Page 6 of The Goddess is Fierce
That made sense. Freya knew Odin much better than I did. Loki and Odin made their peace and Sleipnir had forgiven him for keeping him as a pet, but they both preferred to live in the present than the past, so they didn’t talk about that time very much.
“So, I just need to kiss Muninn and I’ll be fixed?” Baldur asked.
“Probably not. Muninn is older than you. She’s known you since you were a baby. She might find that inappropriate. Muninn always kissedmebecause I was an adult when I met her and I think she was a little mad because I turned down a threesome with her and Huginn back in the day because they weren’t my type. I think I hurt both their feelings because I’d literally just traded an orgy with the dwarves for a really pretty necklace, but they weren’t my type.”
“Back then, nearly everyone wanted Freya. She had the looks, the power, and the personality. Freya broke a lot of hearts.Ididn’t want her like that because I love Frigg, but I’m afraid Huginn and Muninn had a little crush,” Odin said, strolling in from the kitchen.
“Now, where is my son?”
baldur
. . .
Ihad been searching for these answers for so long, but now that I had them, I wasn’t sure I was ready for them. I guess I should have known my parents would be out there somewhere since I’d been alive this long without ever aging. Being a godnevercrossed my mind, so I just assumed they were dead like everyone else I’d met.
But that was my father standing in front of me with tears in his eye. I just stared, trying to see what we had in common. We were both insanely tall, but we didn’t look alike at all. He had a long beard he kept in a neat braid and I preferred to be clean shaven, but he was also dark-haired with olive skin and I wasvery blond with tan skin. The only thing we had in common were our eyes and every single god in this room had silver eyes.
“I missed you, boy. You’ve been gone so long; I’ve almost forgotten how much you look like your mother.”
That answered that, but I couldn’t remember her either. I didn’t read much on Baldur when I was trying to figure out if a god had created me and spectacularly fucked up, but I knew I had brothers, too.
“I’m sorry. I can’t rememberanything.I feel drawn to you and Freya, but I couldn’t tell you why.”
“That’s easily fixable. Huginn and Muninn are on a walkabout in a different realm. You don’t remember, but I did that a lot. It was always refreshing, enlightening, and I always learned something new. They’ll be traveling in raven form and might only shift if they are comfortable where they are. I sent them a message, but when it’s traveling across realms like this, it takes a few days to get to them.
“They’ll come right away when they get it. They prefer being ravens for the most part because they think gods and mortals are annoying, but you were always different. They loved to shift and tell you stories when you were a baby. You were the most loved out of all of us.”
Freya said that, too. Loki still murdered me. I probably knew more about why he did that now than I did before, but I still didn’t understand it because I didn’t remember what kind of relationship I had with Loki before all this.
I didn’t remember anything about Odin, but he knew me. He’d sired and raised me. He must have been able to read me, even now.
“Loki loved you, too. He’s always been brilliant in a way that scared the rest of us because he’s a trickster. We never held it against him that he was born from the giants because they shunned him and he was never as violent as they were. He snuckback to the realm he was born on and took up with a particularly violent giant.
“Angrboda treated him like garbage, but she was his first love and he thought he was rebelling against both his families. We didn’t know she bore him three children until she got tired of them and dumped them on Asgard for him to care for.
“Loki adored those kids and I’m not proud of this, but we let our dislike of giants get the better of us. We were worried Loki’s intelligence and Angrboda’s violence paired with the magic those kids were given were going to end up destroying our realm.
“Westruck first and killed his kids. If Loki had gotten his revenge by going after someone who directly hurt his kids, we would have understood eventually. He never usually resorted to violence. Not when he could fuck someone up without it.
“Loki’s mind doesn’t work like that. He was hurt, and he wanted everyone to feel what he was feeling. At the time, he didn’t know you were the one who tried to talk everyone out of hurting those kids. Loki knew hurting you would devastate all of Asgard the way he was devastated, so he bided his time until he could make it happen.
“And honestly, we made it easy for him. You’ve always had a touch of foresight. Your mom freaked out when you told her you had been dreaming about your death, so we were the ones who found out your weakness for him. It was a completely different time, and youhatedthe game we played where we threw things at you to prove they wouldn’t hurt you. It gave him the opening to use the mistletoe on you.Noneof this would have happened to you if not for your family. Loki would have had no reason. Loki hated killing as much as you did. Loki was the one who engineered your death, but it was our fault he did it. I’m so sorry. I’ve waited all this time to apologize.”
The stories I’d read about that went a little differently and they all said Loki killed Baldur because he was just a bad person. Honestly, none of this meant anything until I couldremember.
“The lion had a theory and I think he’s spot on,” Freya said. “Baldur’s magic is missing because he can’t remember he’s supposed to have it. We don’t even know half of what we are capable of. Any time we’ve tried to learn and press those limits, we’ve generally learned there are none. I didn’t start remembering until I got my magic when I was in mortal bodies. It makes a lot of sense.”
“You came up with that?” Azren asked. “It’s actually brilliant. You probably should have been a student here.”
The lion just smirked.
“I’m allergic to authority and homework, but thanks.”
“I’m going to need someone to babysit me until Muninn can get my memories back. Someone capable of stopping me if I have a blackout and want to murder a witch.”
Just then, there was a knock on the door and Azren let Gabriel Morningstar in. I’d always liked him. He had a kind word for me most days and after I found out he was George and Matilda’s dad, I wasn’t all that shocked.
The potions lab and the Dark Arts theatre were the worst classrooms to clean up, and I’d been doing it under several different professors. They got pretty gross from the exploding potions and the blood and gore from Dark Magic.Someprofessors ended their classes a little early and had the students clean up their mistakes. Others just left it for me and the rest of maintenance to clean up.
