For Want of a Wall, A Prince Was Lost
For Want of a Wall, A Prince was Lost
A Thor Fanfic
Rating: Ages 15 and Up.
WARNINGS: Bestiality. Gender Swap. Unusual Pregnancies. Miscarriage. Dub-con. ANGST.
Disclaimer: Thor is the work of Marvel and the writers thereof. This work is based on the Movie adaptation and Norse myth. Made for the feels. Not the profits.
Note: This was inspired by a prompt on the kinkmeme, but kinda got away from me and veered right into Angst Land.
Summary: Loki gets stuck as a horse when he becomes pregnant with Svaðilfari's baby. He forgets his original shape and spends the rest of his life as a horse. Thor goes after him.
The wall was yet unfinished when the sun set on the last day of the agreed upon time limit. When questioned on the reason, for all of Asgard had feared for their most beautiful Freya being taken as wife by a jotun even if only for a night, the builder could only spit into the dirt and curse the weavings of the norns. A mare, small but with strong, long legs and a coat like shimmering night, had wandered by and lured the giant's steed away, and with the horse went the giant's ability to pull and place the massive, magically imbued stones. He attempted to give chase, but with Svaðilfari's reigns broken the horse moved as fast as the wind itself.
All of Asgard laughed and congratulated themselves on their luck in the passing mare. She must have been in estrus, they consoled the builder, for nothing less would distract such a hardworking, nobel beast from his task. The foal born from the union will be mighty indeed. Be proud and take heart. Odin smiled knowingly, Freya fluffed her hair -vanity secure in the knowledge that all worlds and races prized her beauty- and Frigga sighed in relief knowing that her youngest child would be spared from whatever punishment the goddess of fertility would have demanded placed upon him for the indignity of her body being bartered like so much cheese.
The builder cursed them all and turned round, preparing to destroy the work he would not be paid for, just as Thor arrived back from his own year-long adventure. The Warriors Three walked at his side, and all four were covered in travel dust and hard-won trophies from their journeys.
Striking out in fear and haste, for the Thunderer could not think of any peaceful reason for a jotun to be in Aesir lands, Thor threw his hammer and slew the strange giant.
There was a feast that night in honor of Thor's return, and his timely slaying of the traitorous builder. Thor asked after his younger brother -too young yet to have accompanied them on their journey- with the gift of a beautifully crafted silver and jasper necklace in his hands. Loki did not attend the feast. No one could claim to know where the little prince had gone after his admonishment from the AllFather.
Thor slipped the trinket back into his pocket and determined to give it to Loki when next he saw him.
Thor would carry the necklace with him for many years.
---
In one day Loki learns two things that will change his life forever. The first is that his life is worth less an a wall, than a necklace, and if he wants to survive to see sunrise -because he is too young and too small to fight and trickery is his only recourse- he must find a way to stop the builder.
But it isn't the nameless builder who is the danger. He is nothing compared to the tireless stallion that works by his side doing twice as much work with half the effort. Svaðilfari is huge, and powerful, and Loki knows history has seen many a careless man has been trampled to death. Many a criminal pulled limb-from-limb by a quartet of equines. Loki thinks of this as he strips off his royal attire and flexes his fledgling magics to mold his body to the shape in his mind. His fingers meld together as his nails become hard and thick. His face elongates and his bones twist into a new form. His skin tingles as a glossy coat replaces pale peach skin.
His steps are unsure at first, as shaky as a newborn foal's, but like a newborn foal he quickly adjusts and prances his way over to the wall.
In his mind he had held the image of a beautiful mare. In his heart he had wanted a creature that demanded attention. His magic gave him both.
Svaðilfari is very, very fast. So too is Loki, but he is yet new to the form. They are both covered in foamy sweat, the sun a warm heat on their backs, when Loki balks at a river, unsure of the jump, Svaðilfari takes him.
If he was to change back during the act, Svaðilfari's presence within him would rip him apart.
It is only afterward with his belly full of Svaðilfari's seed, that Loki learns his second lesson. He cannot change back. He waits several days, life growing within him -chaining him to his new form- but no one comes to look for the second prince.
No one but Svaðilfari, who returns with an air of mourning and stands at Loki's side nickering, tempting the young prince deeper into the wood.
---
Loki is not seen for several weeks. This in itself is not unusual. Loki has been known to find cubby-holes in the castle and sulk when a bit of mischief has gone awry, coming out only to sneak meals in the kitchens. As more time passes it becomes general knowledge that the prince's childishness is not appreciated, and that he should present himself to the AllMother with due haste. The castle grounds are searched from the starkest cellar to the highest attic with no results.
Months pass.
Thor becomes agitated and begins combing the city and asking after his brother. Perhaps, he tells his friends, Loki has found some companions of his own and is staying with them. Perhaps the little prince is simply making them all worry because of some imagined slight given by the AllFather in their last confrontation. It quickly becomes clear that the last person to see Loki was Odin himself, Odin the Wise who cannot say where his son now is. Not even Heimdall can see the child, and the pocket containing the necklace feels weighted and cold.
A year after the wall was not completed, a huntsmen brings fresh news of Loki. It is not news that anyone would like to hear.
The huntsman proffers a bundle of weather beaten leathers and cloth, bits of tarnished gold blinking sadly against the splendor of the court, and after a moment Frigga screams and Thor lurches in place. Found abandoned in the forest on the very edges of the city, they are Loki's clothes. Frigga's hand comes up to her throat as she cries over the spoiled garments. Thor's hand clenches on the handle of Mjolnir. Odin orders that the huntsman be paid his promised reward for news of the lost Odinson and that the mouldering clothing be taken away.
Thor departs the city the next day for the flesh markets of Svartálfaheimr.
---
Loki has no idea if what is happening to him is normal. The longer he remains in mare form, the more natural it feels even with his stomach growing fat with child, and the taste of grass becomes sweet and soft on his tongue. The leaves change from vibrant green to fall gold and they remind him less of the castle he grew up in and more of the shining sun overhead. Svaðilfari never leaves him for long. The stallion is his lover, his teacher, the soon to be father of his child. Standing tall and strong, Svaðilfari leads Loki along the forgotten paths and shadowed ways. When winter grows closer with frost kissing the grass instead of morning dew the horse leads him to an ancient tree so massive that not even Volstagg would have been able to wrap his arms around.
Svaðilfari must duck his head, and it is a tight fit for the large thoroughbred, but when Loki follows him through the half-rotted hollow in the trunk they emerge in a glade that Loki knows from the color of the belly-high grasses to be a glade in Alfheim.
His child kicks within, only a month or two more some sixth-sense tells him, and when he bites into the soft blades around them he feels at peace. The songs of the elves are made faint and garbled from the wind, AllTongue failing at last, and Loki can't remember where it is he's supposed to go back to. Why. He feels as though he has always been this way, in this shape, and as he flicks his tail and gives his Svaðilfari a challenging whinny he can't imagine any other life.
They run around the field, playing tag, chasing one another, and everything feels good.
Except for the vague recollection of something red and billowing, but the image is hazy and quickly lost.
---
Thor took the flesh markets of Svartálfaheimr by storm. He swept past pens of sheep, stalls of horses, cages and markets selling all kind of fowl with hail at his heels and lightning in his eyes. Though it was a practice that had fallen largely out of favor in Asgard, many other realms still bartered people as easily as they would property. If a parent could not pay their debts it wasn't unusual for the child to be sold off. Some lands gave the option of servitude instead of execution for crimes committed. Those who were learned with magical talent were among the most prized, their craft controlled through various collars and manacles.
Thor cannot think of any other reason his little brother would go missing for so long, stripped of his royal raiment, no ransom note, nothing.
Thor scans the holding areas like a coiled adder, looking for moon-pale skin and jade-green eyes, and though he finds children that match the description he gives to the traders along with promises and threats none are Loki. They slink away from the thundercloud given form, whimpering, sometimes begging, and others simply stare straight through the blue eyes that question them.
His brother is not among the stocks. He does not know if it is a good sign or not, for Thor does not know where Loki is.
When he returns home empty handed, Odin declares the little prince missing and presumed dead.
---
It has been a little over a year, and it is raining when Loki gives birth. It is a long and painful labor, his first, and all the sensations that flood his body are strange and he worries. What if something goes wrong? What if his child dies? What if he dies?
Strangely, when he leaves the shelter of the trees and stands, pushing, in the rain he feels comforted for a reason he can't remember.
Something does go wrong. His child is wrong. He has too many legs. Loki knows this because he has four, and Svaðilfari has four. His child is a stumbling, tangled mass of spider legs, eyes bright and gleaming, and he knickers in familiarity as he stumbles into standing. Lightning flashes overhead. His child is a monster. Some tiny part of Loki knows this, knows he should be ashamed, but Loki is a horse and a mother and has eyes only for his child and his mate. He worries, though, and calmly bows his neck and begins the arduous process of devouring the afterbirth and any sign of what has occurred in their glade.
He names the foal Sleipnir, even if he can never speak it. Names are important and somehow Sleipnir knows who he is.
Svaðilfari approves, and once the storm passes leads through the forgotten paths to another realm where spring is just beginning.
It is not a month after Sleipnir is weaned that Svaðilfari mounts Loki again. Their next child is just as wrong as Sleipnir with teeth more suited to ripping meat than cutting grass and a coat that could withstand the roughest winter. Loki names him Fenris.
---
Asgard begins to feel the lack of its princes. Thor ventures more frequently, ever on the look out for his lost brother, and ever further. At first his companions three join him on every outing but as the quests extend in length and the goals become vague excuses to simply be away they join him less and less. Hogun loves battle, but Thor's treks focus on questioning seers and searching villages more than glory. Fandral is no coward but his passions lean more toward court life than the dirt of the road. Volstagg the valiant has his own small family to look after, a family that is quickly growing, and Thor soberly gives his friend a blessing and a request to watch his children carefully. The one time the Lady Sif tried to hold Thor back, to tempt him coyly with her golden hair twisting in the breeze, Thor pulled her own blade from its scabbard and cut her locks to the root.
Frigga has tried, between bouts of tears, to convince him otherwise but the Thunderer holds himself accountable for Loki's loss.
Odin only reprimanded him once, told him the hopeless wishing and gallivanting about was childish behavior unbecoming of a future king who's subjects look to him for guidance and care. Thor did not yell when Odin attempted to forbid him from riding out after the next lead. Instead, in a quiet voice that mimicked the cold of Jotunheim Thor asked his father why a king who was famed for his wisdom would rest all the blame for a bad bargain on the shoulder of a child who had no authority to make such a deal. From that day Odin AllFather ignored Thor's comings and goings.
Rumors spread.
In her grief, Frigga miscarried her third child before she had been even aware of the coming pregnancy. She threw her bloody bed linens and the minute form within them at her husband and fled to Nornhiem screaming.
---
Loki gives birth many, many times over the years. He and Svaðilfari create their own herd. There is Sleipnir their eldest, followed by the wolf-like Fenris. Jörmungand was born on Midgard. He came out just as strange as his siblings if in his own way. His torso was elongated and almost serpentine to match his scaled hide. Loki's third child is a stillborn mare that walks without a heartbeat. Hela's skin is corpse-cold to the touch and in the moonlight she resembles a collection of bones more than a living creature. Some years apart Loki gives birth to a girl that burns with a mane of fire and a son that snorts ash who can vanish into the wind. They are all beautiful. All ugly. They are Loki's and he loves them.
But not all of Loki's children make it into the world. Some come out worse, dead and not walking, with bodies deformed by parts that take no animal shape with their insides on their outsides. Each time this happens Loki wails and runs and refuses to let Svaðilfari take him when his time comes. He kicks. He fights. He runs the hidden paths forgotten by all those who prefer the quick transportation of the Bifrost.
Loki's moods can last months, the first lasted years, but when his family circles close and brushes against him he thinks he can try again.
When Svaðilfari gives him twins, Loki very nearly dies.
---
Thor hears the grumbling when drinking deep at a tavern in Alfheim. An elf with a broken, burned arm grumbles about a group of monsters that have taken up residence in a pasture not far form his fields. The king and queen bare the forms of horses, he claims, but the underlings are all manner of chimera. One Night-Mare killed a fourth of his wheat field with a single breath. In an attempt to get recompense for his lost crop he tried to trap one of the less exotic creatures; a mare with a russet coat and strong features.
When he dropped the rope over her neck she spooked, somehow lit the lasso on fire, and nearly trampled him to death. This was nothing compared to what the queen beast did, charging toward his chicken coop with the sharp-toothed creature at her heals ripping into the birds with the same viciousness of a rabid dog.
Thor remembers talk of horses when his little brother vanished. He has gone over the story from every angle so many times he feels he could tell the tale in his sleep.
Horses. Monsters.
The elven farmer rallies his neighbors, one and all slurring into their drinks, and within minutes they rush out the door calling each other to arms. Thor follows them, Mjolnir heavy at his hip and an odd bit of jewelry cold where it rests around his neck. The mob arrives at the farmer's land shortly, but the family of strange beasts is no where to be seen. Laughing, the elf's friends slap him on the back for telling stories, and blame the burns on the ground on shadows and smoke-embers. A large dog, perhaps, reached the hen house.
It does not explain the selective death in the wheat.
Thor stops looking for a green eyed child, if Loki was still alive he would be nearly grown, and instead keeps his ears open for sightings of wild horses.
---
"Loki?"
It is the eyes, Thor thinks. Loki's eyes. Strangely vibrant, strangely green, strangely intelligent for a horse. The mare snorts and shakes out her mane, pawing at the ground before turning and cantering away. Swallowing, Thor follows.
"Loki?!"
He has heard stories of sorcerers lost to other forms. Of being cursed, or simply misplacing the item needed to return their original shape. Eventually, they forget who and what they really are. Eventually, Loki lets him come close enough to touch. Thor smiles, quiet tears falling, as he buries his face into his brother's neck, breathing in the almost forgotten scent of winter fire.
"Loki."
---
They call him the Mad Prince.
Thor does not return to Asgard, and when the mobs come after his brother and his nieces and nephews he slays the hunters to the man.
Stories are told of a god who has become enchanted by the queen of beasts; she who wears a bridle of silver and jasper.
When Odin falls prey to the Odinsleep for the last time, the fourth Odinson -Hodr- born from Frigga's hardened, cold heart takes the throne.
The End.
The End.
A Thor Fanfic
Rating: Ages 15 and Up.
WARNINGS: Bestiality. Gender Swap. Unusual Pregnancies. Miscarriage. Dub-con. ANGST.
Disclaimer: Thor is the work of Marvel and the writers thereof. This work is based on the Movie adaptation and Norse myth. Made for the feels. Not the profits.
Note: This was inspired by a prompt on the kinkmeme, but kinda got away from me and veered right into Angst Land.
Summary: Loki gets stuck as a horse when he becomes pregnant with Svaðilfari's baby. He forgets his original shape and spends the rest of his life as a horse. Thor goes after him.
The wall was yet unfinished when the sun set on the last day of the agreed upon time limit. When questioned on the reason, for all of Asgard had feared for their most beautiful Freya being taken as wife by a jotun even if only for a night, the builder could only spit into the dirt and curse the weavings of the norns. A mare, small but with strong, long legs and a coat like shimmering night, had wandered by and lured the giant's steed away, and with the horse went the giant's ability to pull and place the massive, magically imbued stones. He attempted to give chase, but with Svaðilfari's reigns broken the horse moved as fast as the wind itself.
All of Asgard laughed and congratulated themselves on their luck in the passing mare. She must have been in estrus, they consoled the builder, for nothing less would distract such a hardworking, nobel beast from his task. The foal born from the union will be mighty indeed. Be proud and take heart. Odin smiled knowingly, Freya fluffed her hair -vanity secure in the knowledge that all worlds and races prized her beauty- and Frigga sighed in relief knowing that her youngest child would be spared from whatever punishment the goddess of fertility would have demanded placed upon him for the indignity of her body being bartered like so much cheese.
The builder cursed them all and turned round, preparing to destroy the work he would not be paid for, just as Thor arrived back from his own year-long adventure. The Warriors Three walked at his side, and all four were covered in travel dust and hard-won trophies from their journeys.
Striking out in fear and haste, for the Thunderer could not think of any peaceful reason for a jotun to be in Aesir lands, Thor threw his hammer and slew the strange giant.
There was a feast that night in honor of Thor's return, and his timely slaying of the traitorous builder. Thor asked after his younger brother -too young yet to have accompanied them on their journey- with the gift of a beautifully crafted silver and jasper necklace in his hands. Loki did not attend the feast. No one could claim to know where the little prince had gone after his admonishment from the AllFather.
Thor slipped the trinket back into his pocket and determined to give it to Loki when next he saw him.
Thor would carry the necklace with him for many years.
---
In one day Loki learns two things that will change his life forever. The first is that his life is worth less an a wall, than a necklace, and if he wants to survive to see sunrise -because he is too young and too small to fight and trickery is his only recourse- he must find a way to stop the builder.
But it isn't the nameless builder who is the danger. He is nothing compared to the tireless stallion that works by his side doing twice as much work with half the effort. Svaðilfari is huge, and powerful, and Loki knows history has seen many a careless man has been trampled to death. Many a criminal pulled limb-from-limb by a quartet of equines. Loki thinks of this as he strips off his royal attire and flexes his fledgling magics to mold his body to the shape in his mind. His fingers meld together as his nails become hard and thick. His face elongates and his bones twist into a new form. His skin tingles as a glossy coat replaces pale peach skin.
His steps are unsure at first, as shaky as a newborn foal's, but like a newborn foal he quickly adjusts and prances his way over to the wall.
In his mind he had held the image of a beautiful mare. In his heart he had wanted a creature that demanded attention. His magic gave him both.
Svaðilfari is very, very fast. So too is Loki, but he is yet new to the form. They are both covered in foamy sweat, the sun a warm heat on their backs, when Loki balks at a river, unsure of the jump, Svaðilfari takes him.
If he was to change back during the act, Svaðilfari's presence within him would rip him apart.
It is only afterward with his belly full of Svaðilfari's seed, that Loki learns his second lesson. He cannot change back. He waits several days, life growing within him -chaining him to his new form- but no one comes to look for the second prince.
No one but Svaðilfari, who returns with an air of mourning and stands at Loki's side nickering, tempting the young prince deeper into the wood.
---
Loki is not seen for several weeks. This in itself is not unusual. Loki has been known to find cubby-holes in the castle and sulk when a bit of mischief has gone awry, coming out only to sneak meals in the kitchens. As more time passes it becomes general knowledge that the prince's childishness is not appreciated, and that he should present himself to the AllMother with due haste. The castle grounds are searched from the starkest cellar to the highest attic with no results.
Months pass.
Thor becomes agitated and begins combing the city and asking after his brother. Perhaps, he tells his friends, Loki has found some companions of his own and is staying with them. Perhaps the little prince is simply making them all worry because of some imagined slight given by the AllFather in their last confrontation. It quickly becomes clear that the last person to see Loki was Odin himself, Odin the Wise who cannot say where his son now is. Not even Heimdall can see the child, and the pocket containing the necklace feels weighted and cold.
A year after the wall was not completed, a huntsmen brings fresh news of Loki. It is not news that anyone would like to hear.
The huntsman proffers a bundle of weather beaten leathers and cloth, bits of tarnished gold blinking sadly against the splendor of the court, and after a moment Frigga screams and Thor lurches in place. Found abandoned in the forest on the very edges of the city, they are Loki's clothes. Frigga's hand comes up to her throat as she cries over the spoiled garments. Thor's hand clenches on the handle of Mjolnir. Odin orders that the huntsman be paid his promised reward for news of the lost Odinson and that the mouldering clothing be taken away.
Thor departs the city the next day for the flesh markets of Svartálfaheimr.
---
Loki has no idea if what is happening to him is normal. The longer he remains in mare form, the more natural it feels even with his stomach growing fat with child, and the taste of grass becomes sweet and soft on his tongue. The leaves change from vibrant green to fall gold and they remind him less of the castle he grew up in and more of the shining sun overhead. Svaðilfari never leaves him for long. The stallion is his lover, his teacher, the soon to be father of his child. Standing tall and strong, Svaðilfari leads Loki along the forgotten paths and shadowed ways. When winter grows closer with frost kissing the grass instead of morning dew the horse leads him to an ancient tree so massive that not even Volstagg would have been able to wrap his arms around.
Svaðilfari must duck his head, and it is a tight fit for the large thoroughbred, but when Loki follows him through the half-rotted hollow in the trunk they emerge in a glade that Loki knows from the color of the belly-high grasses to be a glade in Alfheim.
His child kicks within, only a month or two more some sixth-sense tells him, and when he bites into the soft blades around them he feels at peace. The songs of the elves are made faint and garbled from the wind, AllTongue failing at last, and Loki can't remember where it is he's supposed to go back to. Why. He feels as though he has always been this way, in this shape, and as he flicks his tail and gives his Svaðilfari a challenging whinny he can't imagine any other life.
They run around the field, playing tag, chasing one another, and everything feels good.
Except for the vague recollection of something red and billowing, but the image is hazy and quickly lost.
---
Thor took the flesh markets of Svartálfaheimr by storm. He swept past pens of sheep, stalls of horses, cages and markets selling all kind of fowl with hail at his heels and lightning in his eyes. Though it was a practice that had fallen largely out of favor in Asgard, many other realms still bartered people as easily as they would property. If a parent could not pay their debts it wasn't unusual for the child to be sold off. Some lands gave the option of servitude instead of execution for crimes committed. Those who were learned with magical talent were among the most prized, their craft controlled through various collars and manacles.
Thor cannot think of any other reason his little brother would go missing for so long, stripped of his royal raiment, no ransom note, nothing.
Thor scans the holding areas like a coiled adder, looking for moon-pale skin and jade-green eyes, and though he finds children that match the description he gives to the traders along with promises and threats none are Loki. They slink away from the thundercloud given form, whimpering, sometimes begging, and others simply stare straight through the blue eyes that question them.
His brother is not among the stocks. He does not know if it is a good sign or not, for Thor does not know where Loki is.
When he returns home empty handed, Odin declares the little prince missing and presumed dead.
---
It has been a little over a year, and it is raining when Loki gives birth. It is a long and painful labor, his first, and all the sensations that flood his body are strange and he worries. What if something goes wrong? What if his child dies? What if he dies?
Strangely, when he leaves the shelter of the trees and stands, pushing, in the rain he feels comforted for a reason he can't remember.
Something does go wrong. His child is wrong. He has too many legs. Loki knows this because he has four, and Svaðilfari has four. His child is a stumbling, tangled mass of spider legs, eyes bright and gleaming, and he knickers in familiarity as he stumbles into standing. Lightning flashes overhead. His child is a monster. Some tiny part of Loki knows this, knows he should be ashamed, but Loki is a horse and a mother and has eyes only for his child and his mate. He worries, though, and calmly bows his neck and begins the arduous process of devouring the afterbirth and any sign of what has occurred in their glade.
He names the foal Sleipnir, even if he can never speak it. Names are important and somehow Sleipnir knows who he is.
Svaðilfari approves, and once the storm passes leads through the forgotten paths to another realm where spring is just beginning.
It is not a month after Sleipnir is weaned that Svaðilfari mounts Loki again. Their next child is just as wrong as Sleipnir with teeth more suited to ripping meat than cutting grass and a coat that could withstand the roughest winter. Loki names him Fenris.
---
Asgard begins to feel the lack of its princes. Thor ventures more frequently, ever on the look out for his lost brother, and ever further. At first his companions three join him on every outing but as the quests extend in length and the goals become vague excuses to simply be away they join him less and less. Hogun loves battle, but Thor's treks focus on questioning seers and searching villages more than glory. Fandral is no coward but his passions lean more toward court life than the dirt of the road. Volstagg the valiant has his own small family to look after, a family that is quickly growing, and Thor soberly gives his friend a blessing and a request to watch his children carefully. The one time the Lady Sif tried to hold Thor back, to tempt him coyly with her golden hair twisting in the breeze, Thor pulled her own blade from its scabbard and cut her locks to the root.
Frigga has tried, between bouts of tears, to convince him otherwise but the Thunderer holds himself accountable for Loki's loss.
Odin only reprimanded him once, told him the hopeless wishing and gallivanting about was childish behavior unbecoming of a future king who's subjects look to him for guidance and care. Thor did not yell when Odin attempted to forbid him from riding out after the next lead. Instead, in a quiet voice that mimicked the cold of Jotunheim Thor asked his father why a king who was famed for his wisdom would rest all the blame for a bad bargain on the shoulder of a child who had no authority to make such a deal. From that day Odin AllFather ignored Thor's comings and goings.
Rumors spread.
In her grief, Frigga miscarried her third child before she had been even aware of the coming pregnancy. She threw her bloody bed linens and the minute form within them at her husband and fled to Nornhiem screaming.
---
Loki gives birth many, many times over the years. He and Svaðilfari create their own herd. There is Sleipnir their eldest, followed by the wolf-like Fenris. Jörmungand was born on Midgard. He came out just as strange as his siblings if in his own way. His torso was elongated and almost serpentine to match his scaled hide. Loki's third child is a stillborn mare that walks without a heartbeat. Hela's skin is corpse-cold to the touch and in the moonlight she resembles a collection of bones more than a living creature. Some years apart Loki gives birth to a girl that burns with a mane of fire and a son that snorts ash who can vanish into the wind. They are all beautiful. All ugly. They are Loki's and he loves them.
But not all of Loki's children make it into the world. Some come out worse, dead and not walking, with bodies deformed by parts that take no animal shape with their insides on their outsides. Each time this happens Loki wails and runs and refuses to let Svaðilfari take him when his time comes. He kicks. He fights. He runs the hidden paths forgotten by all those who prefer the quick transportation of the Bifrost.
Loki's moods can last months, the first lasted years, but when his family circles close and brushes against him he thinks he can try again.
When Svaðilfari gives him twins, Loki very nearly dies.
---
Thor hears the grumbling when drinking deep at a tavern in Alfheim. An elf with a broken, burned arm grumbles about a group of monsters that have taken up residence in a pasture not far form his fields. The king and queen bare the forms of horses, he claims, but the underlings are all manner of chimera. One Night-Mare killed a fourth of his wheat field with a single breath. In an attempt to get recompense for his lost crop he tried to trap one of the less exotic creatures; a mare with a russet coat and strong features.
When he dropped the rope over her neck she spooked, somehow lit the lasso on fire, and nearly trampled him to death. This was nothing compared to what the queen beast did, charging toward his chicken coop with the sharp-toothed creature at her heals ripping into the birds with the same viciousness of a rabid dog.
Thor remembers talk of horses when his little brother vanished. He has gone over the story from every angle so many times he feels he could tell the tale in his sleep.
Horses. Monsters.
The elven farmer rallies his neighbors, one and all slurring into their drinks, and within minutes they rush out the door calling each other to arms. Thor follows them, Mjolnir heavy at his hip and an odd bit of jewelry cold where it rests around his neck. The mob arrives at the farmer's land shortly, but the family of strange beasts is no where to be seen. Laughing, the elf's friends slap him on the back for telling stories, and blame the burns on the ground on shadows and smoke-embers. A large dog, perhaps, reached the hen house.
It does not explain the selective death in the wheat.
Thor stops looking for a green eyed child, if Loki was still alive he would be nearly grown, and instead keeps his ears open for sightings of wild horses.
---
"Loki?"
It is the eyes, Thor thinks. Loki's eyes. Strangely vibrant, strangely green, strangely intelligent for a horse. The mare snorts and shakes out her mane, pawing at the ground before turning and cantering away. Swallowing, Thor follows.
"Loki?!"
He has heard stories of sorcerers lost to other forms. Of being cursed, or simply misplacing the item needed to return their original shape. Eventually, they forget who and what they really are. Eventually, Loki lets him come close enough to touch. Thor smiles, quiet tears falling, as he buries his face into his brother's neck, breathing in the almost forgotten scent of winter fire.
"Loki."
---
They call him the Mad Prince.
Thor does not return to Asgard, and when the mobs come after his brother and his nieces and nephews he slays the hunters to the man.
Stories are told of a god who has become enchanted by the queen of beasts; she who wears a bridle of silver and jasper.
When Odin falls prey to the Odinsleep for the last time, the fourth Odinson -Hodr- born from Frigga's hardened, cold heart takes the throne.
The End.
The End.