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….
"Yes, but I gave it up."
I leaned my elbows on my knees, preparing to articulate what I felt in a way she would understand, without breaking the character of a Loki who just learned his true lineage.
"I let go of that impossible, stupid dream and started a new life. I… I looked at the world for the first time without the prism of my position in Asgard, without the desire to surpass Thor in your eyes, and… I realized I don't need power!"
I raised my eyes from the floor to meet the Queen of Asgard's gaze.
"I don't want to rule, I don't want to dominate and command. I killed more than a thousand years of my life striving to achieve the impossible, on a dream that is unrealizable, on a goal born of lies. And when I learned the truth… when I…" I licked my lips, unable to find the exact word, "was liberated," I found the analogue, simultaneously shaking my head.
"Then I realized that my dreams… My real ones! They aren't about ruling a kingdom. My true passion is magic. I crave knowledge, I crave power, but not borrowed power, my own, which no one can take away from me. And I want a life of my own too. Not built on lies, not being someone's gift or mercy."
"And I got that life in Midgard! There, for the first time in my life, I have my friends. Although that's not quite right to say, they are more like acquaintances for now," I shrugged.
"But they are still MINE, not Thor's. To them, I am not the slippery shadow of a radiant brother, not the King's son. To them, I am ME! They judge me not for who and what I am, but for what I do. If I reveal to them that I am a Frost Giant, it won't change anything. In their eyes, I won't change at all."
"But if I reveal who I am to Asgard, Heimdall will be the first to try to impale me on his sword, let alone the other Aesir and Vanir! I don't want that life, I don't want to be an eternal hostage, trembling lest anyone find out his secret. I don't want this wormhole to eat me from the inside, especially at the moment when I've just started to truly live."
"…You've grown, Loki," Frigga said with a sad, kind smile on her lips.
"It happens sometimes," I grumbled under my breath, feeling something like embarrassment from the speech I just gave.
Besides, the fact that Odin heard this speech too, even if he was "not with us" right now, didn't add to my mood. And the listed circumstances, it was a real salad of the past Loki's memories and my own motivation.
"Yes, and that only proves that Asgard could not find a better King than you," the goddess continued to smile and look at me with genuine pride.
"You do not need power, which means you will not start wars to obtain it. You want to live by your own ideals and dreams, which means it will be difficult to impose others' on you."
"That is exactly what you are trying to do right now…" my dissatisfaction hadn't gone anywhere.
"No," the woman shook her head, "I am only trying to show you that you are worthy of the throne of Asgard, and the throne of Asgard is worthy of you. Believe me, Loki, Odin was not burning with desire to inherit from his father either. But we are Aesir. Our strength and power are great, but the responsibility placed upon us is just as great. Someone must guard the Nine Realms."
"Then why don't you lead Asgard?" I knew the answer from my predecessor's memory, but the human in me couldn't stay silent. "You have way more experience and authority than I do!"
"Loki, you know perfectly well that only a King can rule the Kingdom. My place is beside my husband, not in place of my husband," Frigga explained to me maternally, as if to a small child.
"But I'm not even an Aesir; I'm a distrophic Frost Giant with a pigmentation disorder!" I already understood she had an answer prepared for every argument of mine, but I couldn't just give up.
"I have no rights to the throne of Asgard whatsoever!"
"You are mistaken," the goddess's face darkened. "Of course, you were not conceived by Odin, but you still have his blood in you. You are only half Frost Giant, son. The other half in you is from an Aesir."
"Come again?" To say this news felt like a punch to the gut is to say nothing. No, I assumed I could be a half-blood, but carrying Odin's blood…
"Did I hear you correctly? Odin's blood flows in me?"
"Yes," the woman nodded, closing her eyes.
"A-and?.." I portrayed the keenest interest in further explanations with my whole posture.
I wouldn't have asked directly who my mother was, I understood it would be a very painful question for Frigga, and the real Loki would never have asked it because he loved his adoptive mother with all his heart. But since she raised the topic herself…
"The woman who carried and gave birth to you was Odin's eldest daughter, Hela," the Queen admitted with a heavy sigh.
"W-wait a second," I put up an index finger in a defensive gesture, trying to prevent my eyes from falling out of their natural sockets.
"You mean that Hela, who is the Goddess of Death?.. Who is Thor's older sister and a shamelessly strong lady obsessed with a thirst for power and currently locked up by her father in Helheim?"
"You knew about her?" Frigga was genuinely amazed.
"Did I know that Odin was at one time quite a tyrannical conqueror of the galaxy, spilling rivers of blood so that Asgard would occupy the place it occupies now, and that his daughter, Hela, the Goddess of Death, helped him in this, whom he later renounced and imprisoned, tying the shackles to his own life? Yes, I knew about that," a nervous smile kept climbing onto my face, and I started twitching slightly.
"And you mean to say that she is my biological mother?" The answer was written in large letters on the gloomy face of the goddess. "And Thor, turns out, is my uncle?!"
Did I say that previous news felt like a punch to the gut? I was wrong. That didn't touch me at all, but this hit me like a truck!
….
If you want to read ahead by 20+ chapters from here you can visit my Patre-on.
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