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Loki’s wet nurse, Agatha, looked down at the young Prince as he suckled at her breast. She was exhausted, as was everyone else in the room, but her role was an important one which she carried out happily and with dedication. She stroked Loki’s soft forehead as he made small sounds of contentment, having managed finally to settle down long enough to feed, and his little eyes closed at her touch. His cheeks were an angry red colour and the skin shone with the heat of his flesh; he was teething. The last three nights, the nursery had echoed with his cries as the tools for eating in his adult life began to erupt from his gums, and everyone had been disturbed.
Agatha looked over to the table, where Frigga, Fulla and Thor were taking their breakfast and she smiled at the sight. Rumpled bed clothes had not been changed for daywear, the women’s hair was messily tied back to keep it out the way while they had taken turns trying to soothe the infant Prince and no one was talking. It was a far cry from the usual happy chatter that went on as they normally planned the day ahead. The young Prince Thor was resting his chin on his hands as he stared down at his food with a lack of interest – a clear sign that he was not able to concentrate properly.
“Thor, you can take a nap with Fulla when you have finished your food. I will take first watch with Loki for a few hours and then I shall need some sleep, too. If you are refreshed by then, you may join your friends.” Frigga sighed and sipped at a cup of the Midgardian beverage called coffee. She had made it strong for its wakeful properties.
“Yes, Mother. May I go now? I am so fatigued. May we use another room?” Thor yawned widely and his eyes watered in his tiredness.
“Of course. I am going to arrange that the suite you will eventually occupy when you are older is made ready for you to sleep in over the next few weeks so that you get your rest. It is not fair to expect…”
“But I want to stay here with Loki! I only want a nap somewhere else today!”
At the sound of his name, the baby Prince’s eyes opened and he let go of Agatha to look round. She helped him to sit up and he burped loudly, whereupon Thor laughed, before looking at the stern faces of the adults and stopping abruptly. Agatha closed the buttons on her tunic and brought Loki to the table to sit with the others. He held his arms out towards Thor and made noises to indicate he should like to sit on his brother’s knee, jiggling himself forwards in his intent. Agatha handed him to Thor and everyone looked on as Loki then reached a pudgy hand to Thor’s plate and picked up a sweet bread roll, brought it to his mouth and started to chew and suck on it.
“I do believe the time has come to start to think about weaning him!” Remarked Frigga, “Shall we consider reducing his feeds down to night time only, Agatha?”
“I think we should follow his lead, Your Highness. That is the way I have always fed babies, both my own and those of other parents.” The wet nurse smiled at her Queen, “It has been a privilege, my Lady, to have nursed your son. I was always impressed with my sister’s tales of having nursed Thor, and now I have served a Prince myself!”
“Oh, Agatha, we have loved having you in the nursery and,” Frigga looked at the baby Prince, whose sandy brown hair was already starting to grow on his little head, “I believe Loki loves you too! Don’t you, Loki?”
Loki, who was currently experiencing his first ever sugar rush from the sweet roll, turned at the sound of his name and smiled around the bread in his mouth, the sweet sugary spittle dribbling down his chin and onto a napkin Thor had taken from the table and put over his front. “Gah… buh buh buh mam.” He gurgled and instinctively started to grind his gums on the food in his mouth to break it up to swallow. His little face fell as the sensitive parts of his gums scraped across the tiny sharp peaks of the emerging teeth opposite them and his blue eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“Oh dear!” Exclaimed Frigga, as she saw this change in him, “Here, Thor, pass him to me. You go to get some sleep with Fulla. You go too, Agatha – you must be as tired as the rest of us!”
Loki began to wail and the bread roll dropped to the floor as his little body stiffened in his distress. The remnants of the soggy chewed bread fell from his open mouth and he drew in a massive breath. Frigga reached forward to take him from Thor and got the full force of Loki’s lungs as he let out a loud cry, with tiny tears streaming down his face, the red angry cheeks burning hot with the pain of his teething.
But as he felt large hands taking hold of him, he opened his eyes to look at who was picking him up from his brother’s lap. Immediately, he redoubled his efforts in demonstrating his distress and his cries grew more intense, his little voice leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was not happy at all. He grabbed hold of Thor’s pyjamas and screamed out his unhappiness, immediately drawing in another breath and crying it out at the top of his lungs. His whole face was turning red as a measure of anger came into how he was feeling: he wanted to stay with Thor! His mouth was hurting and he wanted comfort from his older brother! He did not want any of the big people! Somehow, the baby Loki knew that his brother would understand this pain better than the bigger people and he clung hard to Thor’s clothing to try to prevent them from taking him away from him.
Thor turned his weary eyes up to his mother, “I think he wants me!” he said, and wrapped his arms round the upset baby.
“But Thor, you are so tired, my son. You need some sleep!”
“It matters not, Mother. Let me hold him a few minutes and see if it passes. Do you not have some of that salve you use to cool his gums? I can try to put some on if he will let me?”
Frigga stepped back as Thor rose from the table and began to walk around the room, gently jiggling Loki in his arms and muttering soothing words to the hysterically crying baby. She felt pride and love rise in her chest and her eyes prickled with tears as her elder son, just seven years old, tried to calm his brother down. Snapping out of it, she went to a small cabinet where she kept various ointments and medicines and reached for a small phial of clove oil. Asgardian Clove was one of the many trees she had in her private arboretum and the plant had many useful properties, including the ability to numb pain. Normally very strong, she had mixed a little of the extract from it’s flower buds with other gentle and soothing oils so that it would be safe for the baby Prince. She took it to Thor, “You must be very careful with this. A tiny, tiny drop on your finger for all his gums…”
“Yes, Mother.” Said Thor and winced as Loki cried even harder now Frigga was there, thinking she was going to take him. “Could you perhaps leave us to it? I will go to the comfortable corner to do this and you could sit here to watch that I do this correctly?” Thor took the phial and went over to an area where there were lots of plump cushions and sat in amongst them with Loki on his lap. Frigga watched as he patiently talked to his little brother, who was becoming tired with his exertion of crying so hard, and had started to sniffle heavily instead. Frigga smiled at her lady-in-waiting, Fulla, who came to sit at the table with her to watch what was going on, “He definitely has a knack for this.” she said.
“My lady, they are brothers.” Replied Fulla, as if her words explained it all. “Do they not sleep together, play together and – soon it seems – eat together? Loki loves Thor, that much is true. You can see it in the way he reacts around him. Let us have it straight – Loki looks like Thor and we both know that he should look completely different…”
“Hush, Fulla! That is not common knowledge. Loki is having a much worse time with his teething than Thor ever did. It seems to be taking much longer and I am worried about what they will look like when they grow!” She dropped her voice to a mere whisper, “Have you ever seen the teeth of a Jotúnn?” She shuddered, “That is why I am keen for him to be weaned from the breast! Can you imagine if Agatha looks in his mouth and sees not small white peaks, but jagged black mountains?!!!”
Fulla pulled a glum face, “I understand now,” she said, “and you are right; he must be weaned, even if it is a little early. We can introduce goat’s milk to his diet to replace that of his wet nurse.”
She stopped talking as she quickly realised that the room had gone very quiet. Agatha had left to go to her own room while Loki had been crying and they were the only ones in the nursery. Thor was lying back in the comfortable cushions and Loki was sprawled out on his front on top of his brother’s chest, fast asleep. He was sucking on Thor’s forefinger and making tiny contented noises in his sleep as the golden-haired older Prince began to nod off too. Frigga quietly approached them and arranged more cushions around them, supporting Thor’s arm so his finger would not fall from Loki’s mouth.
“I got the oil on, Mother.” Said Thor sleepily, “It worked…”
“I can see that, my son. Well done.” Frigga laid down beside her sons and nestled in the cushions alongside them, and Fulla brought a blanket and placed it over the three of them. Smiling at her Queen she said, “Forget Royal duties today, my Queen. Sleep is far more important – I will return in a few hours with Agatha and we will have dinner together.”
Fulla crossed the room and paused briefly at the door to look back before she left. In the scant moments it had taken her to get from the cushioned area to the door of the nursery, Frigga and Thor had fallen fast asleep and the three Royals were getting the best rest they had had in days.