Work Text:
The Nursery, Palace Private Rooms
Asgard, 972 CE
"But I am clean!" protested Thor, folding his very dirty little arms across his soggy tunic.
"Yes, your hair is clean, and I am proud of you for keeping it so," Sjöfn replied cheerfully as she crouched before him and combed it back from his face with her fingers. "But the rest of you requires a bit of attention, I'm afraid." She smiled warmly into his pout, her loving eyes imploring him to smile with her.
"But Loki isn't getting a bath!" he stammered, shooting a look over at his brother. Loki looked over at them, then back down at himself in concern. He didn't think he had gotten that much of the garden on himself.
"Yes, but that is because he didn't go into the irrigation rows and get muddy," she said gently.
Thor pouted harder. Sjöfn wrapped an arm around him and pulled him into a friendly side hug, matching his pout with an exaggerated pout of her own. Loki sat watching them, smiling as he absently fiddled with the petals of the flowers in his lap. Thor shuffled his feet, the mud from his boots squishing on the stone tiles.
"It will only take a quick washup and some fresh clothes to get you presentable and then we are free to go back to playing however we wish," Sjöfn added, and rose to her feet holding his hand. "But the longer we pout the longer it takes."
As she led Thor to the washroom, he turned to look back at Loki, and stuck out his tongue.
Loki returned the salute and waved to him.
He looked down at the bundle of flowers he had just picked and ran his fingers along the thick golden ribbon that Sjöfn had helped him tie around them into a wide, beautiful bow. He hopped down from the edge of his bed and cradled the bouquet in his arms as he made his way down the corridor to Mother's rooms.
He had a very important delivery to make.
Frigga's Private Rooms
Freya's unmistakable laughter carried through the adjoining chambers as Loki made his way across the sunny tiles; he picked out the familiar voices of several other women as well. He paused at the doorway to her study and peered within to find them busy around a table filled with dishes and books. The smell of sweet incense wafted out to him and he smiled as he inhaled it deeply.
"Well, well! We have a visitor!" Fulla exclaimed brightly. "Young master Loki, what a delight to see you."
Loki nearly blushed at being the center of so much attention. Frigga turned and smiled at him, waving him inside. "What have you there, Loki? Those are quite lovely."
Loki held out his flowers to his mother. "We went with Sjöfn to the east garden after breakfast and collected the prettiest ones we could find. And she showed me how to tie a ribbon," he said proudly.
Frigga's eyes shone with affection as she accepted his gift and pulled him in for a hug. Freya set down her wine and held out her arms to him. "Come over here, my little prince, and say hello!" Loki smiled bashfully and went to her, and instantly found himself in a crushing hug. "You are getting so tall!"
His eyes wandered across the table to the various saucers and cauldrons, the leaves and oils and thin tendrils of colorful smoke rising from several places. He loved watching Mother working her magic. His favorite days were those spent in here, watching the women weave and talk, letting him sit in their laps and teaching him as they worked.
Freya's enchanted necklace twinkled conspicuously in the late morning sunlight and drew his eye back to her. She was wrapped in an elegant dress of pale blue adorned with finely stitched symbols and shapes, her wrists and fingers decorated in precious metals and stones, her hair meticulously braided in a crown around her head. The vision of her made Loki wish he had picked just a few more flowers so that he might offer them to her for her hair, like he often did for Mother.
"And what are your plans for today, my good sir?" she asked him. Loki thought about it and shrugged. He hadn't thought that far ahead.
"Where is your brother?" Frigga asked.
Loki smiled. "He got dirty, so Sjöfn is washing him up before he comes to see you."
The women smiled knowingly. Thor was a wonderful child - they both were - but he was a child of great enthusiasm and not entirely graceful when it came to where his feet took him. And they often took him up trees, hills, furniture, and other daunting obstacles with great gusto while giving him little balance yet. If there was a mess, it found him every time.
Loki's glance had wandered again, this time to a several shawls draped carefully over the chair back. Some he recognized as Mother's; the rest he guessed belonged to the other women. As she reached past him to reclaim her wine, he leaned aside to run a hand across the edges of the lovely fabrics.
They were soft and delicate, in sheer golds and greens and blues. Each had edges stitched in golden threads, forming vines of leaves and runic spells, and dotted with tiny sparkling stones in every color, spread out and sewn in place as though they were dew drops suspended weightlessly upon a beautiful, ethereal spiderweb.
Freya watched him with a tender smile as his small fingers made their way across each stone, across the shimmering threads, tracing each vine and symbol with deep fascination. She turned to Frigga.
"Does he read the runes yet?" she asked.
"We're building up to that, as he masters his other writing skills," Frigga replied, passing her fingertips through the flame of a nearby candle and producing an eerie amber glow. "But he's quite sharp, and has a few of them memorized already." She smiled and tilted her face at Loki, who was still captivated by his exploration.
"Won't the stones fall away?" he asked, and then paused, realizing he had spoken aloud.
"Not with my stitching," Freya said firmly. "Mine stays put. Always." She lifted him up into her lap and gently took one of the shawls from the chair, one of bright orange silk, draping it across their legs. "Do you recognize any of the symbols?"
Loki held the soft fabric in his hands and studied the stitched edging carefully, Freya's painted nails framing a symbol by itself. He sounded out from memory what he thought might be its name.
"Feh-u," he mumbled, unsure of himself. Freya grinned and glanced up at Frigga.
"That's very good," Frigga encouraged. Loki looked up from his concentration and smiled at her shyly. Freya patted his shoulder.
"See? You remembered that one perfectly," she said. She turned the garment slightly and placed her thumbs on either side of another. "What about this one?"
Loki followed the threads with his eyes until the symbol became clear, and thought for a moment about its name. "Wen …" he began, but paused and started over. "Wun-joh."
Freya squeezed him gently. "Yes!"
Loki smiled confidently and looked up, but was quickly distracted the sudden appearance of several thin flames gliding slowly across the small round mirror laying upon the table - Loki could swear that they were dancing there, floating like bubbles over a bath, barely touching the mirror glass at all, each contained to itself like a tiny spinning top.
He sat up to get a better view as Lofn and Fulla leaned in carefully to sprinkle pinches of powder over the flames, provoking colorful sparks that sent tiny ripples across the glass as though it were water. Lofn smiled down at Loki's curiosity, noting the way he was clutching the shawl against himself like a sacred treasure. She and Freya briefly shared a look.
Frigga leaned over and whispered to Fulla, who nodded and disappeared into the next room for a moment, returning with several colorful garments over her arm. Freya grinned into her wine as Frigga patted her knees, inviting Loki over to her.
"I was wearing this one the day you took your first steps," Frigga began. "Right here in this very room, in fact." She draped a scarf of deep blue sheer material around his neck, folding it delicately beneath his chin and fluffing it up gently. He smiled up at her, and looked down at the marvelous richness of its color in his hands - only to realize that he was still holding onto Freya's jeweled shawl.
"Oh-" he stammered.
Freya shook her head as she waved off his worry. "No no, it's fine. Go ahead and put it on."
Loki looked back to Frigga, who was already carefully unfurling the fiery orange silk and laying it around his shoulders, carefully fitting the delicate edges against his tunic collar. As she worked, Loki looked down at her scarf's length in his hands, the brilliant blue reminiscent of the Asgardian skies at twilight, the tiny jewels winking like stars between his fingers.
He knew this scarf from as far back as he could remember: it was one of Mother's favorites, and was quickly becoming one of his as well. He held it up to his nose and inhaled her familiar perfume, laid it against his face and felt the tickle of the threads under his nose. He closed his eyes and imagined that it was the size of him, covering him like a gown, like the long, flowing skirts that Mother wore when she danced happily in her rooms to no music but her own singing.
She hummed softly just a breath away from him and he realized that she had been humming along with him, an old song he hadn't known he remembered. He opened his eyes and felt an unusual sensation as he blinked away moisture. Looking down, he saw that he was swathed in color: around his neck, the dark blue of night, around his shoulders, the flaming palette of sunset; two sides of the same sky at dusk.
Loki smoothed the fabric down, reveling in a strange new feeling as his fingers found their way across the tiny gems, mesmerized by the soft sheen of femininity. He drew it across his waist and held it there, staring down at the gown he imagined he had created around himself. A familiar longing in the back of his mind quieted then; it came to him quite often anymore, usually when he stood before the mirror in their room and studied himself in his trousers and tunics.
Despite Sjöfn's reassurances that he always looked perfectly handsome in his princely garb, Loki often felt that something was strangely amiss; that some days he felt perfectly happy and boyish in his clothes, and others he felt stifled and hidden away within himself. When asked about it, he didn't have an answer. He didn't even know how to explain it to his brother. Or to anyone.
Presently, however, he felt electrified. He looked up at Mother, watching her earrings swing gently with the movements of her head as she doted on him in his borrowed finery. He unconsciously touched a fingertip to one of his own ear lobes, wondering what such adornments might feel like there. She leaned back and looked him over, adjusting a few more places before her eyes settled to meet his again.
He looked away nervously, a swirl of complicated emotions swimming through him. She quirked a brow, and touched his chin with a soft hand to turn his face back to hers, gazing warmly at him with concern. "What is it?" she whispered.
He shrugged, uncertain if he even knew the words. There was something burning in his belly, something he desperately wanted to understand, and he didn't even know how to explain it in order to ask. She tilted her face and searched his eyes, pushing his hair back from his face.
"Nothing," he whispered, feeling his cheeks flush with embarrassment.
Frigga smiled and folded her hands behind him, pulling him in closer and leaning their foreheads together. "I see you with more than my eyes, child," she whispered back.
He fidgeted his hands around the dark blue of her scarf as it hung from him.
"I wish …" he began. His voice was so small that even face to face she had to strain to hear it. "I … wish I could look like you sometimes." He swallowed hard, unsure what he had just done.
Frigga smiled softly and pressed her nose against his. "Is that all?" She leaned back to look at him, her brilliant blue eyes regarding him tenderly. He looked up at her and slowly nodded.
"Then, today you shall." She kissed his forehead and took his hands into hers. "Would you like to be a princess, here with us today?" Her smile became buoyant, a hint of playful mischief lighting up her face. He blinked at her in astonishment. Somewhere within him, a fledgling pair of wings stretched themselves open timidly.
Loki nodded, eyes shining with growing elation.
Freya looked on in contemplative silence, studying the transformation upon Loki's face.
"I've just the thing for this," she said, setting her goblet onto the table between candles. She turned to the chair back and plucked another brightly colored shawl from the small pile. Lofn had set out a small standing stool, which Loki recognized from their many appointments with the seamstresses throughout the years as their clothes were slowly outgrown.
Loki stood perfectly still for them upon the stool and watched them work. Mother's twilight blue scarf was now draped across Fulla's shoulder as she carefully tucked one end of it in between the other sheer, silky fabric that she wound delicately around Loki's waist over his tunic; Freya's shawl of blazing orange was now in Lofn's lap as she worked with Frigga to get a long, shiny panel of gold and green around Loki's shoulders and torso.
Loki ran his fingers across it, taking in the golden hues, the way it sparkled in the sunlight -positively mesmerized by its brilliance. Another scarf, this one of sheer gold, was laid across his shoulder and he couldn't resist picking it up and holding it against his cheek, savoring the smooth glide of the silky texture on his skin. He opened his eyes again and looked at the room through the golden veil, and it glowed as though he were standing inside of a lantern.
He felt different, as though a new world had opened to him; he felt seized by a powerful new awareness, something enormous and radiant, as though he had swallowed all of the stars in the sky.
"Brings out the green in those eyes," he heard Freya telling Mother as they stood together behind him, doing something around his shoulders with ribbons. It tickled his neck. Before he knew it, a charming robe-like dress had emerged from the miscellany and so had a flowing cloak behind him, a curtain between his shoulders of Frigga's blue and Freya's orange. He could feel it billowing as they brushed past it in their movements.
Soon his self-conscious blushing had all but melted away into rosy cheeked happiness before their eyes.
Freya appeared before him, looking upon him with fixed concentration. She gently tapped a manicured fingernail under his chin. "Up," she whispered. "Chin up. A Lady holds her head high, always." Loki smiled up at her, excited by the title. "Now," Freya said. "Close your eyes, and hold very still. We've one last touch to finish you properly."
Loki obeyed, and shut his eyes. He felt the warmth of Freya's fingertips upon his cheekbones, touching carefully across his eyelids, his eyebrows, his lips. There was a subtle buzzing at her touch, the settling of magic into his skin, of glamor and illusion as it took shape across his face. He wiggled his nose at the itch of it, fearful he might sneeze at any moment.
"Tickles, I know dear. You get used to it," Freya whispered as she worked. The scent of her wine came to him with her words, and Loki found himself wondering if she had in fact been born holding a wine goblet.
From behind him, he felt Mother's hands cup his temples. Her fingers worked through his hair, combing it against his head, fingertips swirling slowly through it as she worked down past his ears; but rather than dropping off where his short hair ended, they kept on, tugging gently as they drew it out longer and longer. It felt impossible, but he knew better. These were the same women who routinely transformed themselves into other people, other species even. It had never occurred to him that they could transform him as well.
Loki felt a joyful giggle in his throat at the notion of it.
He felt hands working ribbons into his hair, twirling long tresses into curls and letting them drop softly onto his shoulders. He wanted to open his eyes and see it, to witness that he had hair as long and beautiful as theirs, but he dared not while Freya was making him up.
"Now," said Frigga, just over Loki's shoulder. "Let's have a look at her."
The word struck Loki's ears like a song note.
The upright mirror from the opposite wall had been brought closer and situated against a nearby chair in front of Loki, so that when she opened her eyes, the girl gazing back at her was close enough to reach out and touch.
She gasped in utter awe at the sight of herself.
Standing there upon a seamstress stool in the late morning sunlight was a dark haired girl, in a dress of gold and green silk, flowing plumes of blue and fiery orange emerging from each shoulder like wings of a shimmering sky.
Loki reached a hand up to touch her face, barely recognizing herself. Her hair was a long, raven-black mane flowing past her shoulders and down her back, lifted away from her face in gold ribbons and jeweled pins. Her face was softer than she had remembered it, subtle traces of gold dust contouring her lovely features like a portrait. Her eyes were still green, but she felt certain they were even brighter now; perhaps it was the gold on her lids and lashes which made them appear so.
She was pretty. Loki giggled as she felt joy bubbling up within her.
She was a perfect, pretty little girl in a beautiful dress.
She was a princess.
She felt weightless, like a cloud drifting across the sky; she felt a humming within herself, like the feeling of being hugged or tickled. It was like being tickled, but more than that. Standing on the stool, in this new form, she felt like a statue or a treasure from Father's vault. She felt powerful, like she had transformed into someone else - and in a way, she had.
The girl looking back at Loki from the mirror was magnificent and joyful, her smile tinted gold with glamor, even her earlobes dotted in gold. Loki hugged her arms around herself, savoring the brilliant colors and textures, and all of the feelings of simply being herself.
Mother's arm wrapped around her as well, and Freya's from the other side.
"What a lovely Princess Loki we have in Asgard," Frigga said, kissing her cheek. Freya looked on proudly.
From the outer rooms, Sjöfn's voice came drifting in. "See? Loki hasn't escaped the palace, everyone is right in here."
She was walking alongside Thor, who was newly dressed in his favorite bold red tunic and a fresh pair of trousers, his boots clean and dry. He carried an armful of his own freshly picked flowers, neatly wrapped up in a thick cloth to contain the roots and soil he had extracted with them. A wide red bow shone brightly around the whole affair, tied with expert assistance from Sjöfn.
They entered the study together and Thor smiled at the sight of Mother. His eyes moved quickly to Loki, and he stopped abruptly, eyes wide.
"Loki?" he asked, his mouth agape. Loki froze, shrinking into Frigga.
Sjöfn quickly took Thor's flowers as they began to fall in his distraction. He stepped closer and looked at Loki in amazement.
"Loki! You're … so pretty!" he exclaimed, a smile lighting his face.
Loki smiled back, her jovial glow returning twofold. Of course her brother would understand. She looked down at herself and tugged gently at the silken layers and glinting gemstones of her dress, swinging her arms to watch the layers ripple around her. Thor circled her and touched her long hair, running his fingers through the ends of it in disbelief.
"How?" he asked, coming around in front of her again. He looked reverently up at Loki like she was the moon itself. She shared a look with Mother and the other women around her in the mirror, and raised her chin as she smiled mischievously at her brother.
"It's a secret," she whispered.
Peeved, Thor lifted a brow; before he could press for an answer, Sjöfn discreetly cleared her throat from beside Frigga. He hurried over to her, ducking behind Mother in a quick hand-off of the flowers he had momentarily forgotten about. He stepped out in front of her, holding them out proudly with both hands.
Frigga drew him close, kissing his forehead. She whispered into his ear and his face lit up with playful collusion; they looked at his flowers together and selected a small but sturdy specimen of bright yellow. Thor turned to Loki and held it awkwardly up to her hair, but could not quite reach it with her atop the stool.
She took her dress by the sides and gave a modest curtsy, lowering her head within reach. He carefully wiggled the flower into her hair.
"Ow," Loki flinched lightly as Thor fiddled with it. Freya's eyes widened at the impending disaster and she casually flicked a hand across the child's head; the stem twisted itself neatly around a section of Loki's hair with ease.
"Thank you," Loki whispered to her brother.
Thor stood back and regarded his sister proudly, happy to give the finishing touch.