Chapter 11 : THE QUEEN'S SORROW
Frigga found him in the garden.
The royal gardens sprawled across an entire level of the palace—terraces of impossible flowers, trees that had been ancient when humanity was young, fountains that sang with water from realms beyond counting. Loki had discovered them while exploring, and something about the quiet beauty had called him back.
"You're avoiding the council."
He looked up from the flower he'd been studying—a bloom that shifted colors as he watched, cycling through shades of blue and purple with no apparent pattern. "I'm taking a strategic break from the council. There's a difference."
Frigga settled onto the bench beside him. She looked tired—dark circles under her eyes, lines of tension around her mouth that hadn't been there before Thor's banishment. The weight of two unconscious family members was crushing her slowly.
"Tell me about the flower."
"It's beautiful." He touched a petal, watching it shift from azure to violet at his contact. "I don't know what it's called."
"Vanaheim dream-blossom. My mother planted it when I first came to Asgard as Odin's bride." A sad smile crossed her face. "She said it would remind me of home whenever I felt lost."
"Does it work?"
"Sometimes." Her hand found his, squeezed gently. "Are you lost, Loki?"
More than you could possibly imagine.
"I'm managing."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the best answer I have." He turned to face her, this woman who'd raised a stranger's child as her own, who'd loved Loki despite everything he'd done, who would die protecting Jane Foster if he couldn't change the timeline. "How are you managing?"
"Poorly." The admission cost her—he could see it in the way her shoulders tightened. "My husband sleeps. My son is exiled. My other son is suddenly regent of the realm. Nothing about this is how I imagined our family's story unfolding."
"Stories rarely unfold as imagined."
"You've become philosophical."
"I've become tired."
She laughed—a small sound, fragile but genuine. "You sound like your father. He gets philosophical when he's exhausted."
Not my father. Never my father. Just the man who stole me from an ice temple and shaped me into a tool.
The thought carried less bitterness than it might have. Odin had done terrible things, but he'd also raised Ethan—raised the shell that Loki now inhabited—with whatever love he was capable of giving. The relationship was complicated. Everything about this family was complicated.
"Mother." He chose the word deliberately, accepting what it meant. "I need to tell you something."
Her grip on his hand tightened. "I know."
"You know?"
"I know that something changed in you the morning of Thor's coronation. I know that you've been different since—kinder, calmer, more present. I know that Heimdall watches you with confusion rather than suspicion now." She met his eyes. "I don't know what happened. But I know you're not the same person who went to sleep the night before."
She's giving me an opening. A chance to explain without revealing everything.
"The night before the coronation, I had... a dream." The lie built itself from fragments of truth. "A vision, maybe. I saw what I might become if I continued down the path I was walking. Jealousy. Resentment. Destruction." He paused. "I saw myself destroying everything I claimed to love."
Frigga's face had gone pale. "A prophecy?"
"A warning." He gripped her hand. "I woke up changed because I chose to change. Because the alternative was becoming something I couldn't live with."
"And Jotunheim? The expedition?"
"I went because I knew Thor needed someone to watch his back. I went because some small part of me wanted to prove that the dream was wrong—that I could stand beside my brother instead of plotting against him."
"That's..." She swallowed. "That's not the explanation I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Magic, perhaps. Possession. Some external force that had replaced my son." Her other hand came up, touched his cheek. "But you're still in there. I can see it. The core of who you are—just... polished. Refined. Like something that was always present finally caught the light."
Not exactly. The original Loki is gone. I'm wearing his memories like a borrowed coat. But if she wants to believe I'm still her son, I won't take that from her.
"I'm trying to be better."
"I can see that." She pulled him into an embrace—sudden, fierce, unexpected. "I'm proud of you."
The words hit harder than any blow.
His throat tightened. His eyes burned. For a moment, he was just Loki—twenty-eight, alone, dead in a car crash that should have ended everything. For a moment, he was just a man being held by a mother who loved him.
"Thank you."
They sat in the garden until the light began to fade, talking about small things—flowers and memories and the way time moved differently in Asgard. Frigga told him stories about Thor as a child, about Odin's courtship, about the grandmother he'd never known.
Loki listened and filed away every detail, building a foundation of shared history that the original Loki had taken for granted.
I may not have lived these moments. But I can honor them.
"There's something else," Frigga said as the first stars appeared. "Something I've been meaning to discuss."
"More revelations?"
"A request." She straightened, queen emerging from behind mother. "I want you to train with me. Properly. Not the casual instruction I've given before, but real teaching. The secrets of seiðr that I've shared with no one."
Magic training. From the most skilled sorcerer in Asgard outside of Odin himself.
"Why now?"
"Because you've proven you can be trusted with power." Her eyes held his. "Because whatever changed in you has made you capable of learning things the old Loki couldn't have handled. And because..."
"Because?"
"Because I'm afraid." The admission came out barely above a whisper. "Afraid of what's coming. I don't know what—just a feeling, a shadow at the edge of my sight. But something dark approaches, and I want my sons ready to face it."
She senses the Dark Elves. Or Thanos. Or both.
"I accept."
"Good." She rose, smoothing her gown. "We begin tomorrow. Dawn. Don't be late."
She walked away, leaving him alone in the garden with the stars and the weight of everything he'd agreed to carry.
Training with Frigga. Access to secrets the original Loki never learned.
Maybe I can protect her after all.
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