A Child of Two Worlds

Summary

Loki's life was built on secrets. Secrets kept from him.

And the biggest secrets of all? Those of his origin and his true parentage.

Of who sired him. . .

. . .and who birthed him.

O/S with the potential to become a four-shot.

Stand-alone, but will be considered canon within my MCU FanFiction Series.

A/N:

I will only post a single disclaimer, and it is this: This is based solely on the MCU live-action films. Nothing from comics, animated films or animated shows though I may draw some inspiration from them periodically. Additionally, there are going to be times when I play fast and loose with the films' sequence of events, but hey! This is Fanfiction! That's half the fun! So if something is 'wrong', don't flame please; I am not aiming for canon, but enjoyment.

Oh, and the MCU is not mine…sadly… I only own my tweaks and my characters. If they weren't in the movies I made them up.

Well, we have TAngel96, XxTheAvengerXxX, lucidhalos and peppermiintmocha over on the Marvel Fanfictioners thread on Wattpad to thank for this one… they are a terrible influence… XD Conversation turned to Thor and Loki and one thing led to another and a theory I read back when Ragnarok came out and hit the muse like a slap in the face.

So here we are! A lovely new one-shot with the potential to eventually turn into a four- or even five-shot! And while it is easily stand-alone, I will be considering this 'canon' in my MCU Story-verse.

Remember I am going by movie canon only as gospel! NOT COMIC AND NOT SOURCE MYTHS. And in MCU canon, there is quite a lot that hasn't been explicitly clarified (like the identity of Hela's mother) or even expanded upon, especially in regard to Asgard and the Nine Realms. For instance, next to nothing is said about the culture of the Frost Giants…so I have taken liberties and expanded with ideas and assumptions that make sense to me. C:

Oh, and I'm ignoring the ridiculous tidbit from Infinity War that suggests Thor is ~500 years older than Loki...

…also, just for clarity's sake: in Ragnarok, Hela's mention of the length of her imprisonment is ambiguous—the way she says it, she could arguably mean she was imprisoned for multiple millennia or a single one… and the fall of Jotunheim was—gasp—a millennia before the events of the MCU… ;) So guess which one I'm using in this story…

Enjoy, lovelies!

Odin

The Insurrection of Jotunheim has been definitively put down, and Odin Allfather victorious. But the Great Jotunheim Temple holds more than just the Casket…

It holds painful truths, the end of a way of life…and the start of a new one.

Odin Allfather was weary. More so than the demands of battle could account for. His footsteps were heavy as he made his way into the Great Temple of Jotunheim, intent on his purpose to collect the Casket of Ancient Winters. Mere days after it had begun with the Jotunns attacking Midgard, the forces of Asgard had emerged the clear victor at Tønsberg. The Frost Giants were subdued and, as part of the terms of King Laufey's surrender, the right to their great relic forfeit.

All thanks to their hubris in challenging Asgard.

The Frost Giants had gone too far in attacking a world under the protection of Asgard. They would never forget their folly. They would lose with they held dear to it. Odin would make them see. Make them understand. To challenge Asgard was to fall. To challenge Asgard was to forfeit their most sacred relics. The Casket would reside in Asgard from now on to prevent the Frost Giants from wielding it against another world ever again. And Jotunheim would remember their folly as their world fell to ruin.

As he stepped into the Temple, Odin's steps and those of his Einherjar companions echoed with a peculiar muffled quality, as though the sanctity of the Temple meant to stifle any disturbance to its imposing silence.

Odin forced back a sigh, the weight of his kingship particularly heavy this day. Heavy enough the phantom throbbing of his ruined right eye seemed a minor annoyance to him.

He was growing weary of war.

Perhaps Frigga was right. Perhaps this truly should be the last Great War.

Regardless, once he had ensured the Frost Giants were stripped of their ability to threaten the peace his wife had been encouraging him to turn to, he would have to act.

He would have to confront his daughter.

Hela had grown too feral and far too powerful. She had no control, no restraint. She did as she pleased without remorse or conscience. It was all Odin could do to aim her; truly, he could barely restrain her anymore from her ambition to bath the entire universe in blood. Even her insistence on consorting with Frost Giants—something he didn't entirely understand given her disdain for any race other than their own…though he supposed their brutality and their stark, cruel natures would pose intriguing to her own violent heart—undesirable a diversion as it was, was preferable to her obsession to expand the Asgardian Empire beyond the Nine Realms.

He did not know what had provoked Laufey to attack Midgard, drawing Asgard into war, but the sheer glee and satisfaction on her face? The gleam in her eye when she'd taken the field at Tønsberg? The way she had thrown herself into the battle to a degree beyond the fervour even she usually fought with?

Truthfully, Odin had been unsurprised that she had appeared, late to the battle though she had been, even after she had declared she would not. The look of disdainful petulance when he had called on her to join him on Midgard had made her intent to spite him for the way his thoughts had been turning more and more frequently to considerations on the 'folly of peace,' as she'd put it, perfectly clear. But the glint in her eye—the one that had confirmed to him that she had played at least some small role in spurring Laufey and the Frost Giants to war—had belied that intent.

He knew his daughter well. In many ways she was simple, easy to understand. She had played a role. He was certain of it. She had done it before, lashing out when Odin refused to accede to her increasingly violent desires.

This was the last time he would tolerate it.

She claimed they were meant to rule all, that Asgard was preeminent above all others and thus destined, even obliged, to extend their rule further still until all fell under their dominion.

But Odin knew, even if she didn't realize it herself, that her motives had less to do with any desire to rule all and more with the compulsion to slake her insatiable bloodlust.

And she sneered at the prospect of peace.

He knew what drew her to the idea of creating an empire that spanned the universe and not just the Nine Realms. The promise of war and battle and the chance to utterly crush their vanquished foes. By all that was sacred and dear to him, he knew what fed her desire to slaughter and subjugate. The power in it…it was addicting. Enthralling. He felt the same draw, had been caught in the same thrall of that power once. He had felt that same ambition, though his had been to conquer and rule as hers was to vanquish…and obliterate. Truly, if he was being honest, in his secret, innermost heart, he did still desire to conquer the universe as she did. To rule all, to enforce his will and his idea of order upon all within his domain. To see Asgard rise above all others.

In recent years, that desire had been diminishing, fading. It seemed age and perspective and what felt like centuries of unending war had changed him.

Age, perspective and the sage counsel of his beloved Frigga.

She had taught him the true value of magnanimity over domination. That balance was needed, else war would consume them all. He smiled despite himself at the thought of his wife and her unmatched wisdom and compassion.

If only she had been the one to bear and raise Hela…perhaps then his daughter's passion for violence and death would've been tempered.

Odin was beginning to fear that soon he would be unable to contain her. That her power would grow greater than his, and her challenges to his authority would become more than just her testing the limits of his patience and his tolerance. Her defiance was becoming insurrection.

He was beginning to believe it inevitable that she would try to depose him.

He truly did sigh at the thought of his eldest child. Her cruelty and malice, her desire for blood had grown too wild. Too uncontrollable. The carnage she left in her wake… Odin could be ruthless. He knew this. He was not ashamed of it. There were times when it was necessary. But he had never revelled in the sheer annihilation of his enemies as Hela did. Battle was by nature chaotic and gruesome, but it invariably was made all the more so once Hela had stormed the field, alight in all her ruthless, terrible glory, Fenris slavering and snarling at her heels.

But where once her zeal had been a boon, it was quickly becoming his bane.

She was as apt to kill those who surrendered as those who still fought.

To kill those who'd play no part in the battle at all.

To slaughter innocents.

And such acts were honourless.

He heard the echo of Hela crowing her joy and ecstasy at Tønsberg—violence and bloodlust personified—in the back of his mind just as she had a thousand times over in the heat of battle while Fenris howled in triumph. Even now, the battle long over, the memory alone sent a shiver of primal fear through Odin as it never used to. As did the fury on her face when he had refused to allow her to accompany him to Jotunheim, forbidding her to slaughter every last Frost Giant no matter that they had yielded, furious that he would allow them to slink back to Jotunheim.

The snappish quip that he was grown soft…and that she would be better suited to rule Asgard haunted him.

Something had to be done. Whether he chose to put the days of battle and conquest behind them or not, she needed to be contained.

He was starting to see that, for all its illusions of glory, War truly brought was more War, offering little in return but grief and ruin and ash. There was glory to be had, yes, but he was coming to feel it was...hollow. Odin was starting to wonder if only the dead truly found glory in battle. The living might grasp it in victory for a time, but they forever had to bear the blood-price they'd paid for it on their souls; the gilded gleam of victory tarnishing in the face of the death and destruction it demanded to pay for it. Glory and honour seemed a poor compensation at times to the losses War demanded. As time passed and War followed Great War, he could see the shadow of it in the eyes of his people. For all their pride and readiness to chase the glory of battle, to unerringly follow him to war, it wore on them all the same to bear the lives taken and lost on the battlefield that came regardless of victory or defeat.

He could feel it weighing heavier on his own soul with each passing campaign, the fulfilment he'd once found in victory feeling ever more diminished with each new blood-soaked field and still, lifeless body torn apart by sword and spear and axe.

He was tired.

Perhaps Frigga was right.

Perhaps it was time for rest.

Time for creation instead of destruction.

Perhaps it was time for Peace.

Either way, he needed to find a way to rein in Hela.

Something he was beginning to fear only death would truly accomplish…

…and that was the one thing he was unable to do.

He approached the altar, gesturing one of his Einherjar Guard forward to collect the Casket. He watched impassively as the warrior lifted the Casket from its plinth, stowing it safely in the sturdy, heavily girded wooden chest his companions carried between them. And at Odin's nod, they bore the wooden chest from the Temple.

Leaving Odin alone in the cavernous space.

He stood for a moment, relishing in the silence, the solemnity of the space. A flash from the other side of the great doors signalled his orders had been carried out and Heimdall had borne the chest and its cargo home to be safely secured in his vault. Inhaling deeply, Odin turned, preparing to leave himself.

Only to freeze as a soft whimper emerged from the palpable quiet of the Temple. Every sense suddenly on alert, Odin circled the plinth that had once held the Casket.

He let out a long, weary breath, his chest suddenly feeling tight.

There, nestled into a niche at the base of the plinth, was a child…no, not just a child, a Jotunn infant not more than a few weeks old, at most.

An impossibly tiny Jotunn infant. It couldn't be larger than his own children had been at their births. Far too small for normal Frost Giant offspring.

He edged closer, peering down at the runt. The markings upon his skin—it was a male babe he noted—were familiar…

…Laufey…

Realization broke over him between one breath and the next…this infant was Laufey's offspring…the marks were as telling as the shape of his face or hair color or the hue of the eyes would've been in a child of the Aesir.

He scowled, the expression tugging painfully at the still tender flesh of his ruined eye as a wave of fury threatened to build. What had possessed the Jotunn King to abandon his infant in the Temple?

Could it be the infant's size, Odin mused. Jotunns abhorred weakness. To be weak was to die in the unforgiving climate of Jotunheim and this child's size would've been seen as the ultimate proof of weakness. Only the strongest could survive on Jotunheim. Only the strongest deserved to survive. Their culture demanded it so their race could endure.

Odin knelt, peering closer still at the infant. The tiny boy squirmed, his face screwed up in misery. He was alone, hungry, frightened.

Perhaps this was a ritual, done to see if the tiny Jotunn child was strong enough to endure the natural, brutal cold of their home. That leaving him, alone in nothing but his swaddling clothes and a thin blanket to soften the unyielding stone of the plinth, was a test of the babe's strength of will.

Or perhaps this was the only way to dispose of the child without violating one of their most sacred beliefs.

Odin knew that, for all their brutal natures and the value they placed in strength, the Jotunn race protected their children with vicious determination. Their offspring were rare and precious. Even if they did not nurture their young the same way as was done on Asgard or Midgard or Vanaheim, Odin knew the Frost Giants valued and cared for their children in their own way. Even in territorial conflicts between clans, bloody as those clashes often became, it was near sacrilege to harm a child. He knew the Jotunns had deep, secret places within their fortresses to hide their children when battle threatened. Further, Odin had learned long ago that no honourable Jotunn would dare harm a Jotunn child. To purposefully kill one? Even one such as this one where the central tenant of their society demanded the infant die? As Odin understood it, it would be a mortal sin above all others.

Though…if the belief that allowing the child to live would be the greater sin…leaving him in the Temple might just be a vain hope to protect the babe, believing he might be safe within the sacred walls of the Great Temple. It was possible.

But more unlikely than possible. He simply couldn't see Laufey risking his already tenuous position following his capitulation to Odin by flouting a demand of his people to be rid of an ill-fated child if that was what was expected. But perhaps the infant's mother…a mother he could see believing the risk to save her child as one worth taking.

Yet, Odin had heard whispers among the Jotunn that Laufey's wife Farbauti was dead, though just how had not been spoken of in his hearing. It was possible she had fallen on the battlefield, but he could not be certain. Now, seeing this babe? If she had borne it, the shame might have been too much; her life might have been forfeit and so acted upon…either by her own hand or another's.

The Jotunn child whimpered again, his vibrant red eyes fixing helplessly on Odin. His heart warmed at the innocent need in the child's eyes.

And he reached out before he could help himself, an instinct to soothe the child overwhelming the stoicism and dispassion he bore as a matter of course in his role as King.

Only to be paralyzed with shock as, beneath his touch, the Jotunn infant's cold, blue-hued skin began to melt to rosy pink flesh.

Odin snatched his hand back as though burned.

That was impossible…

"And now you understand…" His disbelief was so great, Odin did not even tense at the deep, grating voice, evocative of two great glaciers grinding against one another in the way it echoed in the silence of the Temple. Laufey stood in the shadows, watching as Odin knelt over his son.

Once Odin might've assumed the massive Frost Giant wouldn't hesitate to attack upon finding him alone in such a vulnerable pose. But he knew with confidence Laufey would do no such thing. Not this time. Not when he knew his cause was lost and that Odin and Asgard would exact a terrible vengeance for the Jotunn King reneging on his surrender and the Treaty they had agreed upon.

Not when, mere days before, Odin had held Gungnir to his throat and spared his life.

Not when Odin all but held his offspring at his mercy.

But in that, Laufey had little to fear. Odin did not care to murder babes or children. It was the father in him, he supposed. He saw the faces of his children in the faces of every young child he saw in war. And as he knew he could never bring himself to harm his own child…

No, Odin was incapable of shedding the blood of his own.

"I suppose this was the offence you wished to avenge," he asked softly of the Jotunn King, not lifting his gaze from the child where he squirmed and fretted, his face crumpled and miserable. "The mixing of Jotunn blood—your blood—with that of Asgard." Laufey hummed, the sound nearly a growl.

"You comprehend much, Allfather," Laufey countered, "and yet very little." Odin looked up to Laufey, restraining the urge to frown. Laufey nearly scoffed, his eyes not leaving the babe. "You presume much. You think I am affronted by the child's existence?" Odin considered the Frost Giant's statement.

Was he not right to think as much? Asgard and Jotunheim had been bitter rivals and more often mortal enemies for time beyond measure. Surely they had to see the mixing of their races, of their blood as an abomination.

It would certainly be considered such on Asgard…

"You are not," Odin said carefully, the nature of his response purposefully enigmatic. Laufey's lip curled in a silent sneer.

"I am outraged that the Hellion discarded him—my blood—as little more than refuse," Laufey murmured after a long moment, his voice so low and furious and…anguished that Odin barely understood the words.

But he understood the feeling behind them.

And he understood what Laufey had not explicitly said.

His remaining eye slid shut as he sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging at the revelation.

It had all become clear.

To discard the child, to reject him so cruelly and so carelessly for his Frost Giant blood had been an insult of the highest degree; their pride as a race, the merciless lengths Jotunns would go to to protect their sacred, vulnerable offspring… Though he did not know if that had been the intent in rejecting the child, he knew the outcome would've been welcomed.

His own child did live for war, after all. And War with Jotunheim would've satisfied her bloodlust handily. For the Jotunns never would've borne such an insult. Indeed, they hadn't.

They had vowed War on Asgard to avenge what they had perceived as a vicious and unforgivable attack on their honour. They had vowed to take what belonged to Aesir—starting with Midgard—in recompense.

Odin could hardly breathe as the truth pressed painfully in on him, though he remained carefully stoic to all appearances.

By all that was sacred in Asgard and Valhalla, had it really come to this?

Had his ambition and his tacit acceptance—approval even—of his daughter's cavalier thirst for blood and violence above all else led to this?

Had it become such that a child's life meant nothing? That only war and conquest and death mattered?

In that moment Odin realized that he had truly had enough. The revelation settled hard and sharp and resolved in his chest. Enough was enough. He had walked through enough blood, gloried in enough death. For the first time in his time as king, he felt he was truly aware of the destruction his rule—that his child—had wrought. And he felt shame, the feeling scalding and potent.

Hela cared very little for innocent lives. To her, blood was blood and blood only had value when it ran.

And in that moment, Odin had realized just how little he had valued the innocent, how little he had valued life as opposed to his wars.

To death.

It was as Frigga had been trying to make him see. It was time to glory in life.

In that moment of anguished clarity, he vowed Hela would not stand in the way of change. Of Peace. He would tear down their legacy of bloodshed and conquest.

And he would not suffer Hela to stand in his way, even if he had to erase her from memory to do it.

There was only one facet left to of all this that had not yet been explained.

"If this child is the catalyst of this war," Odin ventured slowly—sadly, even—as he looked once more to Laufey, "why leave him here when you knew I was coming? Why not secret him away in your great fortresses with the rest of your race's young?" Laufey straightened, his chin rising. But he said nothing.

Ahh…

And Odin understood. It was as he had initially assumed Laufey's perception of the infant to be. The child was to be considered unnatural even to his father. Laufey might care for his offspring in his own way despite his mixed heritage, but in the eyes of the rest of his race?

The infant was only half-Jotunn, and therefore not truly Jotunn at all.

The Frost Giants had fought because their honour had demanded retribution for their race being so callously insulted and their blood tainted…and because it was an opportunity to justify a renewed bid to expand their domain and to challenge the might of Asgard.

Not because they truly cared that King's offspring had been thrown aside. The child had been an excuse. To Laufey's kin, the babe was an abomination. An affront to everything they were.

An affront that had demanded recompense in battle only. Nothing more.

So the king had bowed to the will of his people and the values of his race.

He had left the child to the protection of the Great Temple. And if it was what fate dictated?

He had left his son to die.

Odin reached out, lifting the child and holding him before him, transfixed as his skin—paler than an adult Jotun's deep blue—faded once more to soft pink at Odin's touch. In the span of a long moment, he looked the very image of an Asgardian babe, with wisps of dark hair on his head Odin had not noticed at first and vibrant—familiar—pale green eyes. A warmth beginning to grow next to his heart, Odin cradled the infant close. The tiny boy mewled, nestling into Odin's warmth and the safety he offered. And the Allfather met Laufey's gaze, daring him to object.

The child might be half-Jotun, but he was half-Asgardian too.

Frost Giants weren't the only ones to value a child's life.

Especially if that child was blood.

Especially when in that blood lay potential. Potential for a future Odin was determined to fight for. Potential he could not afford to pass by. Odin was pragmatic, after all. He wasn't wholly ruled by sentiment. This child could very well play a vital role in Odin's nascent desire for a lasting Peace.

Laufey was as stone, his features impassive, though he watched Odin and his son with an intensity that nearly sent a shiver up Odin's spine. There was resentment there. A deep, unforgiving resentment.

And perhaps a quickly suppressed measure of relief.

The babe would live.

But he would be Asgardian.

Odin rose and stepped down from the plinth. He could feel Laufey's eyes on him, cold and burning and heavier in that moment than the mantle of King Odin was charged to bear. His footsteps echoed loudly in the thick silence of the Temple as he crossed the cavernous space.

Upon reaching the massive doors, he paused, glancing back.

Laufey was gone.

And what Odin had learned weighed heavy on his heart.

He wrapped his cloak tight around himself and the babe in his arms.

And once outside the Temple, he called for Heimdall.

Frigga was waiting for him in their chambers, the faint thinning of her lips betraying she was still irritated that he had insisted on going to Jotunheim unaccompanied save for a handful of Einherjar guards. He smiled despite his grim mood. His queen, for all her wisdom and compassion and for all that she understood why he had no need to go in force, was still prone to worry for his wellbeing. She was fierce in her desire to protect what was hers, every bit the warrior he was. She was his compliment and his balance.

A fitting mate for him, that was for certain.

The babe squirmed in his arms, fretting softly.

Frigga looked up at the sound of Odin's approach, her smile one of relief at seeing him safe and home despite still being cross with him.

Begging her to defer her questions when she observed aloud that he looked troubled until later—not that she believed his assurances for a moment, though she humoured him—he embraced his queen, kissing her lightly in greeting before pulling back and drawing his cloak aside.

And Frigga's eyes went wide as she took in the sight of the tiny infant boy nestled in her husband's arms. Odin fought not to grimace at the fleeting, quickly hidden flash of hurt and dismay that surfaced amid the question in her eyes. She wasn't entirely wrong to wonder if the child was his; it wouldn't be the first of his indiscretions if he had been…

But this time he could set her mind at ease.

"He is blood," he said carefully, "abandoned by his Jotunn father." She blinked, speechless, her mouth parting in shock as the implications of his words struck her. He studied Frigga as she looked to the babe, her eyes flashing in righteous fury for the innocent in Odin's arms. "And he will be my son," he finished softly. Frigga's gaze snapped back to Odin, eying him warily. Assessing what she heard in his voice and saw on his features.

And then she looked to the boy, and her eyes—her whole countenance—warmed.

Without waiting for him to offer her the child, she scooped the infant from Odin's arms, humming and cooing softly as her fingertips brushed across his curious little face and tiny hands. He just watched as she crooned and rocked the babe, unable to help the smile that rose to his lips as the boy's eyes slowly slid shut in the comfort of Frigga's embrace.

After a moment she looked back up to Odin. A soft smile on her face, she reached out to cup his bearded cheek.

"Our son," she said firmly, maternal love already fierce and strong in her voice. Odin swallowed back swell of love and emotion for the woman he had married.

Frigga was no fool. If she hadn't drawn the correct conclusion already—which he suspected she had given the keen, considering way she had looked at him and the babe both—she would quickly enough as the boy grew. Already Odin could tell the boy's colouring would favour his birth mother and he had admitted the child is his blood.

There are only so many conclusions to be drawn.

Still, he was resolved to tell her regardless of her ability to discern the truth of herself. He would tell her everything. He did not keep secrets from Frigga. She, alone among all others, held his true confidence. And she knew it. He had seen in her face that she fully expected him to tell her everything and that she trusted him to do so in good time. She was patient. But for now, she was content to acquaint herself with their new son.

The truth could wait for a day or two. She would tell him when she was ready to hear the whole story.

But already he could tell that his beloved Frigga would not care about the origins of the boy. That she was well on the way to loving the child as fiercely as though he were her own after only a few moments. He could see it in her sharp, gleaming eyes.

This boy would be hers.

And that pleased Odin.

He feared he would only be able to see the child's birth mother in him. Already he feared how much more than his appearance the boy will have inherited from his true parents. And Odin feared there would be times he would be unable to see anything else.

But then Frigga's features grew grave, her eyes keen and knowing as they met his, considering him critically. "And your plans for this child?" There was no mistaking her meaning. She wasn't entirely convinced he had taken the infant out of altruism and paternal duty. She wasn't wholly wrong. Odin did see the political value in having Laufey's son call him father. The potential for a true peace to be wrought one day between Asgard and Jotunheim through this child.

Frigga, his clever Frigga, had seen the same potential he had. She knew him well.

But, much as part of him might want to deny it, his pride and the call of his own blood in the boy's veins even a generation removed held more value than any hypothetical plans he might have.

"My plans?" he responded. "I plan for him to grow up." It was that simple.

Any other potential benefit was incidental just then.

Though a wary, considering light still shone in her eyes, Frigga seem satisfied he meant it.

Once more he marvelled at how well his heart and soul had done in finding its love match in such a woman. She knew better than to blindly believe him, but yet she trusted he held the child's well-being higher than any prospective machinations for conquest and power.

For all that he knew he could be just as cruel and ruthless as his firstborn, he had no intention of becoming a monster.

Though he was coming to accept he had sired one.

He bit back a sigh, wishing the peaceful moment of watching his wife and new son bond didn't have to end so soon. But he could not ignore his responsibilities. It wasn't who he was.

And as Frigga met his eye once more, her countenance grim but sympathetic, he knew she knew what he had to do now that he had returned. Her ability to predict his actions was uncanny at times.

But then, she had also been there when Hela had raged at his refusal to unleash her on Jotunheim. She had heard her stepdaughter's threats.

Leaving a light kiss on Frigga's cheek, he left his new son with the woman who owned his very soul, turning his mind to yet another grave task.

One he would not relish in the slightest.

Hela needed to be dealt with. For reasons beyond even the callous way his newly adopted son had been abandoned to a cruel fate. The boy had little bearing on why Hela needed to be restrained, though Odin was not above admitting he let it fuel his resolve.

No, the greater good, the safety of his Realms rested on what happened next.

He would confront her. And if she would not see reason? If she refused to set aside her bloodlust for the good of Asgard?

If she challenged him for the Throne as he knew she would?

He would do what he must to protect the realms under his protection.

He would defeat her.

And Hel would become her prison forevermore.

A/N : Thank you so much for reading! I hope you loved reading it as much as I did writing it!

And I hope you'll leave me a review telling me what you think! I'd very much love to hear from you!

Happy Reading!