The fever having broken, Loki awoke, disoriented and confused for a moment, unsure for how long he had slept. Had it been hours, a day, a week? The lack of windows left him unable to discern if it was day or night. Frigga sat in front of the fireplace dressed in a long beige woolen skirt and simple linen chemise, a stone pendant on a chain around her neck, her golden hair plaited down her back. She held Loki’s leather tunic in her lap as she patched and mended it with a needle threaded with thin sinew. Finishing just as she noticed him stir, she rose, stepping to the table and placing his tunic with his folded trousers she had already repaired. Taking hold of a mug also sitting atop it, she dipped it in the crock beside it, filling it with water.
Loki lay listless as Frigga approached with the mug, turning his head to look up at her before she kneeled beside the bunk, beginning to slip her left arm under his shoulders.
“I… I can sit…” Loki said hoarsely, his throat parched, gathering his strength and sitting up, hunched over as Frigga handed him the mug.
Gripping the mug in both hands, he struggled to lift it, his hands slightly trembling with the effort. Frigga placed her right palm under the mug, steadying it and assisting him to raise it to his lips, Loki emptying it in one long drink.
“Thank you,” Loki expressed his gratitude.
“More?” Frigga asked.
“Please,” Loki replied as Frigga stood, taking the mug from him.
Frigga returned to the crock on the table, refilling the mug and returning it to Loki who was now able to lift it without help.
“How do you feel?” Frigga inquired as he lowered the mug he had once again drained dry.
“Like I crawled out of a swamp.”
Frigga left Loki’s side, crossing to a wooden tub propped against the wall beside the fireplace, dragging it in front of the hearth.
"What are you doing?" Loki asked.
"A bath," Frigga replied, grabbing two large pails setting nearby, carrying one in each hand as she made her way across the room to the door.
“Don't trouble your–” Loki began before catching a whiff of the musky, stale odor of the sweat stained shirt he wore, “A bath would be lovely.”
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After several trips to the well Loki vaguely recalled catching sight of outside upon his arrival, Frigga had filled the tub halfway, returning to the well twice more to fill the pails and set them close to the fire to heat their contents. Once she had emptied the last two, steaming, into the tub and sprinkled in a handful of herbs, their scent in the warm water perfuming the air, she returned to Loki, helping him to rise unsteadily, pulling the long shirt over his head and leading him to the tub.
Big band music emanated with the slightly tinny, staticky sound of an old record from the speaker of the circa Earth’s art deco era wind up phonograph along the cabin’s far wall, a male vocalist’s voice joining the instruments.
“Is it a sin, is it a crime, loving you dear like I do? If it’s a crime then I’m guilty, guilty of loving you…” Al Bowlly, a well known singer from Earth during the 1930’s, crooned.
Loki sat nude in the round wooden tub, his forehead resting on his raised knees, too weak to wash himself as Frigga kneeled on the stone floor behind him, scrubbing his back with a cloth and a small block of herb infused tallow soap before rubbing the block on the crown of his head and setting it aside, working the soap through his hair. Filling a clay pitcher with the warm water in the tub, Frigga emptied it over his head, the water cascading through his dark hair, over his shoulders, and down his back.
“Maybe I’m wrong, dreaming of you, dreaming the lonely night through. If it’s a crime then I’m guilty, guilty of dreaming of you…” Bowlly continued, "What can I do? What can I say after I’ve taken the blame? You say you’re through. You’ll go your way but I’ll always feel the same…”
Loki called up the fuzzy memories of his mother bathing him when he was a small child, after which she would magically dry him, a warm, tingly sensation descending over him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes that never failed to elicit giggles from the pint sized prince. Dressing him in silky pajamas he had chosen beforehand, Frigga would tuck him into bed, telling him a story or singing a lullaby followed by a kiss on his forehead before she quietly left his bedroom as he contentedly drifted off to slumber. Never could his young mind have imagined what the future held in store for him, for both of them.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Frigga lifted a comb carved from animal horn from her lap, running it from Loki’s scalp through the locks at the back of his head. He winced as the comb became snagged in a tangle.
“Sorry,” Frigga apologized quietly as she freed the comb, gently working the tangle out with it.
“The music…it’s from Midgard,” Loki observed.
“A gift...from you,” Frigga responded.
“Why did you leave us?” Loki asked after a few moments as Frigga worked out another tangle, desperate to know why his beloved mother had borrowed a well worn page from his own book and faked her death, abandoning Asgard, everything and everyone she had loved, Frigga failing to answer as she continued combing his hair, ”Mother…please…tell me. I want to understand.”
“I am not your mother,” Frigga said lowering the comb, Loki hanging his head, water dripping from his hair, making round ripples in the tub.
“My last words to you…ever since that day...they’ve haunted me. You were right about me. You were always right,” Loki responded dejectedly, self-loathing in his voice.
“No...you deserved to know.”
“Know what?” Loki asked as Frigga grasped his bicep, helping him to his feet and to step out of the tub, drying him with the towel before wrapping it around his waist.
“The truth. I should have told you,” Frigga said.
“Is that why you left? You blamed yourself for all I did? I made my own choices...despite you, not because of you. I betrayed you," Loki said, his voice breaking before pulling Frigga tightly into an embrace, “After everything...all you taught me...forgive me, ” Loki pleaded as Frigga stood stiffly in his arms as the clock ticked and the fire crackled, soft static emanating from the phonograph speaker, the record having ended though the turntable continued to spin.
As Loki ended the embrace, looking mournfully with his tear filled eyes into hers, Frigga turned from him, stepping over to the table and retrieving his mended clothing. Returning to him, she helped him dress. As she straightened his tunic, Loki noticed the necklace Frigga wore which contrasted with her simple clothing. Reaching out, he lifted the pendant of green stone peppered with flecks of gold in his palm, examining it.
“Was this a gift from me as well?” Loki asked.
“Yes,” Frigga answered, taking the stone from Loki’s palm, dropping it to hang once again from the chain around her neck.
Loki’s strength gave out, his legs crumpling under him, Frigga quickly taking hold of both of his arms and lifting him up before putting an arm around him, practically dragging him back to lie on the bed. Leaving him, she crossed the room to the phonograph.
Lifting the needle she switched off the turntable and removed the record, sliding it into a paper slipcover. She returned it to the cabinet, selecting another and placing it on the turntable. After winding the phonograph, she set it spinning again before moving the needle over the record and lowering it. After a moment of static, big band music once again filled the room. Frigga stood before the phonograph as the music played before finally turning from it and walking to the tub, gathering the soap, pitcher, and comb and returning them to their places as Loki followed her with his eyes.
“It’s all forgotten now, the trouble and the pain, forgotten every word I said, forgotten every tear you shed, we're still in love...It's all forgiven now, we're back in Lover's Lane and though we wandered from our way, the corner's turned and we can say we're still in love…” Al Bowlly's voice sang.
“I must tend to the animals,” Frigga said, walking to the door and taking her cloak from where it hung from a peg beside her bow, donning it and stepping out as the record played on.
"For you and I and everybody must learn to give and take. We'll find like everybody it's worth it for happiness's sake. It's all forgotten now, we're happy once again, our troubles gone beyond recall and making up is best of all. We're still in love..."
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As the sky darkened, the horizon painted twilight purple, Frigga, her face obscured by the hood of her cloak, herded the sheep from the open field into their pen in the drizzle. After the last one had ambled through the entrance, Frigga closed and secured the gate. Sensing a presence, she turned to see a goat standing behind her, staring at her.
“Klarien…I knew you had returned some time ago,” Frigga said, not aloud but within her mind.
“Who is he?” a male voice replied telepathically.
“A wanderer, his ship destroyed by marauders.”
“Why didn't you kill him? Others will come in search of him.”
“No one is coming for him.”
“It is forbidden! It is my duty to see that your sentence is carried out. You must pay for your crime,” Klarien responded.
“You are the only one of us remaining who cares any longer," Frigga said, walking past the goat toward the cabin.
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Frigga stepped into the cabin, closing the door and removing her cloak, hanging it on the peg. Aside from the sounds of the fire and the ticking of the clock, the room was silent. The record on the phonograph had long ago ended, the turntable no longer turning, the gears having wound down. Looking to the bed, Frigga saw Loki lying asleep once again, one arm hanging off the bed, his chest slowly rising and falling.
An identical arm suddenly materialized in a flash of green as Loki's image in the bed vanished, wrapping itself around her from behind as she felt the sharp point of a dagger at the side of her throat.
“You are not my mother," Loki said testily from behind her.
"As I told you. You saw me as who you wanted to see, who you needed to see. If you wish to see me as I am, you must clear your mind of any thoughts of your mother,” the false Frigga replied.
“She is always in my thoughts,” Loki responded.
“A moment is all that’s necessary. Release me. If I meant you harm I would have killed you already.”
Loki released the false Frigga, lowering his arms, yet ready to strike with the dagger at the slightest hint of danger. The woman stepped forward and turned to face him as Loki cleared his mind, Frigga's form vanishing, replaced by a younger, muscular woman with broad shoulders and pale, ice blue skin, sharp features and long pointed ears, her snow white hair braided down her back. Loki, struck dumb, stared at her in disbelief.
“Farina?” Loki gasped, “Fari…”