A Bang and a Whimper

26

Loki knows that the All-Father will return to continue their conversation. He tucks Jenna in for bed and leaves quickly once Thor has finished his duties. He wants to be alone when Odin returns.

And surely, Odin does; he comes late, and finds Loki attempting to read, "You were expecting me."

"Of course. It is your nature."

"Oh?"

"You always ended our conversations when you believed Mother was coming. And they always continued much later, when I was alone, usually here, with no place I could retreat to if I felt cornered."

"You feel this way now."

"Of course. Where is my gracious out? It does not exist. I can demand you leave and nothing more."

Odin nods, "The comments after you left Thor's advisors were not pleasant to hear."

"I am certain."

"You are aware they called for your death."

"Yes. Which you have called for as well. And, with the decades missing from your timeline, you called for it relatively recently."

"I did."

"Why have you come?"

"I do not know. Perhaps because it is something she would have done. I want to know something." Again, his comment comes across as too blunt. But he feels his anger returning and he cannot entirely stop it.

"And that would be?"

"Why do you yet claim her as your mother when you denied her in your cell? She was your mother, she raised you from a child, she gifted you lessons in her arts, and yet you hurt her in this way? For what? Revenge? Anger against me? I brought you from that hell and raised you here in the palaces of Asgard! You would be dead were it not for me!" After he has finished, Odin realizes that he has spectacularly failed at keeping his temper in check. He expects Loki will not react well.

Loki starts off attempting calm, but he knows it will not last by the time he is done speaking, "Why? Because she loved me, even then. Because even once I knew, she treated me no differently, handed me the throne when you fell into sleep while Thor was banished. She trusted me, Odin, something which you have never done. Even when we were children, you treated me with suspicion. Everything, Loki's fault. Was something broken? Assume it was Loki. Were there tricks played or little plots hatched? It was Loki. Something lost? Loki. There was never a time when I was innocent of anything. Even on the Bifrost, as I hung, yearning for your voice to reassure me, I was guilty of everything. No explanation could satisfy, no need to not be what I was, no hurt great enough to motivate. I was, in your eyes, always a scheming, conniving, brat from Jotunheim!" He throws his book into the corner and falls back on the couch, "You should have left me to die on the rock if that was how you planned to raise me. It would have been a greater mercy than to raise me to hate myself."

Odin is ready to yell, to curse Loki and beat him with words, but he hears Frigga's voice in his memory as she cried out believing him gone over into the Void and he stops, his anger barely controlled, "I did not intend to raise you that way. Nor did she."

"But did you, at any point, try not to?"

The question disarms him entirely, "What?"

"Did you ever actively attempt not to? To make sure that I learned of Jotunheim as something other than a realm of monsters? To ignore that part of me so that I might be on equal status with your son?"

"I did. And that is why I told you the same stories."

"You never intended that I find out."

"I hoped to never have to tell you. Not until Jotunheim's king died, at the very least."

"You intended to place me on the throne of a realm I was raised to despise."

"I did not raise you to despise them."

"Do you understand how stories work? They shape what we are, how we see the world. They are our window into other places and minds. And all the stories you read to me were ones that treated that place as though it were nothing but deserving of ruination and destruction. And then you wonder why my first action upon discovering that I was one of them was to attempt to eradicate it."

"And why is Frigga exempt from this rage?"

Loki sits up, "Even when I hated Asgard, she sought me. Thor learned this from her. She sent books I love and came to me in my cell against your orders. She did not believe I was irredeemable. And that is why I still hold her so dear. In my darkest moments, she still wanted to be my mother. And you wanted to have me killed and you would not let anyone I knew speak to me to tell me she was dead. I think the difference is clear."

Odin wants to justify himself, to go on the defensive, to try to tell Loki he had no other choice after Midgard, but Loki's expression speaks volumes- there is nothing he can do that will make it hurt less. Instead of responding immediately, Odin takes a moment to think.

"Loki. I do not understand you. I do not think I ever will. But I do, at least, understand why her actions would speak to you. And let us leave it at that." With a nod, he leaves the room.

Loki is confused. This did not end as he thought it would. He makes tea and sends for Thor.