Chapter Text
Once upon a time there was a kingdom far off from all the other realms. It was a peculiar place for half of the year winter and night ruled the land and for the other half spring time and daylight reigned without respite. The people of this land were tall and strong and a proud race. Many other realms feared them for much like the land they lived in they were different from all other peoples. Not only were they much taller than the race from Miðgarðr or Vanaheimr, their skin was pale like the snow and ice that covered most of the land, the royal family even covered in a blue hide. Scar like whorls and markings traced over their bodies and faces and some even grew horns. It is said that their eyes were blood red.
Now Jotunheimr, for this is what the kingdom was called, lived apart from the other eight realms, King Laufey rarely meeting with the other royals and there were few trading treaties that allowed for exchange of goods. The Jǫtnar did not care for outsiders. The fearful and mistrusting looks and the unkind words they were gifted with when coming in contact with the other races had them prefer their own company instead.
It happened in the year the crown prince of Jotunheimr turned four that a great war broke out between Jotunheimr and Miðgarðr. There were many stories being told about why the fighting started. Some said that the beastly jǫtnar wanted to conquer the other kingdom to slaughter the Humans. Others said that a quarrel between the human king and King Laufey escalated when the King’s consort Fárbauti was killed by human knights.
The jǫtnar told of a betrayal from the humans. That the human king wanted the great ice jewels that are the greatest treasure of Jotunheimr and that he asked King Laufey for a trade treaty. When the jǫtunn king sent Fárbauti for talks, the King’s consort was murdered and only his head was sent back on a casket.
Soon after the war started the human king realised that they would not be able to win against the jǫtnar for through the ice jewels they wielded a power so great, they could freeze anything in their path. So he turned to Odin, King of Ásgarðr, and asked for help against the invading forces from Jotunheimr. The Allfather, for that is what his people called Odin, knew that King Laufey would not attack without reason, but he saw the destruction the jǫtnar warriors and the king wrecked and he disliked to see so much power in someone else’s hands.
It was then that the Æsir joined the war and the combined strength of the humans and the army of Ásgarðr, beat back the jǫtnar. But the human king was not content with simply defeating Laufey’s troops in Miðgarðr and sending them back home, he still desired the jewels for himself and so he once more talked to Odin Allfather and convinced him to combine their armies for the last time and to invade Jotunheimr and bring an end to the rule of King Laufey.
The King of Ásgarðr agreed but he also knew that he liked to know the power of the ice jewels in the hands of the King of Miðgarðr even less. So when the jǫtnar were defeated and death and destruction had destroyed a once beautiful and proud kingdom, Odin told the human king to take whatever jewels he wanted from the treasury. The only thing the Allfather asked for was a casket that rested next to the throne of King Laufey. The casket was old and looked to be made of some sort of blue material. Blinded by his greed the human king agreed to the deal and while he raided the treasury and the rest of the palace, Odin had his warriors take only the casket with them. Inside resided the ice jewels and so the Casket of Eternal Winter came to reside in Ásgarðr.
The royal family had perished in the siege on the winter palace. All except one. For Loki, the crown prince had been very ill and so his father had sent him away to the most powerful healer of Jotunheimr, Angrboða. It is there that the young prince learned of the death of his family and his people. The war and the pillaging had eradicated all but two jǫtnar.
Shortly after his sixteenth birthday the healer died from old age and from that time on, Loki Laufeyjarson lived alone in the Northern Mountains. There he continued his studies of seiðr, for he was a powerful seiðmaðr, and it is there that he planned and schemed to take revenge for the wrong that had been done by his people and his family.