Free Loki: Why I Began the End by Maia Jacomus

about…ever told you why he decided to make me his blood-brother?”
         He nodded. “While I was away, I kept contact with my father through his messenger ravens. They told me every word he had to say to me, exactly as he said them.”
         “Don’t leave out the filthy language; I’d like to hear it come out of your mouth.”
         He burst out laughing, and I joined along. I had wondered at first if my uncouth jokes might offend him, but he had a great sense of humor about most things. He then waved his hand through the air to calm himself. “No, it wasn’t anything like that. His first impression of you, before he discovered you were Jotun, was of an exceptionally clever and amusing comrade. And, coming from my father, that alone is an enormity. But because of your irreverent and unpredictable nature, he was wary.”
         “And the fact that I was Jotun didn’t worry him at all?”
         Balder shrugged. “I admit, I was paraphrasing.”
         “Come on, then; straight from the raven’s mouth.”
         Were he talking to anyone else, he would have restricted the truth to what they wanted to hear, to avoid making waves. But because he was talking to me, he knew the truth was valid. “He was wary about becoming too closely acquainted with a Jotun, saying that the lot of them are too dense and too savage to have a consistent personality.”
         Then I burst out laughing. After all, Odin’s assessment wasn’t far off with the general Jotun populace. Don’t get me wrong, I could name several worth the time of day and the air they breathe, but…it was too funny, and too true. Balder grinned a little, but I think it was more at the sound of my squawky laughter than at the joke. I applauded as I eased my laughter and said, “I will give him that one.”
         He continued somewhat uneasily: “The cinch came when you saved Iduna, since you helped the Aesir, while betraying the Jotun at the same time.”
         I shrugged. “That is proof positive.” While I didn’t regret my actions against Thiazi, the word betrayal hung in my head, bringing my merriment to a dead halt. “What did he tell you about my children?”
         He fell silent, finishing his work on one boar. “He greatly admires them.”
         “Really?” I scoffed.
         He looked me in the eye with all sincerity. “Yes, he does.”
         “Even Fenrir?”
         “Especially Fenrir. He described your son to me as noble, strong, and wise. He said that Fenrir and I could have become like brothers.”
         “Could have?” A sudden rustle in the underbrush distracted him, but I wasn’t pacified. “What did your father mean by ‘could have’?”
         But he didn’t hear me. He picked up his bow and drew an arrow, looking up. I decided to stand and look, too; Balder was too artless to intentionally drop the subject. Trusting his suspicions, I drew my bow as well.
         Bows were morbidly laughable against what surfaced.
         It was an owlbear nearly thirty feet tall—an arrow would have been no more than a pinprick to it. It had the build of a brown-furred bear, with the face and beak of an owl; its head, shoulders, back, and limbs covered in black feathers. I’d never seen one so massive, with such blood-red eyes and such long talons.
         My first instinct was to bellow, “ Odin !” If anyone could dispatch the monster, it would be him. But Balder dropped his bow, grabbed me by the wrist, and pulled me in the opposite direction.
         “Let’s get out of here!” he insisted.
         I didn’t need to be told twice. I bolted off alongside him before my knees had the chance to give out beneath me. And could he run! He was like that first beam of sunlight that shoots across the horizon at dawn. I only caught up because I was afraid for my life; normally, I couldn’t outrun a lame cow. Then, after my head had a chance to catch up with my