fic: what is and is not (thor movieverse)
implied loki/darcy, pg-13, ~900
They remember the story of how Sigyn tricked Loki into marriage after a long courtship (“but that isn’t what happened,” he informs her coolly and she knows he is lying the way she always knows when Father is lying) and of Sigyn’s tricks to always prove her husband the smartest of them all (“it never seemed to be an effort,” he notes with a suspicious lack of care) and that she alone knew Father’s true name. (myth-based au; movie-compliant)
Here Father is a brother, a helper, a last resort, a traitor to his own after a life slipping cards between a half-dozen decks.
Odin makes her toys as she grows, and Frigga teaches her threads and strings and darker things that Father is teaching her as well, and they treat her as well as any of their own children.
She has everything she could want except for Mother, dead and gone at the feet of Father’s people.
Father takes apart bridges and paths to create them anew, and only Odin knows some of what he does when he is bored.
(Mother had known everything, and everyone knows it.)
Somewhere his reflection (“I haven’t found the first mirror yet,” he will admit when she’s older and even more curious and wants to know just how far his eyes can see) destroys them all by himself, and somewhere he brings them into being all by himself, and Father and All-Father are as inseparable one day as they are at odds on the next.
And somewhere, he informs her one night as he puts her to sleep, he is only a man on Midgard who drinks too much coffee.
Kenna does not know what coffee is, but she thinks she’d like to try some.
Her father says, “Your mother was merciful, and kind, and annoying when she did not get what she wanted when she wanted it, and she would think about things while we were falling asleep that I never once considered.”
It is the last, Kenna is sure, that drove Father’s love for Mother in such a way.
No one else holds Father’s attention.
Not even her sometimes, and she’s smart enough already to not be bothered by what is.
Old enough to lose some interest in her oldest toys, she wants to know what Midgard knows of Mother.
Father answers: “They have pictures, and stories, and they know her the way they know your Aunt Frigga.” They remember the story of how Sigyn tricked Loki into marriage after a long courtship (“but that isn’t what happened,” he informs her coolly and she knows he is lying the way she always knows when Father is lying) and of Sigyn’s tricks to always prove her husband the smartest of them all (“it never seemed to be an effort,” he notes with a suspicious lack of care) and that she alone knew Father’s true name. That she came up with one for him when the gods demanded one, and that she alone knew why 'Loki' is the punchline in a silent joke.
There is a story of Mother’s kidnapping by the Frost Giants, of her successful return to the gods, of Father’s acceptance without tragedy, without Father’s stubbornness or Odin’s stubbornness.
There is a less-embraced tale of Mother’s death, her arms curled around a still-flat stomach, long hair the mortals remember her with so clearly matted with her blood in the snow.
Father mentions vaguely that she herself is not well known, only a thinly-spun tale of Father carrying her in himself after carving her from Mother’s cold body (“she’d always enjoyed the cold with me,” Father says vaguely in a voice that makes her feel small as she thinks of Odin telling her of Father wrapping Mother in the heavy blankets after he had found her, stupid and desperate and hopeful in the face of what should not have been) and of Odin drawing them so close after losing their own victorious one.
“What about where Not-Father drinks coffee?” she asks, and he smiles, smooths hair from her face.
“Mother has not married there yet.” Smugly, like he already knows how it will go There.
“What about other places?”
“Some people only know her name.” And she thinks Father is frightening for a moment, a creature in a body too small to hold him that he keeps anyway because he favors it, and then she remembers Father is Father and she loses all fear again as he fluffs her pillow and draws the old blanket Frigga made her up around her chin. “And some places she doesn’t exist.”
“She always exists.”
“In a cocoon,” he says after a moment, and she considers and then nods in acceptance.
“Like Not-Father with his coffee.”
“Yes.”
Wheels turn for all of them, he’s taught the gods despite their fear at the prospect for their existence (and Loki laughs to himself in the silence at their pitiful understanding of what exists and what doesn’t, of water that is water despite cold or heat or changes it reacts to) and he’s smiling now, smug and sad and like he’d very much like to relinquish himself to any of the other Places where he can start again with Mother even if it's all different because they are always them when sand settles and they still, finally, in their skin.
“What is Not-Mother like there?”
“Annoying.” A pause. “More annoying than usual.” Another pause, his fingers moving slightly across Frigga’s woven handiwork. “I am… young.” She thinks that, for him, annoying and young may be the same.
She considers for some minutes more, stretching and curling her toes under her blankets as she thinks. “Why do you always come together?”
“She annoys me.” He shifts, for a moment at a loss for words, and it is only her and once Mother who can make him look around so nervously like he knows better than to meet her eyes. “She thinks of things that I cannot, and she knows what I look like.”
Like everything that is and is not.
Understanding that he’s done with the conversation, sure that she wants what she wants: “I want to try coffee.”
“It’s odd.” He stares down at her, gazes at her from behind the eyes he wears in the shape that Mother had helped him settle into and that he wears until Mother helps him find a new one. “You would like it.”
They remember the story of how Sigyn tricked Loki into marriage after a long courtship (“but that isn’t what happened,” he informs her coolly and she knows he is lying the way she always knows when Father is lying) and of Sigyn’s tricks to always prove her husband the smartest of them all (“it never seemed to be an effort,” he notes with a suspicious lack of care) and that she alone knew Father’s true name. (myth-based au; movie-compliant)
Here Father is a brother, a helper, a last resort, a traitor to his own after a life slipping cards between a half-dozen decks.
Odin makes her toys as she grows, and Frigga teaches her threads and strings and darker things that Father is teaching her as well, and they treat her as well as any of their own children.
She has everything she could want except for Mother, dead and gone at the feet of Father’s people.
Father takes apart bridges and paths to create them anew, and only Odin knows some of what he does when he is bored.
(Mother had known everything, and everyone knows it.)
Somewhere his reflection (“I haven’t found the first mirror yet,” he will admit when she’s older and even more curious and wants to know just how far his eyes can see) destroys them all by himself, and somewhere he brings them into being all by himself, and Father and All-Father are as inseparable one day as they are at odds on the next.
And somewhere, he informs her one night as he puts her to sleep, he is only a man on Midgard who drinks too much coffee.
Kenna does not know what coffee is, but she thinks she’d like to try some.
Her father says, “Your mother was merciful, and kind, and annoying when she did not get what she wanted when she wanted it, and she would think about things while we were falling asleep that I never once considered.”
It is the last, Kenna is sure, that drove Father’s love for Mother in such a way.
No one else holds Father’s attention.
Not even her sometimes, and she’s smart enough already to not be bothered by what is.
Old enough to lose some interest in her oldest toys, she wants to know what Midgard knows of Mother.
Father answers: “They have pictures, and stories, and they know her the way they know your Aunt Frigga.” They remember the story of how Sigyn tricked Loki into marriage after a long courtship (“but that isn’t what happened,” he informs her coolly and she knows he is lying the way she always knows when Father is lying) and of Sigyn’s tricks to always prove her husband the smartest of them all (“it never seemed to be an effort,” he notes with a suspicious lack of care) and that she alone knew Father’s true name. That she came up with one for him when the gods demanded one, and that she alone knew why 'Loki' is the punchline in a silent joke.
There is a story of Mother’s kidnapping by the Frost Giants, of her successful return to the gods, of Father’s acceptance without tragedy, without Father’s stubbornness or Odin’s stubbornness.
There is a less-embraced tale of Mother’s death, her arms curled around a still-flat stomach, long hair the mortals remember her with so clearly matted with her blood in the snow.
Father mentions vaguely that she herself is not well known, only a thinly-spun tale of Father carrying her in himself after carving her from Mother’s cold body (“she’d always enjoyed the cold with me,” Father says vaguely in a voice that makes her feel small as she thinks of Odin telling her of Father wrapping Mother in the heavy blankets after he had found her, stupid and desperate and hopeful in the face of what should not have been) and of Odin drawing them so close after losing their own victorious one.
“What about where Not-Father drinks coffee?” she asks, and he smiles, smooths hair from her face.
“Mother has not married there yet.” Smugly, like he already knows how it will go There.
“What about other places?”
“Some people only know her name.” And she thinks Father is frightening for a moment, a creature in a body too small to hold him that he keeps anyway because he favors it, and then she remembers Father is Father and she loses all fear again as he fluffs her pillow and draws the old blanket Frigga made her up around her chin. “And some places she doesn’t exist.”
“She always exists.”
“In a cocoon,” he says after a moment, and she considers and then nods in acceptance.
“Like Not-Father with his coffee.”
“Yes.”
Wheels turn for all of them, he’s taught the gods despite their fear at the prospect for their existence (and Loki laughs to himself in the silence at their pitiful understanding of what exists and what doesn’t, of water that is water despite cold or heat or changes it reacts to) and he’s smiling now, smug and sad and like he’d very much like to relinquish himself to any of the other Places where he can start again with Mother even if it's all different because they are always them when sand settles and they still, finally, in their skin.
“What is Not-Mother like there?”
“Annoying.” A pause. “More annoying than usual.” Another pause, his fingers moving slightly across Frigga’s woven handiwork. “I am… young.” She thinks that, for him, annoying and young may be the same.
She considers for some minutes more, stretching and curling her toes under her blankets as she thinks. “Why do you always come together?”
“She annoys me.” He shifts, for a moment at a loss for words, and it is only her and once Mother who can make him look around so nervously like he knows better than to meet her eyes. “She thinks of things that I cannot, and she knows what I look like.”
Like everything that is and is not.
Understanding that he’s done with the conversation, sure that she wants what she wants: “I want to try coffee.”
“It’s odd.” He stares down at her, gazes at her from behind the eyes he wears in the shape that Mother had helped him settle into and that he wears until Mother helps him find a new one. “You would like it.”