Tabula Rasa (Unlike Loki: Book Two)

Chapter 94

(Loki) MUCH, MUCH LATER

Today was the day I had been dreading for years: the day Anna left me. 

For good. 

Just like I expected her to, she lived a long and hopefully happy life. She was well over 100 years old by the time she died. And still has beautiful as the day I met her. For me, a century was a blink of an eye, but for her, it had literally been her one and only life. It was not the life we had expected to spend together, but it ended up being the perfect life. The only thing I wish I could change about it all would be to have more time. I had spent most of my time loving her, trying to make her smile, learn everything about her, tell her everything about me, teach her stories of Asgard, and listen to stories of Midgard. I didn't waste a moment of our limited time together.

So, was it selfish to wish for still more time?

Our reign together had been the Golden Ages of Asgard. She had been a powerful Queen and a compassionate one. Everyone loved her, respected her, and listened to her. She became an ambassador, a warrior, and a friend. She opened up a place where young girls could go and learn how to defend themselves, as that was not a normal Asgardian custom, and Anna had been the teacher. She spent time getting to know the people and I was always amazed at how many of their names she remembered. There was rarely a day when I didn't see her happy and smiling.

And even as she aged, she was still the apple of my eye and the diamond in my heart. When she got into her fourties, she slowly became embarrassed when I looked at her. But she was still beautiful and she always would be. And I made sure to let her know it. Even when we stopped finding new places to make love, I still took care of her. And I loved her just the same. I made sure she took her medicines when she got into her 50s and 60s, and I pushed her around in a wheelchair when she got into her late 80s. I was almost always at her side. I was only ever sad as she aged, not because she grew old, but because her aging meant that she was one day closer to leaving me behind. 

Her hair grew white as she got older and her face grew wrinkles, first around her eyes and mouth, and then the rest of her. Over those first few decades we were married, she gave birth to a set of beautiful children, the descendents of a very interesting and complicated bloodline. And even though Anna had lost her powers and her long life span, all of our children were gifted with abilties and my extended years. 

Hela and Eistein grew up together, never leaving each other's sides. They knew they were cousins and both of them knew that they were in line for their respective thrones, though they were not obligated to take them. They reminded me of Thor and I when we were younger, but they got a long better than we had. Not long after Hela and Eistein had turned one, Anna found out she was with child again. When the boy was born, we were told that he had traces of wolf blood in his system. I remember Anna looking at the doctor and saying, "How does that even happen?" But we had been told that our blood produced quite the magical mix. So we named the boy Fenrir, and from the moment he could run, he could also shapeshift into a wolf. We were quite the family even at that point. And the children liked to compare whose powers were 'cooler' as they got older.

We were careful to take a break from producing offspring, not because we didn't want more children, but because they were such a handful. Those first few years were full of being scared by ghosts, slipping on ice, and chasing down a wolf pup. But we finally decided to take on another challenge, and because of our luck, we were awarded twins. And as we believed in naming our children with a name that fit them, we named the boy Narvi, as it meant 'narrow'. Anna had had an extremely easy birth with him, so we gave him a name to symbolize that. Then, the other twin, also a boy, we named Vali. He had been extremely small, and we wanted to give him a strong name, one that meant 'valiant leader'. Three years younger than Fenrir, the twins never hesitated to keep up. Though their powers weren't nearly as extreme as the other children, they had picked up one of my bad habits: mischief. And I must say (secretly), that they did a pretty damn good job of it.