Spaces Between

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•CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE•
Team Frigga
(ASGARD)

Frigga wrung her hands together in front of herself, mindlessly picking at the skin of her palms.  The heaviness sitting on her chest from her restricted magic seemed to drain the air from her lungs, but she continued pacing.  Her long, honey gold hair had long since fallen from it's intricate  up-do, and Frigga—too distracted and anxious—allowed it to fall like a mourning veil around her face. 

It had been centuries since she had stepped foot out of the realm Eternal.  She had not traveled among the rest of the Nine Realms since she was a young Goddess. Before she was married—before she was Queen. Back when she would have been content to travel to whatever lands far beyond to learn and study as much magic as she'd wish.

She knew Midgard had changed. Frigga knew that much by meeting the group Thor had came to befriend—but what of it's values? It's morals? Did the humans still study magic and call it science? Perhaps she should had spend more of her time with Lorien, learning just how much Midgard had changed.

Lorien, Frigga thought. She hoped safety on the young girl. Frigga had come to think of her as her own—as she would have had she been allowed to raise her herself. She loved all of her children to the depths of her very soul, and she extended that to Lorien. Had her husband not...

A tear slipped down Frigga's cheek.

The Queen hadn't let herself cry. She had adorned her mourning gown and tried to control the shaking of her slender fingers—but she did not allow herself to loose tears. It was the only way she could force herself to remain standing.

Finally, something inside her broke.

A ragged sob escaped her parted lips and she crumbled to her bed. She pushed her hand into her stomach, covering her mouth with the other. Her ears rang in the silence, only her cries breaking through the stillness of her room. Her heart ached for what she had lost.

She did not know where either of her sons were, where on Midgard her daughter was—she did not even know what Alder's men had done with her husband's body.

Frigga squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop trembling.

A soft hum sounded from somewhere in her room. Frigga did not raise her head to look, she had sunken into herself.

"Mother?"

He is not real.

The first and only thought that crossed through Frigga's head as she looked upon her youngest son—he is not real.

Then she was pulling herself up to her feet and crossing her room. Loki met her half way, Frigga cupping his face between her hands. He was there. This is real.

He is real.

~*~

Lorien didn't enjoy getting beat up by Natasha, then Steve, Clint, and even whoever the heck the annoying but relatively funny Sam Wilson was—at least not until it got her mind off the mess she was in.  The bruises and sore muscles hurt less than thinking about how she would feel if Loki died.

Several days had past since her near panic attack in her bathroom and since she had fallen asleep on Käro. Neither of them had spoken of the ordeal to anyone but themselves. Lorien knew that the others had noticed her change in behavior—and a few of them had attempted to talk to her about it—but she didn't want them always worrying about her. And Käro respected that she didn't want the others to know what they had talked about.  Not even Alrekr and Tove were able to get a word out of her about it.