Tell Me

Chapter 1: Blue

His hands were shaking. He stared at them, silently commanding them to stop, but they didn't obey, and he tried to tell himself it was because of the cold. The Casket was radiating it. Just the cold, nothing else. There was nothing else, after all, and certainly nothing to fear.
Taking a deep breath, he finally reached for the Casket, glowing softly in a rich blue, the colour swirling inside as if alive. His eyes squeezed shut on their own accord just before his hands reached their destination, and he had to force them to open up again as he slowly lifted the Casket off of its pedestal.
He tried to ignore the fact that the cold wasn't hurting him as it was supposed to. Instead, it felt almost pleasant against his skin, tingling softly, like tiny snowflakes stroking his fingers as they fell. When he managed to bring himself to lower his gaze, he could see the colour – blue. Blue, slowly crawling over his fingers, his hands, up his arms, leaving the same tingling sensation in its wake, and he seemed to freeze with it, incapable of moving any further, of reacting, of at least putting the cursed Casket back down and leave and try to forgot the whole ordeal. But he couldn't. He was frozen.
"Loki?" The soft voice startled him out of his paralysed state, sending his thoughts into a riot. He hadn't heard her coming into the Vault behind him, but her voice had alerted him to her presence and now he could hear her light footsteps, the soft rustling of the fabric of her gowns. Frigga. His... mother? But was she? "Put that down, dear..."
Automatically, he complied, the ancient relic returning to its place with a silent click. But it was too late now. He should have set it back down right away, he should never even have touched it, never sought it out...
For now, he could see his blue arms, blue and foreign and repulsive and so, so wrong, he could feel it all over him, and he didn't dare turn around and face her for fear of her seeing. Seeing the false skin, the monster he had just become without doing anything to call the beast forward. Still, he had to answer, and despite everything he managed to keep his voice calm and collected for the moment. "Am I cursed?"
"No love... you're not..." The answer was bitter, distressing - it hurt. Eventually, he turned to see her standing just a few steps behind him, he saw her reaching out her hand to touch his shoulder but her arm sunk to her side again as their eyes locked. His features certainly were showing the desperate anger he felt blooming in his chest. He had hoped for denial - denial of what he was fearfully suspecting; but no, his wish hadn't been granted. Surprise. His hope for a simple magic spell was torn to tiny pieces.
"It's just-" his mother's voice disturbed his gloomy thoughts, but he didn't let her speak, not yet.

"No?" he inquired, a sharp tone to his voice. "Then what am I?" He looked at her, coldly oh so cold, betraying more ire than he had intended. His fists were clenching and unclenching nervously and he could swear he could feel the red, vicious colour of his eyes was fading, now that the Casket wasn't in his touch any longer. He looked at his hands and the icy blue was washed away as if it was merely paint.
A hand reached out to touch his and the hand was warm and it eased the pain in his heart and the biting cold. And under his mother's touch, he felt a bit more like himself again, as she was stroking his skin that was no longer strangely blue.
"You're my son, Loki..." He cringed at her words. It sounded like a lie. Was she lying? "And I love you with all my heart." No, this was sincere. He knew it. She loved him. She did.
And still he couldn't help but flinch at her touch. It was a conscious effort not to pull back his hand out of instinct. He had seen what happened to the fair skin of an Aesir when touched by the blue of Jotunheim, a blue that was so cold that it burned and hurt. He never wanted to do that to her.
But Frigga gently held his hand, and he kept still. "Your son," he repeated hoarsely, his heart beating painfully fast beneath his ribs. He wished it were the full answer. "But not – not really, am I?" Not really. Half a lie, half a truth, the way he usually liked it best. Most difficult to get behind. "What more than that am I?"
When she softly tugged at his hand, he let himself be pulled away from the Casket, still searching her face. A tender expression was edged into her beautiful features, and Loki could hear her sigh quietly as she led him towards the stone stairs and carefully pushed him down into a sitting position before placing herself right next to him, never letting go of his arm.
"Your father and I had hoped this day would never come..." Another weary sigh. "But as you have found parts of the truth on your own now... I cannot protect you from it any longer..." A sad smile that didn't completely reach her eyes twisted the corners of her mouth upwards. "When your father took the Casket from Jotunheim, he found a lonely infant, lying abandoned in a temple... you."
Loki couldn't find it in himself to return her smile with one of his own. Not now, not after this, after she just crushed his world so thoroughly that he didn't think he could ever put it back together again. But he tried nonetheless, slowly shaking his head in instinctive, childish denial, without even noticing he was doing it. "No. No, that cannot... I... I cannot be -!" He trailed off helplessly. He had just seen that he could indeed, that he was, but he simply refused to accept it. "I'm not a... a Frost Giant! I'm not..." ...a monster.
He saw the tears that Frigga couldn't prevent from welling up in her eyes, even if she held them back. "You were. But you're not – not anymore. Your father saved you and raised you as his own. You are our son now, Loki... And you will never be anything but that..." Her hand reached out for his cheek and she gently turned his head toward her, softly caressing his skin, hoping to comfort him.
But he only flinched at her touch once more. One more time, before he closed his eyes and allowed himself to lean into it; barely noticeable. Shortly before he could feel the effects of his mother's embrace, he pulled free of it again.
"But... but why?" He couldn't recall he had ever put more blank confusion into a question as simple as this before. "He... fath- Odin," Not father. And he hated him even more for it. "He had just waged war against the Jotuns, why would he take me, what good would it do?"
He could make out a trace of not-knowingness in Frigga's face and knowing himself that he wouldn't get an answer, he went on to the next question. There were plenty of them.
"And why... why did you not tell me? I... you could have told me..." His voice was suddenly sounding choked to his ears and he could feel his eyes were burning as he looked at Frigga - pleading for answers, for reassurance, by only casting a sad, sad look. And this sad, sad look caused her to look down to her hands that were folded in her lap. Just for a moment, then she elaborated with a deep sigh, "We were keeping the truth from you so you would never feel different, never feel unlike any other young man on Asgard, never feel different from your brother..." He noticed her swallowing in a discreet manner. "We were doing our best to provide you a happy life... And I do love you no less than your brother..."
Something was clogging his throat, tightening it, stopping him from breathing in the air he needed. Loki curled in on himself ever so slightly, drawing away from Frigga a little bit in the process. "I have always been different though, have I not?" He twirled a strand of pitch black hair around his fingers while he spoke and looked at the sharp contrast of Frigga's light brown curls. "I was never... as the others. I was never as- as Odin expected of me, I was never l-like... Thor..."
Thor, who was now banished to the Norns knew where exactly, who didn't know his brother wasn't his brother at all but instead a little Frost Giant posing as an Asgardian prince. Thor, who vowed to slay each and every Jotun in his path.
Suddenly, Loki was terrified.

A hand found his head, stroking him, combing through his hair and stopping him from further twirling it around his fingers. "No, you aren't like Thor. But is that a bad thing? Every person is unique, and you wouldn't have to try and change who you are, just to be like your brother..." Brother? Was he? "Not being like Thor does not make you any less precious... I have always loved you, and will always love you both equally..."
And then she slipped towards him, closing the small gap left between them, to take him in her arms. Her thump brushed over his cheeks to catch the tears that suddenly were there, and Loki gasped, clinging to her as she held him, as if he were a small child again, scared of a noise he thought came from beneath his bed. "H-how... how can you love me that way w-when- when I am the opposite of what all of Asgard idolises? Even, even like this, as... as an Asgardian-" He stumbled over the word, and then swallowed thickly, having to fight for breath for a few seconds. "I'm not... like I should be..." A helpless laugh escaped him. Loki, the Liesmith, the Trickster, the coward who hid behind magic tricks and lies instead of fighting his battles as everyone else. "And the truth is even worse! Not only am I not – not of Asgard, but of... I... I am a Frost Giant, I-I am the monster parents tell their children about at night!" His voice wanted to be raised, to scream out the truths as if he could chase them away like that, but he forced it into a broken sounding whisper. Nobody could hear, nobody could know, what if the guards were trying to eavesdrop -?
But his mother's hands that remained caressing his face and hair soothed his inner turmoil - even if only a little, little bit.
"Ssssh." Her fingers glided through his smoothly slicked back strands. Her voice was soft and calm as she spoke, "I don't see any of that in you, Loki..." A pause, genuine eyes blinked at him. "I love you, because what you are is not what you are now. And even if it was, you are still my son and not a 'monster' in any way..." No monster? "You must not dwell on the past now, dear - it is long forgotten... this is your home now..."
He swallowed his tears back down for one countless time more and for a moment he had to remain silent, to get his ragged breathing back under control. "Who... who knows it?"
He couldn't keep himself from wondering. Did they tell anyone? Surely the warriors who returned together with Odin couldn't have missed it. And also Heimdall, Heimdall certainly knew as well. It wouldn't have escaped his all-seeing amber eyes and perhaps it even explained why Loki had always felt like those amber eyes wanted to shoot daggers at him with their intense gaze.
Frigga's sigh pulled him free of his thoughts once again.
"Does it matter?" she asked. "It won't change anything..." She touched his cheek and he felt his skin tingle beneath her palm. "Because above everything, you are and you will stay our son, no matter who might know how you were brought into our family..."
He bit his lip and lowered his head; her hand slipped from his cheek. She didn't understand - she was too good to understand. Maybe, he thought, he could even believe her that she loved him equally, for her words hadn't had the sound of a lie. But still, she didn't see that she was the only one. She didn't see Heimdall's glares or Odin's disappointed and disapproving looks. She didn't hear half of Asgard whisper about their "Golden Prince" with pure admiration and their "Dark Prince" with distrust.
He hastily wiped at his wet cheeks.
"I just... I know not who I am anymore..." If I even ever knew.
Frigga's thumbs continued trailing the wet marks his tears had left on his cheeks, speaking softly, quietly, as one might to a frightened kitten in order not to scare it further. "You are Loki of Asgard. My son, Odin's son, Thor's brother and one of the rightful heirs to the throne. And it will always stay that way."
She opened her arms again, held them out, silently asking him to let himself be enveloped in her loving embrace once more, trying to hide her distress at seeing her child in so much pain.
Loki hesitated, but only for a heartbeat before accepting her embrace and returning into her arms. And suddenly, he lost what little control he had left over his emotions, and like a child, he lay in her arms, clinging to her like a lifeline and sobbing desperately into her shoulder. His tears soaked the fabric of her dress, but neither of them cared. She kept still, stayed there, and Loki was embarrassingly grateful as he felt her stroking his hair, his cheek, his chin, right down to tipping his nose before she trailed her hands over his quivering back and to his arms, gripping his fingers softly.
"It's alright, Loki." She kissed his hairline, a feathery flutter of lips, her next words barely more than a whisper. "Do you wish to talk to me about anything else yet? Something that bothers you? I'm here, I'll listen..."
For a long while, Loki was unable to respond to her promise. He was trembling uncontrollably in her arms, his slender frame wracked by sobs as he pressed close to her, as if he hoped she would just swallow him up and make him disappear, help him hide from the world forever. It took a few minutes until he could even speak again, and when he did, his words were muffled into the crook between her neck and shoulder because he was unable to pull away and look at her. His voice was hoarse and cracked from crying. "Fath- Odi- he... h-he doesn't really... really think that way, does he...?
He felt how she put one hand to the back of his neck, burying her fingers in his hair and scratching softly behind his ear. "Your father loves you as much as I do, Loki..." she said, kissing his head. For a while, neither of them made a move but then Frigga put her arm to Loki's back and it rested there, the warmth easing the bleakness he felt inside of him.
"It has always been difficult for your father to live up to you, to satisfy your needs..." she continued, "because your needs were unlike Thor's needs... He could not see through you as well as he could see through your brother..."
He clamped down his eyelids, barely biting down another wave of tears. My big brother isn't my big brother at all.
"Of-f course he could not, I- I'm not his son..." It was difficult to speak through his tears and it was terrible to listen to himself as he was trying to force out his words through shaky sobs. "But Thor is and of course he u-understands him better and likes h-him better..." He could see his mother flinch. "He c-cannot love me like he does Thor, he cannot... have a - a Frost Giant on the throne..."

Deep, deep shuddering breaths. He was making a great effort to calm down and claim back his rationality. Finally he pulled back. And she let him go.
"Your father does love you, Loki. We all do..." she repeated.
As Loki got back to his feet, she remained sitting on the cold stone stairs. He turned to go, but before he eventually left the Vault, he turned to his mother one last time. And she smiled at him, sadly but tenderly.
And he smiled back tightly and averts his gaze, looking anywhere but into her eyes. His fingers were fiddling with the edges of his sleeves.
"I... just... if you-" he sighed, "if you just realize that, that maybe you can't... cannot love a monster after all, I'd... understand that and I-"
Frigga cut him off then, her expression turning to something between horrified and worried as she hastily clambered to her feet and followed him to the door he was standing next to. "Loki... the Jotuns are not monsters. They are people as well as we are – just from another kind. They live in peace as much as we do, they have their families, their homes, their own land... just because they are different does not mean they are evil..."
Her gaze was fixed on him with an earnest, almost stern look, and he just stared back at her for a long time, searching her eyes and expression for a lie. He dissected her words, looking for anything hidden between them, for anything that would prove that she didn't mean what she said, but he found nothing. Finally, he gave a hesitant nod, lowering his gaze. "I... I understand... I think." A small smile appeared on his face without reaching his eyes. "Thank you..."
Frigga remained where she stood, watching him leave with a heavy sigh. "I love you, dear..."
But the heavy doors had already closed behind him, and he hadn't heard her soft words anymore.