She came to Loki to vent and they’d ended up fucking. Afterwards, Angie curled up against him in the dark and whispered that he was her soulmate. He’d laughed because soulmates didn’t exist and she was just a lovestruck little girl, stuck on the first guy she’d had sex with.

How fucking ironic, he thought now. 

Neither of them had gone to college after high school. Her family couldn’t afford it, even with help, and his dad had the money but threw most of it at Thor despite  him getting multiple scholarships for sports, and who ended up drinking most of it away, anyway.

Angie never settled down. He had, after she left him four years ago. Wished he hadn’t. Now he was pushing thirty and had too late come to realize the truth of her childish words almost a decade ago, but it didn’t fucking matter now. Couldn’t turn back time. 

Loki pulled his phone out and fired off a text to Angie.

I’m sorry.

Only a second later, he got a failed delivery notification. He tilted his head back and sighed. She’d blocked his number. Fucking great.

Life went on, but Angrboda was all Loki could think about. Not even that she was pregnant with his kid, but the way he’d spoken to her. The way he’d dismissed her and talked to her like she was stupid. Angie was proud. She didn’t put up with bullshit like that, and he knew she shouldn’t have to. 

Loki resorted to texting Gerda, Angie’s best friend, asking if Angie was okay, but Gerda—ever the loyal friend—only told him to fuck off.

That was when Loki started wondering how bad things would really be if his marriage to Sigyn failed. Would it be as terrible as he’d always thought? He loved Sigyn, but not like he loved Angie. Nothing like he loved Angie. He’d be sick to lose the boys, though, knowing Sigyn would talk shit about him as they got older. 

But when he thought of Angie, it didn’t seem to matter. He dared to envision being with Angie, being there for the birth of their child and going home together and maybe even eventually marrying her, like he’d always imagined.

They had talked about it when they were younger, before he tried to strangle her in a coke-induced haze. Laying in bed together, or on a blanket under the stars and he’d be eating her out and admit to her between licks and nibbles that she was going to be his wife one day, and she’d laugh, wiggling her hips in assent because she knew it, too. 

Things never go quite as you expect them to, though. 

The more Loki thought about it, the less he seemed to give a shit about the prospect of divorce. He pictured getting a place with Angie and raising their kid together. Seeing the twins on the weekend—or maybe less, because Sigyn was petty—but he’d be with Angie. Finally be with Angie. 

All week Loki mulled it over. When he went to bed, when he woke up, while he was driving and while he was at work. Just fantasizing about being with Angie. Would she even consider it, if he did end up leaving his wife? She had denied him more times than he could count since she left him, but things were different now. She was pregnant with his baby. Surely that changed things? Angie wouldn’t say no to him wanting to be in the kid’s life, he knew.

It was a few weeks later, maybe a month after Loki had seen Angie at the gas station. Sigyn didn’t have to work this weekend, so early Saturday morning before she woke up, he slipped out of bed, dressed, and drove over to the Citgo. He knew Angie’s schedule, but was surprised to find her absent. Her coworker behind the register told him she’d called off for the day. 

He drove to her place and knocked on the door. Though it was barely seven in the morning, the air was already oppressive. He started sweating the moment he got out of the truck. 

Angie finally opened the door after a couple more knocks, dressed only in what looked like an oversized, ratty black band T-shirt that fell to her mid-thighs. Her hair was wild as usual, but she wasn’t wearing any makeup. 

She rolled her eyes when she saw who it was standing on her doorstep. 

“Get the fuck out of here, Loki,” she demanded, going to shut the door, but Loki blocked it with his foot, then moved into the doorway.

“No, I need to talk to you.” 

“There’s not much to talk about.”

“Angie—”

“I don’t want to see you,” she reiterated irritably. 

“Will you just shut the fuck up and listen to me?” he snapped.

Angie pressed her lips together and folded her arms over her chest. 

Loki sighed in exasperation. “Babe—”

Angie scoffed. “Don’t fucking ‘babe’ me, you prick.” 

“Look, I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean to… react like that when you told me you were pregnant, it… it was just a lot to take in.” 

Angie only continued to glare at him.  

“I’ve been thinking.”

“That’s a new one,” she snorted.

“Can we talk?” Loki asked, ignoring her dig. “Can I come in? Please?”

Angie hesitated, but then opened the door so he could enter. He brushed past her, relishing the cool air on his heated skin. It was dim inside and smelled strongly of lemon, cinnamon, and vanilla.

“Smells good,” Loki remarked, eyes sliding down to Angie’s milky white legs. If she was wearing any bottoms under that shirt, they were very short. Knowing her, however, she wasn’t wearing anything except undies.

“Simmer pot,” came the automatic reply.

Loki didn’t know what that was and Angie didn’t bother to elaborate as she turned to face him.

“Spit it out.”

“Angie, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you said that. What else?” 

“Are you gonna keep it?” 

Her voice was cold. “I already told you—”

“Are you going to fucking keep it or not?”

“Yes, I am,” she muttered angrily. “You don’t have to worry about it—” 

“But I want to worry about it,” he retorted. “Angie. Listen to me. Whatever you decide, I want to be with you. That’s… what I came to tell you.” 

Angie rolled her eyes again, but then stiffened when Loki took a step forward and took her face in his hand, forcing her to regard him. 

“Angrboda,” he said firmly, eyes trained on her wide ones. “I want to be with you.” 

Angie smacked his hands away. “Loki, cut the bullshit, you’re married—”

“I’ll leave her.” 

Angie’s lips parted in surprise, but she quickly collected herself.

“Do you know how fucking dumb you sound right now?”

“I don’t give a shit how dumb you think I sound,” Loki answered heatedly. “I’ll leave her. I’ll get a divorce, I guarantee you she wouldn’t give a shit.” 

“But your babies—”

“They’ll be in my life no matter what,” Loki countered. “I want you in mine, and not like this anymore, sneaking around and shit. You’re worth more than that.”  

Angie shook her head, like she didn’t want to believe it.

“I love you, Ange,” he said, lifting her head with his fingers under her chin, and this time she didn’t bat him away. “I know you love me, too.”

When Angie didn’t respond, Loki took her face in his hands, almost carefully, and kissed her tenderly on the lips. She closed her eyes as he pressed his forehead to hers and stroked her cheek with his thumb.

“I… I can’t…”

“Why?” 

“I…”

“Is it what I did?” Loki asked desperately, kissing her nose and then her lips. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists. “Baby, how many times do I have to apologize? You know I’d never do anything like that ever again.”

“I know, Loki, it’s not that,” she finally admitted, pulling back to wipe at her now teary eyes. “I don’t… I can’t stay here.” 

“What?” 

“I don’t want to be stuck in Yggdrasil for the rest of my life, Loki, and if I… if I go back to you, I will be. You don’t care about leaving. You can’t leave because of the twins, and that’s okay. But I have to leave. I don’t want to end up like my mom. I don’t want to die here.” 

Loki stared at her, at a loss for words. He would hold her back, is what she was saying. Keep her down. Angie had mentioned wanting to leave before, even before the opportunity to split a place with Gerda the next town over came along. He knew she’d been saving money for potentially going back to college, too. He always thought if she did, it’d be at the community college nearby.

“I’d go with you,” Loki volunteered. He didn’t even care. He just wanted to be with her. “I can’t lose you. Not again.” 

She shook her head. “No, Loki, you can’t leave your babies.” 

For a split second, Loki thought he would if it meant he could keep her, but the idea of that left him feeling cold. Hadn’t he always told himself he wouldn’t be a shitty father like his own? Not that Odin had abandoned him or Thor, but he was  by no means a model father. Now here he was thinking about leaving his kids for her. She’d been a part of his life for so long, though, that the thought of losing her was nauseating.

“I don’t want to stay here, Loki,” she continued quietly, like it hurt to say. “I can’t. I have to get away, even if it’s only to Muspel for now.” 

“I wanna go with you, I’ll take care of you.”

“I don’t want anybody taking care of me,” she said miserably. “I don’t want to rely on anybody else.”

“Fine, whatever, we can still go—”

“No, Loki, you don’t understand. I don’t want to go with you.” 

It was like a punch to the gut. Always the  loser, always the unwanted—by his father, by his wife, and now by the love of his life. 

When he only stared at her, Angie started crying. She never cried. Loki didn’t care what she’d just said, though. He enfolded her into his arms and she went willingly, pressing her face against the front of his shoulder. 

“I’ll never be anything if I stay here, Loki,” she sniffled. “I’ll never be anything if I… if I go back to you.”

Loki only stroked her hair, thinking. After a minute, he took her head in his hands and tilted her head back so she was looking up at him. He didn’t say anything, only lowered his head to press an affectionate kiss to her parted lips that tasted like her salty tears. There was no passion there, only a sort of vague melancholy. 

“Do you love me, Angrboda?” Loki asked, pulling back to scrutinize her face. She stared into his eyes, a pretty lucent green, and her chin trembled. She always acted like such a badass, but no matter what she said, Loki knew at heart she was still that little girl standing in front of him, asking him to take care of her—or maybe that’s just what he wanted for her to be.

She hadn’t told him she loved him since before that night he tried to strangle her. He’d ached to hear those words again all these years, but never really pressed with the fear of pushing her further away.

“Say you don’t love me and I’ll go. You won’t have to worry about me ever again. I promise.” 

Her eyes flickered between his, but she did not speak.

“Tell me you don’t love me, Ange, and I’ll walk out of here,” Loki repeated gently. He could feel the pinprick of tears in his own eyes. Whatever she said he would do it, even if it killed him.

Angie shook her head and closed her eyes, sending a fresh rivulet of tears down her cheeks. Her voice shook. “I can’t, Loki. I do love you. I love you, please don’t leave.” 

Loki immediately leaned down to kiss her. He didn’t want to hear the “but” that surely came after. All he wanted to feel right now was her lips on his, her soft body against his. He combed his fingers up into her messy hair, then turned her with his body so she was against the wall next to the front door. She practically melted against him. 

Loki deepened the kiss, smiling against her lips when she responded just as vehemently. He yanked the fraying collar of her T-shirt down over her shoulder, exposing her bra strap, then broke the kiss to lavish wet, openmouthed kisses down the length of her neck.

Moments later the T-shirt was on the floor and Loki’s earlier suspicion was confirmed that she wore nothing but a mismatched pair of panties underneath. He lifted his head to kiss her again, fingers ghosting down her body, over the cotton of her underwear, until his fingers dipped between her legs.

Angie whimpered into his mouth, kissed him even more eagerly as he felt the wetness of her desire already seeping through the thin fabric. The embers that had previously only been smoldering inside him exploded into a fervor. 

Loki descended with frantic kisses, over her collarbones and chest, between her tits, down over her stomach until he was on his knees in front of her. Angie breathlessly observed him through heavily-lidded eyes; her lips, normally daubed in dark, drugstore lipstick, were bare and pink and swollen from his kisses. She slowly closed her eyes and tilted her head back against the wall, silently surrendering as he hooked his fingers in the elastic band of her undies, then tugged them down over her hips until they were pooled around her ankles. 

He kissed her stomach again and Angie stilled, combing her fingers through his lanky black hair. Loki skimmed his nose across her skin, down into the wiry red curls at the top of her legs. He indelicately grabbed the back of her knee, threw her leg over his shoulder, and went to town. 

Angie was vocal. He loved it, and the longer it went on her breathing teetered between shallow little pants and long, needy moans. Every so often she’d curse, causing Loki to grin against her. He used his teeth and tongue and lips to suck and nibble and caress, then slid two fingers inside her, which prompted a harsh, involuntary tug on his hair. 

Despite his quickly burgeoning hard-on, Loki took his time in savoring her, there was no rush. Teasing her pussy with his mouth and fingers, breaking away every so often for a breath and to kiss her inner thighs and suck a handful of hickeys into existence. Angie started to squirm against him, whispering his name desperately as if not ten minutes before she’d been denigrating him. 

It didn’t take much longer.

Angie came with a wavering cry, tensing against the wall as Loki coaxed her gently through her orgasm with his tongue on her clit, and curling his fingers inside her to prolong it. Her cry devolved into a quivering whine, rising in pitch until she was practically writhing beneath him, pushing at his head because she was too sensitive now and she knew he was going to keep going until she was goo. 

Loki reluctantly pulled away and gazed up at her even as his fingers were still softly stroking inside her. She was breathing hard, face and neck and chest flushed the prettiest pink. Finally he withdrew his fingers, then carefully removed her leg from his shoulder. 

He gradually rose, peppering slick kisses across her abdomen, up until he arrived once again at her parted lips. Angie grabbed his face and kissed him hungrily, exploring his mouth with her tongue so she could taste herself.

Loki’s erection was painful at this point. He grabbed her hips, maneuvered her around the end table next to them, and pushed her back onto the broken down, brown fabric couch that had clearly seen better days. He kicked his shoes off, quickly divested himself of his shirt and jeans, and knelt between her legs. 

He didn’t say anything, just spread her open and sank down into her. Angie arched up off the couch with a gasp, reaching up to dig her fingers into his arms and squeezing her legs on his narrow waist. 

“Fuck,” he muttered, dropping his head and rolling his hips against her. He kissed Angie’s ear, then another lingering one at her temple as he moved inside her. She was so wet and warm and he wondered how even after fucking her a million times she could still feel this good.

Every sharp snap of his hips against the inside of her thighs drove the breath from her lungs. Their groans and grunts between broken kisses lingered heavily in the air between them, along with her tiny garbed gasps into his mouth while he fucked her like they were a couple of teenagers again, trying to finish before somebody managed to come home early and interrupt. 

Nobody to interrupt now, though—they were all grown up, still so young but already crushed by the weight of life and circumstance and a long string of shitty  fucking choices. Always feeling sorry for themselves, but sometimes still able to find pleasure in the little things, and in stolen little moments like this.

Loki was staring at Angie’s face, the way she arched her back and her neck, that delicious, sharp pinch of her nails into his sides, over his ribs to leave long, deep scratches that Sigyn would definitely eventually see. 

He fucked her until she came again and he succumbed with a harsh groan immediately after, sliding slowly in and out while the waves of her own orgasm encouraged his own. When Loki pulled out a minute later, in that moment he strangely thought of condoms—obviously didn’t matter now, though, not wearing protection. Little too late for that.

Loki tilted his head back and expulsed a heavy breath, raking his sweat-damp hair out of his eyes. Angie remained on her back, but stretched her body with a satisfied mewl, then propped her bare feet up on his lap. She looked at him with a small, mischievous smile on her lips. She wiggled her toes, evoking a laugh from Loki. Angie liked foot rubs just as much as Sigyn. 

Loki indulged her and grabbed one of her feet. He began kneading the bottom with his thumb, earning another pleasured little whimper from Angie. She reached up behind her to the table on her side of the couch and grabbed a box of cigarettes and a lighter. She lit up, took a drawl, then passed it to Loki.

It was as if the past few weeks hadn’t happened. 

Neither of them spoke for a while, just trading cigarettes while Loki massaged her feet. Eventually, Angie got up and Loki eyed her up and down as she walked into the cramped kitchen off the living room. 

“Do you want anything?” Angie asked, extinguishing her cigarette into an ashtray on the counter. 

“No,” he answered, gaze wandering down her pale body. He peered curiously at the profile of her belly as she reached up to open a cupboard, wondering when women normally started to show. He couldn’t tell if her stomach was rounder than normal, since there was always a little pooch there at the bottom. He couldn’t remember when Sigyn started to show, but it might have been earlier than normal because she had been pregnant with twins.

Loki was getting hard again just staring at her. Even from here, when she moved a certain way, he could see his cum that she hadn’t bothered to clean dripping down the inside of her legs. He roused himself and followed Angie into the kitchen, standing behind her and brushing her mass of curls out of the way to sprinkle kisses up and down the back of her neck. Angie shuddered when he unhooked her bra and slipped it off her shoulders, letting it fall to the linoleum floor. She softened into his embrace, feeling his dick prodding into her backside.

Within minutes they had traversed the length of the single-wide to Angie’s bedroom. They started out in missionary, but then Angie told Loki to get off of her, she wanted him to fuck her from behind. They quickly changed positions and Angie knelt on the edge of her twin-size, propped her ass up into the air and spread her knees so her upper half melted into the twisted blankets beneath her.

Loki positioned himself behind her, grabbed her hips, and sheathed himself inside in one swift movement. He held still for a long moment, just relishing the feel of her tight, wet heat around his cock.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathed, rolling his hips against her backside. He couldn’t stay still for long, however, and shortly began a harsh rhythm. He started panting, watching the way her ass bounced every time he slammed into her, hearing the smack of their wet flesh echoing loudly in the small room.

He fucked her so roughly that she had to brace one hand on the wall because otherwise he’d send her right through it. Angie was gritting her teeth, attempting to moan but having to squeal instead because her body wouldn’t make any other noise, because he was going so hard and so deep it almost hurt, but it still felt so good she didn’t want him to stop. 

Angie liked it rough. She liked getting her hair yanked on and her face slapped and body tied up so she couldn’t do anything while Loki—or whoever she was fucking—did whatever they wanted to her. All of her eccentricities—and Loki’s—had been discovered with each other through the years.

Loki couldn’t hold out for very long.

He gripped her ass and thrust into her one final time, coming apart nearly immediately. Angie whimpered, feeling his dick twitching deep inside her, and moaned in frustrated pleasure as he languidly rocked in and out of her before finally pulling out with a satisfied groan. 

Without missing a beat, Loki flipped Angie onto her back, knelt on the edge of the bed with one knee, and hovered over her. He slipped his two middle fingers inside her dripping pussy, causing some his own cum to spill over onto his hand and the side of the bed and brown carpet beneath, and teased her clit with his thumb. Angie gasped loudly, arching her back.

Like when they’d been on the couch, he stared at her face as he finger-fucked her,  watching with something akin to fascination as she squirmed helplessly on the bed. She clutched wildly at his arms, panted his name like she could barely breathe, tried to squeeze her legs together but couldn’t because he was half-kneeling between them. 

“Loki,” she whined pathetically.

“Yeah, baby?” he murmured with a small smile, hitting that spot inside her that made her body convulse in pleasure, over and over and over.

“Don’t stop, please, don’t stop—”

“Shh,” he cooed, reaching up with his other hand to cup the side of her flushed face. He slipped his thumb past her lips and teeth so she could suck on it, then trailed his hand down to her neck, smearing her saliva across her damp skin.

Angie came hard, but that was no surprise. She often told Loki he had magical fingers and he aspired to live up to that. Her body stiffened and she rose halfway up off the bed, head fallen back and mouth hanging open. Her expression was one of raw pleasure and Loki could feel her body attempting to pull his fingers even deeper. He slowed the movement of his fingers, but never stopped, and sent her  careening into another orgasm as soon as she managed to float down from the first one.

When Angie seemed too exhausted to endure another, Loki withdrew his fingers. She let out a tiny laugh, resting her hands on her chest.

“Have I ever told you that you’ve got magical fingers?” she asked breathlessly.

Loki only smirked, kneading her upper leg and smearing her desire and saliva and his cum over her skin, allowing her a minute to gather herself. Once she’d recovered, Angie sat up and shakily grabbed a lighter and a nearly empty box of cigarettes from her bedside table.

“Should you be smoking?” Loki inquired after she lit up, plucking the cigarette from her fingers and taking a drag himself. He rolled to sit on the bed and pulled himself up against some of her pillows.

Angie shrugged, taking it back when he was done, and settling against him with a heavy sigh. 

“It’s my last one, I promise.” 

Loki rolled his eyes, then reached down to stroke her stomach, winding lazy circles around her bellybutton. He was feeling so satisfied that even the thought of her having his kid, whether he wanted it or not, didn’t faze him—but he was curious.

“Angie,” Loki asked carefully, tilting his head against her. “Why do you want it?”

“What?”

“Why you want to keep it?”

Angie was quiet for a long moment, and with her free hand began to inattentively play with his fingers, twisting his wedding band.

“I don’t think we’re good for each other, Loki,” Angie admitted, almost painfully. It was a difficult thing to say after such good sex. “But… I think something between us—like something from the both of us, I mean, could be. You know eventually I wanted kids and when I found out, I was scared yeah, but… I wasn’t freaked out. I know I can make it work, and I think… I think if it was anybody’s, it would have been yours.” 

Loki didn’t say anything, only stared at some random stain on the paneling across the room. He didn’t bother to voice how shitty he felt that she wouldn’t have him, but would have his baby. He wanted to apologize for everything, even for the things he didn’t know he should be apologizing for, or didn’t need to—whatever he’d done to make her feel like she couldn’t be with him. 

He understood, though. 

They lay there for a while and eventually Angie drifted off to sleep. Loki got up once to piss and clean up, then slipped noiselessly back into bed next to her. He enfolded her into his arms without waking her, though his own mind was too cluttered to fall asleep. 

Loki could tell from the light permeating the musty, dark red curtains that it was approaching mid-afternoon. He hadn’t heard his phone go off, so Sigyn obviously hadn’t bothered to wonder where he was. He figured he should go home, but he didn’t want to leave Angie. Not yet. He’d rather rot in bed with her all day. 

It might have been another hour before Loki grew restless. Angie was on her back now, lips parted and breathing softly. He watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest, studied her face and the little tendrils of hair dried with sweat still sticking to her skin.

His fingers meandered aimlessly over her body, over her chest, around her tits, down her belly and to the spot between her legs. He absentmindedly played with her pubic hair, just thinking how pretty she was, and how hopefully their baby resembled her because otherwise it was going to have a rough life.

Angie shifted on the bed, lightly squeezing her legs together, but she didn’t wake up. Eventually, feeling impish, Loki leaned over to kiss her chest. When she still didn’t stir, he kissed her breast, then lightly ran his tongue over her nipple, sucking it to hardness. Angie lifted a hand to weakly tangle her fingers in his hair.

“Still here?” she mumbled sleepily, but Loki could hear the grin in her voice. He slid his fingers between her legs, into that still slippery mixture of him and her and circled her clit with his thumb. She opened her legs wider, allowing him easier access. 

Angie whispered his name, lightly scratching her nails over his scalp, and sighed in pleasure when he dipped a finger inside her. She kept her eyes closed as he continued to toy with her clit, then eventually reached down between them to start stroking his hardening dick.

She came softly, not hard like before, tightening her fingers in his hair and on his cock, and when it was done and her satisfied little whimpers had turned into quiet pants, he kissed her warm skin and splayed his hand on her belly.

He knew what Angie liked, felt that maybe he knew her body even better than she did. How many hours had they spent entwined on a bed, in the back of his truck, on a blanket in the grass in a sun-drenched field during high summer, exploring each other’s bodies and fucking and talking and then fucking again? He knew every dip and line on her body, every freckle and every scar.

“Mm,” she murmured, grazing his ear with her fingers. “We should fuck again.”

Loki chuckled, kissed the side of her head, and immediately rose up to settle between her legs. Her eyes were still closed, but she had a tiny smile on her lips. He took her hips, lifted her bottom half up off the bed, and slid in until the front of his hips were flush with her inner thighs. Angie’s brows knitted together, fingers curling into the blanket beneath.

Loki didn’t want to fuck her, he wanted to make love to her. He draped one of her legs over his hip and eased in and out of her, building them both up to an unbearable high. Every time he felt close to coming, he’d stop and she would keen pathetically and squirm on his cock, begging him to fuck her and calling him a fucking bastard when he wouldn’t, and only resuming his languorous movements when he felt his orgasm ebbing away. Part of it was that he enjoyed teasing her, and the other part of it was that the longer he dragged this out, the longer he could stay here with her. 

Eventually it became too much for even him, though, and he circled her clit until she came with a shudder, and he propped her legs on the front of his shoulders and leaned down, stretching her legs. She groaned, eyes fluttering as he opened her up and went even deeper. Rolling and grinding against her in the stuffiness of the bedroom, the air thick and leaden with sex, and she was moaning and whining and kissing his lips and the side of his neck, straining against him because she couldn’t get close enough.

The cadence of his hips increased, so did the delicious little sounds she was making, and he knew she was reaching for it again. He gave it to her. Just as she cried out, digging her nails so deeply into him that he was sure there’d be blood, he came with her.

They hovered there, frozen—lips touching but not kissing, breaths sporadic and hot and heavy. Too soon the moment passed and Loki groaned as he pulled back and flopped onto the bed. Angie, who was an exhausted mess and laying in a large wet, sticky puddle of her and him, attempted to control her breathing. Loki got up, went to her bathroom, cleaned up, then grabbed a toilet paper roll, and brought it back to bed. He held it out to her, but she shook her head.

“No, I like it.”

Loki smirked. “What, my cum between your legs?”

“Yeah. I’ll wash my blanket later.”

“You’re such a slut.” 

Angie laughed loudly as Loki crawled back over her to lay down. She turned, grabbed the last cigarette out of the box, and lit up. The briefest thought popped into Loki’s mind that she’d be dead by fifty of lung cancer. 

“You wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t such a slut, baby.” 

Loki was offended. “I’d still be here.”

“Even if I didn’t put out?”

“Yep.” 

“You’re a fucking liar.”

“No, Angie, I’m not.” 

“You’ve got a wife and two kids at home. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t let you stick it in me.”

Loki pressed his lips together. He knew what she was trying to do, but it wasn’t going to work. He pulled her into an embrace.

“We’re not fucking again,” she warned, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“I know,” he acquiesced. “Just wanted to hold you.”

“Sap.”

Loki only grinned and buried his face into her hair, which smelled like some weird blend of sweat and citrus and Purell. He didn’t want to ask her if she’d ever change her mind about him, because he knew the answer. For now he was content to lay here and pretend like everything was fine.

Angie fell asleep again despite her earlier nap, but Loki didn’t mind. He held her again, running his fingers over her warm skin, and kept thinking about the fact that there was a little bit of him inside her, growing. 

Against his better judgment, Loki stayed the night. They made love twice more, then again in the morning after she made them a small breakfast of eggs and toast. He tried to talk to her in the morning about everything, but she didn’t want to hear it. She’d kissed him and asked him not to ruin their night together. He realized she meant it all. Angie was hard-headed and never backed down when she’d made up her mind.

On the short, hot drive home, arm dangling out of the open window and other hand draped over the wheel, he thought of Angie—how she was still going to leave Yggdrasil and him and go to try and make something of herself. 

He knew they’d talk about the finer details at some point. He’d want to be with her when she went into labor. He’d want to see the kid. She’d agreed to all of it, told him she still wanted him in her life and in their baby’s life. Right before he’d left, she’d hugged him and kissed him and told him this wasn’t the end for them, but she just needed to find herself first. He couldn’t say no to that. Couldn’t say no to her, looking up at him with those pretty hazel eyes and kiss-swollen lips.

Loki pulled into the dirt driveway and sat there for a few minutes before finally getting out. Sigyn was cutting up some food for the boys’ breakfast in the kitchen, but didn’t acknowledge him when he came in. He could tell she was pissed. He went to the bedroom, stripped, and threw his clothes in the hamper.He suspected Sigyn would smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes when she did laundry later today—not to mention glimpse Angrboda’s scratches all over his back and sides and the hickey she’d sucked onto his neck at some point in the night—but he knew she knew where he’d been, anyway. No point in pretending anymore.

He hopped in the shower, turned the water to scalding, and stood under the stream for a long time, just thinking.

Since Angie had rejected him—again—he supposed he’d give it another go with Sigyn. Namely for the boys. His own parents weren’t divorced, but he’d seen enough of it to know about broken homes. He knew he and Sigyn could pretend well enough for them until it got too bad. That is, if she even wanted to try once he told her he got Angie knocked up. 

All in all, he knew they’d divorce one day. Angie wouldn’t be there to help pick up the pieces. He blew that years ago, that night she had him arrested. Every day since then showing her he was content to stay in this dump and not make anything more of himself. She still loved him, but that wasn’t enough anymore.

Loki didn’t know what he would do, when Angie was gone and Sigyn and the boys. He’d be a middle-aged putz with two kids who hated him because their mom would feed them lies about him and they’d cry when they had to spend the summer with him; another kid who he probably wouldn’t see as much as he liked because Angie was going to move away eventually, with a mother that he’d never stop loving but could never have. A middle-aged putz who’d never fall in love again. 

He’d live alone, drinking himself to death even though he barely drank now, and he’d still be thinking of Angie, even when he died. Had no doubt when his time came, whether it be from a heart attack at fifty or by his own hand at the end of a double-barrel sitting alone in a darkened living room littered with empty bottles, his last thought would be of her, and nobody would find his body for a week because by that time he would have pushed everybody away and nobody would care that he just disappeared. He wondered if she’d be sad when she found out. He hoped not.

Still not a bad way to go, he reasoned, for the last thing he saw to be her pretty face and those gray-flecked hazel eyes.

And she’d be somewhere else, living her life without him and happy and successful, just like she deserved. He wanted that for her, and for their baby. He knew he was a loser and couldn’t give her what she actually needed. He wanted the world for Angie, and he wasn’t that. Never was and never would be. 

A memory popped suddenly into Loki’s head. It was a few days before he tried to strangle her, four years before. They’d been laying in bed one early morning, after a long night of making love—much like this morning. All the windows were thrown open, allowing the cool, dewy spring air to ruffle the curtains. He’d been languidly kissing up and down her body, just exploring. Just enjoying.

She’d asked him, in an almost childish way, running her fingers through his hair, if they were going to be together forever.

“It’s always been you and me, baby,” he’d replied confidently, glancing up at her with a smirk. “Always will be.” 

Loki smiled to himself, unmoving beneath the hot water. He was right, even if she didn’t see it now. Always and forever Angie, and that ruby fucking red hair like fire, like her, burning him up from the inside out until there’d be nothing left of him but ash. But he was okay with that. Always would be.

Loki wondered how things could change so quickly. He would study Sigyn when she wasn’t looking, as she moved from task to task day to day. Playing with the boys, when she was cooking or they were eating dinner, or when she was pacing through the house in her little white scalloped socks while talking on the phone with her mom or Freyja or whoever the fuck she talked to these days.

He wanted to touch her. He wanted to kiss her, but now she was back to pushing him away. At night he tried to hold her and sometimes she let him, but mostly she just complained that he was too hot and making her sweat under the blankets. So he stopped trying and she didn’t say anything.

Loki’s mind wandered back to Angrboda.

Their messages were innocent at first. Loki tried to keep them that way, anyway. He thought maybe one day Sigyn would wake up and remember how much she had enjoyed those first couple of weeks after they’d apologized to each other, but she never did.

Eventually, Angie wanted to see Loki. He wanted to see her, too, but still felt bad about stepping out on Sigyn. He tried with Sigyn one more time, but that night when she told him to fuck off and let her sleep, he rolled over and lay there for a good hour, debating in his mind what to do. Finally, he thought fuck it and grabbed his phone off the bedside table and shot Angie a message.

I want to see you. Tomorrow night?

She replied back within two minutes.

Pick me up at 11.

Sigyn didn’t say anything the next night when Loki got dressed and left at 10:45, even though he had to be up for work at 5. She was sitting on the couch watching some dumb reality show, not having moved from that spot since she put the boys down a few hours earlier. Loki walked past her, grabbed his keys from the hook next to the door, and left without a word.

He was practically vibrating with anticipation on the way over. He drove through the dilapidated gates of Ironwood Estates, then a minute later pulled up to the hovel that Angie called home. He honked once and a minute later she was out the door and traipsing down the dirt path to the road. He couldn’t help but to grin to himself as she approached. He thought she was the hottest thing for three counties around.

Long legs, a mane of wild, ruby red hair that she liked to braid with little bits of tinsel or  colored thread. Sometimes she wore it in a bun so messy Loki wondered what was even the point of having it up. Despite the oppressive heat, though, tonight she wore it loose around her shoulders. She always wore darker lipstick, accentuating her gray-flecked hazel eyes, which were perpetually smudged with drugstore eyeliner. What little tits and ass she had, she made work with the scanty clothes she favored.

Angie opened the passenger door and hopped up into the seat. Immediately, the scent of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume filled the cabin. Loki’s mouth watered.

“Long time no see, asshole,” Angie said, kicking her ankle boots off and propping her bare feet up on the dash.

Loki only laughed and they were off. 

He drove a few miles away and parked them in the empty lot of the old White Castle that had closed down three years ago. There was a dim, sometimes flickering street light on the corner of the lot, illuminating the cab just enough that they could see each other in the wan light.

The nearest business was a few lots down, a pizza joint that Loki used to hang out at with friends in high school, back when hanging out at pizza places on Friday nights seemed cool.  He was an adult now, though, married with kids and about to cheat on his wife for the thousandth time with his high school sweetheart. What would teenage Loki have said if he knew he was still fooling around with her all these years later? That he hadn’t married her like he always thought he would? Loki tried not to think on that too much.

They didn’t fuck right away, but Loki preferred it that way. He loved talking to Angie. 

At first she wanted to know why he hadn’t spoken to her in a month, or why she couldn’t get in touch with him. He hadn’t wanted to explain everything over text, so she had no idea yet that Loki had purposefully blocked her while he tried to work on things with his wife.

Angie wasn’t surprised to hear about any of it—having been privy to Loki and Sigyn’s marital problems since the beginning—and only quietly listened to Loki talk. As he spoke, she turned to face him, leaned her back up against the passenger door, and stretched her legs out over the bench seat so her toes brushed against Loki’s leg. She pulled a box of cigarettes and a lighter out of her pocket and lit up, then offered Loki the first drag.

Loki paused and took it from her, then inhaled deeply. He stared out of the windshield for a long moment before sharply exhaling. Despite everything, he did feel odd disparaging Sigyn like this. He’d just finished telling Angie that a month ago, it had felt like a turning point in his and Sigyn’s marriage—for the better—but as fucking usual it fizzled out and she was back to being a frigid bitch. 

“I don’t think she loves me anymore,” Loki sighed, propping his left arm up to dangle outside the window. 

He passed the cigarette back to Angie after another drag. It didn’t taste good, Angie only bought the shit ones because they were cheaper, but it was better than nothing. He hadn’t had a cigarette in three months because Sigyn complained all the time about the smell and not wanting it around the boys, which he understood.

“I’m sorry, Loki,” Angie said, her first words since they’d parked. She meant it, too. Loki shrugged, but did not speak again.

The night was quiet, so Loki had both windows rolled down. Cicadas chittered loudly in the nearby woods, punctuated every now and then by the resonant hoot of an owl. Occasionally a car drove by on the road in front of the White Castle. Despite the street light on the corner, nobody would have seen Loki’s truck in the dark unless they were looking for it. 

The air was warm and sticky and the summer breeze wafting through the open windows brought little relief from the heat. Loki was sitting perfectly still and he could already feel the sweat beading on his skin and soaking through his green cotton T-shirt.

Angie reached behind her to flick the ash from her cigarette outside the window, then took another drag. When she exhaled, she nudged Loki’s hip playfully with her foot. He glanced at her and she smiled.

“Do you still love her?” she asked.

He was quiet for a long moment. “Yeah.” 

“You gonna stay with her?”

“Yeah.” 

Angie raised her brows, but her tone wasn’t condescending. “For as much as you bitch about her, you’re gonna stay?” 

“She’d take the boys.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” 

“I should have married you instead,” Loki remarked, almost vacantly.

Angie scoffed. “Baby, we wouldn’t have worked out.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you tried to kill me, for one.”

Loki was silent, just staring out the window. He didn’t even remember putting his hands on her. He just woke up in a jail cell and Angie was in the next room sobbing to a cop with bruises in the shape of his fingers around her neck and they told him afterwards he tried to strangle her. He and Angie had been doing lines. They’d done lines a hundred times. He’d been flabbergasted. Kill Angie? The love of his life? 

That was four years ago and it still ate at him.

He was lucky she’d decided not to press charges. He still didn’t know why she didn’t. Neither did she, if she was honest with herself. There should have been a trial despite Angie’s reluctance to go ahead with it all considering he very well could have killed her, but Loki’s dad had been county judge for fifty years and was still friends with the sheriff. Loki walked away from it all with no more than a slap on the wrist.

“You know how much I regret it,” Loki said quietly, eyes drifting down.

“I know.”

“I was high.”

“I know.”

“You know I don’t do that shit anymore.”

“I know. Neither do I.” 

Angie took one more drag, then threw her cigarette out the window. She decided the air was already heavy enough with the heat without the addition of their conversation, so she poked at him again with her bare toes. Loki placed his hand on her ankle and caressed her skin with his thumb.

“I’ve missed you,” she murmured with a tiny smile. “Did you miss me?”

“Baby, you know I did.”

Angie grinned and sat up. She moved to kneel next to Loki on the worn leather seat, then leaned in to nuzzle her nose against the side of his neck.

“You want me to suck your dick?” she asked sultrily, and Loki started to laugh but her hand on his crotch cut it short. “Will that make you feel better?”

“Yeah, but we can talk a little more, too—”

Angie smirked. “Oh, you don’t want me to? Okay.”

“I didn’t say that,” Loki retorted. “Just figured we could talk some more. I want to know how you are.”

“You know how I am,” she replied, feeling his dick hardening under his jeans. “Same shit job, same shit life.” 

“I thought you were gonna try to get a different job?”

Angie shrugged, then kissed the side of his neck again.

“I was,” she murmured against his skin. “Gerda’s moving to Muspel. She’s gonna get an apartment, she was wondering if I wanted to split it with her.”

“You’re moving?”

Angie pulled back, slightly annoyed. “Maybe. I don’t know yet.” 

Muspel was only one town over, but still close to an hour away. The plant Loki worked at was there. Angie, an hour away?

“What, and leave me behind?” he wondered, half joking and half not.

“There’s an assistant manager position open at the Citgo there. It’s like two dollars more an hour. It’d be better than here.”  

“I know.” 

“It’s not a sure thing, though,” Angie added, as if to placate him. She could tell the change in his demeanor. 

“What’ll I do when you leave?”

Angie sighed and sat back. “I don’t know, Loki, maybe go back to your family?” 

Loki stared at her, but not because of her comment. The thought of her moving even an hour away made him sick.

“Soooo, do you want me to blow you or not?” she pressed, lifting her brows. When he hesitated, she said, “You don’t have to pretend to enjoy listening to me talk, baby, we’re not dating anymore. We both know what this is.”

“What do you mean ‘what this is’?”

Angie shrugged, nonchalant. “I mean, you’ve got a wife and two fucking kids. You come to me to get your rocks off and you get me off and that’s it. That’s what it’s been since after we broke up. No more no less.” 

Loki did not bother to mask his disappointment. 

He could clearly recall the weeks following their last breakup—the final one, just over four years ago. He had started therapy right after, paid for by his father, though it accomplished fuck all. They wanted him to prattle on about his childhood and his feelings about being ignored and unloved and growing up in the shadow of his older, more successful brother, and how that might relate to his outbursts and behavior as an adult. That didn’t last long.

But he did stop doing drugs. He hadn’t done a line or even smoked a bowl since that night, because he’d been so disgusted with himself for doing what they said he did to her.

Loki didn’t see her until months later after it happened. She seemed different—older, even though she wasn’t even twenty-one yet. The look in her eyes when she saw it was him standing on the doorstep had killed him. The way she flinched when he tried to take her hand. He didn’t remember what he said to her exactly. All he knew was that he apologized to her a million times, even got down on his knees in front of her and pleaded with her to give him another chance, and then her words which still echoed in his mind to this day.

“It’s too late.” 

They’d ended up fucking less than a month later and starting this friends with benefits thing, but no matter how many times Loki begged her to give him another shot, she refused every time. Loki got a good job, cleaned himself up, even started a 401k—but she didn’t care. 

Then he met Sigyn, but he never stopped loving Angie. He supposed, looking back, he’d tried to replace Angie with Sigyn, but it was never the same.

“Is that what this is to you?” Loki finally asked. “Just sex?”

“Is it not?” Angie laughed, though she had a small smile on her lips. When Loki only appeared contemplative, she sighed. “Loki, if you get too sappy on me I’ll have to cut you off again. Now unzip your pants.” 

Loki didn’t give a shit how sappy he was being, but Angie had made him promise at one point to not push the idea of getting back together. He tested the boundaries of that agreement all the time, but she liked his magical fingers too much to actually enforce anything.

Despite this, Loki wouldn’t press his luck. He did as she commanded and unzipped his jeans and lifted his hips to pull them and his underwear down. Angie wasted no time—in seconds she was hunkered down on the seat next to him and taking his dick into her hand. 

Loki exhaled slowly and tilted his head back against the rear window, whispering her name when he felt the faint flick of her tongue at the head of his cock. He curled his fingers in Angie’s thick hair, stroked the back of her head as she played with him.

Little kisses and licks and caresses and clever twists of her fingers around the base of his dick had Loki panting within minutes. Her mouth was hot, the pleasure accentuated by the little rivulets of saliva running down and pooling onto his skin. When she trailed her fingers a little farther down to play with his balls, his breath hitched. 

“Fuck,” he gasped, letting out a harsh breath when she suddenly sank all the way onto him until he hit the back of her throat.

Angie gave the best blow jobs. They were sloppy and enthusiastic. Maybe it was because she actually liked blowing him. Or maybe she just liked giving blow jobs in general. Loki tried not to think about her blowing other guys, because he wasn’t the only one she slept with. 

As she sucked on him, bobbing her head, alternating between suction and no suction, and laving his cock with her tongue in between, Loki untangled his fingers from her hair and snaked his hand under her belly into the front of her shorts. Without missing a beat, Angie shifted so he could get better access, and he slipped his fingers under the waistband of her panties, through the curls there, and into the wet heat between her legs.

Angie’s moan was muffled as she paused for a moment to appreciate Loki’s fingers between her thighs. He moved his other hand to the back of her head, silently encouraging her to continue, and she did. Every so often she’d pause, squeezing her legs on his hand as he languidly played with her clit.

Eventually, Loki felt himself approaching an orgasm. 

“Baby, stop,” he whispered, pulling his hand out from between her legs. Angie released him with a wet pop and sat back on her haunches to stare at him. She was breathing hard, saliva coating her lips and chin. 

“What, you don’t want to cum?” she teased, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Yeah, but I want to cum in you,” he breathed, tugging her toward him. They kissed deeply, tongues exploring and hands roaming wildly in the dark. He played with her tits, both over and under her tank top because she wasn’t wearing a bra, even slipped his fingers down into her panties once more to feel how wet she was.

After that, Angie pulled back, breathless. She hooked her fingers in the top of her shorts and wiggled her hips to yank them and her panties down, maneuvering on the bench seat until she was bare from the waist down. As she stripped, Loki moved a little closer to the center of the seat away from the wheel so she’d have room.

Loki was still painfully hard, his cock glistening with her saliva. He held his dick while Angie lifted a leg to straddle him, then positioned herself over him. She put her hands on his shoulders and sank down a little until he slipped inside her. 

He groaned her name, moving his hands to her hips. In the dark, Loki could just barely make out her naughty grin. She circled her hips, teasing him, before relenting. She eased her way down until he was completely inside her, so deep to the point of discomfort.

Angie shifted, breathing hard, just sitting there for a long moment to accommodate his length inside her. Sometimes it hurt, but she always made it fit; of all the men she’d slept with, Loki had the biggest dick. She thought it a shame that Sigyn didn’t appreciate it more.

As Angie made indolent little gyrating motions with her hips, Loki slightly lifted his own, eager for her to start fucking him, but she would do it when she felt like it—so he would wait. For now he just explored her body, first her tits under the thin fabric of her tank top, then down to her belly and her hips and her thighs, squeezing and stroking like he’d never had the privilege of touching her before.

“God, baby, you feel so fucking good,” Loki breathed, spreading his hands on her back and pulling her toward him. He pressed a slick, openmouthed kiss to her chest, relishing the saltiness of the sweat clinging to her skin.  

Angie finally started rolling her hips against him, moving her hands to the back of his neck. She maintained her languorous rhythm. She wanted to make love to him, she didn’t want to fuck. She hadn’t seen him in a while and it almost felt like she was reacquainting herself with his body. The scrape of his nails over her too-hot skin, the feel of his lips and his teeth, kissing and grazing and nipping at her neck and shoulder. His cock inside her, filling her, sending the most pleasant little rivulets of pleasure through her body every time she came down on him. It’s like he was made just for her.

The cab grew even warmer with their lovemaking. Their breaths mingled in the sticky summer air, slick skin sliding against sweat-soaked fabric and the scent of their sex lingering heavily between them. Every so often they could hear peals of laughter down the road from the pizza joint, people coming and going and peeling out of the parking lot, but they didn’t pay any mind to it. 

They were safe here in the darkness and heat—just for tonight, a secret, sacred space away from life and family and obligations.

Loki reached up and pulled Angie’s top down, exposing her breasts. He leaned forward, capturing her nipple in his mouth, and she leaned back, supporting herself with her hands on his spread knees. He sucked and nibbled at her tits, switching between them until they were tender and pink and tingling. She giggled when he licked a long, flat line up her chest, then started nibbling and sucking at her neck. 

Angie wrapped her fingers in Loki’s soft hair and pulled his head back so he was gazing up at her. With the minuscule amount of light from the nearby street light, she could see his pupils blown wide, nearly completely obscuring the pretty pale green. 

She leaned down and kissed him, pushed her tongue past his teeth and ground down onto his lap. He moaned into her mouth and lifted his hips, digging his fingers into her thighs to pull her even closer. Angie broke the kiss and tilted her head back at the feeling, the most delicious, almost painful ache deep inside her.

More frantic now, Angie whimpered his name and kissed him again. Her movements were not as languid; they were panting into each other’s mouths, there was the occasional sloppy kiss, and then that loud wet sound every time she came down on him. 

She was close. She said so, in a needy whine, and Loki took over.

He kept his hands firmly on her hips and started thrusting up into her from below. She held onto either side of his head, fingers tangled in his hair, forehead pressed to his. Her warm breath fanned over his face and occasionally their lips brushed against each other, but they did not kiss.

Angie’s panting became louder as she attempted to focus on the liquid heat pooling low in her belly. She focused on Loki’s panting, too, his fingers digging into her skin and his cock hitting something so deep inside her, over and over and over and she was so close, so close; she cried out desperately in anticipation, then held her breath because she could feel it trembling now, just on the verge, body tensed like she was already coming—and then she was.

She squeezed her eyes shut as the hot waves rolled through her body and let out a long, wavering cry. Loki groaned against her parted lips, feeling her insides contracting euphorically around him, and accompanied by a couple of extra thrusts, was immediately urged into his own.

Loki cursed, gasped her name, then cursed again. Angie could feel him twitching inside her,   filling her, and her own, now fading pulses in an out of sync beat with his. She had always liked the feeling, she didn’t know why. Most of the guys she slept with were happy about it because it meant they didn’t have to wear condoms.

After a minute, Loki’s body relaxed back against the seat. Angie kept her forehead pressed to his as he allowed his breathing to slow. He gradually grew soft inside her and his cum started leaking out of her and onto him, but in that moment neither of them really gave a shit. 

He didn’t want to move, didn’t want her to get off of him. If it were up to him, he would stay there all night if she let him. Loki wrapped his arms around Angie’s middle, pulling her close. She smelled like sweat and cigarette smoke and whatever cheap perfume she usually wore. He breathed it in, pressed a tender kiss between her breasts, feeling her fluttering heartbeat on his lips, then skimmed his nose along her hot, salty damp skin. 

“I love you, Angie,” he murmured. 

“No you don’t,” she replied, though not cruelly. She tilted his head back, smiling at him, and he thought she was so fucking beautiful. 

“Yeah, I do,” he reiterated. “I fucked it up, though.”

Angrboda didn’t say anything, but he knew what she was thinking.

Yeah, you did fuck it all up. You fucked us up, then you knocked her up, married her, and you’re stuck with her now.

Angie leaned back and Loki finally slipped out of her. She moved off of him, bouncing backwards onto the bench seat next to him.

“You got a napkin or something?”

“Oh, yeah… here.” 

He leaned down and grabbed a couple of clean napkins from an old discarded fast food bag. She took it and wiped between her legs while Loki cleaned himself off and readjusted his jeans, then they threw the napkins into the bag. She didn’t want to stain his seats, because then he’d get in even more trouble with Sigyn when she inevitably saw it.

Angie reached for her lighter and a new cigarette, then propped herself back up against the passenger door. 

“Still thinking about us?” she wondered, stretching her legs out.

“Yeah.”

“You gotta let that shit go, babe.”

Loki tilted his head against the rear window to look at her, reclined effortlessly against the inside of the door like some kind of fucking white trash goddess. His eyes roved from the top of her head, from that wild red hair framing her face in tangled waves, down to her flushed chest and perfect tits as she took a deep drag on the most vile cigarette known to man. 

Farther down, below the gentle curve of her belly to the thatch of ruby curls that guarded the most holy of trailer park pussy. Down, down those long white legs to the chipped black nail polish on her toenails, which matched the chipped black nail polish on her fingers, then back up to her smiling, hazel eyes.

He was so fucking in love with her.

Loki only narrowly dodged the porcelain figurine as it soared through the air, exploding exactly seven inches from the side of his head against the brown paneling  behind him in a shower of ceramic shards and dust.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he screamed, spinning around to glare at Sigyn across the room, whose face was red and splotchy and contorted in anger.

“What is wrong with me?” Sigyn shrieked, glancing wildly around for something else to throw. “What is wrong with me?” 

Loki crossed the living room in three long strides, grabbing her wrist when she attempted to lunge for a half-full ashtray on the coffee table. In the back room, Loki could hear the boys start crying. He gritted his teeth in annoyance.

“Stop,” he ordered. Sigyn ignored him and wrestled with him for only a moment longer before he shoved her backwards and she toppled onto the couch, landing with a bounce.

“Fuck you!” she shouted, as he pushed the ashtray and the ugly, decorative glass bowl next to it out of her reach.

“What the fuck did I do now, huh?” he asked tightly. 

“Freyja said she saw you and that slut last night. Is that where you went, Loki? Did you go see her again?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Sigyn—”

“You told me you’d stop seeing her!” Sigyn cried, shaking her head. Tears welled up in her bright blue eyes and began spilling over onto her freckled cheeks. She finally hung her head in her hands, defeated. “You told me you wouldn’t see her again.”

Loki pinched the bridge of his nose. The boys were screaming now.

“Sigyn, I think—”

“Did you see her?” she asked tearfully, attempting to suppress a sob. “Were you with her last night?”

Loki groaned when he heard one of the kids—likely Váli—throw up from crying so hard. Every time he and Sigyn fought, which seemed like every other fucking day now, it turned into a screaming match and it always disturbed the kids.

“Babe—”

“Just tell me the truth,” Sigyn demanded. “Stop lying to me.”

“Yes!” he admitted, throwing his hands up. “Yes, I saw her, but nothing fucking happened, okay?”

Sigyn scoffed tearfully.

“I met up with her for a few minutes, just to give her some of her shit back.”

Sigyn shook her head. “Do you expect me to fucking believe that? You guys haven’t been together for years, what could you possibly have been giving back to her?”

“Sigyn.”

Loki came around the coffee table and dropped to his knees in front of her. He took her trembling hands in his, but she wrenched them away. He took them again, more firmly this time, but now she petulantly refused to make eye contact with him.

“Sigyn,” he repeated firmly. “I promise you, nothing happened. Angrboda called me, said she wanted a couple of her records back, so I drove over to Ironwood after work and handed them over. That’s all that happened. I was only there for a few minutes, we just talked a little about her family—”

“That’s what you said last time,” Sigyn choked out. “Come to find out you let her suck your dick behind the fucking Dollar General.” 

Loki pulled away from her, irritated. “Fuck it.”

Loki left Sigyn bawling in the living room and made his way down the hall and into the back room. Narfi and Váli were in their separate cribs, red-faced like their mother and crying even harder. Loki was grateful Sigyn didn’t come tearing into the room, screaming her head off, as he cleaned Váli off and tried to hush them. For all her faults, Sigyn did try to avoid fighting in front of twins. Loki regretted them hearing anything at all, though; they were going to grow up just as fucked up as him and Sigyn, he feared.

It took a while, but he eventually got the boys back down to bed. Afterwards, Loki settled in the half-broken rocker in the corner that Sigyn often occupied when trying to get them to sleep. He anxiously bounced his leg, just staring straight ahead, thinking about Sigyn’s friend, that loud-mouthed bitch Freyja. She must have driven by Angie’s house the night before for some reason and seen his truck parked in front of her house.

Loki had gone to Ironwood to see Angie, but it really was just to drop off a couple of her old records that had been languishing in his closet these past few years. They’d sat in his truck for a while and talked—and maybe at one point he did finger her until she came, twice—but he hadn’t even kissed her afterwards.

He pictured Angie’s face last night when he had his wrist curled under her little pleather miniskirt and she was practically writhing on his hand. The way her mane of dark red hair spilled over her shoulders, tendrils sticking to her sweaty face because the truck had been turned off and the windows were up and it was warm outside. What little tits she possessed had been spilling out of her skimpy black tank top, and those breathy little pants as he pushed her toward an orgasm, rising in pitch until he made her cum and she was whining his name. And then he’d done it again, because why not? 

The only reason he hadn’t gone inside and fucked her senseless was because he knew Sigyn would throw a fit if he was gone too long and start asking questions. That obviously didn’t fucking matter now. But that’s what Angie was after whenever she hit him up. She was always between boyfriends, boyfriends that she’d bitch about to Loki, who would always comfort her with his words or his dick. 

He and Angrboda had dated long before Sigyn came along, but he had cheated on her and then she cheated on him as revenge and then they’d made up and had the best make-up sex of his entire fucking life—then he’d kept cheating and they fought constantly. Then when he put his hands on her four years ago, she left him—no ifs, ands, or buts.

Loki put himself in therapy after that (which didn’t last long), and shortly after met Sigyn. Sigyn was so meek. Nothing like Angie, which at first attracted Loki. She didn’t scream or throw things or cause problems in the beginning. She was disgustingly loyal. He never questioned her motives or her whereabouts. He felt he could actually trust her. At first it was nice. Then it was grating. He’d thought about leaving her, but then he knocked her up and she wanted to keep it. Them, the boys. He decided to be stupid and do the chivalrous thing and marry her. 

The day before the wedding, which was at the community center because neither of them could afford anything fancier, Loki had driven over to Angie’s place because he wanted to tell her he still loved her and he just needed to know that she didn’t love him back, because otherwise he was making a mistake. 

She didn’t return his sentiment, but they had ended up fucking—once on the kitchen floor, then again on her twin-sized bed. While his head had been nestled between her legs, two fingers knuckle-deep inside her pussy, he’d told her he wished he was marrying her instead. Angie had only laughed, dragging on a Newport Red while he finger fucked her, like she had never heard anything so funny in her life.

The next day he married Sigyn and a few months later she gave birth to the twins.

Loki loved his sons. He wouldn’t trade them for anything. He figured he loved Sigyn, too, but maybe not in the way a husband should love his wife. Things had soured quite a bit since they got hitched, but he was too chickenshit to leave her and the boys. He knew she was petty enough to want full custody if they did divorce, so instead he endured the domestic hell that was their union.

He worked at least sixty hours a week at the plant in Muspel so Sigyn only had to work part-time at the beauty shop. Loki’s parents, who were retired and lived in the next town over, watched the kids during the day if he and Sigyn were both working, because otherwise they couldn’t afford childcare. Then after work he’d come home to their run-down double-wide in Asgard Heights, only the second-shittiest trailer park in the county. Angie lived in Ironwood Estates, a few miles away, and Loki still would rather have been there with her—especially now.

Loki pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened his and Angie’s text thread. His fingers hesitated for a moment before he typed out a short message and hit send.

S knows I saw you last night.

He stared at the screen for a minute, perhaps expecting her to respond immediately. But Angie had a life. She had friends and it was Friday night so she was probably out with Gerda bar hopping and getting high. The thought made him slightly jealous, but those days were behind him.

After a while, Loki got up, shut the lights off, and left the door ajar. He went back into the living room, expecting to see Sigyn stewing on the couch, but she was gone. He pulled the curtain back on the window and glanced outside into the summery night. Her car was gone. He hadn’t even heard her open or shut the front door.

Loki sighed, raked his fingers through his hair, and fell back onto the couch with a huff. He turned on the TV, but didn’t pay attention to whatever infomercial was on.  He thought about lighting up, but Sigyn had been bitching at him about quitting, so he’d cut down quite a bit. So now all he could think of was Angie, not his wife and the mother of his two children who had disappeared into the night without so much as a word.

Sigyn came home hours later, drunk as shit. Loki could smell the alcohol wafting off of her as soon as she stumbled through the front door and immediately dropped her keys. He was still on the couch, having drifted off with the TV on low, but was startled awake by her noisy entry, and even more so by her state of inebriation, because he couldn’t remember the last time she got drunk. Really, the last time she had had a sip of anything stronger than fucking White Claw.

He glanced at the digital clock across the room. 3:47 am. 

“Were you at the fucking bar?” he asked, somewhat in disgust, as he clicked the TV off with the remote. “Did you drive like that?” 

“No,” Sigyn huffed indignantly—obviously a lie—before slamming the front door, causing Loki to wince because if the boys woke up again he was going to kill her. “I was at my mom’s.”

“Bullshit,” Loki retorted, standing up. He knew she had probably driven over to Freyja’s to bitch about how shitty of a husband he was and then Freyja had taken her to one of the three dive bars in town and filled her full of Long Islands, because Sigyn’s drink preferences were about as basic as it could fucking get.

“Why does it matter?” Sigyn asked testily, rolling her eyes as she bent down to grasp uncoordinatedly at her keys in the dark.

“Because it’s almost four in the fucking morning,” Loki snapped.

“So what?” she bit back, standing up with her keys. “You disappear all the fucking time.”

Loki pressed his lips together in annoyance, but she was right. Briefly he wondered if she had fooled around with anybody when she was out, but he quickly dismissed the thought. He couldn’t imagine goody two shoes Sigyn sleeping around, considering how much she hated even sleeping with him now.

It was as if Sigyn had read his mind.

“Don’t worry, Loki,” she said sardonically, stumbling to the kitchen counter to set her things down. “I didn’t fuck anybody.” 

“I wouldn’t give a shit even if you did,” he said, even though he very much did give a shit. “It’s not like they’d enjoy it, fucking you is like having sex with a fucking corpse.” 

Sigyn made a face at him, flipped him off, then turned on her heel to face the counter. Loki stared at her back, face flushed. He remembered when Sigyn was giggly and carefree, even if she had been boring. When she actually invited his attentions and didn’t become irate at the thought of him sneaking around because he didn’t because she actually put out. He remembered when they were actually happy, for however short a time.

The bird didn’t piss him off as much as when Sigyn muttered something under her breath afterwards, though. Within seconds Loki was across the room and had her roughly turned around, her lower back pressed up against the counter’s edge. He was nearly a head taller and she had to scowl up at him in the dimness of the room.

“What the fuck did you say?” he growled, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her arm. 

Sigyn drew herself up to her full height—which was not much—and squared her shoulders.

“I said that maybe if you fucked me better, I wouldn’t just lay there.” 

Loki glared at her, feeling an uncomfortable, prickly heat rising in his chest.

“Fucked you better? Are you fucking serious? You won’t let me eat you out or finger you or even fucking touch you more than twice a month—”

“And why would I want you to touch me, Loki?”

“Because I’m your husband and you’re my wife and we’re supposed to fucking love each other.”

Sigyn laughed loudly. “What, are you going to stand there and tell me you actually love me?”

Loki stared at her, almost in shock that she should say such a thing. Loki’s sudden change in demeanor surprised Sigyn. Suddenly she did not seem so incensed and she swallowed hard.

“I see the way you look at me, Loki,” she said, almost unsurely now. “I know you… I know you don’t love me anymore. I know what kind of marriage this is.” 

Loki let out a breath, stung by her words. They stared at each other for a long, tense moment. 

“Sigyn, I don’t… I…” but Loki didn’t even know what he wanted to say. He reached up and, almost hesitantly, combed his long fingers through her soft blonde hair, down until his hand rested on the side of her pale, willowy neck. “I’m sorry you think…”

Sigyn looked down and he knew she was about to cry.

“I love you, Sigyn.” 

And he meant it. He still meant it. Despite all the bullshit and the fooling around and pining over another woman, he did still love Sigyn. 

She shook her head, then glanced back up at Loki. There were tears in her eyes.

“What are we doing, Loki?” she asked sadly. “What are we doing?” 

Loki enfolded her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “Baby, I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his middle.

“Me, too,” he replied, kissing her head again.

After a minute, Sigyn pulled back and reached up to take Loki’s face in her hands. She pulled him down into a kiss. It was a soft kiss at first, that tasted of vodka and misunderstandings and maybe good intentions, but then she pushed against him and he opened her mouth with his tongue and suddenly everything was frantic and his fingers were tangling in her hair and hers were running up under his T-shirt, over the hard muscles of his back.

Without breaking the kiss, Loki reached down, cupped Sigyn’s bottom, and lifted her up onto the counter’s edge. Sigyn tugged impatiently at his shirt, prompting him to reach behind his head to assist her and then it was off, followed shortly by her spaghetti-strap tank top and pink bralette.

Loki dipped down to take one of Sigyn’s rosy nipples into his mouth and she moaned, curling her ballet pink, French-tipped fingers in his lanky black hair. Loki lavished attention to first one breast and then the other, nibbling and sucking until she was tender and squirming beneath him. 

He splayed his large hands on her thighs, pushing up under her mid-length floral skirt to grasp her hips and pull her lower half tighter against him. The rough fabric of Loki’s jeans grinding against her aching center created the most delicious friction, and beneath them Sigyn could feel his rapidly hardening cock. She wanted so badly for him to touch her, and then it was as if he read her mind because he reached between them to trail his fingers between her legs and felt how soaked her thin cotton panties were.

“Sigyn,” he said desperately, surging forward to kiss her again. “I need to fuck you, baby, please—”

“Yes,” she panted, and she moaned and her head fell back when he slipped two fingers around the crotch of her underwear, into her wet heat, to circle her clit. “God, Loki, I want it…”

Loki required no further encouragement. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her panties and she shifted on the counter to allow him to pull them off and discard them on the floor. He straightened, unzipped his jeans, which were at this point uncomfortably tight, and pushed them and his boxers down in one movement. He didn’t even bother to kick his pants off, he couldn’t wait.

He hadn’t fucked Sigyn in forever—not properly, anyway. He couldn’t remember the last time she had been panting and so wet and wanting and it was driving him crazy.

Loki grabbed his dick and guided it between her legs. He pushed inside Sigyn without warning, the force of his thrust driving the breath from her lungs—all the way until the flat of his hips were flush with her inner thighs. He groaned loudly, right into her ear, then grabbed her hips and pulled her even tighter against him, so her ass was hanging halfway off the edge of the counter and she was opened up so widely and he was so deep inside her that it was almost painful.

Sigyn’s groan mingled with Loki’s and her eyes fluttered closed as Loki began a short, vigorous rhythm. He reached up with one hand, grabbed the back of her neck and yanked her toward him until their fronts collided. He kissed her sloppily, hadn’t kissed like this in so long—tongues and saliva and their teeth knocking against each other, fucking her so hard that she could do nothing but cling helplessly to him, bouncing on the hard laminate, barely able to draw in a full breath.

It was all heat and sweat and slicked skin sliding against each other; Sigyn’s heady scent lingering in the heavy air between them, the obscene, wet squelch of her cunt with every sharp snap of Loki’s hips, in tandem with his own guttural moans. 

Loki came sooner than he wanted, but he couldn’t help it. His rhythm became erratic, his hips faltered, and he came with a harsh groan. He squeezed his eyes shut and slowly rocked against Sigyn to empty himself, while she clutched onto him, whimpering in pleasure because she could feel the pulsations of his orgasm inside her.

Loki allowed himself a few more moments to linger, relishing Sigyn’s heat around his cock, before he pulled out. But his wife had not come. Not even a second later, his two middle fingers were knuckle-deep inside her, curling upwards to hit that little spot he knew could drive her crazy.

Sigyn gasped loudly and practically spasmed on the counter. Loki wrapped his free arm around her middle to hold her steady as she writhed against him. He could feel his cum inside her, leaking out around his fingers every time he slid them out and back in, but he didn’t pay any attention to it. All he could focus on was her face, the way her brows knitted together in frustrated pleasure, her flushed chest heaving with each quick, harsh breath. 

Loki watched her come undone beneath him, felt her body stiffen as she came. Her insides contracted blissfully around his fingers and he kept pressing that little spot, extending her orgasm into another one until she was practically sobbing.

Loki finally pulled his hand out from between her legs. Sigyn melted against him and they held each other for a long moment. He allowed her to catch her breath, then bent down to tug his jeans back up. He leaned in to plant another kiss on her forehead before taking her hand and tugging her off the counter. 

He led her to the back of the trailer, toward their bedroom next to the boys’. 

“Loki,” she breathed. “What are we doing?” 

“I’m gonna fuck you again, baby,” he said, and though he wasn’t looking he just knew that her face went even redder.

“But we—we just—”

“Yeah, so?” he whispered as they passed the twins’ room. “I know I’ll get a couple more orgasms out of you tonight.” 

As Loki allowed Sigyn to enter the bedroom before him, he was surprised she didn’t make some bitchy remark about it. Sober Sigyn would have rolled her eyes, maybe told him to go fuck himself instead. Drunk Sigyn, however, remembered how much she liked his dick inside her.

Sigyn turned and fell backwards onto their bed, watching with a small smirk as Loki kicked his jeans and boxers off into the corner of the room, near the pile of dirty laundry. He crawled in after her and tugged her skirt down over her wide hips, tossing it backwards over his shoulder to land somewhere on the floor.

Loki’s eyes roved over Sigyn’s body, illuminated by the the wan summer moonlight  spilling across the bed through the uncurtained window. For as annoying as she could be, he thought she was gorgeous. Her breasts had gotten a little bigger since the boys and weren’t as perky, but he didn’t mind at all. Her belly was a little rounder, too, adorned with radiating stretch marks that spread to her thighs. She’d been embarrassed about her body since the birth, no matter how much Loki tried to tell her otherwise. 

Sigyn opened her legs to let Loki settle between them, reaching up to drape her arms over the back of his neck. He nuzzled his nose against her and smiled when she giggled, a sound he hadn’t heard in a long time. 

Loki made love to Sigyn. He kissed up and down his wife’s body, investigating every dip and crease and delicious curve with his fingers and his tongue. The whole time she was squirming and mewling and clutching his body to hers like her life depended on it. He made Sigyn cum three more times—once with his mouth and twice more with his fingers—and then he fucked her so hard that the metal leg on one corner of the cheap metal-frame bed snapped.

Afterwards, when Sigyn was sleeping soundly in his arms, Loki stroked her long blonde hair. He could see her brown roots beginning to peek through at the crown of her head. He remembered how upset he’d been when she came home with the new look, because she had just got done bitching to him about how they had no money the day before, but then went and dropped $200 on a fucking dye job. 

Right now, though, he didn’t care.

As he drifted off, he thought maybe things could change. Maybe they could work on themselves and it could go back to how it had been when they first got together, before he got her pregnant and everything changed. Maybe he could have happy, carefree Sigyn back, even if she was a little mundane. Maybe he could be a better husband for her. 

Later that night, Loki was awoken by the dull chime of his phone, still tucked into his jeans pocket and somewhere on the floor where he had discarded them earlier. Sigyn was curled into his side, sleeping peacefully. He didn’t think twice about not getting up to grab his phone, even though he knew who it was.

The next week, Loki and Sigyn had sex eleven times. She let him fuck her in the ass, too, which nearly sent him over the edge before he even stuck it in. They went to the movies that weekend to see a kid’s movie for the boys, who had no idea what was going on and then Narfi started crying so they left halfway through, but it was okay because Loki took them all to Applebee’s afterwards. 

For the first time in a long time, Loki blocked Angie’s number.

The week after, Loki and Sigyn fucked eight times—once for each day of the week, then twice on Saturday because Sigyn just looked especially delicious in that pink and yellow sundress. Sigyn gave him head twice and he only had to ask for one of them. They splurged again and took the boys to an indoor water park the next town over that weekend, then went to Wendy’s because Applebee’s the weekend before had been a bit extravagant. 

Angie remained blocked.

The third week, they only had sex twice. Sigyn did not give Loki head, nor did she let him go anywhere near her ass. They did not go out that weekend and fought twice about money. 

Loki unblocked Angie, but then felt guilty and blocked her number again a few hours later.

By the end of the fourth week, they hadn’t had sex at all and had fought more times than Loki could count. About sex, about money, about the kids and who should start watching them because Sigyn didn’t like driving all the way to the next town to drop them off at Loki’s parents’ house. She suggested her friend Freyja, who was a housewife and had volunteered even for less money, but Loki immediately shot that down, which caused yet another fight because Sigyn took offense to Loki calling Freyja a busybody cunt.

Loki unblocked Angie before the weekend was out and messaged her that he missed her.

Part II - Chapter 51

Stjarnavetr

Thor did as he promised and waited with me until Eir came, then left when she arrived. She stood there, trailed by her young assistant laden with a wrap of supplies, after Thor had shut the door behind him, and just stared at me for a long moment.

Finally, Eir came forward and wrapped her arms around me.

“They told me, Stjarnavetr, but I did not believe it,” she said, and when she pulled back her eyes were shiny with tears. “I am so happy to see you.” 

“You, too, Eir,” I whispered, now feeling the sting of my own tears.

“And this?” she asked in happy surprise, glimpsing my pregnant belly, then back up at me. “How…?”

I understood her confusion. It was Eir who had proclaimed me unable to conceive in my previous life, due to the events that had originally prompted my expulsion from Vanaheim in my youth. 

“It… it is a long story, Eir, one I am sure I will have time to tell you.” 

“Yes, of course,” she agreed, then glancing back at her assistant. “Erendi, please set up on the table over there.” 

Erendi hurried to the table and laid out all of the things she had brought, one of which turned out to be a thin nightgown. Eir had me change out of the pink dress that Loki had procured for me on Midgard. It was much lighter and more comfortable, for which I was grateful.

Eir had me lie on the bed and examined me, finishing with palming my belly. I could discern the faint glow from her palms, and the tickle of her seidr on my skin, as she pressed and pushed.

“Is all well?” I asked anxiously.

“I believe so,” she replied. “The babe seems to be in good position.” 

I breathed a sigh of relief. “When do you think it will come?”

“It might be a while, Stjarnavetr, considering the time between your contractions currently.” 

“How long is a while?”

“It might be another day, at least, but that is alright. Plenty of time to tell me about where you and Loki have been.” 

So we pulled the cushioned chairs shoved into the corner in front of the unused fireplace. There was an old, half-burnt long there which I ignited with my seidr. Eir sent Erendi back to the healing ward to get more things, like a large bowl and a pitcher of water.

I told Eir what had happened after I left Asgard, though glossed over the more intimate details of what had transpired in Vanaheim, then after that in Helheim. She sat enraptured the entire time—along with Erendi sitting nearby—occasionally interjecting to ask questions. Some of what I spoke of sounded ridiculous even to me, but Eir never seemed skeptical. 

All during, I had to stop at points, pausing to lean forward and endure the wave of tight pain that emanated from between my legs. Every so often she would have me stand up and walk around the room, saying it might help move things along, then afterwards have me sit on the edge of the bed. I would open my legs and pull my dress up so she could gently push her fingers into me, but she would cluck her tongue and say, “Not quite yet.”

Then back to the chairs in front of the fire. I told her much of what I divulged to Thor about Helheim and its queen that was Loki’s daughter. I told her that Queen Frigga and the Allfather resided there, which caused her to tear up, as they had been close. I spoke of my and Loki’s wedding and—briefly—of how we came to be living again, and how shortly after that I became with child. I tried to explain as best I could what Loki had told me when I arrived in Helheim, how my body was healed from any damage it had sustained in life, and therefore made new again.

In truth, I was somewhat grateful I could talk to Eir. It kept my mind off of other, more distressing matters, as well as to help distract from the pain. I think she knew it, too, because any time I would stop talking, she would ask another question or insist I tell her about this or that.

Night eventually fell, but still Eir did not think me terribly close. I wondered how, because the waves were coming more frequently now, and were more intense. I was not able to endue them in silence any longer, and often could not help a quiet moan.

“How much longer do you think?” I asked through gritted teeth, bearing another wave of pain.

“I know not,” Eir sighed. “Sometimes it can take a long time, especially if it is your first.”  

Eventually, Eir told me the babe was likely not coming tonight and I should try to rest. I crawled into the bed, but slept terribly. Not just from the periodic pain, but now she was not asking questions and keeping me from thinking about Loki in the dungeons. I wondered, curled up—as much as I could, anyway—if he even knew. Did he know the babe was coming? Had anybody bothered to tell him? I tried to suppress the sob I could feel welling up in my throat, that I might have our baby and he would not even know.

“Eir?” I whispered pitifully into the dark.

“Yes, my dear?” She responded immediately, coming around the bed from where she had been sitting in front of the fire with Erendi, speaking in hushed tones so as not to bother me. 

“Do you think… do you think Thor would allow Loki to come?”

Eir was silent for a long moment, but finally said, “I know not, Stjarnavetr.” 

But by her tone, I suspected she did know, she just did not want to upset me because she knew it probably was not going to happen. Loki was a prisoner of Asgard again,  how would it look if Thor were to let him free just so he could visit his laboring wife?

So I fell into an uneasy, broken sleep, and awoke in the early morning feeling entirely unrested. Erendi was curled up in one of the chairs by the smoldering fire. Eir was gone, I suspected to rest herself, but had left Erendi in case I needed something.

I lay in bed for a long while, trying not to make myself sick thinking of Loki, and watching the morning light creep into the room. Every time another terrible cramp came, I would grit my teeth against the groan I could feel welling up in my throat. They were even more frequent now than yesterday, and more painful, but they were not one right after the other, as Eir had said would indicate that I was ready.

Eventually, I sat up and perched myself on the edge of the bed, and Eir returned soon after. 

“Good morning, Stjarnavetr,” she said softly, probably not to wake Erendi. “I let a servant know to bring some breakfast. You must keep up your strength.” 

I offered her a small smile, but I was not feeling entirely thrilled. She examined me, then checked between my legs again.

She furrowed her brows.

“What is it?” I asked worriedly when she withdrew and went to the table to clean her hands in a bowl of water there.

“I figured you would be a little further along by now,” she admitted. “It happens sometimes, though.”

The day passed by agonizingly slowly. The hours wore on, the frequency and intensity of the contractions increased, and I did not even want to talk. I bounced between feelings of irritability and apprehension. Both Eir and Erendi were gracious with me, despite my constantly changing mood.

Eir encouraged me to walk around the room, and a couple of times even accompanied me to walk up and down the corridor, shushing the guard when he attempted to protest that I must stay in the room. I saw one of Queen Sif’s ladies coming out of her own room down the hall, though I did not recognize her, but she eyed me curiously as she went past.

By the afternoon I was completely exhausted. The labor had progressed slowly so far, and every time Eir checked between my legs I could see the concern in her eyes that it was taking so long, but she did admit that at least I was progressing. Despite this, I began to despair and my mind to race with thoughts of Loki and my poor dead mother.

By night, the pain was unbearable when it did come, radiating down my legs and into my lower back. I could no longer just grit my teeth, every contraction had me bent over and groaning and gasping for breath afterwards.

I did not sleep at all and was delirious with exhaustion by early morning. At one point I started to cry because I was hurting and I felt it would never end. Eir inquired of the new guard in the morning about Thor, and was told he was in and out of meetings with his advisors, some of the other gods of the court, and had even had a rather fiery meeting with the Vanir ambassador.

But I did not care. I could hardly think, and then came the worst pain so far, a horrible feeling of pressure deep within me. I told Eir and she seemed more enthusiastic. She checked me again, I biting back a moan of pain, and this time she smiled.

“Oh, Stjarnavetr, I do think we are close.” 

I made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. “You said that earlier.”

“I know, but I think it is time.” 

And suddenly, everything else fell away. The pain, my agonizing worry, all of it—now it was just panic, that I should be here without Loki and I might die like my mother and our baby might die and he would not even know.

“Eir, I want Loki here, please—please—”

“My dear, I do not think—”

“Please,” I begged. “Please, I do not think I can do this without him.” 

“I promise you can, Stjarnavetr.”

But I was crying, shaking my head, and it was hurting so much. Eir gazed at me for a long moment, clearly torn, then sighed heavily. She turned from me and left the room.

“I need to send an urgent message to His Majesty,” I heard her say through the doorway, as Erendi came to me and held my hand as my body was gripped by another hard cramp. “I need Loki brought here immediately, his wife is—”

“That is out of the question. Besides, His Majesty is not to be disturbed at this time—”

“I did not ask,” Eir said firmly. “I need you to send a message to him.”

“I am sorry,” the guard replied, genuinely sounding a little more unsure, “but His Majesty is still sequestered with his—”

“I know damn well where he is and what he is doing,” she snapped. “I’m telling you that I need him to know—”

“I cannot—”

“If you do not take this message to him immediately, I will walk into that room myself, do you understand me?”

“I—”

“Do I seem to be joking?” 

“No…”

“Good.”

Eir came back inside a couple of minutes later, beaming.

“We shall see about that, I think,” she announced smugly, coming over to me sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Now, Stjarnavetr, we need to start pushing. It is time.”

“No, I’m not ready,” I whined pitifully, shaking my head, “I want to wait for Loki—”

Eir took my face in her hands, voice firm. “Stjarnavetr, look at me. You cannot wait for him. He may not come. I am telling you it is time. Your body is telling you it is time.” 

I knew she was right, but the thought of it terrified me. 

“We need to try,” she continued, a little more gently now. “Can you do that for me, Stjarnavetr?”

I regarded her miserably, tears rolling down my face, but nodded.

“Yes,” I whimpered. 

“Good. Let us begin, then.” 

__

Loki

After Thor departed, I’d taken up my previous spot at the back wall of my cell. I had no idea how much time passed, it was always difficult to tell down here, but for much of it I ruminated on my fate. I imagined Thor at the head of a great table, being shouted at by every direction about what should happen with me, and I could hear that Van bastard’s voice louder than them all, demanding my execution because obviously it hadn’t worked all that well the first couple of times. I almost smiled to imagine one of Thor’s advisors angrily ask him how many times would they have to kill me?

I observed the Einherjar outside my cell. Occasionally they would surreptitiously glance at me, as if worried that I might disappear into thin air. I’d killed one of their own last I had been here in Asgard—ripped out his tongue, I remembered, so I understood their suspicion.

The longer I sat here, the more that came back to me. I could remember well my time here before, though I’d been imprisoned a bit closer to the entrance to the dungeons. Mother had sent me small comforts, and even made it so Stjarna could come see me for a few precious hours every so often—all she could afford to under Odin’s shadow—and I’d reacted with ungratefulness and pettishness.

I recalled those brief moments when Stjarna and I were together, shielded by an illusion I’d conjured, and lying tangled together on the bed, trying to keep quiet but not always succeeding because we’d been so starved for one another. My gaze drifted down to my hands in my lap, wishing she was with me now. Or rather, that we were together and anywhere but here—somewhere on Midgard, planning a life for ourselves like I’d told her. All of it just another promise I’d broken to her.

While I believed Thor when he said he wouldn’t let anything happen to Stjarna, it still made me uneasy to imagine Frey prowling around up there, still eaten up with bitterness about me murdering his whore sister. I didn’t think Frey would so blatantly disobey Thor, but I couldn’t be completely sure.

I hoped Stjarna wasn’t afraid. I knew she’d be sick with worry about me and us and what came next, but even I couldn’t say what might happen. I wondered if the next time I saw Thor, despite his words to me earlier, would be when I was standing up on a scaffold and he staring at me from a makeshift throne across the crowd.

More time passed. An hour? A day, or even two? 

When sitting for what must have been hours became too uncomfortable, I’d stand and ploddingly pace my cell, sit down, then stand up again. A couple of times I drifted off in the corner of the cell, but never felt that I actually slept for longer than ten minutes or so at a time. Food was brought to me twice, bread and cheese and pitcher of rude beer. I finished the trays when they were brought, despite not being particularly hungry with everything going on.

I furtively observed the rotations of the Einherjar, though couldn’t pin down how long their shifts lasted. There were always at least three and sometimes four posted, despite there only being one wall of energy to my cell, instead of two as had been with my previous cell. Currently there were three Einherjar, one at one end and two nearer to me where I sat against the other wall—having switched for a change of scenery—and close enough that if I strained I could hear their hushed conversation.

I think they’d grown bored with me, because their talk shifted from me to duller things; a friend of theirs had wed a woman of the court, a riot had taken place at a tavern in the city that caused a fire that destroyed a few buildings, and a horse thief had been hung at a village outside the city.

Eventually, a fresh guard appeared and relieved one of the ones near me.

“Breyta,” the current guard acknowledged.

“Mennt,” the oncoming guard replied, coming to stand next to him. Out of my peripherals, I saw him glance at me, then turn back around.

“What news from above?” Mennt asked, and I could only barely hear him. “Has the king decided yet?”

“No, he is still sequestered with his advisors and likely will be for a while longer.”

“Do they know how he returned?”

Breyta shrugged. “I know not. He’s a sorcerer, though, it’s got something to do with his magic. Perhaps he never actually died?” 

“I saw with my own eyes his head upon a spike!” Mennt exclaimed as quietly as he could. “I know not of any magic to raise the dead.” 

“Well, you’re not a sorcerer, are you?” Breyta chuckled. “How would you?”

Silence.

“What of the woman?”

My breath stilled, straining to hear their next words.

“The Lady Stjarnavetr?” 

“She is the one who murdered the Van king, is she not? Years ago?”

“That is what they say.”

“I know not, but the king spoke to her yesterday morning.”

Ah. So it had been at least a day down here, then—perhaps close to two. 

“Yes, Bati said that Eir was called urgently to where she is being held—”

“What did you say?” I interjected brusquely, lifting my head.

They both turned around to scrutinize me. There was a beat of silence, but finally Breyta spoke. 

“Eir was called to attend to your Vana yesterday morning.”

“Why?” I demanded, rising to my feet and approaching the barrier so I was only a couple of steps away from them. 

“I know not—”

“You said urgently, tell me what is so urgent that Eir must be summoned?” 

“You’re in no position to be making demands, Prince,” Mennt sneered, voice dripping with disdain. 

I took a deep breath, thinking. Surely it had nothing to do with Frey—no, it had to be her pregnancy. She’d told me her time was close. Yes, that had to be it. I hoped that was it, instead of the bloodier alternative I was imagining. It wasn’t like I could do anything anyway. Thor was meeting with his advisors still, surely they wouldn’t send a message to him, especially from me.

There was no more news for an unbearably long time. I paced restlessly, and each time the guard changed I demanded if they knew anything of Stjarna. Most of them didn’t, until the somewhat helpful one returned. He went to the end of the cell, facing outward, but turned his head once he was in position.

“No news of your Vana,” he stated, and immediately I was standing next to him, staring at him through the humming yellow wall of energy.

“Is she alright?”

“She’s gone into labor,” Breyta answered.

“Fuck,” I mouthed, raking my fingers through my hair. “Where is Thor? Is she taken care of, do you know?”

He was silent for a long moment, perhaps debating on whether to reveal anything else to me. I was a prisoner after all, and supposedly an infamous traitor to the realm. He owed me nothing, but I think he took pity on my panicked expression.

“The king has been preoccupied with meetings about you,” he finally admitted. “I do believe she is well, though. Eir is with her, as well as one of Eir’s assistants.”

I let out a heavy breath of relief, momentarily placated.

“Thank you,” I whispered, but he only gave a short nod, then turned back around to face forward.

Now that I knew, I could imagine all the ways everything could go wrong. Part of me was sick with worry, the other part furious, that I should be separated from her. I knew she would be afraid, she’d told me as much multiple times already, especially since her own mother had died in childbirth. 

Another guard change happened and another tray of food was brought, but I didn’t eat it and none of the guards knew—or would tell me—of Stjarna. I asked if I could send a message to Thor, but they just laughed. I clenched my fists in frustration, feeling the crackle of seidr flash across my knuckles. 

I didn’t have to wait long, though. Shortly after, maybe a few hours, I heard the brisk footsteps of somebody in a hurry. I had been sitting, but raised my head to see an Einheri approaching the other guards.

“His Majesty ordered the prin—the prisoner brought at once.”

I quickly rose to my feet.

“Where?” One of the guards inquired. “Gladsheim?”

“No, the queen’s ward.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“What? The queen’s ward? Aldinn, he’s a prisoner of the realm, not a guest to be taken on a stroll through the pal—”

“It is the king’s orders, Bálkr,” the new guard, Aldinn, snapped. “You want to go argue with him?”

“No,” Bálkr relented through gritted teeth. “Do we not need more men, though? We can’t take him with just a few guards. How do we know he will not attempt escape?”

“The king assured me he would not,” Aldinn stated, but when a couple of the other guards scoffed, he became irate. “Do you question your king?”

All three of the Einherjar lowered their heads, chastised, though I could still discern their doubt. 

“Well?” I finally said, causing them all to turn and stare at me. “You heard him, lower the fucking barrier.” 

The mouthy guard, Bálkr, pressed his lips together, clearly angry, but did as he was told and lowered the barrier. The other two guards had drawn their swords in case I decided to attempt anything unsavory, and Aldinn stepped up into the cell. He withdrew a pair of shackles from his belt and I willingly held out my wrists, I think somewhat to his surprise. I understood well enough what was going on—something had happened to Stjarna, and Thor knew I wouldn’t try to run. He knew I wouldn’t leave her. At least he had that much faith in me, still. 

Bálkr threatened, “If you try anything—”

“Let me guess, you’ll kill me?” I interrupted sardonically as Aldinn finished binding my hands.

Aldinn chuckled and put a hand on my back to urge me forward. The Einherjar surrounded me as we walked, led by Aldinn. They led me up out of the dungeons, through the palace, earning many odd or even horrified glimpses. The entire time I was restless, wishing they’d walk faster. I even voiced it once, but Aldinn told me to shut up.

Finally, we made it to the corridor that traditionally kept the queen’s women. In my past I’d come here countless times and could even pick out the door that used to belong to Stjarna. 

But this was not the past. Stjarna was here somewhere and something had happened—serious enough that Thor had ordered me released without even his own personal escort. The dread was so intense that I felt nauseous, and my heart fell when down the corridor I saw a small group of people standing outside one door in particular—Thor and Eir, and another young woman that I didn’t recognize.

Fear tore through me and I moved too quickly for comfort for the Einherjar, because within a second there was a sword pressed against the front of my throat. I came to a violent stop and raised my bound hands, palms open, and took a step back, breathing hard. 

“Mind yourself,” Bálkr growled.

My eyes went past him, where I saw Thor turn at the commotion. He immediately came briskly toward us, red cape flapping out behind him. 

“What took so long?” he demanded irately, and all of the guards quickly bowed as he approached. “I sent the message an hour ago!”

“Please forgive me, Your Majesty,” Aldinn apologized, giving another quick bow. “There was some… confusion… as to how to escort the prisoner.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Thor scoffed. “Unbind him.”

“Thor,” I said desperately as Aldinn scrambled to free my hands. “What’s wrong? Is Stjarna alright? Why are you standing outside—”

“In time, little brother,” he assuaged, and as soon as the shackles were off, he grabbed my upper arm and we were headed down the corridor. 

Eir smiled at me when she saw me, but I didn’t have time to be happy to see her. 

“I haven’t gone in,” Thor explained. “I did not think it my place.”

“Your place for what?” I asked worriedly as we came to stand in front of the door.

“I’ll give you some time, Loki. Don’t worry.”

“For what?”

But he only grinned, and Eir, too, and suddenly I realized his meaning—but it was so fucking obvious, wasn’t it? Before I could reach for the door, however, Eir came forward and hugged me.

“Loki,” she said, and I could hear the relief in her voice. She pulled back to look up at me. “Everything went fine, Loki, they’re both doing well.”

I let out a harried breath, but could not find the words to reply to her. Instead, I grabbed the handle, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

The first thing I saw was a pile of wet, bloody fabric hanging out of a large bowl on a nearby table, but before I could even begin to panic, my eyes snapped to Stjarna, who was lying in the bed on the other side of the room, propped up against some pillows.

Her head had been bowed down, but upon hearing the door open she almost lethargically raised it. She appeared exhausted. She was paler than usual, there were dark circles under her eyes, and her hair was tangled and messy. She smiled a tired smile, and I saw her lips form my name but it was so quiet I didn’t even hear her, and my gaze fell down to her arms, where she held a small bundle. 

I stared at her for a long moment, barely heard Eir—or Thor, I knew not—shut the door behind me. I couldn’t get my feet to move, but finally something inside me pulled me forward and I was going toward her but it didn’t even feel like my legs carrying me there. The air suddenly felt heavy and oppressive and my breathing was so loud in my ears even though it didn’t feel like I was taking in air.

Stjarna held her arm out for me and I took it and kissed her fingers and leaned down to hold her. I pressed my head against hers, closed my eyes and whispered her name. I don’t think I realized just how apprehensive I’d been earlier, because when the tightness of it evaporated from my chest, suddenly I could breathe a bit easier, being able to see her and feel her and know she was actually alright.

Finally, I pulled back to glimpse the little swathed face. I could feel Stjarna watching me, but I was almost afraid to meet her eyes, as pathetic as that sounded.

I swallowed hard, just staring, but I couldn’t quite identify what it was churning inside me. Perhaps ashamedly not excitement, nor delight—but not discontent, either, which is what I had felt the majority of Stjarna’s pregnancy. 

“Eir says she is healthy,” Stjarna said, voice hushed.

“She?” I breathed. 

Stjarna nodded, then glanced back down at our sleeping daughter. She tenderly slipped her first finger into the tiny row of fingers curled at the edge of the swaddling, and they instinctively gripped Stjarna’s. Stjarna looked up at me again, and in her eyes there was nothing but unremitting joy, completely boundless in a way that even I had never seen.

“Hold her, Loki.” 

A hot, nervous flush immediately spread through my body.

“Stjarna—”

But Stjarna was already extending her arms and I carefully took our daughter, attempting to hold her as Stjarna had been, but I felt like an idiot considering I’d never really held a baby in my life. 

My first thought was how fragile she seemed, because she weighed almost nothing.  The jostle of the exchange woke her and she opened her little eyes and twisted in my arms, almost jerkily. She made a small sound and yawned, with her gaze wandering aimlessly and slowly around, like she didn’t see me, but I could only marvel at how they were the same beautiful grey as Stjarna’s.

“She has your eyes,” I remarked immediately.

“I noticed,” Stjarna answered wearily, though still smiling. “Is she not beautiful, Loki?”

I didn’t reply for a long moment, just studying her tiny face—her red cheeks, the thin tuft of pale hair on her head, and then back to her pretty little eyes, which she shortly closed. 

“Yes,” I responded softly, wondering why I felt surprised about it. I looked up at Stjarna. “What shall we call her?” 

“Well, I had been thinking… Svássaedra.” 

“Svássaedra,” I echoed, and then nodded. “Yes, I think… I think that is fitting.”

__

Stjarna was asleep in the bed, breathing deeply, and had been for a couple of hours at this point. I was seated in one of the chairs by the fire, holding Svássaedra, who was cycling in and out of sleep herself. Occasionally she would start crying or screaming, waking Stjarna immediately, who would take her and pull down the corner of her nightgown to feed her, then she would hand her back to me and immediately fall asleep again.

I kept glancing between Svássaedra and Stjarna lying in the bed facing me, trying to find similarities. There weren’t much, to be honest, since Svássaedra’s face was so  small and squished. But the light wisps of hair on her head evinced—in my mind, anyway—Stjarna’s beautiful gold waves, and every time she opened her eyes, I thought I might be able to see Stjarna there. I hoped she looked like Stjarna, because gods help her if she looked like me.

Yet, sitting here with my sleeping daughter in my arms, it still almost didn’t feel real. Stjarna had been with child for a while, I knew it was coming, and to my shame in the beginning I’d been bitter and cruel about it, but now there was evoked an entirely different type of sentiment. An overwhelming feeling of awe for Stjarna, then wonder and even amazement at the tiny being she had made—and a crushing sense of trepidation, because now it wasn’t only Stjarna I was responsible for. 

I reached up, as Stjarna had done earlier, and almost hesitantly slipped my first finger under Svássaedra’s, poking out from her swaddling, and let out a breath when her little fingers curled to hold me. Suddenly—somehow—my apprehension seemed much lessened. 

Eventually, Svássaedra woke up and began screaming again and Stjarna bolted upright in a second. She propped herself up, held her arms out, and I stood up and carefully handed our daughter to her. Stjarna tugged her nightgown down and pulled Svássaedra close to feed again. Moments later, Stjarna, who was still half-asleep, tilted her head back onto the pillow.

I crawled carefully into bed next to her, laying sideways against the pillow. Stjarna made a small sound and angled her head so it rested against mine. I held onto her arm, stroking her skin with my thumb.

“I’m so proud of you,” I whispered, lowering my head to kiss her bare shoulder. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Stjarna. I’m so sorry.” 

“I was afraid, Loki.” 

“I know,” I acknowledged, kissing her skin again. 

“I thought… I kept thinking I was going to die, or she was going to die, and that… that I would not be able to say goodbye to you.” 

Stjarna now opened her eyes to observe Svássaedra, who had fallen asleep again, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her chin tremble.

“And then… when she came out, Eir took her and I could not even hold myself up because I was so tired… I forgot all about it. Eir took her and cleaned her up and then when she handed her to me, I… I did not feel afraid anymore and it all suddenly seemed so silly.”

“Why?”

“I thought I knew what it would feel like because I had thought about it so much in my previous life, but… it is so much more different than what I could have ever imagined.” 

“In a good way?” I asked.

Stjarna let out the faintest of laughs. “Yes, Loki, in a good way.” 

We did not speak for a long while after that, and the light outside began to darken as late afternoon crept in. For now, it was easy to not think about what was coming. It was easy to imagine that nothing else existed outside of this little room except for us, and that there would be no difficult questions to ask in the morning, or potentially terrible decisions to face.

“Are you happy, Loki?” Stjarna asked, pulling me out of my musings. She was gently stroking Svássaedra’s brow, then down to her cheek and her tiny pink lips.

I gazed at our daughter for a long while, still with my head tilted against Stjarna’s. Lying here, I finally realized that the almost paralytic trepidation from earlier had melted away, replaced by something I couldn’t exactly put my finger on. Of course there was some anxiety left, and some concern about what was to come tomorrow, but something else, too—some new, strange warm thing I wasn’t sure I had ever felt in my life. 

Finally, I answered her.

Part II - Chapter 50

Loki

The Einherjar led me down into the bowels of the palace, to a place that even through the fog of time and death I remembered. The dungeons had not changed, from what I recalled—bare white cells enclosed with bright, humming yellow walls of energy, spanning on for as far as the eye could see into the darkness. 

The guards led me to an empty cell, somewhat isolated from the others. One of the Einheri directed me to mount the steps and I went easily enough, perhaps surprising them, but it was not them I was thinking about, nor Thor, nor even my pregnant wife who remained above—instead, all I could think about was Heimdall’s words on the bridge, that it had been nine years since I was killed.

Nine years since my ruse to claim the throne of Asgard had failed, nine years since Odin died and Thor came back to carry out his duty as king and kill the pretender to the throne—which he had subsequently failed to do. Nine long years since Stjarna and I had planned an escape to Midgard—ironic now, I thought—and nine years since I had been stabbed through the heart and died.

I looked down and tentatively raised my hand to my chest, but what was I expecting to feel? A tinge of pain, a faltering beat where Frey’s dagger had pierced? Not with this body made new, courtesy of my daughter who moldered in Helheim without me now. Yes, nine years it had been, and much had changed.

I stared out past the wall of energy to the guards, who stood disordered, like they didn’t know what to do. They threw suspicious glances at me, eyed me up and down like I was going to attempt escape. I probably appeared quite foreign to them—I was still dressed in the clothes I’d stolen from a shop on Midgard, a thin green shirt and dark blue pants—the Midgardians called them jeans—and a pair of odd shoes with strings on them. 

The Einherjar whispered confusedly amongst themselves and though I couldn’t hear them, I knew they spoke of me and how could I possibly be here in the flesh when I had died almost a decade ago. What was it that Stjarna had said? That they’d cut my head off and mounted it on a spike at the city gates? That would have been something to see, certainly. 

Eventually I wandered to the back wall, leaned against it, and sank down until I was seated on the floor, legs stretched out in front of me and hands resting in my lap.

I hoped Thor would heed my words regarding Stjarna. She had done nothing wrong. But I knew beneath it all my brother was fair and chivalrous—absurdly so, not like me.

As I sat there, ruminating on what was to come, I could almost physically feel the memories flooding my mind. Splashes of anger and blood, and such an overwhelming feeling of rage that rose within me like a wave, only to strangely drain away just as quickly. These poisonous memories clawing their way back, so resilient that they had lurked stubbornly in the recesses of my mind even in death, now screaming for me to acknowledge and give power to them again. 

I used to be angry, I knew. Angry because they had wronged me and lied to me, bitter that I’d been overlooked my entire life and relegated to languish in the shadow of my brother’s glory. Betrayed by my father, my mother, my brother, and at one point I think even Stjarna—everybody who had mattered to me in that previous life. 

But I didn’t care. Why would I? I wasn’t the person those things had happened to, even though they were my memories—not the betrayal or the humiliation, not the torture, not even being stabbed in the heart. I wondered if old Loki would have been aghast at my indifference. I suppose losing my mind in Helheim had cured me of the sense of injustice I’d experienced here in life, because even with it all cascading back, none of it particularly concerned me.

Even the thought of dying again didn’t seem to instill any real type of panic in me. My only regret would be leaving Stjarna alone—and despite my recent coolness, my child that she carried—and also perhaps having to lay eyes on my wretched daughter again so soon.

I sat in silence for a while longer, watching the guards pace, whisper, pace some more, glare suspiciously at me, then whisper again to each other. Suddenly, one of them caught sight of something and barked at the others and they all snapped to attention.

Moments later I glimpsed a figure approaching in the darkness, then quickly climbed to my feet when I recognized it as Thor. He walked up to the yellow barrier, ignoring the Einherjar, and scrutinized me. His face was unreadable. I couldn’t deny the twinge of apprehension I felt when he ordered the wall lowered.

“Your Majesty?” asked one of the Einheri, obviously bewildered.

“Open it,” Thor reiterated, without looking at the guard.

The guard nodded, reached over to some hidden panel on the wall, and the barrier was lowered. Thor mounted the steps into the cell, never having torn his eyes from mine. He approached me, and a small part of me almost expected him to pull out a dagger and kill me. Would I have resisted, I wondered?

But he did not. Instead, Thor stood before me and I stiffened when he reached out with both hands, grabbed me by my upper arms, and pulled me into a tight embrace. He lifted one hand to the back of my head, curling his fingers in my hair.

I stood there frozen, peering over his shoulder at the Einherjar, who seemed just as shocked as me. I made eye contact with one, but he quickly glanced away as if embarrassed to witness his king’s show of affection—especially to an infamous traitor such as myself.

Finally, Thor released me, but then promptly took my face in his hands and stared directly into my eyes. I held his earnest gaze, surprised to see his bright blue eyes red-rimmed and swimming with tears. 

“I can’t believe it,” he whispered. 

After another long moment, his hands fell down to my shoulders. He turned his head to address the guards, and I could discern a slight tremble in his voice.

“Raise the barrier.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Raise the barrier then fuck off.”

The Einherjar shifted nervously, but reluctantly obeyed, trapping Thor and I together in the cell, before shuffling away. I watched in fascination as Thor sank to the ground in front of me, legs crossed and red cape pooled behind him.

“Talk to me, Loki.”

I slowly sat down in front of him. 

“What do you want to know?” I asked carefully.

“Where did you come from?”

“We were on Midgard—”

“No, before that,” he interrupted, though not angrily. “Heimdall said he saw you and Stjarna at the edge of Niflheim.”

“Yes, we came from Helheim and my daughter—oh, I have a daughter, by the way—”

“Yes, Hel, queen of the dead.” 

I paused, furrowing my brows. “How do you know that?” 

“Mímir told me.”

My lips parted in surprise. My restored memories had not spared the remembrance of that irksome little fucker. I knew I wouldn’t have recognized the name had I still been in Helheim, but here it immediately conjured a myriad of images: a disembodied head on a pedestal, piercing blue eyes teasing incendiary facts and never revealing, telling me I was the harbinger of the death of the universe and there was nothing I could do to stop it. 

I almost found it difficult to speak. “He—he revealed himself to you?”

“Yes, a few months after you died,” Thor admitted. “I was sitting in front of the fire in Father’s chambers—well, my chambers—trying to get drunk because all I could think of was you, lying on the ground in a pool of your own blood, and he opened the door. I will say, the bastard certainly enjoys his riddles, but he has been talkative these past years.” 

“That is… surprising,” I conceded. “He was frustratingly ambiguous with me and even confessed he was the same way with Father.” 

“I don’t think he cared much for either of you, from the way he talks. I do believe he’s rather partial to me.” 

“Of course he is,” I muttered, thinking that perhaps things might have gone smoother for everybody if Mímir wasn’t such a cunt. 

“He enjoyed regaling me with tales of your misfortunes, though,” Thor stated, a little more quietly now. 

“And what misfortunes are those?” I wondered, curious to hear if what Thor had been told about me was the truth.

“You knew Father told me of your true parentage after you fell from Bifröst,” he admitted. “He told me that you were Laufey’s son and had been abandoned when he found you, so he took you and brought you home. He said he was going to use you to help garner peace between our two realms in the future, but… that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

I only stared at him, unsure of what to say. 

“He went there in search of you,” Thor continued soberly. “The entire invasion was a pretense, just so he could get to you. Because Mímir told him about you long before you were ever born.”

Hearing him recount it all seemed to heighten the new—or rather, returned—memories. I could picture it now, so clearly: standing in front of Mímir, hearing him weave his contentious gospel, then my storming down into the dungeons where I’d chained my father to a wall. I’d confronted him about it and with nothing left to lose, he had revealed to me all, and thus everything I had ever known—who I thought I was, who I thought I was supposed to become—had come unraveled. 

“And all of it for Ragnarök,” Thor said, face solemn. “Mímir said that was your true purpose and you were meant to bring about the end of the universe. Father was making sure it happened, that’s why he took you, because he thought it had to happen. He lied to Mother about it all, of course, she never knew the real reason, thank the gods.” 

It was odd to hear all of this coming from another person, and more surprisingly from Thor. For him to finally know why, even if none of it actually mattered anymore. Yet, I wondered if I should be feeling something other than indifference. I remember having been so filled with wrath when Odin finally disclosed everything to me, but whatever fire there had been inside me was as cold ashes now.

“Mímir told you of Ragnarök, did he not?” 

“Yes, but not much,” I replied. “Father was the one who divulged its specifics to me before he died. I imagine his death came as a shock to him, considering he was convinced he would die another way.”

“Yes, he was to be killed by your son,” Thor affirmed. “Your son by the Utgard witch.”  

A cold feeling spread through my body, settling heavily in my limbs. I swallowed hard, not sure why I suddenly felt ill.

At the time, Father had no fear of me killing him because he had been told by Mímir a thousand or so years before that he would perish in the jaws of my son, Fenrir, at the end of all things—my son whom I had never even heard of at that point, because Odin had stolen him from his mother, Angrboda, and hidden him somewhere in the Nine Realms. Not just him—my other son had been banished to Midgard and my daughter to the land below Niflheim to care for the aimless dead.

“I was supposed to die, too, fighting beside him,” Thor murmured. “To be struck down by your other son, Jörmungandr, amongst an army of the dead led by you.”

I stared at Thor and he stared back, though there was no animosity or resentment in his gaze. I could not remember Mímir having ever mentioned Thor’s fate in all of this—only mine and Odin’s. But I suppose at the time I hadn’t really cared whatever his fate should be, so perhaps that is why Mímir never imparted the information.

“And you, Loki, were to be off somewhere fighting Heimdall, who would cleave your head from your shoulders only to die moments later from his wounds inflicted by you.”

I exhaled slowly. So we had all been fated to die on the same battlefield, had it played out like Mímir foresaw. A memory suddenly surfaced, unbidden, of Angrboda crawling up and down my body in Helheim, whispering to me of death and blood and revenge, even gifting me a great sword later to carry into the inevitable end of all things.

“Well, clearly I have no interest in leading an army of the dead,” I dismissed. “So what happened? Mímir told me once that the destination never changes, only the paths to reach it.”

Something must have happened when I was in Helheim to divert my path from  Ragnarök, especially considering even Angrboda had been goading me into it.

“Mímir admitted to me that in all of his existence, there had never been one to confound him like you,” Thor answered. “He told me your path changed so many times he could hardly keep up, and at some point, you strayed so far from it that your destiny was no longer… yours.”  

“And what caused it?”

“I don’t know, other than the fact it had something to do with Stjarna. Which, looking back, I did think it quite odd that he spoke of you sometimes as if you were living, as if all of this was going to happen even though you’d died. I suppose you were still living in a way, though.”

“Stjarna…” I breathed, thinking, and the only answer I could come up with to perhaps explain away my initiating Ragnarök was simply her arrival in Helheim. Not that I’d been particularly keen on it beforehand, because even when Angrboda started muttering to me of retribution, I’d forgotten most everything of my previous life and hadn’t been too bothered by past injustices—certainly not enough to lead an army.

“Mímir told me about your other children, too. Five of them, Loki, and another on the way. Still a slut, I see.”

There was a beat of silence, then both Thor and I burst into laughter at the same time. Suddenly the oppressiveness of our conversation seemed a little lighter, if only for a moment. Thor chuckled again, then licked his lips and looked down at the floor, the seriousness slowly creeping back into his expression. 

“I do… I do believe I would have gone mad with the knowledge, too, brother,” he murmured, and I was surprised to see his eyes shiny again with tears. “I didn’t know, but the fucked up part is… I didn’t care to know. Not really.” 

A wayward tear spilled over and rolled down his cheek into his beard. I tilted my head, almost in confusion, because in all my life—or rather, lives—I don’t think I’d ever seen him like this. 

Thor glanced back up at me and his chin trembled, voice wavering.

“I’m sorry, Loki. I’m sorry for everything. The lies you were told, the lie you grew up believing. Everything Father did and everything I did. I tortured you. I—I sentenced you to die. After Father’s death, I couldn’t—I blamed you. I thought…”

He swallowed thickly, attempting to compose himself, then shook his head and suddenly his voice was incandescent.

“And Týr, that fucking bastard. I didn’t know, I was blinded by our camaraderie through the years. I should have seen, Loki, I’m so sorry I did not. Mímir told me what happened after they discovered you. He told me what Týr did to you. And to Stjarna.”

My gaze slowly fell down to the floor between us. I had memories of that, now that he mentioned it. Flashes of fire and blood and searing flesh, then my screaming, watching Týr drag Stjarna to a table in front of me and I helpless to do anything about it. A hot flush spread through me, though the memories still seemed incomplete.

“It’s eaten at me, Loki,” Thor admitted, voice cracking. “Sometimes I’ve made myself sick just thinking about it. I’ve wept at night, like a woman—” he laughed harshly, eyes swimming with tears, “—and Sif does not understand. She can’t. She tries to help me but she can’t. I thought… I thought…”

Thor reached up to rub his forehead, like he was attempting to keep himself from bursting into sobs. In the past I might have teased him, even thought less of him as a man, but now I stared at him with tightness in my chest, and a lump in my own throat.

“First it was Mother, then Father, then my little brother… and by my own fucking order, too…”

“Thor…”

“But you’ve come back,” he declared, lifting his head to look at me. “By some miracle of the Norns you’ve returned.” Then his eyes fell down to my hand, where he saw the pale gold band on my finger, and he offered a small, unsteady smile. “And a married man, no less, with a babe on the way. How things change.”

I studied the ring on my finger. “Yes, they do, don’t they?”

“How do you find the married life, brother? I recall when merely the thought of anything past the fucking sent you into an apoplexy.” 

I laughed. “It was an easy decision. Stjarna had been waiting long enough and she is worth more than being just my mistress. And you?”

“I like it well enough,” Thor rejoined, seeming a bit more in control of himself now, and throwing a furtive glance back to make sure there were no guards standing nearby who might overhear him. “Sif can be a handful sometimes, though.”

“I’m a little surprised, I must admit,” I said, tilting my head. “I remember when we were younger watching her grind your face into the dirt in the training yard.” 

“Ah, thank you for that, Loki,” he responded with a smirk. “Not that I don’t hear about it often enough from her.”

“Do you love her?” 

“Yes. I just… I don’t think I recognized it as that for a long time. Plus we’d fought together for so long and I suspected she never saw me in that way. I only learned a few years ago that Father actually intended for me to wed Sif at some point, and the thought of it appealed to me more than not.”

“Does she love you?”

“Gods, I hope so, otherwise the baby might make things a bit awkward.”

I let out a small laugh. “And how is kingship?”

“Oh, it’s fucking terrible,” Thor groaned, moving to stand up. He held out his hand and I grasped his forearm and he pulled me to my feet. “Do you still desire the throne, brother? Because by all the gods you can have it.”

“No,” I answered truthfully, and admitting it to him almost felt freeing. There was no part of me that desired a throne anymore, or even the power one could wield being so near to it. “That has long passed.”

Thor smiled. He knew why, and she stood above our heads somewhere.

“Is she safe?” I asked, recalling the bloodlust in Frey’s eyes when we had been escorted to the palace.

“She is,” Thor assured me. “She’s in one of Sif’s ladies’ rooms right now. One of the unused ones. She has a bed and food and an Einheri stands guard.”

I nodded, but now Thor appeared repentant. 

“I am sorry, Loki, for the… dismal accommodation,” he said, motioning around the cell, “but I cannot offer much else right now, considering… everything.”

I shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

He looked at me for a long moment, then smiled, but I could see the despair brimming underneath it all. He stood still, like he was thinking, then reached out and pulled me into another embrace.

“I’m glad you are alive,” he whispered harshly next to my ear, like he was fighting back tears. “We will speak again, little brother.”

Thor released me and turned on his heel and the Einherjar, who had been lurking nearby, scrambled to open the barrier before he reached it. He stepped out of the cell and the wall was raised instantly behind him.

Off he went back into the darkness, and the guards resumed their positions around my cell, and I returned to the back wall, sank to the ground, and wondered what came next.

__

Stjarnavetr

The Einherjar took me to a wing of the palace I was most familiar with and shut me in a room similar to the one I had used to inhabit when I was a handmaiden under Queen Frigga, what now seemed an eternity ago. It was sparsely furnished—just a few chairs shoved into a dank corner, a little table in another corner, and a clearly long unused bed.

I paced restlessly, nervously wringing my hands. The worst case scenarios ran rampant through my mind, all of which culminated in Loki’s death. What would I do if he was killed again? I did not think my heart could take it, I had already endured too much. 

Multiple times I inquired of the guard stationed outside the room if he knew anything about Loki, but he would only say he had been taken to the dungeons and nothing else. I begged to speak to Thor, but the guard’s withering look sent me back inside.

Eventually, desperate for anything to distract myself, I made my way onto the balcony and gazed out over the city. It was still dark, though by now it must have been close to morning. Much of the city was still asleep, though there were little fires here and there, and I could see some movement along the roads. 

But soon even my anxiety could not keep me sufficiently numb from the pain in my legs and aching back. I went back inside, sat heavily on the edge of the bed, and took my sandals off. My feet were swollen, so I sent a small amount of seidr into them, but it was only a momentary relief. 

Too exhausted to even continue sitting up, I fell onto my side on the bed. Soon the tears came and I quietly cried until I fell into an uneasy sleep.

__

I awoke when it was light out. For a few precious seconds I did not remember where I was or what was going on, but then it all came rushing back, along with the fear and the foreboding. 

I immediately got out of bed and went to the door. Upon opening it, I found a different Einheri posted.

“Sir, please, have you any news of Loki?”

He kept his gaze straight ahead. “No.”

“Could I send a message to His Majesty?” 

“No, my Lady.” 

I took a deep breath, tears of frustration stinging my eyes.

I pleaded again, this time more firmly, and he glanced at me when he discerned the tremble in my voice. 

“I am sorry, Lady, I cannot.” 

I swallowed hard and turned to go back inside. I felt so helpless, and was so apprehensive that I felt like I was going to vomit. I paced some more, and at one point paused to endure a brief rivulet of pain that emanated from between my legs. I had experienced some short contractions recently and knew it meant my time was near. Exactly how near I knew not, since I was aware that they could be felt even weeks before birth.

I allowed myself a small smile recalling Loki’s alarm on Midgard a few days before our capture when I had experienced a particularly painful one. He had falsely assumed it was my time and had begun to panic and I had to calm him and tell him there was still a little while to go. But slowly my smile fell, because the awful reality of our situation came rushing back, that there was a very real possibility that he may not be around when the babe did come.

I fretted over this for the next hour, until a tray of food was brought to me. A plate and flagon of wine had been brought the night before, but I had not touched them. I could picture Loki chiding me, however, and ordering me to eat because I never ate when I was worried, so I forced myself to sit at the dusty little table in the corner and swallow the soft bread and cheese from both yesterday and this morning.

More hours passed, until I figured it must be midday or early afternoon. I was lying on the bed on my side, staring at the wall, when there came a light knock on the door. Immediately I was off the bed, grimacing when I felt another small contraction. I tried not to think about it and shouted, “Yes?” 

The tiniest hope of mine that it was Loki—though beyond foolish—was dashed when the door opened and Thor stepped through, but he was the second person I most wished to see, so it was not entirely bad.

“Thor!” I cried, and in that moment I forgot he was king and all the decorum that went along with it, but in truth neither him nor I cared. Thor wrapped his arms around me when I embraced him tightly.

“Is Loki alright?” I managed to choke out through the tears already welling up in my throat, then drawing back to look up at him. “Is he hurt?” 

“Loki is fine,” Thor placated. “And I would have come to see you sooner, but I sat with him for longer than I anticipated last night. All is well for now, Stjarna, please believe me.”

I nodded, grateful for his assurance and suddenly able to breathe a little easier. I then allowed him to lead me to the table in the corner where he sat me down.

“What did…” I paused to wipe at my eyes. “What did you two talk about?”

“Many things, but I need you to answer some of my questions,” Thor said, seating himself across from me and noticing the empty plates on the table. “Before that, though, would you like anything else to eat? I could have the kitchens make you anything you like.”

I politely declined him, doubtful I could keep anything else down. 

“I’m sorry to keep you in such poor quarters,” he continued. “Truthfully, I could hardly process everything that happened last night. When an Einheri burst into my chambers, rambling about how Heimdall was bringing my brother and a woman to the palace, I… I of course didn’t believe him. How could I?”

“Yes, I imagine it was a shock,” I concurred quietly, staring down at my hands resting on top of my belly because I had not been able to actually put them in my lap for a while.

“And then there you two stood, like the past ten years had not happened. So what did happen, Stjarna? My Vanir ambassador told me back then, of course, but I doubt he was authorized to reveal to me the true nature of King Valdrlund’s death.” 

I could remember well what Thor spoke of, though it did not entirely please me to do it. 

“They said you killed him. What happened?”

I bit my lip, not wanting to actually reveal to Thor how Valdrlund had manipulated me into believing he was changed, only to dash it all to pieces and make me his mistress again and use his young son—whom I had very much liked and grown close to—as leverage to control me.

So all I divulged was, “He made me his mistress again.” 

Thor let out a heavy breath and his shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry, Stjarna. It was I who sent you back to Vanaheim—

“I do not blame you, Thor,” I interrupted. “He threatened war, did he not, since Freyja had been killed? Your loyalty lies first with your people. What else could you have done as king?”

“More than what I did,” he responded stonily.

“Well, one night, I remember, he insulted Loki. I do not remember exactly what he said but it made me angry. I have never been that angry before. I do not know what came over me, but I… I put a seidr blade in his throat.”

“You were able to overpower him?” he wondered, leaning forward. I suppose it was an odd story, that a woman of my size had killed a man so much taller and stronger than me, but I did not wish to reveal to Thor that Valdrlund’s guard had been down because I had been sitting astride his hips.

So I lied.

“He was asleep.”

Thor nodded and sat back against the chair.

“They put me in a cell, they were going to execute me, but before it could happen, Hel came to me.”

“Loki’s daughter?”

“Yes,” I confirmed, my gaze fixed absentmindedly on some spot across the room, not even pausing to wonder how he knew who she was. Loki must have told him. “She said she would take me to him and I agreed and she took my breath from me. I remember… I felt so cold, but it did not last long, and when I awoke I was in Helheim, in her palace Eljudnir, and Loki was there.”

“What is it like, Stjarna? Helheim?”

“It is a dreary place. There is no sun or moon or stars, but by the queen’s magic there is day and night. And there is wind and rain and crops and water. The dead live there much like they did in life, but they retain nothing from that life.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Hel explained it to me. When one arrives in Helheim, they eventually lose all semblance of who they were in life. It may not happen immediately, but it is inevitable. I think my situation was a rather strange one, however. I never lost my memories, but I think it had to do with the fact that it was Hel herself who brought me there.” 

“And what of Loki?”

“When I was reunited with him, he had forgotten almost everything about his life here. When he first laid eyes on me, in fact, he did not recognize me immediately.”

Thor furrowed his brows and glanced down at the empty plates on the table.

“All he had was shadows of memories. He knew that he had done awful things in his life, that he had been tortured and hurt, but… he thought nothing about any of it because he could not remember how or why. He knew he had a brother in life, and that you played some part in everything that ultimately led to his death, but he could not remember what you looked like, or sometimes even your name.”

“He forgot my name?” Thor echoed. He almost seemed hurt.

“Only sometimes,” I stated. “He could usually remember it, but sometimes not. He would ask me about you, though. I tried to tell him everything I could remember, even childhood stories that he had recounted to me centuries ago. He wanted to remember you, Thor. He tried, and I told him that he had loved you even if he had not shown it, and that you had loved him, too, despite everything. I told him you would be proud of him if you could see him.” 

Thor’s face was unreadable, but I could see the shine of tears in his eyes.

“Your mother and your father are there, too,” I said softly, trying not to think of my own parents that I had left behind. “They came to our wedding. They lived nearby so we would visit them. The queen, your mother, she kept her memories. I think she fought to keep them when she died. She remembered us and she remembered you.”

Thor looked down at the table and slowly exhaled. “How—how did you come to be alive again?” 

I paused, considering how to tell him, and winced when another dull pain emanated from my lower half.

“The queen brought me back to life. She has the power of life and death.”

“Why? Why would she do that?”

“Loki made Hel do it, after…” I furrowed my brows, trying to recall. Loki had told me what happened afterwards, of course, but I did not recollect it all that well myself. “She… tried to kill me. If you die a second time there, your soul is lost forever.”

“Who is she?”

“Angrboda,” I whispered.

“The giantess from Utgard,” Thor clarified, running his hand over his mouth. “I know of her.”

“Yes. Loki, he… he killed her… and then Queen Hel wanted me gone from the realm because I was alive, but Loki demanded she give him his breath back because he would not leave me. I do not know how he managed to convince her, but one day he was dead and the next he was alive again.”

“So how then did you leave Helheim?”

“We did not leave for some time afterwards,” I replied, running my hand lightly over my belly. “I… I became with child and Loki decided we would go to Midgard. He said we could disappear there and build a quiet life together.” I stopped for a long moment, not wanting to burst into tears again, and Thor thankfully did not speak. “The queen escorted us to the edge of her realm, near where the dead enter when they arrive. She used dark energy of some sort to put us on Midgard.”

I needed not to explain the rest, as Thor knew all of it after that. He stood up and slowly paced, appearing flustered.

I murmured his name, so quietly I was surprised he heard me, but he turned to acknowledge me.

“What is going to happen to us?” I asked, unable to mask the tremble in my voice. 

He sighed, but could not hide the pain in his expression.

“I’m sorry I don’t have an answer for you now, Stjarna. I’m meeting with my advisors here shortly. The Vanir ambassador is rather agitated about it all.”

“The Vanir ambassador?”

“Yes, your return caused quite the stir last night,” he responded. “The Vanir ambassador was more concerned with your return than Loki’s, and there have been furious messages going back and forth since, I’m sure. I know not what King Járnvándr thinks of it all yet.”

Járnvándr was Valdrlund’s son, who was a man by now and king of Vanaheim. I remembered Járnvándr as quite unlike his father, and wondered how his reign was going. I had very much liked him when I tutored him in seidr, as Valdrlund had requested I do before he revealed his true colors.

I endeavored to swallow my apprehension. “Will they… demand my return?”

“I know not,” he admitted. “But they shall not have you if it comes to that, I can promise you.”

“Loki is Asgardian,” I said anxiously. “What will your advisors say about him? Do you know?”

“Yes. They’ll want me to kill him again.”

“No!” I cried, jumping to my feet, and already the tears were coming again. “Please, Thor! He has already paid for all of it with his life. Please, let us go to Midgard, we will be gone and you will never hear of us again, I promise, I promise—”

“Enough, Stjarna,” he ordered, though he did not raise his voice. I stared at him, my entire body shaking now, and I did not even register another contraction, stronger than the last one now. 

“I alone am king here,” he assured me, voice a little gentler now. “My advisors do not rule.”

His words brought some small comfort to me, but it was not a guarantee. I shook my head and looked down at the floor. 

“Have we not suffered enough already?” I whimpered pathetically, raising my hands to my face. I could not help my tears now, though, and a moment later Thor wrapped me in his arms and stroked my hair.

Despite Thor’s earlier reassurance, I was so distraught that I hardly noticed the first rivulet of discomfort from between my legs. But it came again just seconds later, and then a small gush of fluid from between my thighs that soaked my legs and feet.

Thor pulled back, glanced down at the floor, and then back up to my tear-stained face.

“Is that…?”

Despair filled me, because it was not the right time, this could not happen now, and Thor saw the expression on my face.

“I—I’ll have Eir brought at once,” he announced. Thor went to the door and opened it, then barked for the guard to fetch Eir and be quick about it. As the Einheri scuttled away, Thor returned to me and despite the panic coursing through me, the panicked look on his own face almost strangely caused me to laugh.

“Is there anything I can do?” he offered, and I shook my head. “I will wait with you until Eir arrives.” 

“Then you will meet with your advisors?” I questioned, wincing when I felt another contraction.

Thor hesitated. “Yes, but you need not think of that now, Stjarna—”

“How can I not?” I despaired, struggling to maintain my composure. “You will decide our fate there.”

Loki

“Fuck,” I breathed, pressing my forehead against the cool stone wall. I could still feel the fading waves of Stjarna’s release around me and the evidence of my own dripping out of her. She was facing the wall, trapped between it and my body, though I suspected I was helping to support her, as well, considering the slight trembling of her legs—not surprising, since I’d just pushed her past her fifth orgasm of the night, and subsequently achieved my third.

I lowered my head and languidly kissed the top of Stjarna’s shoulder before pulling out of her. She expulsed a heavy, satisfied-sounding breath and lethargically pushed away from the wall. I turned her around, took her face in my hands, and kissed her openmouthed. 

Stjarna responded almost sluggishly, despite my heated kiss, and when I pulled away her heavily lidded eyes looked up at me, lips pink and swollen from my earlier attentions. I ran my thumb over her parted lips, then down over her chin and the column of her throat, where there was a wayward trail of my dried seed—also from earlier.

“Are you alright?” I asked, somewhat in amusement.

Stjarna nodded, but she was obviously lying.

“Do you need to sit?” I inquired with a smirk, and guided her to the nearby table because she seemed like she was going to collapse. I expected her to sit in one of the chairs, but instead Stjarna only leaned against the table, supporting herself with one arm. She let out another heavy sigh and closed her eyes.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” I repeated, my smile growing. 

“Yes.”

“Do you need me to carry you to bed?”

“No, just give me a moment.”

“Have I exhausted you?” I wondered. 

Stjarna only let out a weary laugh. I kissed her forehead and then her lips. She reciprocated somewhat tiredly, and a mischievous thought entered my head. Slowly I ran my hands down her naked body, then turned her around so the front of her hips were pressed against the edge of the table.

Stjarna murmured my name, but let me adjust her so she was bent forward onto the table, arms tucked under her. Her cheek rested against the wood, and she eyed me suspiciously, though the corner of her lips was upturned.

I splayed my hand on her hip, then descended under the gentle curve of her belly, down until my fingers brushed against her soft curls, wet from all our fucking. Stjarna’s body stiffened against me when my fingers delved between her folds and she whimpered.

I shushed Stjarna and reached a bit farther between the warm, wet heat of her thighs and she pressed backwards against me, involuntarily I think. She was absolutely soaking, that slick combination of me and her, running down the insides of her legs because I’d come in her twice tonight—well, three times, but the second time hadn’t been between her legs. The thought of it normally was enough to drive me feral, but my own desire was so spent at that moment that my body didn’t immediately respond like it normally would have.

I leisurely stroked her, every so often brushing against the little bud at the top of her sex, and each time I did she would flinch against me, but I didn’t stop because despite her earlier air of fatigue, I could tell she was still enjoying my attentions.

Finally, I slipped my two middle fingers inside her. Stjarna’s reply was a wavering moan and I smiled to myself when she lifted up on her toes, elevating her arse for me.

“Would you come for me again?” I asked gently, almost like I was asking her a favor, running my free hand indolently up and down her thigh, kneading with my fingers. Perhaps I’d be able to coax a sixth orgasm from of her tonight. 

“Loki, I—I don’t—ugh—I don’t think I can—”

“Oh, now I don’t believe that,” I admonished, pressing my hips forward against her backside. Now I could feel myself at last stirring against her. On nights where we went more than a few times, it took me longer to get there for each round, but Stjarna just looked so delectable lying like this in front of me, still hardly able to catch her breath, long tendrils of hair stuck to her face, pink and exhausted and so fucking wet.

I began curling my fingers inside her, hitting that spot I knew that drove her mad. Stjarna’s reaction was immediate and she squirmed against my hand, driving my fingers even deeper, but this wasn’t my ultimate goal. Moments later, I withdrew and leaned forward to kiss the spot between her shoulder blades, tasting the salt of her sweat on my lips.

“I want to fuck you again,” I growled, unhurriedly kissing my way down her spine, until I arrived at the two dimples above her arse. Down a little lower until I bared my teeth and bit her soft flesh and she started and gasped my name. 

“Loki, I can’t—”

I rose and pushed myself firmly against Stjarna’s arse, and now she could feel the full length of my arousal. I slid my cock between her legs, into the moist heat there, and could not help the shudder that ran through my body at the sensation, despite the fact that I’d already come three times in the past few hours.

“I’m sore,” she murmured weakly.

Suddenly, an idea took hold in my mind. I pulled back and reached down to slide my fingers back between her legs. 

“Loki—”

“You’re not sore everywhere, are you?” I asked, slowly dragging my fingers backwards and with them her wetness, toward me, until they came close to that other most intimate spot—but before I could actually make it, Stjarna cried out and frantically twisted out from beneath me. She righted herself and took a step back, eyes wide and lips parted in shock.

In truth, I wasn’t entirely surprised by her reaction. I’d attempted to coax Stjarna into the act a couple of years ago, but she’d reacted so negatively to even the implication that I’d not brought it up again.

Some time had passed, though, and I’d been able to convince her to do far more salacious things (in my mind, anyway) since then, so why not try again? She always ended up enjoying new things, even if she was hesitant in the beginning.

Judging by her expression now, however, she did not seem willing to even entertain the idea. Still feeling a bit playful, I reached out and drew Stjarna back into my arms.

“What, you don’t want to try for me?” I questioned with a small laugh, kissing her forehead.

“No,” she answered sharply, and to my surprise pushed my arms away and crossed hers over her front. I furrowed my brows at her sudden defensiveness. It was odd for Stjarna.

“Stjarna—”

“No,” she repeated icily. “Please do not bring it up again.”

Promptly she turned on her heel and headed toward my bath chamber.

I stood there for a long moment, attempting to process what had just happened. My body didn’t feel hot anymore—rather, cold—and my arousal had completely gone after all of that. I turned and glimpsed Stjarna just as she disappeared into my bath chamber, and raised my brows when the door practically slammed shut.

What the fuck was all that about?

Entirely separate from the way she had spoken to me, I couldn’t understand why she was so averse to even the idea. There were plenty of things I’d talked her into, that even I thought were more depraved than something as simple as getting fucked in the arse, and which she had enjoyed even if she wouldn’t admit it.

Something told me, however, that hers wasn’t an aversion to something entirely unknown, because Stjarna rarely reacted so negatively—and impudently—to me over something seemingly so trivial.

I went to my bath chamber and opened the door. Stjarna was standing by the tub, which was now already almost full of water. She turned to acknowledge me when the door opened.

“Care to explain what that was?” I asked tightly. 

“I did not want to, that is all,” she replied petulantly, looking away.

“Obviously, but I feel like there’s a little more to it than just that.”

Stjarna bent down to shut the water off, but she did not get into the tub and she wouldn’t even glance at me.

“Stjarna.”

“Just leave me alone. Please.”

Now she started to climb into the tub, but I was next to her in an instant and grabbed her arm. She said my name, somewhat in annoyance, but I made her face me.

“What is it?”

“What?”

“What is all of this?” I inquired, perhaps too firmly. “You can barely look at me now.”

Stjarna’s eyes drifted down, but the quiet defiance was still there. She didn’t say anything and I released her arm. After a long moment of silence, I decided to voice the suspicion that had been prickling in the back of my mind from the moment she had ordered me not to bring it up again. 

“Have you done it before?” 

Her eyes snapped up to mine, but still she did not respond, which essentially confirmed it for me. Clearly it hadn’t been a pleasant experience for her, and it was no surprise considering the only one who could have subjected her to it was her previous lover, that cunt prince of Vanaheim. 

“Is that why you’re so opposed to the idea?” I wondered, a little more carefully now. “Because of him?” 

The hardness in Stjarna’s expression melted away and was replaced just as quickly by a visage of almost defeat. She nodded. I knew she wouldn’t want to talk about it, but I also didn’t want her sad and brooding for the next week.

I kept my voice soft. “What happened?”

“Loki…”

“It’s alright,” I encouraged, and I took her arm again, more gently this time, and pulled her toward me. I wrapped her in an embrace and kissed the top of her head.

“He… he was drunk,” she finally whispered. “He told me he wanted to do it because one of his friends at court had done it with his mistress and was boasting about it. I did not want to, but he forced me anyway.”

I stared ahead at the wall, lips still pressed to Stjarna’s head, feeling the hot flush of indignant anger creep through my body.

“He had to hold me down because I was struggling so much,” Stjarna continued faintly, and she didn’t even sound upset anymore. “My screaming annoyed him enough that he covered my mouth with his hand until he was done.”

I didn’t say anything for a long moment. Though this likely had happened decades ago, just the thought of it, even now, enraged me. Every time that pathetic fucker happened to come up, and I thought there was nothing that could be mentioned about him that could deepen my loathing for him—I always managed to be proven wrong.

“I think the whole thing was too much trouble for him, though,” Stjarna said. “He never did it again. With me, at least.”

I let out a heavy breath, then turned and pulled Stjarna toward the tub. 

“Come, let us bathe.” 

Stjarna followed me easily enough and we settled into the warm water together so I was leaning against the back and Stjarna reclining between my spread legs. Her head rested on the front of my shoulder, and I absently ran my fingers up and down her arm under the water.

Neither of us spoke for a long time, but eventually I had to break the silence.

“That isn’t how it’s supposed to be, you know,” I murmured. 

“I know,” came the tiny reply.

“I’m sorry I suggested it.”

“You did not know. I never told you.” 

We did not speak again, the weight of her experience hanging oppressively in the air between us. Eventually we actually washed, dried off, and then afterwards crawled into bed. It was early morning at this point, still dark, but I don’t think either of us were tired.

Stjarna and I lay under the covers facing one another, enough space between us that with our arms somewhat outstretched we could touch each other. She was stroking my fingers between us, almost contemplatively, while I studied her face in the dancing light emanating from the fireplace.

After what had to have been half an hour of silence, Stjarna suddenly spoke.

“Have you done it?” she inquired, and I almost didn’t hear her because I was so caught up in the thought of how I should have eviscerated Valdrlund when he had come to Asgard some time ago.

“What?”

“Have you done it? In… in the…”

I raised my eyebrows. “The arse?”

Stjarna turned red with embarrassment and I grinned.

“Many times.” 

“With women?”

“Yes. And men.”

Stjarna nodded. She knew I had lain with men before—as did much of the court, actually, since I’d never really been bothered with concealing it, and had never feigned shame or attempted to uphold any type of pretense—but we’d not talked about it much despite having been together for years at this point.

“Did you like it?” Stjarna asked, now tangling her fingers with mine.

“Did I like what?”

“Being with a man.”

I laughed, prompting a reticent smile from Stjarna, and was grateful to see it after the heavier discussion earlier.

“Yes, I must say I did.”

“Which do you prefer?” she wondered.

I thought about it for a moment, then answered, “Women, though I think it would depend on how I’m feeling.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, sometimes I’d prefer to be the one doing the fucking—though that can swing both ways, you know—and other times I’d prefer to be the one getting fucked.”

Stjarna’s mouth fell open and I burst into laughter. It amused me to no end when Stjarna acted so coy about such things, especially considering that not even a few hours ago she had been on her knees in front of me, with my seed running down her chin and neck, begging me to fuck her.

“What?” I chuckled. “You asked! I’d think after being with me for this long, Stjarna, you’d not be embarrassed about such things. Don’t you like getting fucked?”

Stjarna’s face turned even redder and I smirked, waiting expectantly for a response.

“Well?”

“I—I suppose—”

“Suppose nothing,” I replied. “Let us think back to earlier, shall we, when I had you on your hands and knees and—”

“Enough about me,” she said quickly. “Tell me what it’s like.”

“What is what like?”

“To be with a man. In that way.”

“Well, you should know exactly how it is, Stjarna,” I rejoined, somewhat teasingly. “And what about you? Would you ever lie with a woman?”

Stjarna wrinkled her nose, thinking. 

“I… I know not. I have never actually thought about it before.” 

“What about two women at once? Or two men?” I offered, and Stjarna’s mouth fell open in surprise. 

“Two at once?”

“What, does that intimidate you?”

“I know not. It certainly seems like a lot of work. Have you done it before?”

“What a silly question, of course I have. It’s quite fun, actually. I remember when I was younger, Thor and I would sometimes go down into the city to a brothel where there were certain types of parties and there would be… oh, I don’t know, fifty or a hundred people, all just drinking and fucking upstairs.”

Stjarna raised her eyebrows. “And you would just… have sex with everybody?”

“Well, whoever would have you. There were some beds and couches, but they’d lay out blankets and cushions and most everybody fucked on the floor.”

“And everybody was all together? At the same time? And Thor was with you?”

“Not with me, but there were plenty of times where we’d end up in the same room or even with the same woman.”

Stjarna looked confused. “What do you mean? As in, you would… be with a woman after he… had been with her?”

“Well, that did happen, too, but what I meant was we’d be fucking the same woman at the same time.”

Stjarna’s mouth fell open in disbelief and I laughed.

“How?”

“He’d be at one end and I’d be at the other—”

“Loki!” she cried, and I laughed again when she shook her head. “Gods, sometimes I forget what a tremendous whore you are.” 

“I’ve been called worse.”

Stjarna rolled her eyes, but when she spoke she sounded intrigued, despite her mock indignation earlier. She knew me well enough that even the thought of me sharing a woman with my brother didn’t actually faze her. 

“What other deviant things have you done?”

“I do believe some of them would offend your virtuous sensibilities, Stjarna.”

“Truthfully, I do not think there is anything else you can say that would surprise me about you now,” she declared with an air of finality.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I couldn’t do that now."

“What do you mean?”

“I couldn’t share you,” I admitted blithely. “Not even with another woman, if only for a night, and I can’t imagine what I’d do to see another man lay his hands on you.”

Stjarna was quiet for a long moment, and then so softly I almost did not hear, she murmured, “I can.”

“What?”

“I can imagine what you would do,” she repeated in a whisper.

I stared at her, knowing what she spoke of, but loath to even think of it.

“You’re here with me now, Stjarna,” I assured her. “You don’t have to worry about anything that happened before, do you understand me?”

Stjarna gave a little nod and I reached out, wrapped my arm around her middle, and pulled her close. I kissed her forehead, noticing the tears caught in her lashes, and tangled our legs together beneath the covers. 

We lay like that for a while, with no more words said between us. Eventually Stjarna nuzzled closer to me, tucked her arms between us, and closed her eyes. Soon her breathing slowed and she was asleep, and I left awake to ruminate on the night’s dismal turn of events.

__

A couple of weeks passed.

Everything carried on as normal, and despite that night having ended on a somewhat somber note, Stjarna was soon back to her bright, cheerful self.

I took her to the city one morning and we spent the day at the market, and then the night at an inn. Father didn’t like me spending the night in the city without an official escort, citing it as unseemly considering my rank, but I didn’t really care. Stjarna liked the adventure of it, as well as the brief respite it offered from the court, so we did it every so often.

The day after we returned, Stjarna was in a good mood—such an exceptional mood, in fact, that she woke me up with her lips wrapped around my cock. Breakfast afterwards was a short affair and ended with her perched on the edge of the table, skirts hiked up to her thighs and legs thrown open, and me buried to the hilt inside her.

Afterwards, when I was catching my breath, and Stjarna supporting herself on her arms behind her, surrounded by neglected dishes of food, she murmured my name, and there was a playful half-smile on her face.

“What is it?” I asked, tucking myself back into my pants. I’d need to clean up before heading out to my lesson.

Stjarna grabbed a fistful of my tunic and pulled me close until our lips met. It was a heated kiss, but brief, and when she leaned back to study my face, her eyes were heavy and her expression sultry.

“I want to try it,” she announced.

“Try what?” I wondered, descending for another kiss.

But Stjarna splayed her hand on my chest, stopping me, and I looked at her oddly. It was only when she raised her eyebrows—that it suddenly clicked. 

“Oh.”

Her subsequent smile was not the smile of my normally meek Stjarna, but of that more adventurous side of her that managed to reveal itself every now and then.

“And what’s changed, pray tell?” I inquired carefully, feeling the heat of desire that had been sated not five minutes before flare back to life in the pit of my stomach. I combed my fingers through Stjarna’s soft hair, down until I curled a lock of it around my fingers.

“I have been thinking about it these past days,” Stjarna explained. “A lot, actually, and I have decided that I do want… I want to try it with you.” 

“Why?”

“You were right, Loki, the other night when you told me that I need not think of the past anymore,” she explained, a little more quietly now. “I try not to, but sometimes it is difficult.”

“I know,” I concurred gently.

“I will not have the memory of him determine my experiences with you, though. He has already taken enough from me.”

Stjarna’s hand descended and she played with the hem of my tunic, thinking for a moment.

“I know you would never hurt me, Loki. I want this.”

I took her face in my hands and kissed her hard, pushing my tongue past her teeth to deepen the kiss. She responded just as vehemently, and when we pulled away we were both breathing hard.

“Tonight?” I asked, and she grinned and nodded.

“Tonight.”

__

The night could not come fast enough. During my lessons all I could think of was tonight, and all through the afternoon feast I barely ate and was so restless that even Thor, who was seated next to me, commented on it.

Every so often I would catch Stjarna’s eye, sitting down at the handmaiden’s table, and she would tease me with me a small, knowing smile before turning away to resume a conversation with one of the other women. 

She knew what she was doing, and it only enflamed me more.

A part of me was still surprised at how crazy Stjarna could make me. Admittedly, I thought it a bit pathetic on my part, because I didn’t know of any of the other gods who venerated their mistresses so, except maybe Thor when he had one because was a sentimental idiot—but I didn’t care.

How could I, when the cadence of her laugh and the smell of her hair when I buried my face in it, the heat of her touch and her body and being inside her—gods, being inside her—was the height of whatever I understood as pleasure?

Thor liked to jest that Stjarna had me wrapped around her finger, and I’d always scoff and roll my eyes, but deep down I knew he was right—it would always be my pleasure to indulge her.

Then at last—what felt like an eternity later—Stjarna and I were alone together. I was upon her as soon as she arrived. She laughed as I pushed her back against the door, but it was cut short when I kissed her hard. I wrapped my hand loosely around her neck and the other descended down to grab a fistful of her dress, and within moments my hand was under her skirt. 

I kicked Stjarna’s legs apart, breaking the kiss, and didn’t even bother with touching her—I slid two fingers inside, she was wet already, and she gasped my name and lifted up on her toes. 

“Loki, I—I did not realize you would be this eager—”

“Did you not?” I interrupted, voice low, lowering my head to lavish attention to the side of her neck, withdrawing my fingers and letting her skirts fall back down.

“Will it… will it hurt?”

“I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t,” I answered truthfully, placing my hand over hers, “but it might a little.”

Stjarna nodded again, almost solemnly, and took a deep breath.

“I am ready.”

“Ready?” I asked with a small chuckle. “Right now?”

“Well, I thought…”

I laughed and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, Stjarna, but we wouldn’t get very far as things stand now.”

“What do you mean?” 

I smirked, but didn’t respond, and grabbed her hand. Soon we had traversed the length of my chambers, undressing all the while, and then she was lying on my bed, delectably pale against the red and furs.

I crawled over her body, peppering kisses across her stomach, her breasts and chest, then down again to the tops of her thighs, leaving wet trails of saliva and shallow bite marks. Stjarna’s halting little breaths followed me down until my lips brushed against the curls at the top of her legs, then lower until I buried my face between her thighs.

She exhaled sharply, then tangled her fingers in my hair. I ran my tongue through her folds, up to tease her, then down again to dip into her. Stjarna squirmed underneath me, lifting her hips like she didn’t know what to do with them, and then came the frustrated sighs and fluttering breaths.

I used my tongue on her until she came, ignoring my own aching arousal all the while, then slipped my fingers inside her and made her come again a few minutes later. She kept yanking on my hair, enough to make me wince, but I didn’t stop and prolonged her orgasm until she was panting and moaning and and squeezing her legs so tightly on my head I couldn’t breathe.

Finally I let up and Stjarna fell back onto the bed, struggling for air. I felt the fading contractions around my fingers, but continued languidly stroking her inside until they had gone, and only pulled them out when her breathing had somewhat returned to normal. 

I crawled back up Stjarna’s body, pushed her legs apart with my knees, and without a word or a kiss, guided my aching cock to her center and plunged myself into her body. Stjarna cried out, but had no time to adjust as I began rocking my hips against her. Her head fell back, mouth open, brows furrowed in that almost frustrated visage of pleasure.

Every hard thrust seemed to knock the breath out of her, and she was clutching at me, nails digging into my skin, and her gasps were transforming into long, faltering whines. I knew she was close, and just as I felt her about to come, I suddenly pulled out of her and she let out an almost strangled cry of indignation.

Before Stjarna could reprimand me, however, I reached down and slipped two fingers inside her again. Stjarna moaned loudly and arched her back, dug her fingers into the covers. I worked her for only another minute, curling and stroking, until she came again, and I kept at it until her body was shaking.

Finally, I withdrew my hand—admittedly somewhat achy now—and Stjarna collapsed back onto the bed. She attempted to squeeze her legs together, but I was kneeling between them, and she slowly opened her eyes and looked up at me.

“Loki…”

“Yes, darling?”

She let out a tired laugh, but didn’t speak. The air was already heavy with the heat of our bodies and the scent of her arousal, and we hadn’t even gotten to the main part. The thought of that caused my cock to twitch in anticipation.

I bent forward to hover above her and put my fingers, coated in her sticky desire, on her parted lips. I dragged them down over her chin, down the column of her throat and then her chest, leaving a wet trail. 

I wanted so badly to fuck her, she looked so delicious lying here, but I would wait—there were other things to consider at the moment.

My hand continued its leisurely descent, over her belly, through the triangle of hair, down into her wet heat, and she made the tiniest noise when I lightly brushed against her. I cupped her sex, feeling that she was practically soaking.

“I think we’re ready now,” I said softly, and she let out a harried breath of realization. I leaned down to kiss her nose, then pushed my forehead against hers. She was still for a moment, as if questioning her past choices, but then gave a small nod.

“I don’t want to think tonight, Loki,” she whispered, and I could discern the faint entreaty in her voice—asking me, in that way of hers, to take control.

Wordlessly I rose back up, then grabbed Stjarna by the hips and rolled her over onto her stomach. She propped herself up on her forearms and watched me out of the corner of her eye as I knelt between her legs. I moved her long, golden hair out of the way and lowered myself to kiss the back of her neck. I felt the subtle shiver that went through her body and she dropped her head and let out an almost soundless sigh.

I cupped between her legs again, curling my fingers to discern the abundant wetness there. I trailed my hand upwards through her folds, bringing a good amount up to her opening. When I got close, Stjarna made a faint sound in the back of her throat and her body stiffened beneath me.

Down my fingers went again, and I stroked her for a minute, until she gradually relaxed. It wouldn’t do either of us any good if she was anxious and rigid the whole time. I spread her legs with my knees because she kept trying to close them, and slowly ran my hand up and down my rigid cock, covering it in her desire; my gaze roved over Stjarna’s pale body, over her back, down to her arse, hearing her short, quiet breaths that she was attempting to hide because she was nervous.

“You’re sure about this?” I asked gently.

Stjarna hesitated for a moment. “I trust you, Loki.”

I placed my free hand in the curve of her side, caressing her warm skin with my thumb, and then ran it down over her hip and back up, just wanting her to feel my touch. I guided my cock between her legs and ran the length of it through her folds, coating it even more in the slickness there.

I let out a harsh exhale at just the feeling—after everything I was fit to burst and even the merest touch sent a lance of pleasure through my body.

Once I was wet enough, I dragged my cock up through the cleft of her buttocks until the tip brushed against her opening. Stjarna made a small sound of surprise, though I hadn’t done anything yet, and I noticed she tightened her grip on the covers.

“Relax, darling,” I breathed, but I said it so softly I don’t even know if she heard me. I pressed delicately against her, feeling the resistance, then dipped down to collect more of her desire, then back up. Trying to be gentle but firm enough that I could actually get somewhere—until finally I felt her give way.

Stjarna gasped loudly and her entire body tensed beneath me, even more so than before, and I stilled, trying not to breathe so hard. Everything in me was screaming for more now, but I remained frozen. 

I asked her if she was alright, attempting to mask the grit in my voice, hearing her breaths coming quickly now, in rapid little pants, but she didn’t reply.

“Stjarna?” I said, more firmly. The last thing I wanted was for her to isolate, I needed her here with me. Stjarna nodded, but still didn’t speak, and I could feel her attempting to unfurl beneath me.

Accepting her silent consent, I put both hands on her hips and slowly pushed in, then pulled back out, then back in a bit more than before. Trying to ignore the pleasure coursing like fire through my veins, I kept glancing up at the back of Stjarna’s head, then back down, then back up to her, watching for any sudden changes.

Then I was about halfway in and Stjarna suddenly let out a short, strained moan, followed by a litany of shuddering breaths. My own breathing became erratic as I went deeper, until finally I was almost entirely sheathed. I cursed under my breath, lifting my head because I almost couldn’t stand it how fucking tight she was. 

Stjarna’s breathing had become loud at this point, almost labored, and I leaned forward, pressing my front against her now sweaty back, careful not to move too quickly. I wrapped my hand lightly around the front of her throat, then tilted her head back and kissed her cheek, which was hot. More kisses on the side of her neck, down to the top of her shoulder.

“Relax,” I whispered. 

It was more an order than a request, because I didn’t think she would do it unless I made her. Stjarna made a tiny, strained sound of acquiescence, but I could tell by the way her eyes were squeezed shut, and the feel of her body against me, that she couldn’t. 

I carefully rose up behind her and took her by the hips, pulling her backwards until she was half-kneeling in front of me. I slowly ran my hands up her sides until they were splayed over her shoulder blades, then dragged them down, pressing my thumbs into the tight muscles of her back on either side of her spine, until I reached the top of her arse. Then back up again, gently kneading as I went along.

Finally, I could feel Stjarna start to unfurl beneath me and her breathing slowed and quietened. I dragged my hands up and down her body a few more times until I felt she was ready; her upper half was melted onto the bed and I was still gritting my teeth trying to ignore the overwhelming urge to just start fucking her.

“Are you still with me, Stjarna?” I asked, tucking my fingers into the space beneath her belly on the front of her hips.

Stjarna mumbled something unintelligible. 

I took that as a yes and pulled out of her just a bit before sliding back in. Stjarna mewled and shifted slightly in front of me and I made sure to keep massaging her skin with my thumbs, attempting to assuage her. With how wet she had been, and I having made sure to coat myself before, my movements were made easier.

Gradually I increased the length of my careful thrusts, until the uncomfortable sounds Stjarna had been making slipped into the pleasurable little moans I was more accustomed to. Once there was even less resistance, and Stjarna’s body completely softened beneath me, I leaned forward again and pressed my lips to the back of her shoulder.

“Do you think, Stjarna…” I breathed heavily, pausing to kiss her openmouthed, leaving a swath of saliva on her already damp skin. “Do you think you could be a good girl and take all of me?”

Stjarna made a petulant little noise in the back of her throat, keeping her face buried in the covers.

“Answer me, darling,” I murmured, more firmly now.

“Yes,” she finally whined.

Immediately I lifted back up. My fingers were almost trembling and I knew it was from some delicious combination of exhilaration and anticipation. I pushed deeper until the flat of my hips were pressed against the luscious curve of her arse, then slowly ground myself against her backside, still pushing forward until I couldn’t possibly have gone any deeper.

Stjarna moaned—loud and wavering and high-pitched—and just the sound was enough to push me closer toward the end that I was trying to stave off.

“Fuck… do you know how fucking good you feel?” I growled, hardly able to actually utter the words because I couldn’t focus on anything other than the way her body felt around my cock.

But Stjarna didn’t respond and her breaths had devolved into feathery little pants, so I resumed my long, languorous strokes, only pausing to redistribute some of her wetness to ease my movements. After a few minutes, I leaned forward again so I was hovering over her, relishing those tiny, desperate huffs of air.

“Tell me what you want, Stjarna.”

She mewled in response, but that wasn’t good enough. I clicked my tongue, reaching up to grab a fistful of her hair. She groaned when I pulled at her head, arching her neck back. 

“Use your words, darling.” 

“I… I…”

I raised my eyebrows. “Yes?” 

But it was almost like she couldn’t form the words. I wondered briefly if this was too much stimulation for her, considering we’d never done this before, but I dismissed the thought—I knew Stjarna could take it. I knew underneath it all she wanted it.

“Stjarna,” I said in warning, turning my head so my lips brushed against her ear, breath ruffling her hair. “If you don’t answer me, we’re going to play that little game you’re so fond of.”

Stjarna let out a harsh, almost distressed breath—she knew exactly to what game I referred.

It wasn’t so much a game for Stjarna as it was for me, because it didn’t bring her nearly as much pleasure as it did me. When Stjarna got a little too impertinent with me, talking back or acting brattish, I’d play the game with her. Finger her or fuck her until I could feel her about to come, then suddenly withdraw all stimulation—and I would do that three, four, even five times. At first she would pout, then the eventual agitation would melt into a wanton anguish, and after I’d done it enough times and she couldn’t finish herself because I was holding her down or had bound her with my seidr to the bed, she would cry and beg because she said it hurt too much. Sometimes I would take pity on her and relieve her and sometimes I would not.

I could see the panic in her expression, despite the fact that I’d already let her come multiple times so far tonight. 

“Loki—!”

“That’s not an answer,” I chided firmly. “Let’s try this again, darling. Tell me what you want.”

“I… I want… you…”

“Yes?” I asked again, almost boorishly. 

“I want you… to fuck me…”

“What was that?” I said, tightening my grip in her hair and pulling her neck back even more so she winced in pain. “I can’t hear you.” 

“Loki—”

“I said I can’t fucking hear you,” I growled, and she cried out when I bucked my hips—not gently—against her backside.

“Ugh—Loki—I—I want you—I want you to fuck me,” she finally ground out, loud enough to satisfy me.

“And what do we say?”

“Please—please fuck me—”

“Say it again.”

“Fuck me, Loki, please, please—”

Abruptly, and roughly, I released her hair and leaned back so I was kneeling behind her once again. Stjarna gasped with the sudden change in position and squirmed frantically against me, taking me a little deeper into her.

“Please,” I heard her whimper again, unprompted this time, and so pathetic, and the entreaty in her voice, the absolute desperation in that one word—stoked whatever flame had been smoldering inside me into a full inferno and the ferocious need that suddenly enveloped me was utterly consuming.

The subsequent noises that were torn from Stjarna’s throat were sounds I’d rarely heard her make. Not delicate little moans, nor airy and dainty gasps and whines, but sounds that only could have been described as undignified, in cadence to the rhythm of my hard thrusts—high-pitched keening cut short when I bottomed out, or the louder, longer moans when I ground my hips against her arse, digging my fingers so deeply into her hips that I knew there would be bruises there in the morning.

Stjarna couldn’t be still now. She was writhing—or attempting to—fingers clawing frenetically at the bed, bucking against me, and a few times I had to drag her back in place because she was wriggling so much. 

And the entire time, I fought my release. I could feel it coming on over and over again, but right before, right when the unbearable tightness in the pit of my stomach would threaten to burst, I’d freeze, gritting my teeth, dragging myself back from the precipice—I didn’t want to come yet, I wasn’t done with her just yet.

Needing to distract myself, I reached down under Stjarna’s stomach, down lower to trail my fingers through the soft, damp curls, until I nestled them in the wet heat there. Stjarna’s breath hitched and her body jerked against me, but my firm grip held her in place.

“Loki,” she panted, right before I sent a burst of seidr into her. Stjarna cried out and stiffened in my arms as I began to languidly circle that little bundle of nerves. I knew my seidr would intensify every sensation she was feeling, as we’d used our magic before during sex and it always seemed to both heighten and quicken the pleasure.

I was trying to keep still to allow my own impending release to fade again, but it was difficult with Stjarna keening and twisting as much as her pinned hips would allow, body all pink and sheeny with sweat, and when she came she let out a long, wavering cry, and her body seized and she arched her back and pushed back against me, fingers gripping the covers so hard they were shaking.

I didn’t permit her a reprieve, and instead continued with the indolent movement of my fingers, and allowed a small, steady stream of seidr to seep into her. When I started slowly rocking in and out of her again, she groaned loudly, like she was hurting even though I knew she wasn’t.

I kicked her legs apart with my knees so they were spread more widely, also allowing me more room, and I fell over her, supporting myself with one arm, and the other hand still buried between her spread legs.

I quickened my pace, went a little harder, a little deeper, until I was properly fucking her, and now it sounded like she was sobbing—halting gasps and desperate, high-pitched squeals every time the front of my hips collided with her backside, mingling with my own groans and grunts. They weren’t cries of pain—she was crying because it was too much and I was still touching her and she was still coming and I still wasn’t done with her.

When I sent a final burst of seidr into her, and thrust into her once more at the same time, she practically shrieked. My weight was on her body so she couldn’t move, but she was trembling beneath me and crying and I could feel the faintest movements around my cock in her and still my magic was flowing into her, prolonging her orgasm, and she was attempting to writhe beneath me but was only succeeding in pushing me in deeper and I wasn’t going to last much longer myself.

Abruptly I ceased the trickle of my seidr, instead now opting to gently caress her with my fingers, still buried to the hilt inside her. She was absolutely soaking and her body felt so hot against mine, like she was on fire and I was on fire and she was whimpering and gasping and sucking in air like she couldn’t breathe.

Then—without warning—I sent another burst of seidr into her, immediately causing her to come again, and this time she frantically managed to lift up enough to move me, but I quickly put my hand on her upper back and pushed her back down onto the bed, and she was crying out but had her face pressed into the bed to muffle her voice, and I resumed my long, leisurely strokes, and then it almost sounded like she was choking.

Finally, I let my magic fade.

Stjarna’s body went completely slack; she was struggling for air, back heaving with each labored breath. I dragged my hand out from between her legs, leaving a sticky trail of wetness over the bed and her skin. I sat back so I was kneeling again and roughly pulled at her so her bottom half was lifted up and her front half still slumped on the bed. She didn’t have an ounce of strength anymore, and all she could do was keen and whine helplessly as I resumed fucking her.

I was fast approaching my end—finally. There was no tenderness now, no honeyed words or feigned restraint. Every time I bottomed out, a feeling of pure, unadulterated pleasure like lightning carved a path through my body, and I could feel it everywhere—in my limbs and my fingers and toes, culminating in the pit of my stomach, coiling tighter and tighter with each thrust—and I was burning and the sounds she was making, gods, the fucking noises—

I wanted to face her. I couldn’t see her. I wanted to see what I was doing to her.

I pulled all the way out, educing a loud gasp from Stjarna, and unceremoniously pushed her sideways. Stjarna rolled limply onto her back and whimpered my name, but I truly don’t think she could have spoken any louder. I crawled over her and lifted her legs so they rested on my upper arms, opening her up to me completely.

I kept my gaze fixed on hers as I grasped my cock and ran it briefly between her legs, coating it to ease my reentry. I positioned myself and groaned when I slid in, her body practically welcoming me into it again, and Stjarna’s eyes rolled back in her head, back arching up off the bed.

Then I was fucking her again and she wasn’t moaning anymore, it was that long, drawn-out, high-pitched wail, and her mouth was fallen open, face and neck and chest flushed, and she was so sweaty it looked like she had just gotten out of the bath—hair soaked, plastered to her pretty face.

All of it—the feeling of her so tight around me, her body against mine, the sounds and her face and gods she was so tight—I could practically hear my blood thundering through my veins, and my rhythm was fast becoming more erratic.

I leaned down, stretching Stjarna’s legs, and dropped my head next to hers. One hand reached up to grab a fistful of her damp hair and I buried my face in her neck, kissing her and tasting the salt of her sweat on my tongue. I felt her nails on my back, digging in, pulling me close but I couldn’t get any closer, and I knew she wanted it and moments later the unbearably delicious tension that had been boiling for an hour now violently ruptured.

I groaned loudly, mind gone completely blank. Nothing but fire licking along my nerves, consuming my mind and pouring out of my body into hers in pulsing waves. At my body’s urging I slowly rocked my hips against her, intensifying and seemingly prolonging that euphoric heat reverberating within me. Somewhere far away I could hear Stjarna’s faint groans mixing with my own, then her broken, rapid panting—or maybe it was mine, I didn’t know. 

And then it was done, and the waves were fading away and a coolness setting in. I cracked my eyes open, realizing that it had indeed been my own harsh breaths I heard earlier. I tremulously released Stjarna’s hair and pressed a sloppy kiss to the side of her neck, feeling her rapid pulse on my lips. I floated down from my high, almost feeling disoriented, but relishing the delicious, last bits of heat dissipating from my body.

Finally, I managed to lift up and look at Stjarna, whose own breathing was slowing. Her eyes were closed and brows knitted together, like she was in pain. I kissed her mouth, then her nose and forehead. Down again to her mouth, then her cheek. I almost lethargically pulled out of her, eliciting a strained whimper from her parted lips, and guided her legs gently back onto the bed.

“Stjarna?” I murmured, kissing her again.

She gradually opened her eyes, which were shiny with tears. I offered her a small, consolatory smile, but then the tears welled up and her lips quivered and she let out a quiet sob.

Wordlessly, I wrapped my arm around her and rolled us onto our sides. I pulled her close, brushing a tendril of hair out of her face before placing my hand on the side of her head, and stroking her now wet cheek. Her body was trembling against mine—and not from her hushed weeping.

Stjarna shook her head, and through her tears attempted to speak.

“Loki, I—I don’t—I—”

“Shh, it’s alright, Stjarna,” I whispered, placing another tender kiss on her forehead. “I’m here.” 

This wasn’t the first time Stjarna had wept after sex. It was always after a more demanding coupling, and always when I pushed her beyond the normal limit of what she thought she could take. She’d grow teary or emotional afterwards, or like now just start crying. I’d experienced it with other women before Stjarna, as well, also typically after rougher sex—though not necessarily because they were in any pain. 

Sometimes—as with tonight—Stjarna wanted me to take complete control. She would give herself to me in a way she didn’t normally, and when the morning would come and there were bruises painted on her body, around her neck or wrists, or bite marks or scratches, and she could barely move because she was so exhausted, she would lie there like she had no energy to move. She’d stare up at the ceiling, or at the wall, and I would lay there with her, kissing and touching and murmuring endearments, healing the things I’d done to her body with my seidr, and she’d come back to me an hour or so later, back to her normally sunny self.

This must have been particularly jarring to her tonight, however, considering the way her body was shaking and the fact that she could barely speak.

“I’m here, darling,” I reassured, pulling her even closer. “It’s alright, everything’s alright.” 

Eventually, Stjarna’s soft weeping tapered off into airy little breaths, until she was quiet and breathing normally. I continued languidly stroking her hair, her arm, her side down to her bare hip and then back up again, on which I could see the dark imprints of my fingers slowly forming on her pale skin.

“You did so well for me, Stjarna,” I said, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead. “Do you know that?” 

I could discern the faintest of nods.

“Do you need anything, darling? Food? Wine?”

Another tiny head movement—no—and then she nestled deeper into my embrace.

Shortly after, her breaths deepened and I knew she was asleep, but I didn’t move for a long while. I continued holding her, even as the fire died and the room went dark, until I also drifted off. 

__

I awoke what could have only been a few hours later.

I cracked my eyes open, saw the flickering light of the relit fire dancing on the ceiling, and felt beside me an empty place where Stjarna should have been. I sat up and spied her sitting across the room in one of the large cushioned chairs in front of the fire.

She was still naked, legs drawn up and arms wrapped around them, chin resting in the dip between her knees. She gazed blankly into the flames, face lit up a soft, fluttering orange. When I slipped out of bed, Stjarna heard me and glanced over, but remained silent as I approached her.

“How long have you been up?” I asked.

She looked down at the floor, as if thinking, as I came to stand before her.

“I am not sure, exactly,” came the soft reply. “Not long.”

I knelt down in front of her and lightly rested my hands on the tops of her feet, perched on the edge of the cushion.

“Are you alright, Stjarna?”

She nodded, but I wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t like her to distance herself from me like this. Usually she wanted to be near me after such a night.

“Are you sure?” I pressed, raising my eyebrows.

Another nod, and a small, unconvincing smile.

I reached up to gently pry Stjarna’s arms from around her legs. She acquiesced easily enough and I helped lift her up out of the chair. I turned her so we could switch spots, fell back into the chair, and patted the tops of my legs. Stjarna wordlessly obeyed and crawled onto me to straddle my lap.

She lay against me, arms folded between us, hands tucked under her chin, and the side of her head resting against my shoulder. I could feel her soft breaths on my neck.

“Why did you leave the bed?” I questioned, caressing her thighs with my fingers.

“I… I didn’t want to be there.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was I too hard with you?”

“No.”

“Did I hurt you?” I asked quietly, tilting my head against hers.

Rarely, when Stjarna allowed me to take complete control, as she had last night, I’d push her too far and it ended up with her actually hurt. It had only happened maybe twice in our entire time together, but each time it had killed me when she wouldn’t even look at me, wouldn’t allow me to touch her or heal her or even be near her. 

“No,” she finally answered after a long silence. “Well… at first it hurt, but then it felt good.”

Despite everything, I had suspected that she’d liked it, especially remembering the way she’d clutched me to her near the end, digging her nails into my back so deeply I’m sure she had made some marks of her own. 

“So you enjoyed it?”

She gave a small nod, and I felt a wash of relief, though I was still perturbed at her demeanor. Stjarna typically didn’t act so depressed afterwards and I was worried I’d done something to her without realizing it that she was hesitant to admit.

“Why do you seem so sad, then?” I wondered.

Stjarna did not respond, so I pushed at her until she sat back and I could see her face.

“You must speak to me, Stjarna.”

She let out a breath and then finally, hesitantly admitted, “I feel… I feel ashamed.”

I stared at her. “What? Why?”

“I feel like… I was not supposed to like it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, somewhat in bewilderment.

She shrugged helplessly, and tears welled up in her eyes. “I don’t know, Loki—”

Before she could start crying again, I pulled her into an embrace and lightly ran my fingers up and down the ridges of her spine, trying to comfort her.

Sometimes Stjarna still was ashamed of the things she let me do to her—things she wanted me to do to her, and that she enjoyed. I didn’t always understand it, but it had been like this from the beginning. Stjarna desired certain things, but would be too guilt-ridden, or would convince herself that she didn’t deserve it or wasn’t good enough, which often translated into new experiences with me.

I suppose her reaction to it all made sense, considering that she’d already had an awful experience with it, and perhaps had persuaded herself that she wasn’t allowed to enjoy it because of what had happened before.

“What Valdrlund did has no bearing now,” I told her. “You’re allowed to enjoy things, Stjarna, without feeling shame about it. No matter your preconceived notions, it’s perfectly fine to like it.”

She remained silent, but I knew she was listening to me.

“Besides, you’re my mistress,” I added, somewhat in mock admonishment. “Surely by now you realize that you’re not allowed to be ashamed of anything we do?” 

I was relieved to hear a quiet laugh from her, and she leaned back to look at me. 

“You’re just as depraved as me, though you’re loath to admit it,” I teased. “I’d say you did more than just enjoy last night, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Even in the warm light, I could see Stjarna’s cheeks flush with embarrassment, but I wouldn’t have any of that. I took her face in my hands and kissed her.

“Do you remember what I said, Stjarna?”

“Yes,” she mumbled.

“How good you felt?”

“I know.”

“See, you say that, but I don’t think you actually understand,” I breathed, kissing her again. “Not truly.”

She furrowed her brows and I allowed my hands to rove languorously over her body as I spoke, eyes never leaving hers—across her breasts, down her sides, finally settling my thumbs into the creases of her inner thighs spread against my lap.

I could feel myself stirring against the heat between her legs, still delightfully wet from earlier. I would have killed to have her take me into her body again, we didn’t even have to move, she could just sit here on top of me—anything just to feel her again, but she wasn’t ready, I knew.

“You don’t know what you do to me, Stjarna,” I continued, voice gritty with desire. “You think you know, but you don’t. I can’t describe to you how your body feels to me. How it feels when I’m inside you. How all those sounds you make drive me fucking insane.”

Stjarna’s gaze was locked on me. Her breath hitched when I dug my fingers into her bruised hips and she let out the tiniest whimper.

“You belong to me, you know,” I stated, still irked at the thought that she should be embarrassed for any of it. “Your body is mine and those pretty little sounds you make and all of those thoughts that run through your head when I’m fucking you are mine. Do you understand that?”

Stjarna only nodded, eyes fixed on me.

“That’s how you want it, isn’t it?” 

Her lips parted, but nothing came out. She just nodded again.

“And that’s not something you’re ashamed of, surely?”

Her grey eyes wandered down to my chest, then back up again. She shook her head and finally spoke, though it was so quiet I almost couldn’t hear her.

“No.”

“Good, because as I said before, you’re not allowed to be ashamed of anything we do or that you do. You let me worry about all of that.” 

Ending it there, I tugged at Stjarna so she leaned against my front again, face buried in the side of my neck. I could tell she had relaxed some just by the way she lay against me and her breathing did not seem so strained now. 

I kissed the side of her head and languidly traced the outlines of my fingers I could see painted on the pale skin of her hips. 

After a while, I asked, “Are you hurting here?”

“A little, but… it is not so bad.” 

“I’ll heal them.”

“No, leave them.”

“Why?”

“I like to feel it.”

The corner of my lips twitched upwards in a small smile and I resumed a leisurely exploration of her upper thighs with my fingers. Despite all her posturing, Stjarna liked it when I was rough with her. She liked it when I took control and made it so she didn’t even have to think.

I almost laughed to think how horrified my Stjarna from even a decade ago would be at how willingly and easily she gave in to me now—into every depraved and lecherous act, and every humbling admission, when she was limp in my arms and helpless to deny that she did indeed belong to me.

Some time passed—maybe an hour, and the fire began to dwindle, but Stjarna did not move from my lap and I would not stir until she did. Eventually, however, she said my name.

“Loki?”

“Hmm?”

“Can we… stay here for a little while?”

“We can stay here all day, if you want,” I replied. “I’ll send a page later to tell Mother you won’t be attending to her today, and to my tutors, as well.”

I could feel Stjarna grin against my neck. “What shall we do all day?”

I shrugged. “Eat, drink, stay in bed. I’ll order a platter of honey cakes for you for breakfast if you want, and we’ll have them for midday meal and dinner, as well.” 

She laughed quietly, then sighed contentedly. “Thank you, Loki. And… I am sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, there’s no reason to.”

“I was just worried—”

“Well, don’t,” I said. “As long as I’m here, you don’t need to worry. I’ll take care of you, Stjarna, do you understand?”

“I understand,” she answered, lifting a hand to lightly stroke my chest. “Loki?”

“What?”

“Just to let you know, I do not think… I would be opposed to… it… in the future.”

“You wouldn’t be opposed to it?”

“Well—”

“Stjarna,” I smirked, “we just talked about this. You should be able to say that you loved it and want me to fuck you in the arse again at some point.”

Stjarna made a choked sound of indignation and I laughed loudly as she leaned back to glare at me.

“You are incorrigible,” she huffed, folding her arms over her front.

“Would you have me any other way, darling?”

Stjarna pursed her lips, like she was reluctant to admit it, and stared petulantly off to the side. 

“No.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” I teased. “Do you still love me, Stjarna?”

She nodded, but refused to look at me.

“See, I don’t think you do.”

Now Stjarna could not help a laugh and finally glanced at me. “Yes, Loki, I love you.”

“Good. Come now, I know it’s early but I’m going to go ahead and have them bring a plate of honey cakes.”

“Why?”

“Because my Vana is cross and I must appease her.”

Stjarna laughed again and leaned forward to take my face in her hands. She kissed me, then pressed her forehead to mine.

“I do love you, Loki.” 

Part II – Chapter 49

Stjarnavetr

Immediately something slammed into me from behind—a person—and I cried out in surprise as I toppled forward. Just before I hit the ground, arms flung out to break my fall—Loki had a hold of me and was hauling me back up. I felt his hand on mine over my belly as he steadied me, the other clutching at my shoulder, saw his wide, pale green eyes close to mine.

“Are you alright?” he demanded, and all I could do was breathlessly nod as a curtain of shimmering green magic quickly enveloped us, cloaking us in his seidr.

He took my hand in his and turned, tugging me along after him. He did not speak, but seemed highly agitated.

“What is it?” I asked, but he did not answer.

We were in the middle of a great crowd of people, milling past us, in the middle of what appeared to be a busy walkway. Some glanced in our direction, but most otherwise paid us no heed.

They were able to see us as we were, but Loki’s magic would shield Heimdall’s piercing gaze. Hopefully he had not seen us, for surely he had sensed our passage the moment the dark energy was conjured by Hel. Loki had said before that we would be concealed during, but not after the dark energy was dissipated.

We walked for a long time, hurriedly, with no words. We were in a city—with towering buildings soaring above us, piercing a bright blue sky with no stars. There were more gray buildings than sky, though, and some even seemed to be made entirely out of mirrors.

People hastened by, talking, laughing, some even dancing and playing music, surrounded by small crowds. We did not stop, however, and Loki swiftly and adeptly wove our way through the people, across streets and near to large metal contraptions that I knew to be called cars—I remember Thor had talked about them long ago, after returning from Midgard.

I tried to absorb as much as I could as we went, studying the people, their clothes, the things they spoke of. It helped to somewhat alleviate my nervousness, focusing on all the things I had never seen around me, with one hand protectively over my belly.

Finally, Loki pulled us through a set of clear glass doors and placed me in the corner of the room, next to a large potted foliage.

“Wait here,” he ordered, before turning to approach a woman standing behind a shiny gold desk. I saw his illusion split into two when he left me, still to shroud the both of us, and it rippled when he walked too quickly.

He spoke to the woman behind the desk briefly, took something small from her hand, and returned immediately to me.

“Come,” he said, grabbing my hand.

I stared at the woman as he pulled me toward the back of the large room, recognizing that dazed look upon on her face.

“Did you put her under a spell?” I asked disapprovingly.

“Yes, I had to get us a room, Stjarna.”

“Is this an inn?”

“Yes.”

We came to a stop in front of a shiny gold doorway. Loki pressed a small circle on the wall, which lit up. I stared curiously, occasionally studying the others in the room—some standing, some sitting on plush couches conversing with each other.

Suddenly there was a pinging noise to draw my gaze, and before us the gold doors slid open to reveal a tiny room with mirrored walls. Loki ushered me in and pressed another small circle on the wall, one of dozens.

The doors closed again on their own and I gasped when the floor beneath me seemed to move and lurch. I clutched Loki’s arm and he chuckled.

“This is an elevator,” he explained, smirking. “It carries the humans up and down within tall buildings. It’s faster than stairs.”

I nodded, but did not reply. I wondered briefly how Loki knew to do any of this, but recalled—somewhat uncomfortably—he had been to Midgard before in these modern times.

After a minute, the floor jolted and I gasped again for the strange sensation. The doors slid open and we exited onto a long hallway, lit with tiny, strange sconces. Dozens of doors lined the hall, and Loki took us to one at the very end.

He glanced at the small, thin rectangle in his hand, then up at the door, and inserted it into a small metal box near the handle. A tiny green light flickered on the metal, there was a clicking noise, and he grabbed the door handle and we entered the room.

He let out a great sigh and fell backwards onto the bed in the middle of the room, bouncing as he did so. I carefully sat next to him on the stiff, floral bedcover, eyes inspecting every facet of the room, feeling my skin prickle with the sudden cold air, taking in all the strange devices and items, wondering what they were for.

Loki was watching me with an amused grin.

“I am eager to see you navigate this new world, Stjarna. Much has changed since we were here together.”

I managed a small smile. “It is certainly different.”

“Yes, but for now we can relax.”

I glanced at him, somewhat doubtful. “What was wrong, when we arrived?”

“What do you mean?”

“You seemed upset about something.”

“Er… that human that ran into you, they distracted me and I… didn’t get the illusion up immediately.”

“Oh…”

Loki was silent for a long moment. “I’m sure Heimdall was focused on the dark energy, I’m hoping he didn’t get a long enough look to… give us away.”

I nodded, trying to ignore my apprehension.

“It was only a moment,” Loki continued, shrugging. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

I nodded again, and Loki smiled to reassure me, but I knew him so well, and even behind the smile I knew he himself was not entirely sure. He just wanted to comfort me.

“We are here now, Stjarna, that’s all that matters.”

“Where are we, exactly?”

“London, England.”

My lips parted in surprise, and Loki grinned.

“Really?” I asked with a small smile.

He nodded. “The inn we had stayed at no longer exists, of course, but I figured, why not?”

I laughed as he took my hand and twined our fingers together.

“We will stay here tonight, then move again tomorrow. I don’t want to stay in one place for too long, at least in the beginning. Eventually we won’t need the cloaking spell, though I don’t know when I’ll let it up. They should all believe us dead. All Heimdall saw, hopefully, was a burst of dark energy, and then was unable to track it with the cloaking spell.”

I nodded, but still felt a bit uneasy at the thought of being a fugitive. I glanced down at my belly, so large I could not even see my feet. I wondered if now since we were out of the realm of the dead, if my pregnancy would progress in a more normal fashion. Hopefully we had some time before the babe came, so we could become a little more settled.

__

On our fourth day on Midgard, Loki took us to something called a department store, and though I was morally opposed to our method of obtainment, I could not deny our need, and we walked out in new clothes that would better help us to blend in, as well as some basic necessities.

I had chosen a long, loose dress in soft pink, and forgone any stockings due to my swollen calves, and a comfortable pair of sandals. Loki chose a plain green top made of soft, thin material, and dark blue pants made out of some rougher material. I kept staring at him as we walked, never having seen him in anything other than linen and leather—and anything that exposed so much of his lean arms.

“What?” he asked me, when he caught me staring for the fifth time.

I had only shrugged, attempting to hide my smile.

We bounced around from inn to inn (or hotel, as Loki called them now) for the next week. Though he had tried to play it off the first day, I could tell he was increasingly paranoid about not having raised an illusion over us immediately after arriving on Midgard.

His subtle paranoia worried me, as well. It did not help that as the days passed, I began to feel increasingly unwell. My head began to ache, my nausea returned, and my ankles and legs now were swollen constantly. Seidr would temporarily relieve the discomfort, but it always came back.

Due to this, Loki became even more worried about moving us since anytime I had to walk for longer periods I would begin to feel ill again. All I ever wanted to do was lie down, but we could not stay in one place for too long, so I endured.

I inquired of Loki once why did we not leave the city, at least for now, and he said he hoped that such a populous place might be to our advantage, at least in the beginning, to help shield us from a particular roving eye.

The next week and a half passed in this manner, and never did Loki let up his seidr, even when I offered to use my own. Since I was so close to giving birth, he did not wish to tire me any more than was necessary. I could tell he was drained, though, especially in the mornings after having kept up the shield while asleep, and he seemed increasingly exhausted with each passing day.

We would leave the hotel sometime in the morning, grab what Loki called a taxi, drive around until he saw something, and we would repeat. Some days I would feel better, some days worse.

One afternoon we were lying in a hotel room. The curtains were drawn so it was dark, which helped with the headaches.

“Loki, what will we do when the babe comes?” I asked softly.

Loki, who was lying behind me, gently running his fingers up and down my back, shifted so he was closer.

“I’ll find a midwife.”

“They have those here?”

Loki chuckled. “Yes, just like in Asgard.”

I gave a small nod. I would rather have had Eir to deliver my child, but a human midwife was better than no midwife.

“What if the babe does not look like us?” I asked softly, on the verge of falling asleep. “What will they do?”

Loki’s fingers paused in their ministrations on my back.

“Even if the babe looks normal, will they be able to tell we are not Midgardian?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured.

Loki slowly resumed running his fingers up and down my back. Then, to my tired surprise, he slid his hand up over my side, and splayed his fingers gently on my swollen belly. His touch there comforted me. It was the very first time he had so voluntarily touched me there, and I felt a little leap of comfort.

I drifted off to sleep just minutes later, nestled safely against him.

__

But whatever plans we might have attempted to construct did not matter, for a few days later everything came crashing down.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed, trying in frustration to fit my swollen foot into one of my sandals, when Loki came through the door. He had gone out about half an hour ago to explore and plan, and I gazed at him with a small, somewhat forced smile, but his expression sent a rivulet of cold fear coursing through me.

“Loki?”

“We need to leave,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

He paced the room.

“Loki?”

“I saw Frey.”

My mouth fell open. “Frey? Oh, Loki, it cannot have been…”

“It was him!” he snapped, raking his fingers through his hair. “I saw him! I saw a man and I thought he looked familiar but I couldn’t place it, but then it just came to me. He didn’t see me, he was on the other side of the street, walking. He was dressed in Midgardian clothes.”

“Oh…”

I glanced down at my hands.

“We’ve moved too many times, for him to be this close to us isn’t coincidence—”

“How would he even know we were here?” I despaired.

“I didn’t get the illusion up fast enough,” Loki bit out. “Fuck! Heimdall must have seen us, if only a glimpse before I put the cloaking spell over us. They sent somebody to find out.”

I closed my eyes, dismay coiling within me, and horror with the realization.

“They sent him because of your seidr,” I whispered.

“What?”

“He is Van, he can sense your magic. Somebody sent him here because they knew we would be using magic to hide ourselves. He may not be able to tell its exact location, but I’m sure he can feel it. He is more attuned to seidr than even I. He would be able to tell that there has been a spell cast nearby.”

“Fuck,” Loki grunted, collapsing backwards into the chair by the curtained window. He leaned forward and put his hands in his face. “Fuck!”

“What do we do?” I asked, clasping my hands to keep them from shaking.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, and fear coiled within me at the despair in his voice. “He’ll sense whatever seidr we use, and if I drop the illusion, Heimdall will find us. Surely he’s tracking Frey, he’d find us in moments since he’s so close to us already.”

I only stared at him, the horror turning to cold dread within me. The finality of it—the look on Loki’s face.

“I’m so sorry, Stjarna. I meant to give us a new life here, but…”

I shook my head, I could not accept that it was over.

“If we get far enough from him, he will not be able to sense it. We just have to get far away, Loki.”

He seemed skeptical, still beaten. “He’ll sense my magic—”

“We just have to get far enough away, quickly enough, I am sure it is possible.”

Loki stared at me for a long time, and then his eyes slowly fell down to my pregnant belly. He tore his gaze away, now toward the curtained window, and sighed.

“I suppose that is all there is to do.”

I bent down again to shove my sandals on, not caring now how painful it was—my only thought was we had to be quick. We had to leave.

“If he even sees us it’s over,” Loki said, slowly standing up. “Heimdall will have an eye on him always. If he even glimpses us, Heimdall sees us, and we are caught.”

__

The day was hot and bright.

I shielded my eyes from the sunlight as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. People milled past, going on about their day happily ignorant. I was afraid, but also jealous—jealous that they moved on with their lives, unaware of the precariousness of our situation—the great danger of it.

There was a shimmer of green in my vision, and I glanced curiously at Loki.

“I’m disguising us,” he explained softly, grabbing my hand to pull me after him. “So we do not appear as ourselves.”

I wondered bitterly as Loki pulled me along after him if we would ever find peace. Walking along, every step sending rivulets of pain through my feet and up my legs, wondering if there would ever be a time that we might stop running—stop worrying, and just live our lives in peace, together.

Loki asked me once if I was alright, and though I was not, I just nodded, biting back the pain. He sensed my lie, however, and pulled me close at the corner of a building into the shade.

“How are you feeling?”

I shook my head, letting out a harsh breath. “Where are we going?”

“We need to leave here. I’d been looking earlier, I’m going to put us on a boat and we’re going to the mainland.”

“The mainland?”

“Yes, France.”

In the back of my mind, I knew we had been there, too, so long ago when we had come to Midgard. I only nodded. I trusted Loki. He took my hand and pulled me back out onto the sidewalk, and stopped so suddenly I almost ran into him.

“Loki, what…”

But the words died in my throat as I stared ahead.

Frey stood there, perhaps twenty feet away, staring directly at us, and I knew despite having disguised ourselves with seidr that he could see right through it.

I could not tell what emotion it was that he wore upon his face—surprise, anger, amusement, or some callous mix of all. As soon as he took a step forward, Loki formed a long seidr blade in his hand, glowing green, and the illusion that had been shrouding us crackled away to nothing.

My heart dropped, eyes already filling helplessly with tears—just like that, it was over.

Whatever delusion we might have had about spending the rest of our days unbothered, alone, here in this new world, was shattered. The only fate I could imagine that awaited us now was imprisonment or death.

Frey approached us slowly, eyes trained on Loki, and the Midgardians still strolled by, none even bothering to glance in our direction.

“By the gods, Heimdall was right,” Frey said once he was close enough—coolly, in that soft, dead voice of his, piercing through the low roar of the people moving obliviously past. “I thought it a foolish mission, that the old man had gone daft when he told me, but here you stand, and your Vana whore, too, large with a half-breed bastard by the looks of it.”

Loki did not reply, but I could feel him tense next to me. Frey advanced once more, slowly, seemingly unbothered by Loki’s seidr blade, and stopped when Loki took a step to the side to more fully shield me.

Frey stood now only a few feet from us, his cold, colorless eyes trained on Loki.

“Are you here to kill me or drag me back to Asgard?” Loki demanded.

“The latter,” Frey answered levelly. “And I’m sure you’ll come quietly, considering your Vana’s… condition.”

Loki stared hard at him. Frey smiled, though it was clearly devoid entirely of any actual emotion.

“Surely you do not want a repeat of our last meeting?”

“Loki…” I whispered, my heart falling when I saw Frey’s hand clench and a curved blade of energy form in his own hand.  

“I am sorry, Stjarna,” Loki murmured, and just as Frey took a step toward us to close the distance, he threw his head back and screamed Heimdall’s name.

Immediately my eyes were blinded by the bright rainbow of colors, flashing dazzlingly around me. I clutched desperately onto Loki and cried out as the breath was forced roughly from my lungs, pressure from all sides assaulting my body, but within moments it was over and my feet slammed into solid ground.

Loki, unfazed, swiftly and easily caught me before I fell, and in one deft movement pushed me behind him. I pressed my forehead into his back, anxiously grabbed a fistful of his shirt, body shaking uncontrollably in fear.

My eyes were cast downward, seeing the dark gold beneath my feet; I slowly and nervously moved to peer around Loki and saw Heimdall standing tall upon his glowing gold dais, and Frey exactly where he had been standing in front of us on Midgard. Everything looked virtually unchanged from before even though this part of Bifröst had dissipated into space gods only knew how long ago now.

Heimdall regarded us warily before taking a careful, vigilant step to the side, unsheathing his long sword from the dais with an ominous resonance. Loki raised his hands in a supplicatory manner and I noticed he no longer held his seidr blade, causing Heimdall to pause.

“How is this possible?” Heimdall demanded gruffly. “I saw with my own eyes your head rotting on a spike.”

I winced, Heimdall’s brusque words bringing forth the vague memory of what had been done to Loki’s treacherous body after his death by the very one who stood coldly before us.

“I need to speak to Thor,” Loki stated carefully, lowering his hands.

“First you will tell me how you are standing here alive,” Heimdall rumbled, but before Loki could answer, Heimdall’s deep golden eyes landed on me, peeking carefully around Loki.

“Hello, Heimdall,” I whispered, not wishing to be rude.

He furrowed his thick, dark brows.

“Lady Stjarnavetr…” he said, much more gently than he had addressed Loki. “We had… received word you died in Vanaheim…”

“All will be explained,” Loki interrupted, somewhat harshly, once again drawing Heimdall’s golden gaze. “I must speak to Thor immediately. You may escort us there however you please, but—”

“Enough!” Heimdall thundered, seemingly causing the very walls to reverberate. I flinched, heart pounding in my chest. Loki raised his hands again, palms open. Surely he could feel me trembling against him.

“Heimdall, I mean no harm—”

“Do you think your word means anything here, traitor?” Frey growled, sending a shiver down my spine.

Loki seemed ready to retort, but Heimdall cut him off.  

“Walk in front of me,” Heimdall instructed, coming heavily down the steps. Loki found my hand behind him and pulled me after him, warily regarding Frey’s almost predatory visage.

“Keep him away from us,” Loki growled, glaring as he moved me to his other side away from Frey, who turned lithely to follow us.

“Silence!” Heimdall shouted, so loudly again I could feel it in my bones. “You command none here.”

Loki pressed his lips together, but wisely did not speak again. Heimdall grabbed Loki roughly by the arm and pushed him forward, then turned to me. I flinched, thinking he would grab me as he had Loki, but he hesitated, eyes falling to land on my rounded belly. He did not shout at me, nor grab me—only slightly bowed his head and gently motioned for me to accompany Loki.

I silently obeyed him and gave Loki a tiny, admittedly poorly executed smile of reassurance when he turned to glance at me, though the quivering of my body betrayed me. Loki’s expression did nothing to assuage me and I slowly, dreadfully looked ahead.

“You will go first,” Heimdall ordered Frey, who stared coldly at him for a long moment before silently obeying. I let out a tiny breath of relief when he went to the front.

So we were escorted to the palace.

I barely had time to glimpse the great crack in the bridge as we passed, no time to remember that horrible day when I had lost Loki to the distant stars, as we walked.

Heimdall kept his sword drawn behind us, and Frey his seidr blade ahead of us, both of them ready at a moment’s notice to kill us. My eyes kept flickering back and forth between Frey and his dagger to the city rising so magnificently before us.

Despite the precariousness—and likely direness—of our situation, I could not deny the emotion rising like a slow wave within me at seeing Asgard again. The star-drenched sky blanketed above us, with rivers of twinkling light illuminating so beautifully the golden palace nestled and glittering amongst the city.

I swallowed hard, trying to fight the tears stinging in my eyes, for it was not home we were returning to, but prison—or death. As we walked, still on the rainbow bridge but approaching the city’s edge, Loki, without turning his head, spoke.

“Could you see us in Niflheim?”

Heimdall did not answer for a long time, and I thought perhaps he would simply ignore Loki, but then he finally said, “No. There is no need to gaze there. Not in a thousand years has one called me from there.”  

“Did you tell Thor?”

But Heimdall did not answer, and Loki did not push the matter. Instead, he asked a different question.

“How long since I died?”

Another long silence, and then came the gruff reply.

“Nine years.”

__

It was nighttime in Asgard. The streets were, thankfully, not as crowded, though what a sight we must have been for those who happened to glimpse us—the bridge keeper of Asgard escorting at knifepoint a long-dead prince and his heavily pregnant mistress.

I knew not how much time had passed since we had been here. One year? Five years? Ten years, or more?

By the time we reached the palace, I was in agony. My feet and calves were so swollen that my shoes were cutting into my skin. I had stumbled so many times on the way, having grown quite lightheaded at least a few times, that even Heimdall had told Frey to slow his pace.

We came to the stables, where Frey barked at a couple of Einherjar to go and alert the king that Loki the traitor had returned to Asgard. As they ran off, I slumped gratefully against a wall, relishing the feel of the cold stone against my hot skin.

Loki, watched closely both by Heimdall and more grimly by Frey, told me to sit or lie down, asked me if there was anything he could do, but I only shook my head, gritting my teeth for the incessant throbbing in my feet and legs, and the pounding in my head and the sweat beading upon my skin—nothing to compare to the sheer terror in my heart.

Too soon an Einheri returned.

“His Majesty awaits in Gladsheim.”

“Stand up,” Frey ordered.

Loki, hardly bothering to conceal his anger, helped me gently to my feet; I whimpered for the pain, gritting my teeth at my first few steps.

The panic in me mounted as we approached Gladsheim, the great hall of Asgard. My heart was practically beating out of my chest when the tall doors were opened, and when I glanced at Loki, could see the dread on his own face—this terrible realization at what was about to happen.

The hall was entirely empty of courtiers, but there were multiple Einherjar lined against the wall, some who fell in line behind us as we advanced to the end of the hall, where upon the golden dais, near the throne Hlidskjalf, stood two figures: Thor, and a woman farther back with long black hair, clad in red and gold.

Thor was still now, having ceased his pacing upon our entering the hall, and simply stared at us. We were still too far for me to discern his expression, but close enough now that I identified the woman standing behind him as the Lady Sif.

Her dark head was encircled by a thin, gold circlet studded with great rubies and sapphires. Her gold dress, lined with deep crimson, was slit down the middle, revealing her great rounded belly, practically the size of mine. She slowly approached Thor from behind, mouth fallen open in disbelief, as we finally came to stand at the base of the steps.

I stared at Thor, unable to quell the nervous shivering of my body. Loki beside me, however, stood firm like a statue, lucent green eyes fixed unwaveringly on Thor.

Nobody spoke as Thor slowly descended the steps, coming to a stop directly in front of Loki. He carefully studied Loki’s face, blond brows furrowed, though did not appear angry, or even disbelieving—simply guarded, like he was unsure of himself.

“Loki…?”

The corner of Loki’s lips twitched upwards in an equally uncertain, faltering smile.

“Hello, brother.”

“What is this, Heimdall?” Thor asked brusquely, unable to take his eyes off of Loki. “How is this possible?”

“I saw recently a burst of dark energy at the edge of Niflheim, Your Majesty, which culminated on Midgard,” Heimdall explained quietly. “I caught sight of them, but the moment was so brief even I was not sure if I had seen correctly. Since I could not be sure, I requested the assistance of Lord Frey. He is of the Vanir, I knew he would be able to sense it if they had cloaked themselves from my sight.”

“So that is where you have been these past days,” Thor said, glancing callously at Frey, then back to Heimdall. “Why was I not told, Heimdall?”

“I did not wish to disturb Your Majesty with such an unusual allegation, if my sight proved deceiving.”

“Am I not the king?” Thor demanded.

Heimdall bowed his head in supplication. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“And yet you thought it wise to keep this from me?”

Heimdall was quiet for a long moment. “My glimpse of them was brief. I could not be sure I had seen what I thought, and I did not wish to… cause unnecessary… burden to Your Majesty.”

Thor pressed his lips together in irritation, but did not reply.

I could not read Thor’s expression—it was changing, and I was uncertain if it was anger he was feeling, or relief. Perhaps neither. He ran his hand over his mouth, and I perceived Sif out of the corner of my eye descend the steps. She gently touched Thor’s arm, perhaps for reassurance, and I saw a gold band upon her finger.

I remembered before, Lady Sif—or now, obviously, Her Majesty Sif—did not like me. I had been beneath her, and she, nor any of the other gods, did not like the fact that Loki had paraded me amongst them, then merely his mistress—as if I was somebody.

There was no animosity in her gaze now, however, only what looked to be a mild curiosity. How much time had passed, I wondered, to cool her rancor, and for her to have become Queen Sif of Asgard, as she clearly was.

“And what have you to say in all of this?” Thor inquired unsteadily now, finally addressing Loki, who astoundingly had remained silent so far, he who always had something to say, even in the most inappropriate of circumstances. “How is it that you stand here before me, after I saw your head cleaved from your corpse and set upon a spike?”

Loki opened his mouth to speak, but faltered, as if he could not find the right words to say.

Finally, “It… is a long story. One I hope to remain alive long enough to tell you.”

“No doubt,” Thor answered, still somewhat vacillatingly.

“Thor, I’ll gladly tell you everything,” Loki continued carefully, “but before anything else is discussed, I must ask of you a favor—”

“Quiet, Jötun!” Frey snarled abruptly, coming forward. “You are in no position to be making demands of the king!”

Loki gritted his teeth, but did not acknowledge Frey’s outburst, and kept his eyes trained on Thor.

“I would hear what he has to say,” Thor responded flatly.

Frey scoffed in derision.

“You will remember, Frey, to whom it is you speak,” Sif suddenly said, voice slicing the air like a knife.

Frey did not reply, only stiffly inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“Thor,” Loki resumed, more pleading now, “whatever happens here, I beg that you spare Stjarna and my child that she carries. I need some assurance of their safety.”

Thor looked at me, and I held his gaze, silently begging him to have mercy on us both, before his eyes fell down to my large belly.

“Surely you are not actually considering this?” Frey demanded, taking another step forward, clearly already having forgotten Sif’s thinly veiled warning.

Loki remained still as stone, refusing to even glance in his direction. Perhaps he was hoping to evoke some feeling of pity or sympathy, I knew not.

Thor turned toward Frey. “And why should I not?”

I felt a little burst of hope, however minute. Frey’s pale eyes smoldered, lips pressed into a thin line.

“Have you forgotten, Your Majesty, that she slaughtered King Valdrlund of Vanaheim in his own bed? That she consorts with this traitor, who murdered your own father the late king, and my sister? Not to mention when he nailed one of your chiefest advisors to a tree.”

Now Loki slowly lowered his gaze to the floor, but kept his head upright. I knew his memories were not fully restored from Helheim, but they were quickly returning to him; I believe he knew of some conflict with the Allfather, but I was not so sure he could presently conjure such specific details concerning how the end of his life had gone here. Did he recall slitting Freyja’s throat? Did he remember pinning Týr to a tree, and then eviscerating him and ripping out his beating heart with his bare hands?

“I have not,” Thor replied sagely to Frey, but then turning his focus again to Loki. “So tell me, what were your plans on Midgard?”

Loki paused for a moment.

“Truthfully, to be left alone. You see… dying tends to put things into perspective.”

“Respectfully, Your Majesty,” Heimdall interjected, “I request that you proceed with some caution.”

“The bridge keeper is right,” Frey added tightly. “He is a notorious liar and thief. He cannot be trusted, no doubt this is part of some elaborate plan—”

“There’s no fucking plan, you idiot,” Loki snapped, finally turning his now malicious gaze on Frey. “There is nothing in Asgard that concerns me.”

“Another lie!”

“Silence!” Thor snapped, before running his hand contemplatively over his mouth again. He threw a glance back at Sif, then sighed heavily. A rivulet of unease ran through me, because he suddenly appeared pained.

“We will talk, surely, but for now I have no choice,” Thor stated, turning to look at Heimdall. “Take him to the dungeons.”

“No!” I screamed, reaching out to grab Loki’s arm.

Loki did not resist when the Einherjar came forward to roughly seize him, and another came up behind me and grabbed me by the arm to keep me from clinging to him.

“Take the Lady Stjarnavetr to one of the queen’s ladies’ rooms, an unoccupied one,” Thor ordered, though his voice now was not so harsh as before. “Guard her there until I say otherwise.”

The guard holding my arm gave me a sharp yank, and I cried out, but then Loki barked my name, so piercingly that it cut through the commotion of the guards, and my own anguished cries.

I frantically locked eyes with Loki, fear turning my insides to liquid. He did not say anything, but his face said it all: this is for you.

Part II – Chapter 48

Stjarnavetr

Hel had been right—time passed differently here in the realm of the dead, for mere days after the confirmation of my condition, I was able to discern a subtle transformation in my body. Just a slight roundness at first, but which became visibly larger by the day, and by the end of the first week I had to loosen the leather belt around my waist to accommodate my growing belly.

With this change came a change in Loki. When he looked at me now it was not with happiness, or even contentment, but blatant remorse, and sometimes even irritation. Suddenly he had little to say to me, especially when I tried to speak of the babe, and did not wish to hear of any physical changes I had noticed in myself.

Eventually, most of his days were taken up with research in the palace library. He told me that since we were expecting another to join us shortly, he had to make other plans. In truth, I doubted this, and suspected he simply did not wish to be near me, as he ended up spending most of his time there, more frequently missing midday meals and even evening meals, and not returning until I was already in bed asleep.

I knew Loki was displeased with me. I knew he thought this was his fault and that no good would come of the pregnancy. He thought the risk too great and was resentful that I had chosen to let it all play out.

Despite this, I wished so badly he could understand where I was coming from. I wanted to comfort him, despite his newfound coldness toward me, to tell him this was the beginning of a grand adventure for us, but he could not see it—or rather, refused to see it—but it was not as if he would listen, or was even around to listen.

To make matters worse, my sickness had not let up. Multiple times a day I would have to run to the bath chamber, unable to keep my breakfast down. Loki would ask sometimes how I was, and I never had anything new to tell him. It seemed overnight everything had changed, and we moved past each other like strangers.

__

One day, perhaps what seemed a month after the queen had confirmed my being with child, and my belly had swelled so much already that it had prompted a new, larger dress from Hel’s own seamstress, I was sitting alone in our rooms. Loki had left hours earlier and I was feeling restive.

Occasionally I would run my hands restlessly over my stomach, wondering when I might be able to feel movement. I was beyond eager for that moment, hopefully any day now considering how quickly everything seemed to be developing.

Then my eagerness turned to uneasiness, thinking that yes—everything was developing quite quickly. This was part of Loki’s concern, and why he would react so negatively any time I commented on any changes I had noticed in my belly. Though I was thrilled that I was with child, a small part of me did give heed to Loki’s worries, that even if time did not flow normally like in the land of the living, perhaps it was not that causing everything to develop so quickly, but the child itself as Loki had said multiple times, due to his being Jötun.

I pushed that thought away, however, and decided I was tired of sitting here alone with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company. Feeling well enough at the moment, I stood up and left to go on a long walk. It felt good to stretch my muscles, though my feet felt a bit achy, and somewhat helped to take my mind off of the more disquieting aspects of all of this.

Now my mind strayed to the day before, when I had visited my family in the valley, and afterwards Queen Frigga and the Allfather. The queen had asked why Loki had not come with me, especially considering my condition, and all I could say was that he was caught up in making plans for our departure.

I had promised her that we would come back to see them before we left, but a small part of me wondered if Loki even cared with how he had been acting these past weeks. I imagined his mother doting over our unborn child would set his teeth on edge. She knew nothing of his averseness to the situation and I would certainly not be the one to reveal his true feelings. I think it would break her heart, and perhaps mine if I had to admit it to another.

After a while of walking, I altered course and made my way toward the library. I suspected it would be the only time today I would get to speak with Loki, as typically he would leave before I woke and return only after I had fallen asleep.

I found Loki seated at a table near a tall window, poring over a book. He had multiple books strewn over the dark, worn wood, and papers full of scribbles. He glanced up when he heard me approach, though did not return my tentative smile.

I slowly sat down next to him.

“How are you feeling?” he finally asked, when I did not speak.

“Well enough,” I answered. “I have not been ill this morning.”

He nodded, but did not look at me. I bit my lip, more vexed than anything.

“Loki, would you dine with me tonight? I have not seen you.”

He sighed and shook his head. “I’ve got so much here to—”

“No, you do not.”

Loki glanced at me, clearly irritated.

“Have a meal with your wife,” I commanded, as firmly as I could muster.

I held his gaze, until finally he grumbled an assent and turned his attention back to the book. He said nothing further, and I sighed in frustration and stood up to leave. He did not say anything on my way out.

__

That night Loki returned to our chambers just as the last servant slowly shambled out from setting our table, and I was standing by the open balcony doors. He immediately seated himself at the table and began wordlessly piling his plate with food.

I went toward the table and gingerly sat down, staring somewhat incredulously at him for his lack of even acknowledging me, and could feel the aggravation inside me stirring to a quiet anger.

“How was your day?” I asked calmly.

“The same as every other time you ask me,” he dismissed, mouth full of food, and still without looking at me.

A flush crept over my body.

“Your mother asked about you, when I saw her yesterday.”

No response.

“She wondered when you might come see them, it has been a while. She wanted to see us before we left—”

“Obviously we will see them before we leave,” came the curt reply, tone implying that I was bothering him—and still he did not look at me.

I pressed my lips together, the flush in my skin growing hotter, across my chest, creeping up my neck to my face.

“You are acting like a child,” I said, unable to hide the tinge of bitterness in my voice.

“Am I?” he grunted, pausing to lift his head. I saw the subtle anger in his gaze, but there was anger in me, too.

I swallowed hard. One more time.

“How would you feel about going down to see them tomo—”

“Gods, Stjarna!” Loki shouted, and he brought is hand down hard on the table, causing the plates and cups to jump off the surface. I flinched, watching in shock as he lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a heavy, frustrated breath.

I stared at him for a long moment, but quickly collected myself and stood up, chair scraping loudly on the stone floor.

“Get out,” I demanded, attempting to quell the indignant wavering in my voice.

Loki scoffed, but did not move, and suddenly, the anger that had been simmering beneath rose within me, so strongly that I felt sick, and before I even knew what I was doing, I leaned forward and swept my hand across the edge of the table, sending plates and food and full cups of wine crashing onto him and the floor.

Loki cursed and leapt to his feet, but before he could start shouting at me, I stomped up to him and tried to push at him, which of course did nothing because he was so much larger than me.

“Get out!” I screamed, my eyes already stinging with tears.

“Stjarna—”

“Just leave! Go back to the library! You can sleep there tonight if you hate being around me so much!”

Loki groaned loudly and raked his fingers through his hair.

“Stjarna—”

“You don’t even look at me!” I cried furiously, voice rising with each word until it cracked and I was a blubbering mess and unable to even look at him. “You barely speak to me, you avoid me as much as possible! I’ve been alone these past weeks without my husband—”

“What about my wife?” Loki shouted, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look at him. “You think I want to sit next to you and see you getting bigger every day with some half-breed, to hear you obsessing over it even though it very well might kill you?”

Loki roughly released my face and I stared at him in surprise, mouth fallen open, tears streaming down my face, that he still thought so little of himself to reduce our child to naught but that vile term. I wanted to pour my heart out to him, that this was supposed to be the beginning of a new life, of so many hopes and possibilities and happiness, but he did not want to hear it.

Part of me did understand his fear for me, but the other part of me resented him. He knew, but could not understand—would never be able to fully comprehend—the things that had led me to this decision, no matter the outcome, and why this was so important to me, and why I would risk everything for this child that was ours together.

“It’s all I can fucking think about, Stjarna,” Loki snapped, throwing his arms out. “All I think about is you dying, and I can’t do anything because you fucking want it!”

“Loki…”

“What about me, Stjarna? What about your husband? All you want to talk about or think about is that thing in your belly—”

“It is yours, too—”

“Yes, and it’s going to be my fault when it fucking kills you!”

I was stunned into silence. We were glaring at each other, both breathing hard, but before I could say anything—but gods, I no longer had words—Loki turned on his heel and left and slammed the door behind him.

I stood there for a long moment, chin trembling, hot tears running down my face, before I suddenly felt so nauseous that I had to run to the bath chamber to vomit. Afterwards, I stumbled to the bed, sank onto the edge, and cried. After some time, I slipped under the covers without even changing and fell into an uneasy sleep.

__

I awoke in the early morning, before the waxen light of day had begun to illuminate our chambers. I did not bother turning over to the other side of the bed, knowing Loki would not have come back after everything.

After a while, I slipped out of bed, wincing when my feet hit the floor. They had begun to ache more these past few days, and feel tighter in my shoes, but this morning was the worst. I could soothe them with my seidr, but they always swelled again soon after.

I sat down heavily at the table and solemnly surveyed the ruins of our dinner spilled across the table and floor before ripping a small piece of bread off the center plate, which had been spared my impromptu outburst the night before. I watched the lightening sky as I ate, barely even tasting the bread.

After a while, I glanced down at my belly and splayed my hand on the side, tenderly stroking with my thumb. Wondering if this little baby inside me that I already loved so much, would be as loving and gentle with me when its time came.

Loki’s fears, however much I did not wish to think of, did incite in me an ominousness. I had grown quite large already, and wondered if it was due to the flow of time here as described by Queen Hel, or if it was due to the babe’s mixed parentage. If it was due to it being half-Jötun, would it keep growing even if my body could not handle it? How long until it was ready to come out, and would I be ready?

Then, as if in response to my apprehensive thoughts and soft, mindless stroking, there came the faintest—and in my mind, most reassuring—of replies. I froze, wondering for a moment if I had imagined it, but then, again, still so indistinct, but definitely there, the smallest feeling of movement.

I sat up a little straighter, a spark of hope leaping within me, and felt another little movement. I grinned, happy tears swimming in my eyes, and placed my other hand on the other side of my belly, hoping to feel anything again, but there was nothing.

A little laugh slipped out, partially in unease, but mostly in exhilaration. To feel this magical little being that I carried inside me, so safely inside me—but then I looked up and around me and saw that I was alone, and within moments the tears were coming on more strongly and I was crying.

I was so frustrated with everything—but most especially with Loki, because he was not here and wanted no part of it. He was supposed to have been here with me, he was supposed to comfort me and share in this with me, but instead he was angry with me, holding himself at arm’s length from me.

__

To my surprise, Loki returned a few hours later.

I had moved by now back to the bed, just to get my swollen, aching feet off the floor. I was laying on my side facing away from the door, but did not move when I heard it slowly open and shut. Moments later, Loki carefully rounded the end of the bed and came to stand before me. I stared past him, but then he knelt before me.

He did not say anything for a long while, and neither did I, but laying here, I could feel my exasperation rising back to the surface by merely his presence and soon I was cross with him all over again. I did not speak, however—let him be the first.

Eventually he did break the silence.

“Stjarna…”

“What have you to say to me?” I asked coolly, trying to keep my voice from shaking. I did not want to start crying in front of him again, though I felt I could certainly do it.

“I am sorry.”

I paused, but then sat up and hung my legs over the edge of the bed. He moved between them, still on his knees.

“I’m sorry those things I said to you,” he repeated, gingerly reaching up to touch my hands in my lap. “I’m worried for you, but there’s nothing I can do. Your life is in danger and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it or… nothing you will let me do. I wish you would understand—”

“I do understand, Loki!” I said, perhaps a little too heatedly. “It is you who does not understand.”

His brows furrowed and he shook his head, but I squeezed his fingers.

“Do you know how often I would, and still do, think of the child I carried in Vanaheim? Even all this time later? It never left me, and never will, and I cannot…” now I paused, swallowing hard. “I have been given another chance, Loki. We have been given a chance, together.”

“Stjarna…”

“I have heard you, Loki, I know the risks—”

“Do you?” he demanded.

“You have had sons with an Ásynja, have you not?” I asked him firmly.

“Yes…”

“And they were normal, were they not?”

He hesitated. “To my knowledge…”

“An Ásynja and I are not so different, Loki,” I assured, moving to touch his face. “I know what you fear, and I fear it, too, but the fear is not so great that I would sacrifice our first chance at… at being a family.”

Loki’s face fell.

“Think not that I am not afraid,” I continued. “I am afraid. I am afraid of everything you have said, and what might come after when we are gone from here in a new world, and I am trying my hardest not to be scared, but I cannot because you are not here for me.”

Loki was silent for a long while. Finally, he sighed.

“I will not lie, Stjarna. I’m angry that you’ve chosen this. I cannot fathom that you’ve chosen this over us.”

I put my fingers under his chin and lifted his face.

“I have chosen this for us,” I corrected him, though I could see the conflict in his eyes. “I do hope you will love it when it comes.”

“If it kills you, I could never love it.”  

“Oh, but Loki, this babe is just as much a part of me as it is you. No matter what happens, would you ever hate a part of me, Loki?”

Loki’s eyes drifted down to his hands in my lap, but before he could answer, I pulled him close to me. He pressed his forehead against me and wrapped his arms around my middle.

“Please do not leave me alone in this,” I whispered, curling my fingers in his soft black hair. “I need you.”

Again, no response, but I knew him, and trusted him. He would do the right thing, despite his own misgivings. He always came around.

“And one last thing,” I said, gently knotting my fingers in his hair and pulling his head back so he was looking up at me. “You will never refer to your child as half-breed again, do you understand me?”

He did not say anything, but I did not give him a chance to retort.

“Whatever insecurities you have carried into death and back out again, I will not have our child grow up believing that there is something wrong with them because of the nonsense their father says and thinks about himself.”

I paused to lean down and kiss his nose, then pressed my forehead to his.

“You have your moments, certainly, but you are a good man beneath it all, Loki. You can make right all the wrongs done to you, and show your child the love that you never felt from your own father in life.”

Loki pulled back and stared at me for a long moment, though I could not read his expression. Before I could speak, however, he wordlessly reached up to cup my face and lifted up to kiss me hard, insistently. When he finally broke the kiss, somewhat breathlessly, he pulled me into an embrace, burying his face in my neck, and in that moment all worries, all fears, all doubts that had been plaguing me, seemed to simply drain away, and for the first time since all of this had begun I was confident that all would be well.

__

Loki spent the rest of the day in our chambers with me.

He quickly cleaned up the mess I had made the night before with his seidr, and fixed us both a plate from the leftovers. I joined him at the table and we ate a small midday meal, speaking softly to one another. There were no words of animosity or negativity between us, and I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

Though I knew Loki surely was not completely resolved of his more negative thoughts, I knew he was at least trying for me, and was happy with just that for now. Afterwards, when I went to stand, Loki saw me wince and asked me what was wrong.

“It is only my feet, they have been swollen.”

“Do they hurt?”

I nodded. At that moment, in fact, they were throbbing, despite the fact that I had been in bed for most of the day.

“Sit back down,” he said, and I did, watching as he came around the table. He knelt before me, crossed his legs, and pulled my feet into his lap. Loki began massaging my left foot, circling his thumb across the bottom into the muscle, and I could not help a sigh of relief.

He did not speak the entire time, nor did I, and he even used his seidr which helped to reduce the swelling. Soon he moved to my other foot and did the same there, still gently kneading. I relaxed into the chair, enjoying his ministrations, and sighed contentedly again. These past weeks I had been starved for his touch, and even this brought me great pleasure.

“Oh!”

“What?” Loki asked, glancing up with a worried look.

I quickly leaned down as much as I could to grab frantically at his hand.

“Stjarna, what?”

I took his hand and splayed it on the side of my stomach, a smile playing on my lips. I watched his face intently, attempting to ignore the way he subtly stiffened when I had him touch me there. I spread his fingers, hoping he could feel, any moment…

And it happened again, right where his hand was, and my grin widened.

“Do you feel?” I asked quietly, still pressing on his hand.

He gave a small nod, and his lips parted when there came another kick, however faint. I could see the indecision in him, though, and squeezed his fingers.

“That is yours,” I said softly. “Ours.”

He nodded again, however still did not say anything, but I did not push it. I got to my feet, pulled him up, and led him to the bed. We lay down, him curled behind me holding me, and I holding his hand close to my heart.

__

Perhaps a week later, Loki decided it was time.

At this point my belly had seemed to swell at an even faster rate than before which, in truth, did concern me. There were fresh, bright red marks on my skin where it had stretched so quickly, and a new and uncomfortable heaviness sitting in the pit of my stomach.

I think this was what prompted Loki to make the actual decision to leave. We both knew if we stayed much longer, the babe would be born here in the land of the dead, and neither of us wanted that.

My back had begun to ache and my feet hurt constantly, though for the moment at least, my near-constant nausea had passed. Loki ended every night with a foot and back massage, to which he shushed me when I tried to thank him. One night I even began crying in the middle of him rubbing my lower back, overwhelmed at the change in him.

So with the decision made, we went to visit our families one last time. Or at least, the last time for a long time.

It was an incredibly tearful goodbye.

I held onto my mother for a long time, sobbing into her hair, and my father’s embrace was no better. My little brother Réttrmund was not as emotional as my mother or I, but teared up when he kissed my forehead and told me he could not wait to see me again, then winked mischievously, which had caused me to laugh through my tears.

Next was the Allfather and Queen Frigga. They held their composure better than my own family, but they were royalty and in life had been trained from a young age to maintain some sense of equanimity, which no doubt spilled over even into death.

Nonetheless, the queen was beneath it all quite distraught, and kept kissing on Loki who gracefully bore it because it was the last time he would see her in gods knew how long. The Allfather was quite stoic, though when he hugged Loki farewell, I saw his eyes swimming with tears.

Queen Frigga left me with parting words, that she was so proud of both of us and looked forward to seeing us again, though unlike Réttrmund, finished with the hope that though it was sad, our reunion might be far, far into the future.

Though I was devastated to leave my family behind, I was optimistic for our second chance at life and knew I would see them all again.

Yet, as the day drew nearer, I could not deny my apprehension.

We met with Queen Hel the day before we were to leave in her receiving chambers, seated at the large table in the center of the room.

My main worry was being transferred to Midgard in my condition. I had been growing increasingly nervous as time went on, as due to my size it was obvious if we stayed here much longer I would soon give birth. At this rate, I suspected the babe would come within the next week or so.

I had this in the back of my mind as Queen Hel explained how we would leave.

“The three of us shall take my carriage down past the valley toward the river Gjöll, until we reach the bridge Gjallarbrú. We shall dismount there and cross, and soon reach the place where Niflheim and this realm meet.”

“Why must we trek so far?” Loki asked. “Are you not using dark energy to expel us from here?”

I knew not much of dark energy, but was not surprised that the queen could wield it. After all, she could both bring and end life with such ease. I would not question her helping us to get to Midgard.

The queen pursed her lips, appearing somewhat annoyed.

“Yes, but it will be easier, and safer, I believe, to perform the spell below where Niflheim is open to us. Less barriers for me, you see, and with your Vana’s condition, the less obstacles…”

“Yes, yes,” Loki acceded with a sigh. “Well, that is the tricky part, isn’t it?”

“How so?”

“Any use of the dark energy will draw Heimdall’s attention immediately. Do you think he will recognize us?”

Hel shrugged.

“I have not manifested dark energy in gods know how long. I am sure he would sense its use here, but you would be shrouded from his sight so as long as it enveloped you. You would need to use a cloaking spell as soon as you landed on Midgard. Otherwise, he will see you.”

I felt a pang of dread, but leaned forward.

“They would not be able to cross, though? Bifröst was shattered when…” but I trailed off, not wishing to recall that horrible day, one of the worst days of my life.

“I don’t know how much time has passed, but I’m sure they’ve repaired it at this point,” Loki replied.

I nodded, but the thought of being seen as soon as we were to leave here—and inevitably caught—seemed too awful a thought to comprehend. I knew they would drag us back to Asgard, wondering firstly how it was even possible that we were both alive, and promptly imprison or kill both of us, considering the events that had taken place before both of our deaths.

“You know where to place us,” Loki said.

“I remember the place, but I cannot promise you will go exactly where you want. As I said before, it has been long since I have conjured dark energy.”

“Will it be safe?” I wondered, placing a hand on my belly.

Hel shrugged again, disinterestedly. “We will find out, won’t we?”

Loki glared at her before glancing at me.

“I imagine it will be much like crossing Bifröst, Stjarna. I’m sure it will be fine.”

I gave a small nod, wishing to believe him, but still felt uneasy.

_

The next morning we left the palace of Eljudnir, drawn in Queen Hel’s macabre carriage by a team of thin, withered horses. We rode out past the valley, with nothing but the clothes on our back.

As we shambled along, my stomach was turning. The night before, Loki had to comfort me because I had started vomiting again, mostly in worry I think at what was about to happen. Though this was the land of the dead, and we were living and not welcome, this place was more familiar to me now than anywhere else, and I was nervous at being thrust out of it.

Not to mention the anxiety I was feeling due to not knowing how crossing between realms might affect my baby. Being so far along currently, that I could not even see my feet if I looked down due to the roundness of my belly, I worried about anything that might affect the child.

Loki must have sensed my trepidation, because he reached under my cloak and squeezed my hand.

Eventually we made it to where the pale, austere hills were empty, and the palace disappeared behind us. I stared curiously out the window, for I had never been past the valley.

We were surrounded by barren, dusty hills, without a spot of color to be seen. The desolateness extended for as far as the eye could see—but then suddenly, something in the far distance, so small I could not even be sure to trust my eyes, a thin black stripe winding its way through this ashen earth.

I glanced at Loki, brows furrowed, but did not say anything. When I turned my attention back to the window, I gasped. The black stripe was clearly a river now, and I discerned smatterings of black dots—upright dots, people—wandering aimlessly about.

“This is where I came when I died,” Loki murmured, drawing an almost bored look from the queen, who was sitting across from us and gazing apathetically out her own window.

I did not even ask how we had approached the river so quickly. Perhaps like time, distance did not act as it did in other realms. Soon I could hear the river, even from here, roaring mightily as it flowed. The dread inside me mounted when I spotted a bridge spanning its inky waters, glinting bright gold in the light.

“I was in a long line of people when I awoke,” Loki explained. “I walked with them until we came to the river and crossed the bridge.”

“How do they know where to go?” I inquired softly, watching as the bridge drew closer, and we were passing through the people who had just crossed. They had that sickly pallor of death upon their skin, with the most vacant expression upon their faces. Men and women, children and babies held by some, dressed in all manner of clothing.

“They will find where they belong here,” Hel rasped from her corner. “They are called to it, though they may not realize it. They will find their place.”

Suddenly, the carriage came to an abrupt halt and Hel smiled.

“Gjallarbrú,” she announced, as the doors flew open.

We dismounted the carriage and I nervously pulled my cloak tighter around me, sensing a change in the temperature. I could see the small clouds of fog in the air when Loki and I breathed, less so for the queen, but nothing for the people passing listlessly by. Did they even feel the cold like we did?

Loki took my hand as we approached the golden bridge. It straddled the river almost proudly, its arched roof luminous in the bleakness. We passed onto it without issue and quickly approached the center, where a large, pale woman—the guard—swathed in gleaming gold armor stood.

She glimpsed us as we advanced. The guard had a strong face—remorseless, I thought, but not maliciously so—with hair as black as the river that coursed below us, cascading in waves down her gold-clad back. At her hip hung a long, starkly silver sword. Behind her hovered a long line of the dead, almost waiting patiently for their turn to pass. Did they even know what was happening, I wondered?

Hel led us confidently on, past the woman, black dress flapping out behind her merely by her determined stride, as there was no breeze to be felt here.

“Módgud,” Hel acknowledged grittily, inclining her head toward the guard.

Módgud bowed as we passed, and I watched her curiously as she rose up again and turned to kindly address a spindly man standing in front of her.

This side of the river was teeming with even more people, who were standing in a more organized line than the other side. They were waiting their turn to cross, and I looked away, almost in embarrassment, feeling hundreds of lifeless eyes on me. I knew they studied our skin, not pale with death anymore like theirs, but flushed with life.

To think Loki had appeared here after his death, not knowing what was going on, or where to go. I had woken in the queen’s own bed, with her sitting in a chair, legs crossed, waiting for me to stir after ending my life in a prison cell in Vanaheim.

We kept walking, away from this long line of the indolent dead. Farther, until they began to recede into the distance. Up a dusty incline, down and then up again, until when I turned I saw not a soul, or even heard the river Gjöll. I kept one hand on my belly, the other clutching Loki’s hand, almost afraid to let go.

We kept walking, in total silence, and I began to despair. It felt as if we had been walking for hours, but the fact that I was not even out of breath told me that was not true, it could not have been. My feet were swollen, though, and aching terribly. I did not complain, however; now was not the time.

Eventually, I began to discern a change. The sky seemed to become lighter, brighter than its usual dour grey, and the air around us grew even colder. Our breaths became more visible, and within minutes fine, sparkling little flakes began to fill the chilly air.

I held my free hand out, watching the flakes land on my skin and immediately melt.

“It is snowing,” I whispered to Loki, who nodded, but before he could respond, the queen spoke.

“We are approaching Niflheim.”

At that moment, I felt a breeze on my skin, stronger then, which lifted my hair off my shoulders and sent a shiver through me. My throat began to burn for the freezing air as the flakes became fat and heavy, settling on our clothes and lashes.

“We are here,” the queen finally announced, and we stopped. “Below where the two realms join.”

I was shuddering with cold and let go of Loki’s hand to draw my cloak even tighter around me. I tried looking up, but the sky was so bright—almost painfully white—and I could not discern where these two realms met, if there was even a definitive space or line, but the snow was unquestionably coming from somewhere above us.

“Stjarna,” Loki murmured, breath visible in the frosty air, and I followed his gaze to the ground.

Etched into the hard earth below our feet was the wide, intricate imprint of the rainbow bridge, hardened under a thin crust of ice, but strangely still quite visible despite the surely constant snow.

“This is where Grandfather brought me when I was young,” Hel ruminated, somewhat dryly, and turned her dark eyes to me. “There have been others from the land of the living that have come here, for various reasons. Not many. They never stay long. Some of them I kept.”

Hel’s subsequent, emotionless grin sent a shiver independent of the cold through me and I inched closer to Loki.

“This is where we end,” she said. “I do hope you are delivered of a healthy child, Stjarnavetr. I shall be watching, for they are my sibling.”

I gave a small nod before she turned her attention to Loki.

“Farewell, Father. I shall see you again, sometime.”

“Hopefully not too soon,” Loki replied, though I did not sense any element of humor in his voice.

Hel smiled thinly.

“Life is so delicate,” she answered, glancing briefly at me and then back to Loki. “It may be sooner than you think. Only know that I shall not let you go so easily next time.”

Loki did not respond, and Hel gazed at him for a moment longer, with what I perceived to be melancholy on her usually stoic face, before she took a few steps back.

“Stand closer together,” she instructed, and I grabbed Loki’s hand. She lifted her hands, fingers splayed, and slowly closed her eyes. I watched her face, saw her thin, pale lips part, eyebrows furrow, and suddenly an even greater, almost painful, chill came over me.

I squeezed Loki’s fingers, and he turned toward me and enveloped me in his arms. He kissed the top of my head.

“We’ll be okay,” he breathed.

I nodded, pressing my face into his chest, heart beating wildly.

There was a loud crackling sort of sound, I could feel it reverberating even in my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut, breath caught in my throat as a freezing wind rose around us, and a feeling like frost creeping up over me. When I managed to peek, I saw us shrouded in tendrils of thick black smoke, and through them, Hel conjuring it.

I squeezed my eyes shut again, whimpered Loki’s name just as there came a deafening roar and my feet were off the ground. I clutched frantically at Loki, held him as tightly as I could as the wind howled around us, and as quickly as it had begun, it was gone, and when my feet slammed into the ground Loki was there to catch me.