The Family Lokison (Part 4)

Who Are We? (LOKI)

I felt far away from the room with my children. Sigyn spoke, but she was muddied. Where had I pitched Vali's book? By the balcony? Toward the boys' room? Somehow I was trapped inside it, reliving moments I hoped to forget—pain and the grip of a monster, which played over and over again in my mind when Odin deemed my life not worth living.

Vali's cries were deeper than usual. Real fear—of me, and my snap of misery. I wouldn't even muse about hitting my children, but he was awfully close to the swipe of my arm and must've felt I aimed for him as well. Even if I had enough control in the moment to say he was safe, my endless tears and choking sobs were far too loud to overcome.

Sigyn finally came to my side and touched my shoulder to reorient me. "Lo, what happened?"

I couldn't look at her. At any of them. I clenched my fists and my eyes in equal measure. "I'm...I'm not ready for this."

"Vali, are you alright?" Narvi said, sniffling himself as he approached from the other room. His brother didn't answer and only cried harder, which made a chain reaction to the rest of us.

Sigyn sighed and pulled a chair next to me, sitting to be on my level. "We have to be ready. It's time. Would you like to say it, or should I?"

"And say what, now?" I raised my face to her. The blurry vision through my upset was a veil that protected me from the gravity of it all. "Admit that I'm the monster I always knew I was?"

"You aren't a monster, Loki. You never were." She tried to hypnotize me with her precious blues, but they were hazy, dampening the love within. "We'd never call our children monsters, would we?"

"Mum?" Narvi asked, uncharacteristically brave for him to interrupt. He read into us with whatever secret gift he always carried. "I swear we meant no harm."

Vali noisily swiped across his nose. "Aye. I'm sorry I upset Father."

Sigyn turned away to see them. "You didn't upset him, love. It's...complicated. Bring me the book you showed him, if you please."

"Ginny, it's horrible," I said.

"If it's anything like what Narvi brought me, I'm prepared."

I grimaced. "He brought another? Of what? More Jotun carnage?"

Vali struggled with the black book on the floor, which landed with one of the pages open, making an enchanted frost that adhered it to the marble. He finally wedged it loose and lifted it with Narvi's help to Sigyn's hands. She took it and nodded in thanks while answering me. "It was more familiar, I'm afraid. Your punishment."

"Which one?" I asked, running several possibilities through my mind, each one driving the knife of my past ever deeper

"The one that brought us together. The Orm on the cliffside." She flipped through the pages of Vali's selection with a shake of her head, absorbing what she could. "History rewritten to fit what Odin wishes the world to know. Who knows what other tales I was told in youth that were so false?"

I pointed to the last page I saw with Vali, with Thor poised at the center for destruction. "I remember this, and he wasn't alone. I was there, yelling for him to come to his senses because he couldn't defeat them this way."

"Then start here." She displayed the pages for Vali and Narvi, who sheepishly stood close together with their hands behind their backs. "You see this? It's a lie. It isn't the whole story. Your father will tell you what really happened."

It was appropriate. Still, I hesitated. Would they feel betrayed? Relieved? Disgusted? Too much to lose for the risk. "Gin, please..."

"No. Enough." She angrily slammed the book on the table face up, filling the room with another cool blast and the quiet yells of nonspecific creatures running into battle. "Years of being brave will mean nothing if we cannot tell the truth when it counts. I'm tired of hiding. We haven't even bothered to tell them why we lived in Vanaheim but weren't Vanir. They're bound to learn someday when something changes—who knows how this bloodline will express in years to come, Lo? Will they grow as tall as you or Thor or even more than we imagine? Have you considered the reality of how they'll handle sickness, wounds, or if they can expect to last the years we hope they will?"