Jotunheim

965 A.D.

The small family huddled in the corner of their stone cell. The woman, an Asgardian, held her child to her breast to protect it from the cold, shivering herself. The man, a Jotunn, wrapped his arms around them both, wishing his blue skin let off more heat for them.

"What do you think will become of us when they arrive?" the woman asked, stroking the sleeping child's cheek.

"I cannot say," the man replied. "Perhaps we will not live to find out."

The woman looked up at him, defiance in her eyes. "Aryka will," she said. "Whatever happens to us, she will live. I will make certain of it."

The man nodded, his expression pained, and silence fell as the woman clutched her daughter to her chest once more.

"Eir," the man began hesitantly, and she looked up at him. "Do you ever..regret this?"

Her eyes softened, and she reached up to cup his cheek with her hand. "I regret only that our two worlds aren't ready to accept us yet." She glanced down at their daughter. "Perhaps she will live to see a more compassionate time."

A sad smile flickered across his face, and he planted a kiss atop her wavy, red hair. "I love you," he murmured.

"I love you too," she replied, lifting her chin to kiss him.

The sound of stone grating on stone echoed through their prison, and the head of a Jotunn appeared in the hole far above their heads that served as the entrance and exit to the prison.

"King Laufey summons you," his gruff voice said, then his head vanished and a rope ladder stiff with frost clattered down to them.

The man and woman locked eyes for a moment, red and hazel, and he squeezed her close one last time. Then they got to their feet, Aryka murmuring and squirming in her sleep as her mother shifted her, and stepped to the rope ladder.

"Time to wake up, love," the woman said to her daughter, stroking her cheek. Bleary amber eyes opened, and a small fist lifted to rub them, mouth opening in a yawn. The woman looked into the open, guileless face of her daughter, chin trembling with unshed tears. Knowing this might be the last time she ever held her daughter was almost more than she could bear.

"Quickly," the voice ordered from above.

The woman and man looked to each other, and then she began climbing, bearing Aryka in the crook of her arm. The man followed. As the woman reached the top, she found a circle of Jotunn guards, each holding a spear. One grabbed her roughly by the arm while another took ahold of Aryka, who started screaming.

"No, please!" the woman shrieked as her daughter was torn from her arms. The Jotunn who had seized her threw her roughly to the ground.

"Silence, Asgardian whore," he growled.

The man reached the top and lunged for the Jotunn holding Aryka.

"Give me my daughter back!"

Two Jotunns seized him by the upper arms and another jabbed him in the belly with the butt of his spear. The man bent over, groaning in pain. The woman was hauled to her feet, and they were marched over the frozen stone to the temple. The woman stumbled as she looked back for her daughter, her bare feet numb with the cold, and the Jotunn pulled her roughly up.

The small family was forced up the temple steps to the central altar, where a squirming baby already lay. The Jotunn guards pushed the couple to their knees and laid Aryka on the altar alongside the smaller Jotunn child.

Laufey stood before them, arms raised. "Today we purify our race by sacrifice in preparation for the Asgardian attack," he intoned. "First the traitor Thiazi and his Asgardian whore die." The two high priests on either side of him stepped forward, brandishing stone knives, and approached the family. The woman writhed against the hands that held her fast and spat at Laufey. The man reached for her hand and gripped it tightly, their eyes meeting one last time. The priests raised the knives and stabbed them into their victims' stomachs in unison. Their bodies crumpled to the ground, blood spilling from them over the ice-cold stone, blue and red.

At that very moment, the sound of the Bifrost opening ripped through the frigid air. Laufey whirled around to see Odin Allfather at the head of a golden army of Asgardians.

Growling in rage, he stepped off the dais. "I'll finish this myself. Go! Go crush the Asgardian scum!" The guards, brandishing spears, let out a war cry and rushed off to defend their home as Laufey snatched the knife from one of the priests, who stood still, heads bowed. "You too! Go!" he shouted, shoving them away. Stumbling, they turned tail and ran towards the approaching army.

Laufey approached the altar, where his disgrace of a son and the bastard child lay.

"The sacrifice of your lives will bring us victory today," he whispered. "And victory in the years to come."

With one blue, scarred hand, he held the girl child down and raised the knife above his head.

"No…" he heard a weak cry from the ground, and looked down to see that the woman was still alive, her trembling hand reaching for her daughter. He kicked her hand aside, knowing that time and blood loss would finish her sooner or later, and slashed the child across the throat. The woman let out a broken scream that was choked by the gurgling blood rising in her throat as she watched her daughters blood spill onto the stone.

"Laufey!" Odin's booming voice rang out through the temple. "This has gone far enough."

Laufey turned on the Allfather, who stood at the entrance, gold armor splattered with blood. The blood of his people.

Behind Laufey, the woman, drenched in her own blood, dragged herself toward the altar.

"Surrender now, and I will leave you to rebuild in peace," Odin said.

"Never," Laufey spat, and ran at the Allfather, seizing the casket from its pillar and unleashing a blast of ice on him.

The woman, breath hitching with pain, reached trembling fingers up and clutched the edge of the altar, pulling herself to sit upright.

Odin leveled his staff and blocked the ice with a beam of golden energy. Laufey leaped over the spikes of ice to land behind the Allfather and unleashed the casket once more, knocking Odin back.

The woman, her face pale and sweaty, at last managed to brush her daughter's hair with her fingers. Reaching with all her might, she grasped Aryka's shoulders and lifted her from the altar and into her lap.

As Laufey bore down on Odin, raising the knife to deliver the killing blow, Odin swung his staff and knocked Laufey's legs out from under him. The Jotunn hit the ground, and the casket rolled out of his hand.

The woman clutched her daughter's limp body to her chest, tears mingling with sweat and blood. She pressed a firm kiss on top of her head, then leaned her head back to rest it against the altar.

Odin and Laufey rose, Laufey grunting with rage. He ran at the Allfather, knife brandished, leaving the casket on the ground. Odin raised his staff to block the knife blade and twisted it around, wrenching the knife from Laufey's hand, which clattered to the ground next to the casket.

The woman inhaled shakily, shutting her eyes in concentration. Her fingers spread to grasp Aryka's body, one thumb covering the knife wound in her neck. She inhaled, then exhaled. Inhaled, then exhaled.

Laufey lunged for the knife as Odin fired a beam of energy from his staff, just missing him. The moment his fingers closed around the knife, he twisted back to face the Allfather, his other hand grasping Odin's ankle and felling Odin.

The woman looked down at her child, removing her thumb. The wound had vanished. She placed a hand on her child's chest. It rose with tiny breaths. With an exhausted smile, she hugged Aryka close to her.

Laufey crawled on top of Odin, pinning his neck with his forearm and his arms with his knees. He raised the knife and plunged it into Odin's eye. Crying out in pain and half-blind, Odin's grasping fingers found his staff, and he shot a beam of energy out of it at Laufey, striking him in the chest and sending him flying back.

The woman's fingers went limp, her body slumped, her head lolled to her chest. And the child, newly awakened, began to cry.

Odin stood heavily, staff still leveled at Laufey, and said, "Surrender now, Laufey."

The Jotunn king bared his teeth in response, then growled, "Under what terms?"

"You will swear to me here, in front of all your people, that you will never attack another realm again. Then I leave you and your people to rebuild in peace."

Laufey spat on the ground. "I find that hard to believe."

"Nevertheless, it is true," Odin replied. "Now swear to it."

His red eyes burning into the Allfather, Laufey growled, "I swear."

Odin swiveled his staff to stand upright and planted it in the ground. "Now go," he said. "Your people need you."

Eyes still flaming with hatred, Laufey stood and left the temple.

Odin's eyes dropped to the casket, and he bent to pick it up. It was dense and cold, and he could sense its power. Then his head snapped up as he heard the cry of a child from across the room. He crossed the chamber to the altar, at first only seeing the squalling baby on top of it. Setting the casket down and leaning his staff against the altar, he took the Jotunn child into his hands, softly bouncing it and stroking its face. At his touch, the child calmed and the blue faded from his skin, replaced by a skin tone closer to Odin's own. He smiled down at the child, resolving to take him back to Asgard and adopt him for his own.

Then he heard another cry. He stepped around the altar to find the woman's body, curled around her child. He knelt beside her body, brushing her hair aside from her face.

"Eir," he murmured, bowing his head and closing her eyes. "We were too late to save you." Then he gently unfolded her arms and, with the arm not holding the Jotunn baby, he hefted Aryka from her mother's limp form.

"No! No!" the child screamed. "Mama! Want Mama!" Her tiny hands reached out for her mother.

"I'm sorry child, she's gone," Odin said, and she only screamed louder.

Asgardian soldiers began to enter the temple from both sides, cautiously approaching their king.

He turned to face them, a child in each arm. "Come," he said, nodding to summon them. His soldiers, spattered in Jotunn blood and in their own, approached him and knelt, fist over heart.

"Stand up," he said. "And someone help me with these children." He handed Aryka over to one soldier and the casket to another. He bore Loki and his staff himself.

As they stepped out of the temple to congregate in the open air, the Bifrost thundered down from the sky and delivered them all back to Asgard.