“When you recognize ill will, speak out against ill will, And grant no peace to your foes.”
—Hávamál 127
Defending Loki at Gladsheim was a tradition I hadn’t missed.
When we arrived, half the gods were already seated on the dais. Idunn bolted out of her seat and down the steps. She flew towards Loki, her lips quivering, and he opened his arms to receive her. He held her against him, Váli snuggled between them in his cloth carrier.
“You’re home. Finally.” She leaned back to take in the state of him, still dishevelled and mossy, but before she could ask, Odin interrupted.
“Look who’s returned at last. Perhaps you could tell us where you’ve been.” Odin leaned forward, looking down on Loki as if examining a spot of dog shit on his boot.
Loki passed Idunn into my arms and stepped toward the dais, the baby still held tightly to his chest. His voice lacked the usual mirth, but none of the defiance. “I sabotaged the wall and kept it from being built, as you asked. The rest is none of your concern.”
As if that would be enough to sate their curiosity.
“A lot happened while you were gone.” Odin’s tone didn’t change, but his fingers were digging into the arms of his chair. “Idunn waited hand and foot on your wife. Thor brought her food and drink. Gods have served your family in your absence, and you owe them an explanation. Otherwise...I’m sure I can inspire some cooperation.”
His words cracked open an old wound. Certain gods had gone out of their way for Váli and I in the last months. I’d gotten used to a certain measure of support and acceptance, but this was a stark reminder of how fragile that was. Could I have both the love of my family and my husband at the same time?
Loki laughed, shrill and biting. Váli let out a whimper, and his father finally broke his gaze with Odin in order to look down and coo at his little boy, letting the child grasp at his fingers. “Your methods haven’t changed, Grimnir. I know who stepped up for my wife without needing to ask, and I’m grateful to them. And as sure as a bear shits in the woods, I know it wasn’t you.”
“You’ll tell us. Now.” Odin motioned to my brother.
Thor stepped forward, hammer in hand. “Please, Loki. Just do as he says.” There was hesitation in his voice, but Thor was well trained. If Odin said swing, he would swing.
Loki looked at me, nodding to the baby in his arms. I moved to him and started to release the carrier, taking Váli from him. We both knew the price of keeping silent and the odds of walking away whole.
“Are you sure?” I had to hold Váli tightly. He was reaching for his father, his eyes watering.
Loki kissed his son’s head. “What choice do we have?”
I nodded, and Loki let out a sharp whistle.
The steady clomping of horses echoed through the hall and into the chamber, but when they rounded the corner, there was only a single tiny foal with eight legs, a broken tether around his neck. Sleipnir dashed toward us, and Loki bent down to let him nuzzle into his side. A pair of Odin’s guards stumbled into the chamber, winded from chasing a horse who couldn’t be caught.
Odin was out of his seat and down the stairs like a child promised gifts, eager to get a closer look. “That thing moves like lightning! Where did you get it?”
“His name is Sleipnir.” Slowly, Loki unravelled the story of how he’d lured the horse away from the wall. As he spoke, Idunn settled onto the floor to scratch behind Sleipnir’s ears. The room listened in silence as Loki told them about the plan and the horse. His voice started faltering toward the end. He looked away as he told them—somewhat vaguely—of how the foal came to be.
Odin stared into Loki’s face with his single intimidating eye, trying to judge the sincerity of his words. “You mean to tell me that you fucked a horse and gave birth to a foal?”
Loki’s face was red, but whether in embarrassment or in anger, I wasn’t sure. “Yes.”
Odin burst into laughter, and the rest followed suit. Their mockery was deafening. I wanted to crawl into a corner and hide. I hadn’t had five minutes alone with my husband to deal with any of this, and they were already laughing at us.
Sleipnir squirmed, pushing himself further into Idunn’s arms, and bless her, she wiped away her tears and held him tighter. Then Váli began to cry.
Loki’s lips pulled back into a snarl. He marched past Odin, pointing at Freya, who was bent over wheezing with laughter. “You!” he shouted, trying to be heard over the chaos. “You of all people? If it weren’t for me, you’d be living out your days in a mountain keep, chained to a Jotun’s bed!”
“No one can make me do anything, Liesmith.” Freya sat back, waving a hand smugly. “I can save myself.”
“But you fucking didn’t.” Loki turned back to Odin. “The realms are still here because the gods still control the sun and moon. I did that. And it cost me things you can never repay, all for your stupid fucking wall!”
Odin was still doubled over, laughing so hard that a tear rolled from his eye. “I don’t know, Loki. By the sounds of it, that horse really took you for a ride!”
The room roared again.
“Enough!” I was sick to death of this. “Why do you insist on shaming us? We’ve done everything you’ve asked, and every time, it rips us apart. None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t sent Loki off to do your dirty work! All for a choice you made. You can’t keep doing this to us!”
Odin dried the tears from his eye, and with it, any mirth in his face. The godliness crept back into his features, the stern intensity that so many of us had always feared. “If it were solely up to me, you’d be locked in a room for safekeeping, and Loki would be strung up in the branches of Yggdrasil until his decaying body fell apart.” He gestured to his wife, who sat up on the dais, stiff as a statue. “But Frigg has told me that would be unwise. So, it’s best that you watch your step. You’re in no place to make demands.”
I swallowed hard. Váli was still wailing, face pressed into my chest. I couldn’t make myself the target of anyone’s rage, not with him at risk.
My father turned and climbed the steps once more, returning to recline on his throne. “But that horse…I could use a horse like that. After it’s reared and old enough to be ridden, the stables will come for it. We could use that kind of speed. Maybe it’ll be my mount.” He waved his hand, dismissing us. “Go. We’ll call for you when you’re needed.”
Loki’s whole body arched forward as if he were one breath away from tearing out Odin’s throat. “If you lay a hand on my son, it’ll be the last thing you touch.”
But all it elicited from Odin was a laugh. “You’re not the first person to make that threat, nor will you be the last. Leave.”
The piercing stares and the sudden, echoing quiet was more than I could bear. I put my hand on Loki’s back and motioned for him to follow. He resisted at first, looking for something more to say, something more to push back with. And then he sighed, shoulders drooping. He collected Sleipnir from Idunn, squeezing her hand in silent gratitude. And we left, the judgement of the gods searing holes in our backs.
◦ ● ◦
There had been many painful moments since Loki had disappeared, but I had gotten used to it. Having him under my roof again hurt in a different way. There was a quiet, an unease that had never been there before. Some of it was because the others had laughed us out of the room, that much I knew. And the rest was about so much that was left unsaid. A year’s worth of horrors and loneliness to sort through.
I paid close attention to the things he did, the way he moved. The familiarity with which he opened the door, the casual way he kicked off his boots, letting them fall crooked on the floor. As if he had never left. He said nothing as he went to the kitchen and looked for something he couldn’t find, eventually emerging with a cup. I’d moved them since he disappeared. He got himself some water, and his eyes fell on me as he drank. Watching me as I watched him.
He put the cup down and looked around, as if searching for something to say. “It’s strange. It’s almost like nothing has changed here.”
“And yet so much has.” I shifted Váli in my arms. “What now?”
Loki ducked his face towards his arm, sniffed, and made a face. “A bath, I think.”
I followed him into the bathing room, Sleipnir on our heels. My insides were in knots. He was quiet, but he was still himself. Still Loki in the ways he moved and spoke. But everything inside me felt different. I had learned to live a different way, learned to be without him. And he was home, but I didn’t know what to do with that or what it meant. How to sort through these complications. What had happened to him. The child he had brought home.
Bending over the bathtub, Loki tapped twice on the spout, whispering runes. The pipes rumbled and water rushed out, the tub heating the water as it pooled inside. Sleipnir butted his head into Loki’s leg.
“Hey.” He knelt down and nuzzled his face into the foal’s mane. “None of that.”
I set Váli into the basket near the hearth, where he busied himself eating his hand. I went to the window and stared out, the sun beginning to set.
After a moment, I heard the ruffle of heavy cloth hitting the floor. I glanced back. His cloak lay on the ground. He was stripping away the damp, dirty clothes, leaving them in a pile next to the tub. Sleipnir jumped and danced on top of them, a new toy to play with.
Loki dipped his fingers in the water. It must’ve passed the test, because he tapped the spout again, and the water stopped. He pulled at the tie that kept his trousers closed and I looked away, not sure if I was allowed to look anymore. He’d been gone so long that he felt like a foreign land.
I wasn’t the woman he’d left. Who had he become in that time?
I listened to the moving water, the sound of him settling into the tub. When the water calmed, I dragged a stool close by and sat down. “I don’t know what to say now.”
“For once, that makes two of us.” Loki dipped his head under the water and surfaced again. It barely shook any of the grime from him or the knots from his hair. He picked at the tangled strands with his fingers, trying to rip one piece from the grip of the other.
I took the hair out of his hands and reached for the soap. The one he liked best, that I’d kept by the bath even though he was gone.
And I said the sure thing that kept bubbling to the surface. “I did miss you.”
The slightest hint of a smile appeared. “I know.”
We sat in silence. I worked the horrific knots out of his hair while he lathered the grime from his body. The water was dark by the time he was done, and his skin was back to that snowy-white. He got up, splashing water out of the bath. His back was turned, so I watched him as he dried off. The curves and lines of him. There was such confusion in me. Old anger and deep sadness, relief and discomfort, all these things fighting for air.
He wrapped the towel around his waist, and his gaze went to Váli, asleep in his basket, then to Sleipnir, curled up on his dirty cloak. He stepped gingerly toward the basket. His fingers lingered above Váli as if he thought the boy might break if he touched him. At last, he picked him up, cradling him against his bare chest.
“Would you…” He didn’t finish, but I understood. I bent down and hefted Sleipnir into my arms. He squirmed, then fell back asleep like an enormous snoring stone.
Loki shuffled around the room, readying for bed, barely taking his eyes off his son. I peeled back the bedsheets and placed Sleipnir on the mattress before changing into my nightdress. I slid into bed and Loki stood on his side, Váli in his arms, hesitating.
“If you want me to sleep in the other bed...”
“No. You belong here.”
I’d spent so long without his heat to keep me warm through the night and his arms to wake up in. Having him next to me, in a place that had been a void for so long, felt surreal.
Loki put his hand on mine, pulling me out of my thoughts. He looked me in the eyes, holding my gaze. “What happened isn’t just about me. You were here with no explanation. I know what people must have said. I’m sorry that it seemed like I left.”
Staring into my lap, I sighed. “It was hard, Loki. You made all these promises, and it hurt to do this alone. I wanted you here, and I know why you couldn’t be, and it’s horrible. I just…I still feel this frustration. So many things keep being out of my reach. It was devastating to think I couldn’t have you either.”
He squeezed my hand. “You’re right. I wanted to be here, and if it were the other way around, I’d have been lost without you. I was, honestly. I didn’t mean to hurt you—”
“It wasn’t you—”
“Please. I know, we both know. But it doesn’t mean you weren’t hurting. Tell me what I can do.”
I looked up at him. He was looking at me so intently, so full of love and concern. Asking what I needed in the face of all he had dealt with. I took a deep breath, searching for an answer. “Time, I think. I feel so much. And I want you here, I want you home with me. It’s just so much. I need time to think things through, to come to terms with it. I’d moved on, in a way. Enough to keep living without you. And now you’re back and I—Among other things I’m a step-mother to a horse. I need you to understand.”
Loki looked down at Váli, nestled in the crook of his arm. “I understand. Our life together kept turning without me. I missed so much, and now I have to find a place to fit in all this.” He craned his neck forward to catch my gaze, pushing a piece of hair away from my face so I could see him. “I know you’re afraid to lose this, but I’m not going anywhere again, Sigyn. I can wait for you. We have an eternity to make this right.”