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Farbauti gave a tiny frown as she gazed at her eldest son, the heir apparent to Jotunheim. He was bringing her news that he had kept from his father, the not-so-dearly departed Laufey, and she wasn't certain if she should embrace her son or strike him for keeping his silence until now.

"You are certain, Helblindi?" the queen regent asked, ruby eyes narrowing as she searched for the lie and did not find one.

"Positive, Móðir," Helblindi replied with a polite bow. "During the fight with Odin's sons, my touch did not burn the younger. His skin began to turn blue rather than black." The prince lifted his head and added, "And what markings I saw on his flesh, Móðir, were the same ones that mark my own."

Farbauti closed her eyes and let out a long, wavering sigh. Her youngest, her Loptr, still lived.

When he had been born small, tiny yet filled with the magic of ice and fire both, as all mages and witches of the Jotnar, Laufey had been furious. Farbauti had been accused of having an affair with one of the court mages, and her protests of innocence went ignored. Her king and husband had snatched poor Loptr from her arms and left the palace with the newborn child; he'd returned empty-handed and proclaimed that Loptr had failed Winter's Right.

Winter's Right was not practiced on the newly birthed; exposing a child younger than twenty moonrises was tantamount to murder. But Laufey was king, so no one spoke out against him.

Instead, volumes had been spoken when Farbauti's brother, Thrym, had leaked information to the Asgardians that led to Jotunheim losing the war.

And now, Farbauti's wicked husband was dead and her Loptr yet lived.

The queen recent opened her eyes once more and fixed a stern look on her eldest. "What name do they call your brother, what name do they use for my Loptr?" she commanded. "And where do they keep him now?"

Helblindi shook his head in answer and turned his gaze towards the shadows. Another Jotun, smaller than Farbauti but still taller than an Asgardian stepped forward and gave a low bow. Unlike Helblindi, he had closely-cropped jet hair and wore loose trousers with an open tunic. Only Jotnar warriors were clean-shaven, only the warriors clad themselves in loinclothes in order to have more freedom of movement on the battlefield.

"Byleistr," Farbauti greeted her middle son, "do you bring me answers I seek?"

"Yes, Móðir, I do," Byleistr replied. "Odin Child-thief has named our brother Loki, and he currently is being held in the eastern wing of the palace as a prisoner for his acts against not only our realm but Midgard as well."

Farbauti stood, her silver and black shift sweeping about her legs as she moved. "Unacceptable," she snarled; the guards stationed around the throne room tensed, as all who were wise knew that the queen's rage was more fearsome than the king's had ever been. "My Loptr, my youngest child, has been raised by those barbarians to hate his heritage. He has killed his sire, my husband, hated as he may have been by our entire race. He has tried to destroy the realm of his birth, all because Odin Spear-shaker, Odin One-Eye, Odin Child-thief, taught him that such things were right and just.

"No," she continued, stepping down from the throne and stalking towards her sons, "this will not be tolerated. Helblindi," she turned to her eldest, "gather your most trusted compatriots and stage an attack on one of Asgard's allied realms. The Vanir owe us a favor, cash it in. Byleistr, I want you to take a small contingent of your best spies and watch the pathways. When one comes open during your brother's distraction campaign, go through to Asgard."

Byleistr nodded slightly. "Shall I choose from amongst our best mages and witches, Móðir?" At the queen's nod, he began to compile a mental shortlist. Angrboda, his uncle Thrym's only child, was a talented spell-slinger and so would be an asset; likewise Svadilfari and his bride Sigyn of Utgard were well-versed in the art of shape-shifting. Sigyn had been stationed in various Asgard-allied realms for decades under nearly a dozen identities, and had most recently been in the realm eternal itself. She would know best how to navigate the palace.

Farbauti smiled, the expression suiting her more so than the previous scowl. "We shall return Loptr to where he rightfully belongs," she declared, "and we will fix what Asgard has broken."

Loki was not certain what had happened.

His trial had been a joke; his guilt had been all but determined before Thor even brought him back to Asgard. One could hardly call it a trial at all, more of a show for the well-to-do of the golden realm. He had ignored everything around him in favor of glaring at Odin, daring him to give the stolen runt the usual death sentence for traitors to Asgard.

Instead, the old fool had sentenced Loki to banishment within the palace walls, never to traverse outside the royal abode until his death.

Loki had been in his new quarters in the lower reaches of the eastern wing, little better than a dungeon as he could not actually leave the rooms but nicer than the cage the Midgardians had shut him up in, when he began to hear whisperings of Jotnar attacks on Vanaheim. The former prince thought it very odd that Jotunheim would make a move against the Vanir, as even after the war's end Vanaheim remained a trading partner with the frozen realm. But no one was asking him, so Loki kept his thoughts that it seemed to be a calculated move to detract attention from elsewhere to himself.

He barely paid attention to the comings and goings of the servants who brought the meals he left mostly untouched, although he could recognize the brunette with the sweet smiled and sapphire eyes from the days before Thor's failed coronation. He offered polite nods to her bright greetings, and made empty promises to eat more.

So it was understandable that Loki was surprised on the day the sapphire-eyed girl entered his prison suite accompanied by a dark-eyed man tall enough to be a giant, a green-eyed man who was also taller than Loki, and a tiny woman with gold eyes. The gold-eyed woman glanced around the room and gravitated to one corner that Loki himself avoided for reasons he did not quite understand.

When the woman picked up a stone and crushed the runes in her hands, only then was Loki made aware that magic-dampening wards had been in place.

"Is the pathway open and clear?" she called over her shoulder, and as she turned the once-prince could see the faint shine of red in her unusually-colored eyes.

"Only just," the green-eyed stranger responded. "Helblindi's forces are keeping the dim Asgardian warriors on their toes; none of them are even bothered with the palace right now."

"Then we should hurry, Byleistr," Loki's sapphire-eyed girl remarked, striding forward confidently and grasping him by one arm. "I doubt that we will have as much luck for long, and it will be a long trek back to Utgard for me and Svadi."

The dark-eyed man snorted. "As if you expect me to believe that you will walk on your own feet, dear Sigyn-wife? You will simply ride on my back as you always do."

Loki's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to ask what these servants thought they were doing in aiding a traitor to the realm, but before he could utter a word the world shifted around him, and he found himself in the heart of Jotunheim. His new captors all glanced at him even as their skin began to turn the frozen blue of Jotnar and their eyes all shifted to red.

He jerked his arm in an attempt to shake of the girl who he'd thought been simply another sweet naïve servant, but her grip was fast and true. She looked at him with eyes that spoke volumes of sympathy and concern, and Loki hesitated for only a moment.

Only a moment, yet long enough for the other woman to move to his opposite side and press her fingers to his forehead. "Sleep, Loptr," she said softly, and fuzziness dropped over Loki's mind. He wondered to himself who Loptr was even as he drifted into a dreamless slumber.

In the first few weeks after Loki vanished from Asgard without a trace, most of the population were of the opinion that the traitor had escaped with the help of one of his allies. It hardly mattered that no one had come for the disgraced prince in his months of imprisonment, not when there was evidence that someone had killed the guards and stolen away with him. The most popular opinion was that Loki's Chitauri compatriots had come for him.

When the Chitauri contingent arrived in Asgard demanding that the Deceiver, as they called him, be handed over, the certainty faded away. The Chitauri only left peacefully after Odin reluctantly handed over one of the treasures from his vault, and the citizens began to speculate anew on what had really happened to Loki Silvertongue.

Slowly, over many months, people began to recall that some individuals they remembered clearly were missing from Asgard. A few of the palace servants spoke about a dark-haired girl with gemstone-blue eyes who always had a smile and a kind word for everyone, who had taken it upon herself during the first few weeks to deliver all of Loki's meals herself. Some traders at market recalled seeing a tall gentleman, nearly as tall as a Jotun but as golden as any Asgardian, with brilliant green eyes who was always up to share in the latest gossip from all over the realms.

The farmers in the fields remembered having an assistant for some time, a dark-eyed dark-haired man who was as strong as a horse himself who went from farm to farm offering his help but never straying anywhere that the palace was not in his line of sight. The scholars wondered where the fair maiden with golden eyes had vanished to, as she had been voracious in her studies and was always asking questions about this text or that or another.

Slowly, the citizens of Asgard pieced the puzzle together, slowly coming to realize that the four missing individuals had all shared the unique connection of an obsession with either the palace or the royal family. All four had vanished right around the same time as Loki himself disappeared from his prison suite. All four strangers had claimed to come from realms friendly with Asgard, yet when Thor took it upon himself to try and find the missing people no one from Vanaheim or Alfheim or Svartalfheim had ever met people matching their descriptions.

It took nearly a year from the day Loki went missing for anyone to find names, and Hogun returned with not only their identities but also a further connection between the four that sent chills down the spine of anyone who happened to be listening:

Angrboda, daughter of Thrym, Jotun sorceress.

Sigyn of Utgard, spy, Jotun shape-shifter.

Svadilfari, husband of Sigyn, Jotun shape-shifter.

Byleistr, son of Laufey, second prince of Jotunheim.

With a heavy heart and more than a little concern for what the Jotnar royal family may want with the child he'd raised, Odin ordered Heimdall to open the Bifrost to Jotunheim and took a small company of men with him to confront whomever currently held the throne.

Their arrival did not go unnoticed; Odin's company of warriors were greeted during their trek to the palace by several of Jotunheim's own warriors, the leader of the band bearing marking similar to those of Laufey but different enough to speak of his maternal heritage. This was not Byleistr, as the second prince was a mere seven feet tall, small for a Jotun yet still taller than an Asgardian; the warrior prince who was shooting hard looks at both representatives of Asgard's royal family was easily twelve feet tall, taking after Laufey in that aspect as well as his current mannerisms.

Thor and Hogun exchanged an uneasy look; both recognized this Jotun from their previous trip to Jotunheim.

"My queen and móðir, Farbauti, requests your presence at her palace in Jarnvidur," the Jotun growled out, not taking his eyes away from Odin for a second. "You Asgardians may think it naught but forest, but there is a reason you were not able to breech it during time of war."

Odin nodded carefully. "You are to be our guides?"

The Jotun nodded. "Yes, as much as I would prefer to leave you stumble through the frozen night. Follow, but be silent." He offered a wicked smile. "There are those along the way who are not inclined to offer you safe passage in light of your crimes, All-Father."

With no further words, the Jotun turned and began to walk towards the west, and the Asgardian company fell into step with him and the Jotnar warriors around them. They passed through a small village and several houses that stood by themselves, and the Jotnar who saw them had only dark looks for them. One Jotun child appeared more curious than anything, but its parent snatched it up with a vicious snarl directed towards the All-Father. The behavior of the Jotnar was disturbing to the whole company, so they fell into an uneasy silence as the snowy plain slowly turned into oddly-beautiful wooded terrain.

Thor did not notice the palace itself until the Jotun leading them called out something that could not be translated by the All-Tongue and a section of dense trees revealed themselves to be a vast door. He took a moment to marvel at how the royal dwelling blended in with the natural world around it before dread dropped back over him. He could not allow himself to forget that his brother was missing, that Laufey's queen might be protecting the kidnappers.

The company was led through silver-white halls, passing by more Jotnar guards who did not even spare a glance at the Asgardians. Once they arrived at a door that seemed to be imbedded with gemstones in all the colors of the Bifrost itself, their reluctant guide nodded to the guards nearby who moved to pull them open to allow all to enter.

The room they found themselves in was almost as grand as the throne room of Asgard, with silver replacing gold and small groups of what must be Jotnar nobility rather than a vast crowd as would be the case back in the realm eternal. The throne at the very front of the throne room was silver as well, accented with frost-white and blue, runes speaking of wisdom and strength and skill carved into the stone stairs leading up to the dias it rested on.

Seated upon the throne was a regal Jotun woman. She was clad in a black shift heavily accented with silver, the fabric draped artfully over her legs to reveal only one foot clad in a black sandal. Her raven-dark tresses was neatly braided, the coil of hair falling over her right shoulder and several curls framing her face. A silver diadem rested upon her brow, delicate horns curling from the metal to arch over the top of her head, and she gave them a single look of acknowledgement before turning her attention to their guide.

"Thank you, Helblindi, for bringing the All-Father to me so quickly," she said, voice ringing out like a bell in the silent hall.

Helblindi gave a slight bow. "I obey your wishes, Móðir," he replied, no growl at all in his tone, only deference to his mother. As he ascended the stairs to join her on the dias, the few Asgardians who noted such things recognized similarities in the markings on Helblindi's skin compared to those of Queen Farbauti. There was little doubt in their minds now that the crown prince had been the one to fetch them to this place, and that was worrisome.

Farbauti turned her gaze back to the Asgardians, or more accurately to Odin himself. "All-Father," she greeted, her tone going from warm and bell-like to as cold as the northern winds.

"Farbauti-queen," Odin replied, offering a small nod to the regal woman. "I have recently heard some troubling news relating to your realm."

"Oh?" the queen said, feigning ignorance. "What trouble could come from Jotunheim? We are all but cut off from the nine realms, thanks in no small part to the loss of our most ancient and beloved relic. We are content with what we have," she continued, a faint thread of sarcasm making its way into her tone.

The All-Father's eye narrowed. "There have been attacks on Vanaheim, those who still claim Jotunheim as a friend."

Farbauti waved one hand absently. "Merely a minor squabble," she offered. "It would have settled itself without Asgard rushing into the business of others as always. We are not the uncivilized beasts you tell your children we are."

The snarl in the final words caused the warriors to tense and look at one another nervously. All of them had grown up on the tales of the monstrous Jotnar, how they would start wars for no reason and kill even children in their beds. Yet this Jotun woman seated before them was poise and dignity and righteous indignation, and every man amongst them could easily see Frigga in her place.

"Be that as it may," Odin said carefully, "there is more to give Asgard cause for concern. One of our own was taken from the golden realm against his will nearly a year gone by, and word has come to us that one of your sons as well as three other Jotnar were involved in the plot."

"Kidnapping?"

The Asgardians turned to see a very small Jotun woman step forward from the gathered nobles. She was no taller than Thor's beloved Jane Foster, with generous curves that Fandral took a moment to gaze at in appreciation, and the markings on her skin bore only passing resemblance to those Helblindi sported; this woman was probably a close relative of the royal family yet chose to remain amongst the other nobles.

The tiny Jotun smiled fiercely, tilting her head to one side. "I know of no kidnapping, Odin son of Bestla, Odin son of Bor. I only know of a long-overdue rescue mission."

"I know your face," one of the Asgardian warriors said, his tone startled at the realization. The Jotun woman's smile shifted to something darker, and her skin began to fade to soft peach. As the transformation swept over her, the straight black hair falling down her back became wavy gold tresses, her eyes fading from red to gold.

"I am pleased you remember me," she said, "although you know not my true name. I am Angrboda Thrymdottir," as she spoke, she shifted easily back to her natural form, "and I have committed no crime against Asgard.'

"Lies!"

"Oh, and you have only told truths?" Farbauti snapped, interrupting Odin before he could say anything further. "You took the child you found in the Temple of Utgard, raised him in your palace as your own child, told him of his origins, and raised him to be proud of his Jotun heritage? You, Odin One-eye, who hides the fact that his mother, she who gave him life, was half-Jotun herself?

"No! I will tolerate none of your untruths, Child-thief," the queen hissed in rage. "I say you true, my unlamented husband ripped our youngest child from my arms and left him for dead. I say you true, I have mourned every day of my life for the child I only held once in his life. I say you true, I knew not that he lived still, that he was brought into your home, until Helblindi saw his skin change from the pale gold you so laud to that of the Jotnar.

"So tell me, Odin Oath-breaker, how long did it take for you to make a Jotun hate himself?"

"Enough, Móðir," a voice spoke up from behind the Asgardians. "What was done is undone now."

Thor turned his head slightly to see a pair of Jotnar approaching on their way to the throne. Both bore markings similar to Helblindi's, similar enough to mark them as Farbauti's sons. The taller of the pair was most likely Byleistr, and now that the thunderer saw him he recognized he man as one he'd spoke with in the market a time or two even with the blue skin.

The one that made him catch his breath, however, was someone he would know anywhere. Even in a Jotun's skin and with blood-red eyes, there was no way he could not recognize Loki.

As the two walked past the Asgardian company, Loki turned his head to look at them. His eyes held no warmth for them, no contempt; if anything, he seemed annoyed with their presence. Then he was looking towards Farbauti and smiling the secret smile he'd only ever shared with his family.

Farbauti's expression shifted from the icy fury she'd been directing towards Odin to a welcoming smile as she stood. While seated it had been difficult to discern her height; now on her feet she easily towered over her younger sons, likely standing somewhere between ten and eleven feet in height. It did not detract from her grace as she took a step forward and raised both hands to the approaching men.

"You cannot claim that my anger is misplaced, Byleistr," she said, her tone warm and welcoming as each young Jotnar took one of her hands into their own. "You yourself saw what damage had been done by the child-thief. You understand just as much as I how difficult those first six months were. If you tell me you feel no anger then you tell me a lie."

Byleistr smiled ruefully and pressed a kiss to his mother's hand. "You know I would do no such thing, Móðir. Your ire and distress were known by all Jotunheim in those uneasy days."

"You need not worry any, Móðir," Loki added, startling the Asgardians with not only the respect in his tone towards the Jotun queen but the affectionate title rolling off his silver tongue. "I am here now. I understand myself more than I ever have at any other time in my life; I would not leave and lose that peace of mind."

Farbauti's smile softened and she drew the former Asgardian prince into her arms. "Thank you, my Loptr," she said. "I believe I needed to hear that."

She pulled away from her youngest son and turned to face the All-Father once more, her expression shifting back to frozen disdain. "You had years to correct the misconceptions and lies that you filled my son's head with," the Queen of Jotunheim declared, her voice echoing from the wall. "And all you did was continue to assert that we are monsters, beasts, dark creatures with no thoughts in our heads save for the destruction of your pitiful, too hot realm. I only wish with every beat of my heart that I'd known my Loptr lived long before you had time to indoctrinate him with your twisted rhetoric and hate speech. Then it may not have taken six bloody months to convince my own flesh and blood that we had his best interests at heart."

She turned her back to the Asgardians, waving one hand to her eldest son. "Take them away from me," she said coldly. "I no longer want these thieves and lairs in our kingdom."

"You call us thieves, when you are the ones who stole my brother?" Thor cried out, unable to remain silent any longer even as his father held his own tongue.

Farbauti did not look his way, but the three princes of Jotunheim did. And for the rest of his life, Thor would wish that they had ignored him as well

Helblindi's face was a visage of rage, teeth bared in a silent snarl as he physically shook with the effort to keep himself from attacking the prince of Asgard. On the dias next to him, Byleistr gave him a cool gaze, eyes narrowed as he apparently calculated Thor's worth and found him lacking as a potential target of his ire. But the worst was Loki, whose eyes betrayed nothing but the same annoyance he'd shown earlier even if the rest of his face was a calm mask.

"How many times must I repeat myself," he said evenly, voice betraying no emotion, "that I am not your brother before the lesson will stick?"

Thor felt his heart drop in his chest. "Loki..."

"Loptr," came the quick correction, and this time a thread of annoyance crept into his tone. "That is the name Móðir gave me the moment I first drew breath, and that is the name I choose to acknowledge. Loki is name spoken of in dismissal and with sneers and hatred. Why in the nine would I want to keep a name that brings me nothing but pain?"

He kept his blood-red gaze on Thor a moment longer before sneering in disdain and turning away. Loki, Loptr walked away from the Asgardians at his back and moved to stand at Farbauti's side. As he reached her, the queen of Jotunheim raised one hand to card her fingers through his hair. The gesture was so genuine, so purely real and unrehearsed that the representative of Asgard were left feeling uncomfortable for invading on what was obviously a private moment.

"Come," Helblindi said harshly, glaring at the warriors from the golden realm as if they were little more than annoying insects. "Móðir wants you to leave, and I don't want you here a moment longer than it takes for your Gatekeeper to drag you back to your own realm. If I have to drag you kicking and screaming, believe me when I say that that would be my pleasure."

Odin was silent as he nodded for his warriors to comply with the Jotunheim royal family's request. The walk back to the Bifrost site was as foreboding as their walk to Jarnvidur had been, only this time there were no additional Jotnar standing to watch the procession. In some way, it seemed that they had known what went on in Farbauti's throne room, and as such felt no need to present a united front against the man they viewed as guilty of the worst crime imaginable to their race.

Because the truth was, Odin did understand in some small way that what he had done would cause harm... yet had continued forward anyway. His mother, Bestla, had always seemed to deny her own Jotun heritage; her son had followed her lead on that front and had eagerly gone to war with Jotunheim when the opportunity had presented itself. He'd done a great disservice to himself in that course of action, and to his mother as well. What he had learned only after her death was that Bestla maintained silence over her Jotun family because of Asgard's prejudices; she had not wished to have that stigma hanging over either her own head or that of her son.

And now, it was too late to make amends. The Jotun foundling he had raised, presumably abandoned by both his parents, had been restored to the being he should have been. The mistakes Odin had made were not forgiven, would never be forgotten by the sons of Farbauti. Any affection that the Jotun prince who now called himself Loptr had felt towards the king of Asgard and his family was gone now, displaced by years of neglect and ignorance to the needs of the child and replaced instead with genuine love and devotion to his rightful kin.

In some ways, it was beautiful. In some ways, it was terrifying.

Odin closed his eye and drew a deep breath. He would have to tell Frigga that their Loki was lost to them forever; for her sake, he would keep the fact that Farbauti's son still lived.

It was with this thought that the All-Father, his only remaining son, and his warriors departed Jotunheim. Helblindi watched for several minutes to be certain that they would not return before beginning the long walk back to Jarnvidur. He decided to stay the night in Utgard so as to let Svadilfari and Sigyn know the outcome of the Asgardians' visit, and sent word ahead to his mother of these plans on the wind. Farbauti and his brothers (brothers was a wonderful thought, Loptr's absence had been felt for as long as Helblindi could remember) responded with their love and best wishes for a pleasant visit.

Smiling to himself, Helblindi turned towards Utgard.