Death adopts Loki’s children and makes plans to steal themselves a Prince

by RedRoseBlack118

Summary:

Death did not know what to do with the Child that had landed in Their Realm of Helheim. They may have once upon a time been the mortal Harry Potter but it had been a millennia since then and while they had watched aeons of life beginning and evolving and ending, the mortals living and fighting, creating and dying, they hadn’t actually interacted with anyone on that plane since their first run and suffice to say even the dead did not speak with Them.

Alternatively Odin banishes Hela to Helheim and everything spirals from there…

Chapter 1

Death did not know what to do with the Child that had landed in Their Realm of Helheim. They may have once upon a time been the mortal Harry Potter but it had been a millennia since then and while they had watched aeons of life beginning and evolving and ending, the mortals living and fighting, creating and dying, they hadn’t actually interacted with anyone on that plane since their first run and suffice to say even the dead did not speak with Them.

The girl blinked wide jade green eyes up at him, only a few shades off from their own emerald. She was a tiny thing, they noted, only coming up to their thighs, though they couldn’t quite recall what age a child had to be to reach said height. Maybe somewhere between three and five? they guessed absently.
Death knew who the child was of course, nothing could be hidden from them in their Realm. The dead held no secrets and though this child had not truly died, neither could anyone living truly enter their Realm. Her banishment here had come at a price.
She was half dead this child Queen of theirs. Skeletal features spanning the left side of her young body. They could see the sharp white jut of her collar bone and the empty eye socket of her skull, the slender joints of her left hand knuckles and the curvature of her ribs that held safely behind them the child’s still beating heart.
The soft thuds, abstract in the echoing silence of Their realm, enraptured them and they found themselves counting the beats of her hummingbird heart and the steady rise and fall of her lungs. She was scared, this destined queen of their Realm and yet she did a remarkable job of hiding it.
Death turned their attention to the other half of her small body. Stripped of the Allfathers Blood Glamour as she was, her colouring revealed the truth of her fathers Jotun heritage, frosty blue skin decorated in silver scar like markings, her half raven dark hair a stark contrast to the other side's silvery pale white. They were a beautiful species, the Frost Giants. Harsh and unyielding as the Ice that enveloped their realm.
The Allfather had sent this child here, the daughter of his adopted son Loki, banished to the desolate realm she was destined to rule when he realised that her fate, as dictated by the Norns, would not allow him to chain her as he had her siblings in fear of the Prophesized events of Ragnarok.
This child was theirs now, Death mused, and found themselves fond of the notion.

As Hela grew Death found themselves more and more often reminiscing on their own life as a mortal. Harry Potter had never gotten the chance to raise any children, dying as young as he had, and though they had watched over their Godchild from beyond the veil raising Hela remained a process of trial and error.
Food did not grow in the land of the dead and yet their child queen still needed to eat. Not as often or as much but vague recollections of the pains of childhood hunger had Death leaving their realm to provide for her all she could need and more. They brought back succulent fruits from the Elven markets on Alfheim and Foraged roots from the gnarled forests of Jotunheimer. They brought for her breads and pastries from Vanaheim and fresh water from the well springs of Niflheim. They visited Nidavellir, home of the Dwarves, to forge for her a Circlet made of Elder wood set with a void black stone that trailed a shimmering veil that fell like water down her back and Crowned her on their Throne. Yet still they did not step foot on Midgard or Asgard for many years.
The Queen of Helheim grew in Strength and Grace greeting the dead at her gates and offering them solace in the endless halls of her realm. She judged the souls of the guilty and placed them in Death’s hands for punishment for even now, centuries past her arrival, They would not allow that task to fall to this child of theirs. For that was what the girl had become to Death. Melting for herself a place in their heart, her every whim was their command and so, when Death felt the beginning wisps of loneliness creep into their daughter's heart like poisonous vines, they set out at last for Midgard where rumours of one of her brothers lay.

Midgard was changed from when they had known it as Earth. The world had withered and ended and begun again many times since Harry Potter’s death and the current timeline put the planet many centuries before their once date of birth.
Death visited the land where the proud halls of Hogwarts had once stood and saw only an empty glade rising above the black lake. They walked the trails of the Forbidden Forest and found themselves lost within mere steps. Wild Living magic inhabited this place and Death was not truly welcome.
They spied the sculpted shadows of Thestrals between the boughs of ivy clad trees and dipped their cowled head to the death-touched creatures before leaving at the behest of the Centaurs who spoke of signs in the stars and ripples in the waves below the land. They would not survive long in this world of man, these beings, and Death respected them all the more.
After leaving the once Forest of their youth, Death walked the snow capped mountains of the highland peaks and traversed the snaking valleys in their wake until they came across the loch they had been directed to by the Herd. Time passed quickly away from their realm and soon the mirror still surface of the lake shattered as deep in the waters below something became curious over the Being that had sat by their shores for days.

The Serpent child of Loki rose in spiralling coils from the waters of the lake to tower over Death. His long sinuous body scaled and shimmering in dappled shadows of green, brown and gold. Pale droplets of water running down his body and falling from his angled maw as he gazed with inquisitive eyes at the cloaked being that stood before him.
Long moments passed before the Serpent left the waters and when he did he stepped onto the shore on two feet, his skin that same pale Jotun blue framed by locks of dark hair and adorned with slitted amber, jade ringed, eyes. He was around the age Harry Potter had been when he’d died, Death mused absently, and had the same look of one who had grown up too fast. They mourned that they had not been able to be there for Hela’s siblings the way they had for her.
The young one sat, his body lowering sinuously even in this form, and Death joined him on the sands. They greeted Jormungandr in their shared sibilant parseltongue and, after some curious inquires from the other, began telling Jormungandr of the reason behind their visit, of Hela’s growing loneliness, and offering the World Serpent a place in Helheim to live together as family. After a long series of questions about them and his sister and her realm Jormungandr found that he could not accept.
He did not wish to leave Midgard.
Banished here as his sister had been to Helheim, Jormungandr told the immortal being Death of how had made a home in the underwater passages that spanned beneath the face of the earth where he could swim the endless tunnels and play with the vast shimmering sea life. How he still found new places to explore and that he never hurt for anything. That Midgard was full to the brim with teeming life and new experiences and, despite his long held longing for family, he could hold no desire for the Realm of the dead.
Death accepted this truth and found themselves promising to visit the young serpent who had so quickly endeared himself, becoming theirs to them in the way that only Hela had been before.
And Death listened as Jormangandr spoke, slowly at first and then with more confidence of his twin brother held hidden in the caves beneath the mountains of Asgard and offered to Death the belief that by freeing Fenrir his Sister would have what she wished.

Death stepped languidly back through the branches of Yggdrasil as they returned to their, now daughter’s, Realm of Helheim, walking as they did, not upon the hidden pathways Seidr could traverse but along the veiled ones that carried untethered souls before his daughters throne to be judged. They stopped briefly to look upon their child, their Queen, placing a cowled kiss upon her bone white hair before slipping through the only path in the realm of the dead that led to Valhalla’s halls on Asgard where undead warriors boasted and japed as they walked. The Allfather may control all entry to his Golden Realm via the bifrost, guarded as it was by Heimdall, but he had left easy access to Valhalla from Helheim for his fallen warriors to feast ever more in his golden halls and not even the Gatekeepers All Seeing eyes could look upon Them.
Death slipped silent and unseen as a shadow through the twists and turns of Odin’s Palace. They could hear the echoes of revelry and Death found themselves following along after the sound almost absentmindedly. Passing through golden hallways lined with arched windows from which glimpses of Asgards opulent majesty were framed by washes of pale nebula and brilliant stars. The sound of rushing water filling the air as it fell from the edges of the realm down, down into the nothingness below.

Death stepped through a grand ornate doorway and hovered unseen at the edges of the glittering ballroom, eyes enraptured by the sight of the younger prince flowing gracefully between dances. Loki shared many traits with his children, high cheekbones, jade eyes, sleek raven hair… and yet there was a sharp, jaggedness to him, one that Their children did not possess even with the years of exile they endured, separated from their kin. A mask of arrogant boredom sat easily upon his face that hid the hollow look in his eyes, even surrounded as he was by vibrant pulsing life.
But even still the Prince was not broken, never broken, there was a spark to him, an air of mischief and chaos and strife, and Death knew that all those who had hurt him, all who had taken from him would pay most dearly in time. Their undead heart seemed to pulse at the thought and Death found themselves contemplating over stealing away with the Prince as well as his wolven son.
Surely having birthed Their daughter and newly found son made Loki Theirs too. A Consort perhaps, Death mused, fast becoming fond of the idea. Yes the Prince was most assuredly Theirs but they couldn’t steal away with him just yet. The children had to come first. ‘I’ll return for you.’ Death found themselves silently promising the God of Chaos and Fire and, as they turned to leave, they did not see the glinting jade eyes that trailed curiously over their shadow cloaked back.

The Mountains of Asgard spanned the farthest edges of the Realm, towering over the Golden Palace of Valaskjalf and even the smallest of the peaks dwarfed those that rose upon Midgard. Death traversed the sharp inclines taking care as they did to not let their steps deaden the land. It would not do for them to leave traces of themselves where the All Seeing one could so easily glimpse them.
They tracked the altered essence of Loki’s soul that they could so easily sense now, after seeing his brilliance in the ballroom. Loki’s soul had been vibrant in shadowed gold and emerald greens, swirling with traces of frost and fire that spiralled over its surface. A contradiction of his magic and his blood. There were remnants of it that they’d witnessed passed to his children with Hela’s gold and black frosted soul, and Jormanganders rich greens and molton yellows. The Soul they traced now, Fenrir’s, was all wild green fires and flashing icy teeth. They were each of them beautiful and each of them Theirs. Their consort, Their children. Death would free Fenrir from his shackles and their daughter from her loneliness. They would continue to visit Jormungandr on Midgard and, when the time was right, they would take Loki from these Golden Halls and have him for themselves.

When Death spoke of freeing Fenrir from his shackles they had been mostly metaphorical musings, Jormangadr and Hela’s prisons after all had simply been banishments to other realms.
Yet as they stepped into the cave, bypassing with ease the spells of binding Odin had placed across the entrance that prevented any and all from entering or leaving, they came across the large, still form of a great black wolf.
Fenrir’s body was held tight, bound in dwarven chains forged from dwarven magic upon Nidavellir. An iron sword was pinned through their soon to be child’s great maw and, as Death stepped closer, glared at all the while by narrowed red eyes, they were witness to the blood that still sluggishly seeped from the centuries old wound that would not heal. So easily torn open, again and again, with every shuddering breath the Great Wolf took.
Death had never truly given much thought to the Allfather in the past but for the pain Odin had brought upon their children and their chosen he would find no peace in death. The Allfather had best pray for a long, long life for when it reached its end They would be waiting to take possession of Odin's soul… and they would be merciless.
Cooing softly under their breath in a way they never had before, not even with a young, lost and banished Hela, Death attempted to calm the pained rage of their son and still they gained eternal scars upon their soul as they reached inside his maw to pull the great sword free from flesh and tongue and stone.
Death did not feel pain and wounds did not write themselves upon their body but still their hooded voice trailed off. Harm inflicted upon them at the roaring echoes of anguished pain that ripped free from their child’s throat.
Death did not wait for anyone to come running at the sound that surely shook Asgard to its foundations. Fenrir had passed out from the pain and Death wasted no time opening a portal to Helheim beneath their feet. There was no hiding their presence now. There were very few that could cross into Odin's realm unnoticed and fewer still that could have slipped unseen through the multitude of layered spells that bound, hid and guarded Fenrir’s cage.
Besides, Death no longer wished to hide their part in this. Let Odin know the prophesized harbingers of Ragnarok were free and in the hands of the only being the Allfather could not take them from. Death would have to visit Jormungandr sooner than they’d perhaps planned. It would be necessary to safeguard the serpent from Odin’s gatekeeper's sights. But first they had to settle Fenrir into Helheim's palace. Death hoped their daughter would be pleased.

Hela had been very pleased, her mood rising from its former dark loneliness at the bright presence of her brother.
Fenrir too, improved in leaps and bounds, enjoying his newly gained freedom to run wild across the barren planes and skeletal forests of his sister's realm. Fenrir thrived in Helheim and Death offered their newest son the duty their daughter had not held the temperament for and so the great wolf spent his days gleefully chasing and hunting and punishing the souls judged guilty by his queenly sister and his nights playing with the ghostly children, receiving love and fond grooming from the tiny hands of the few souls not truly touched by life’s cruelties. Their ends having come far too soon.
Death found themselves pleased by the sight of joy the spirited wolf brought to these young souls even as they passed swiftly like flickering candlelights through Hela’s realm to be reborn upon the branches of Yggdrasil.
Too Death found themselves pleased by the plethora of new emotions that began gracing their daughter's face at the antic’s of her brother. Frustration and anger when Fenrir’s giant form would bound about her throne room, disrupting her proceedings, laughter and fondness when his large tail would wag in sudden madness at the sight of the red ball Death had brought back from one of their visits to Midgard and Jormungandr. The World Serpent sporting a rare mischievous glint in his eyes, reminiscent of his absent father, as he handed Death the gift for his brother.
Their daughter cried and her tears were not from pain but fell from jade eyes and hollow sockets in the form of joy and relief when Fenrir shed his wolven form for the first time in centuries to reveal the boy beneath.

Death found themselves over the years tracing and retracing the features of Their children, the dark ravenwing hair, the tall slender build and high defined cheekbones. Fenrir had bright mismatched eyes, one the flickering jade green of his siblings and father, the other a deep bloody hue of jotun red. His skin shone in the same shades of pale frosty blue, though his silver scarlike markings differed in pattern, more swirls and spirals, than the sharp edges his sister held that mimicked her skeletal other half or the unique flowing patterns that adorned his serpent twin's jotun form.
Their youngest son was beautiful in a feral way, Death mused, with his long wild locks and sharp cutting features and flashing white fangs. His red-green eyes, piercing and proud, Fenrir was fierce wildness and mischievous joy to Hela’s kind grace and willful intelligence. Both balanced well by their Jormangandr’s playful wisdom and inquisitive nature.
It made Death ponder often and wistfully about their children's father. Their own chosen. The Gold Green souled Golding they sought to court. At the glimpses of Loki’s nature they’d gained insight into when seeing the jotun asgardian prince those decades past in the glittering ballroom of Asgard’s halls when they’d visited that gaudy realm to free Their son from chains.
Death knew that the time was nearly upon them where they could take for themselves their consort and return him to their children. But soon was not yet and Death was patient, they could wait.

Loki arrived on Midgard with a flash of the Space Stone’s unharnessed energy, bewitched by the Mind Stone's twisted power and Death raised their head in joy and anger and satisfaction. The time had come and this newest person to harm their consort, this Titan who wanted Death for their own would finally gain their unending notice and, away from Asgard’s Golden watch, Death would be free to take Loki as their own.
Hela glanced up upon her Guardian’s distraction and gave a small smile of pleasure upon realising what had so thoroughly captured Their attention. Looking to her brother, who lounged gracelessly in his wolven form in place beside her throne, she felt her smile stretch wide, giddy. And as Fenrir grinned up at her with flashing fangs and gleaming red eyes she sat straighter upon her eternal throne and gazed upon her kingdom of fallen souls.
Their father was coming home.

Notes:

17/05/25
It’s happening!!! My brain has locked on, my energy levels are being accommodating and in the past few days I’ve cranked out almost 2000 words for a second and most likely final chapter. No way of telling when it’ll be finished or how long it’ll be before it gets posted but it’s on its way..!
Thank you to everyone who commented and inspired me to pick this story back up. I’m having a blast writing for it again and hope to get it out for you soonish.

Chapter 2

Summary:

Hela, Fenrir, Jormungadr and Loki’s stories.
A mirror to Death’s own tale.

Notes:

I’ve decided to post what I already have written, it will mean finishing this story off in a third and (hopefully) final chapter but I feel I’ve kept you waiting long enough for more and that the story will work itself out better this way.

Thank you for your patience and support, I hope you enjoy this peek into the other characters minds and the minute build up from the where the last part left off.

Hela Lokisdottir, child of the Liesmith and daughter of Death, had been Queen of her own Realm, the Ruler of Helheim for far longer than she was ever a Princess of Asgard. Had looked to Death for guidance on more occasions than she ever had the chance to seek out her sire and yet still the longing for Loki and the home he had once raised her in, between the golden court and the gilded politics of Asgard, had persisted. The memories may have faded with age but her love for him burned just as brightly as the day she had been stolen from him, ripped from his arms as her brothers had been when they were just babes. But she would have him again. Him and her elder brothers both. And this time it would be without the scheming and the looming betrayals of kin. She would have it all. Her Guardian would not deny her anything less than her every whim. It had been that way since she first lay eyes on the towering shadowed figure that loomed above her after her fall. She had taken his skeletal hand in her own and had known, instinctively, that he was her safety in this barren and unknown realm.
And then he had crowned her and made her his Queen and she had known he would do anything for her, just as her father had before. Death was her Guardian, her Watcher, Hers.
When she hungered Death left the only home they had known for millennia close to eternity and bought for her food from all Nine of the Realms and when she grew bored Death took her there Themselves showing her all the realms whose dead she would watch over as They created for her first games, then schemes, then chaos. All of it concealing lessons learned, all of it for her perusal and gain. All that Death could offer was hers.
And when, after years, decades, centuries of just the two of them she yearned for more Death freed her elder brothers from their long languished prisons and returned them to her in the form of gifts and letters from Jormungandr upon Midgard and in Fenrir Death gave her his very presence in her Realm. As her right hand, her protector, her most treasured and most loyal.
Death gave to her all she ever wanted, her every petty or profound desire and still it was not enough to fill that ache, that tiny seed of void where her father had once resided in her life, her soul, her seidr. She knew her Guardian craved for him too. That Death had glimpsed Loki’s soul in Asgards Halls and yearned for him ever since. Her father and her Guardian together in her Realm, their home. It was her deepest wish fulfilled. And it was finally coming true.

Fenrir grew up in chains, pulled from his sires' breast before he ever knew more than the matching green of his fathers eyes, or the matching tiny hand pulled fast from his own. Only that some essential part of him was gone and that he was alone. That his tiny pale body had changed forms in his fear; coarse fur replacing supple skin, sharp fangs growing from naked gums, blunt fingers into claw tipped paws and piercing cries into echoing howls. He would not turn back for centuries and no Aesir would care to remember the babe he had been before the Beast.
The Wolf grew fast outgrowing chain after chain, each stronger than the last, fangs flashing, body hulking, teeth bared, as he worked his way out of each new prison, each new trick, first the tunnels, then the cage, then the golden guarded city itself, until finally a council was called and Odin turned to the Dwarves of Nidavlr who in turn fashioned an unbreakable chain forged from the magicks of six impossible things; the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear, the beard of a woman; the sound of a cat's footfall, the breath of a fish and the spit of a bird.
They brought these dwarven forged chains to the lair of Fenrir who had fled into the largest cavern deep within the mountains of Asgard and there they played their final trick.
The Great Wolf, cocky in his many escapes, agreed to let them try these new chains, for surely none could hold him. In all the Aesir’s many attempts to chain him they had revealed to him the truth of his self. He was a threat. They could not hold him and that was why they tried. He was more powerful than them and they feared him for it. This, these chains, was how they felt safe. Still Fenrir was impulsive and brash but not unwary. He was free for the first time in his life and would not go back into chains so easy. He did not trust his jailers and only agreed to allow them to place the chains if one of them placed their hand in his fanged maw. If he could not break free he would rip the limb clean off. And so it began.
Odin ordered the chains placed and Tyr stepped up in a show of bravado and pride offering easily his own hand for the taking, for what a story he could soon boast of having trapped and tricked the Tricksters son, and when the chains held no matter how Fenrir threw his hulking form or twisted his furred body, the great wolf snarled, his fangs flashing red with blood as he tore the hand from its socket. The taste resting hot and heavy as iron on his tongue.
In the dark of that next night chains tearing into the skin beneath his fur, an iron sword shoved through his lower jaw and stuck tight in the stone beneath as retribution from Tyr. As each breath bubbled up blood wet and sticky with choking pain, Fenrir recalled, in faint, fading glimpses of memory, that weak mewling form he had held in those first brief moments of life. That small weak body with furless skin and fangless gums and blunt useless fingers. It had not felt safe to be so defenceless but perhaps that small selfsame body could slip from these impossible chains where it’s own greater form could not. Yet no matter how hard he tried to recall the sight of those faint green eyes or the fading feel of another's tiny fingers held in his own, Fenrir’s form did not, could not, change. These chains were Dwarven forged with dwarven magicks and there would be no escape. Not until Death came and the Wolf itself had long forgotten it was anything but a Beast.

When the World Serpent first met Death on his banks he denied the Beings request. Though he listened to Death’s every promise he could not agree to leave his home that spanned the waterways beneath the world and with some subtle and not so subtle probing he came to offer his twin in his place. Holding out hope that even Death’s barren Realm and the half life there within would outshine Asgards golden cage.
When Death returned so soon after Their leaving, Jormungandr could admit to surprise. The feeling however did not last long, quickly replaced by a simmering coil of silent rage as Death coldly and meticulously spoke of Fenrir’s brutal imprisonment. Worse than anything Jormungandr could have imagined even knowing that his twin was held in the same Realm as the one eyed monster who had torn them both from their sire’s breast and later offered falsely given years of cruel pointless hope before stealing their sister from Loki too.
And yet Death continued to visit him, each time opening with that same offer that Their home in Helheim was his home too, that he could change his mind at any time and always be welcome. Still no matter the grief and longing that filled the serpent at the stories of his siblings growing bonds, or the gifts and letters that were exchanged more and more frequently as time past and the distance of the bonds between them closed, Jormungandr kept to that self same answer he had given that first time Death waited upon his banks. No matter the desire he held for a family that was only tangentially fulfilled by the letters exchanged and sparse visits of Death upon his bank, Jormungandr could not bring himself to leave the life on this plane for the death that his sister's realm would offer.
Death had only brought their siblings to visit their bank once and he knew decades of pleading and puppy eyes and bargaining must have occurred for Death to take the risk this posed to them all. If Odin found out that Jormangdr still resided below Midgard’s water and not under the rule of his younger sister in the safety of her untouchable realm of Helheim there was no telling what the Allfather might do and though he knew Death would raise the Nine Realms in search of him the damage to all those the Being held as their own would have already been had.
That first and only time Death had brought their siblings along with them Jormungandr could not take his eyes from Fenrir. Stood in their shared Jotun form his brother was almost his mirror, only broader and slightly less tall, graced with those fierce mismatched eyes. A black fur mantle lay draped across Fenrir’s wide shoulders, a necklace of broken links resting against his bare chest weighed down only by a purple stone that harmonised against the void one set into their sister's Elder wood crown.
His queenly sister had caught his eye too, how could she not with the skeletal figure that spanned the left half of her jotun body. She was ethereal their younger sister, everything he imagined a queen should be, stately and regal and kind. Jormungandr watched the way Death never took their eyes from her even as they flickered intermittently between him and Fenrir and their surroundings. She was Death's first, Jormungandr realised. The first creature the Being had perhaps ever truly loved and he could only be grateful that in her innocence and her charm their sister had gained for them the protection their Sire had been unable to obtain. That after years of being chained and disdained never knowing when a worse punishment for the simple act of their birth might arrive they were truly and unequivocally safe in this Being's arms.
By the end of their visit Fenrir and Jormangadr had returned to their beastly forms and as Death moved to take Hela and Fenrir’s hands to return them to their shared home it was all Jormungandr could do not to rush forwards into the safety Death offered, but the moment the great wolf’s fur shifted revealing the stark white bones held beneath that so eerily mirrored their little sister’s skeletal half, the World Serpent halted the unconscious movement he had made towards them and slipped silently back beneath the waters of his world. Midgard was full of teeming life and he was not ready to leave it behind for death. Not yet.

Loki’s first children had been torn from him moments after their birth, his twins, his light. His Fenrir and Jormungandr. Loki had long held the moniker the Liesmith and yet even his brother refused to believe he had birthed anything other than Beasts that deserved the banishment and chains. His children had been so scared their magic instinctive in its shape shifting as they took on fiercer forms to protect themselves. They had both been so beautiful. Fenrir with his fur and fangs and mismatched eyes. Jormungandr with his coiled body and shimmering scales. They were his and they were gone. Loki felt a part of himself break, a void in his soul and in his Seidr. He would never forgive his father this agony.
He was with child again. He could feel it. The light of another within his womb. Mother had felt it too. She spoke the words of prophecy and his heart broke at the realisation of why Odin had taken his twins from him and just how he had known to. Ragnarok. The end of all things. His children, his lights. The prophesied destroyers of Asgard. But Loki didn’t care, couldn’t. Fenrir and Jormungandr and this new tiny light growing safe inside him were his entire world. They were all that truly mattered beneath the icy exterior of his being. How could any of the Nine Realms hold a candle to his children. Loki had no way of returning to his twins, bound as he had been in his weakened state by the magics of Asgard’s throne to never seek them out, but he would not lose this child. Not again.
She was beautiful, his daughter, and Thor was there for the birth. His oaf of a brother adored his new niece and Odin could not so easily take her as he had the twins. Not when Thor had been so quick to boast to all of Asgard's newest Princess. Hela, Loki named her and all was bright for the first time in decades. Nothing could erase the loss of his boys but his little girl, his dottir, was so bright, so precious, so clearly his from the raven black of her hair to the jade green of her eyes. She was beautiful and he loved her with everything he was. Still he should have known. Nothing good ever truly lasts for him and on his daughter's fourth name day his mother gave another vision. Hela would be Queen of barren plains and fallen souls. The Allfather had his excuse and once more a child was ripped from Loki’s arms and banished from Asgard halls. It took Thor to hold him down, Mjolnir resting upon his chest an easy excuse for the choking way his breaths halted and stuttered. He had endured the scorn and whispers of those beneath him and held himself above it for too long to allow himself to break in front of Asgard's courts.
Loki did not scream as his daughter was taken. No matter the desire too. He did not cry nor did he howl in maddened grief as he had when his sons were torn from his breasts. He would not allow them the satisfaction of seeing him break. By the time he was alone his magic, in a desperate bid to keep him from breaking, had seeped into his mind obscuring the memories of his daughter from waking thought. He did not cry at all. He felt nothing. Only the cold calculative desire to take everything Thor and Odin loved from them and watch as they broke beneath the weight of that loss. Still he could not bring himself to wish the same upon his mother, for though she had spoken the words into being that had taken his light from him she was the only one who had ever loved him truly without once faltering. She still held his loyalty.
The plan had come into being in a single moment. Thor had lost his crown, his father’s esteem and his place in Asgard. Odin had lost his heir, his precious son. The blow to his pride had sent him into an early Odin's sleep. Still Loki couldn’t have predicted that his mother would crown him. It was everything he had used to dream of as a child when Odin had made them both believe they could be king and everything he had despised since his light was lost. Still the joy of getting to send the destroyer after the warriors three when they turned traitor to the crown and fled Asgard in search of the exiled prince was a boon that helped take his mind off the reveal of the truth of his heritage. No wonder he had never been worthy of Odin’s esteem. A Frost Giant could never sit the golden throne. Loki wondered briefly if he would still hold his light beside him if Odin hadn’t stolen him from the war torn Jotunheim or if his children too would have been left out to die in the cold as runts. The plan had always been to leave once his revenge had taken place but Loki found himself adding one last trick to his grand finale. Either Laufey would succeed in getting into the palace and killing Odin or he wouldn’t. He’d leave that line of ambiguity for his mother, the war bride who had truly come to love her husband and for Thor who had once been his brother in truth. Either way Loki didn’t much care, the Frost Giant King would be unable to leave without his aid and he would be long gone. The endgame had always been to join his children in death for Loki could recall with startling clarity the feeling of voidless eyes on his back as he danced the day his son had broken his chains. He remembered the way his magic had twitched under his skin, curious but not threatened by the Being that gazed at his soul as it echoed to him feelings of want and desire and possession. He remembered the curiosity that had driven him near mad until his questions had been unwittingly answered by an overheard argument between the Allfather and his Gatekeeper. Death had taken his sons, both Fenrir and Jormangadr, beyond Heimdall’s gaze. His boys were together with their sister within her realm and Loki had every intention of joining them.
Only when he fell it was not Death's hands that caught him. The Mad Titan was a monster of an entirely different breed.

Notes:

17/05/25
It’s happening!!! My brain has locked on, my energy levels are being accommodating and in the past few days I’ve cranked out almost 2000 words for a second and most likely final chapter. No way of telling when it’ll be finished or how long it’ll be before it gets posted but it’s on its way..!
Thank you to everyone who commented and inspired me to pick this story back up. I’m having a blast writing for it again and hope to get it out for you soonish.